History of the city of Bremen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bremen city arms from 1562

The history of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen is shaped by the Hanseatic League , trade and seafaring as well as the pursuit of independence.

history

The oldest surviving view of the city of Bremen (woodcut by Hans Weigel the Elder , 1564)

Other essential articles on Bremen's history

Category: History of Bremen .

Surname

In the 9th century the place was called Bremen in German , Latinized to Brema . 937 and afterwards the name Bremun was found in documents , which is the plural of the locative of brem . Brem meant on the edges; whether at the edges of the river, the dune or the district, must remain open.

Adam von Bremen was still writing about Bremon in the 11th century and then breman or bremin can also be found as a name. In 1013 the German and the Latin form became the name bremonensis in a document . From the endings an, on, un, ae, ia or just a and e, the ending en was soon preferred and thus the Middle High German Bremen .

Origins

Terrain situation

The older Bremen is situated on a running from northwest to southeast about 23 km long Dünenzug, the Bremen-Burg to Mahndorf and to Achimer enough Geest and the Bremen Domshof a height of 13.2  m above sea level. NN has. To the north of the Lesum is the Osterholzer Geest , with a partly steep slope to the Weser and Lesum, the parts of which in Bremen-Nord are also known as the Rekumer Geest, Vegesacker Geest and Bremer Schweiz . Other glacial geest areas rise only very slightly above the alluvial land of the river lowlands, they are the Huchtinger Geest with a maximum height of 5.5  m above sea level at the Hohe Horst . NN , a sandy-gravelly knoll in habenhausen with 4.7  m above sea level. NN and the Hexenberg near Borgfeld . Between these higher zones there is the so-called Bremen Basin with an average height of 3.3  m above sea level. NN (current average height of the Weser near Bremen-Mitte) the marshland of the Bremen Wesermarsch and the Weser-Aller-Aue, the blockland , the Borgfelder Wümmeniederung and in the area of Osterholz , Oberneuland and Borgfeld a Weser sand terrace.

The sand of the Bremen dune lies on river sediments. From 10,000 to 11,000 year old pollen finds from the layer boundary, i.e. the underside of the dune sand, it is concluded that the dune is not yet ten thousand years old.

Stone Age and Bronze Age

There is evidence that as early as the Pleistocene , i.e. before and partly during the last great cold ages , humans came to the area of ​​today's Bremen as hunters and gatherers of the Paleolithic . The sedentary way of life of Neolithic farmers spread much later in northern Germany than in the loess areas to the south . Instead, there was still a Mesolithic way of life of hunters and gatherers with sophisticated equipment.

Due to the different water levels of the Weser and its tributaries in the earlier millennia, Stone Age finds could largely only be proven in the geestigen areas. By Weser excavators discoveries off Bremen-Mitte and Blumenthal there are stone tools from the Middle Paleolithic ( Middle Palaeolithic ). By reading finds in Bremen Dünenzug are Mesolithic blow courses , core axes or Tranchet Ax occupied. Some finds from the Neolithic , the Copper Age and the Bronze Age document the first settlements from this time on the slightly higher areas of Bremen.

Iron age

Around 650 BC The Iron Age spreads to the north of Germany between the Weser, Elbe and western Holstein . Finds from the Jastorf culture from around 600 BC Until the turn of the ages are proven. The relationship between economy and culture is changing dramatically. Around 250 BC Chr. Saxons invade this area and mix with the already resident Chauken .

Chauken and Saxony

The Germanic tribe of the Chauken settled in the area around Bremen at the turn of the times . From the 3rd century AD the name Saxony can be traced. It has not yet been clarified whether the Chauken joined the Saxons and the Frisians in part, or whether the Chauken and Saxons were possibly different names for one and the same people. Between the first and the eighth century AD, the first settlements arose on the Weser with its various lower courses, located on the 20–30 kilometer long Bremen dune , which offered protection from floods and at the same time good access to a ford across the river.

The name Bremen

The Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus recorded in his description of Germania near the mouth of the Weser in 150 AD a place called ancient Greek Φαβίρανον , German 'Phabiranon' , Latin Fabiranum . According to other geographers and cartographers , Matthäus Merian misinterpreted this in his Topographia Germaniae to refer to Bremen. However, according to Bill Thayer, the conversion of Ptolemaic georeferencing shows that the ancient Fabiranum could be located northeast of the Weser estuary (near Bederkesa, for example ).

The later name Bremen  - Latin Brema  - could mean something like "lying on the edge" ( Old Saxon Bremo means "edge" or "enclosure") and possibly refers to the edge of the dune.

The ridge of the dune on the right bank of the Weser was around 10 meters high in what is now Bremen Cathedral, around 3 to 4 meters higher than the bank of the Balge arm of the Weser . The settlement on the dune ridge was therefore protected from the frequent flooding of the area on the Belge. Finds from the bellows, the market square and the cathedral dune show settlements from the time of the migration . After a ferry station developed on the uninhabited Tiefer (Tiefer = "Tie-vere" = ferry to the tie, ie to the place or thing), the settlement on the dune became a village in the Carolingian times, which was used as a ferry and stage location by through traffic lived, but initially also from livestock farming.

middle Ages

Bishop's castle and trading center

First documentary mention
The Bremen Roland from 1404 on the market square in front of the German House . At his feet the “cripple” from the legend of Emma von Lesum

During the medieval Christianization of Northern Europe by Charlemagne , the missionary Willehad was sent to the Weser region in 780. In 782 his biography mentions Bremen for the first time in connection with the slaughter of a clergyman named Gerwal. In the Vita Willehadi of 838 this was mentioned with the sentence: " Siquidem Folcardum presbyterum cum Emmiggo comite in pago denominato Leri, Beniamin autem in Ubhriustri, Atrebanum vero clericum in Thiatmaresgaho, Gerwalum quoque cum christianis glad, odio. Nominio per sociis suis in Bremeruntio . ”This later resulted in the modified remark:“… we were driven out of Bremen and two priests were killed… ”. In 787 the uprising was suppressed and Willehad was appointed the first bishop of the diocese of Bremen . The foundation deed of the foundation of the diocese from 788 as the second document of the existence of Bremen later turned out to be a forgery .

At that time Bremen was still a very small place, but in a convenient location: near the upper limit of the tidal range , it was easy to reach from the sea by ship. From the south, in addition to the waterway from the Upper and Middle Weser, there was the land route from the southeast on the dune ridge that protruded from Verden between the lowlands of the Weser and Wümme. The Syker Geest jutted into the Weser lowlands from the west and south-west , so that only a small amount of wetland had to be crossed to get to the main river of the Weser. When and in what form the ferry service between the Tiefer ( thie-veer, "ferry to the meeting place") and the left bank of the Weser was not recorded.

The first Bremen cathedral was built from wood on the highest point of the dune, probably in 789. It was consecrated in the name of the apostle Peter , whose attribute, the key, has become the Bremen coat of arms . In 805 the Diocese of Bremen was subordinated to the Archdiocese of Cologne . Due to the great distance, the bishops of Bremen had a relatively free hand. In the cathedral district , Willehad's successor Willerich had a church built in honor of the now canonized Willehad south of the cathedral, but it burned down a little later. In 820 Willerich had a holy grove cut down and the destroyed church restored from the wood and another one built. This parish church stood outside the cathedral district on the site of today's Liebfrauenkirche and was consecrated to Saint Vitus .

The Archbishop of Hamburg , Ansgar , moved his seat to Bremen in 848/849 after the sacking of Hamburg by the Normans, where the bishopric was currently vacant. The Archdiocese of Bremen was created . Not least because of this move, it is assumed that the Bremen cathedral district was already a cathedral castle secured by ramparts and moats under the Carolingians. In addition to the cathedral and the cathedral district Domkloster included the Palatium of the bishop, the houses of the ministerials and the serfs staff. Legally it remained in place until the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss .

Around 850 (other sources around 858) the first cathedral was destroyed by Danish Vikings. Ansgar then had a stone cathedral built.

In 915, Bremen was attacked by Hungarians, the churches burned down and the inhabitants abducted.

Market and coin law

In addition to the cathedral district, two other settlements existed and thrived. Traders and craftsmen lived there. A riverside settlement, the suburbium (Latin for 'suburb'), was located on the slope side of today's Langenstrasse, on the other side of the path were ship landing, where the small ships of that time could be pulled onto the shore. The vicus (Latin for 'village') grew around St. Vitus Church .

In 888 Archbishop Rimbert obtained a confirmation of market rights from Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia , as well as new minting rights and customs rights . The oldest surviving coins from Bremen are from the first half of the 11th century. The market was initially a periodic gathering of traders. There are different hypotheses about the exact location of the staked market area. In the 1950s, it was certain that it was located near today's Church of Our Lady. In the meantime, however, archaeological knowledge of the early medieval landscape relief has been gained: in the lower half of today's market square, the dune was very flat, so there was no flood-proof building site, but space for market stalls. Since the banks of the Belge should also have been flat here, ships from that time could easily be pulled onto land here.

Otto I. put the market settlement under royal protection in 937 and transferred his property in Bremen to the archbishop. On August 10, 965, he again granted her market, coin and customs rights. He assured merchants resident in Bremen the same protection as those of royal cities. Three years later, Bremen received permission to hold two markets a year; one eight days before Pentecost and one in early November. The Bremen Freimarkt developed from the latter .

St. Petri Cathedral
The Salic Cathedral

Around 994 and 1020, the wall around the Domburg was reinforced because of the increasing threat from Viking raids. From 1032 the wall was replaced piece by piece by a stone wall.

Important impulses came from the diocese of Bremen under the bishops Ansgar, Adaldag and Adalbert. In the first years of the tenure of Bishop Adalbrand (also called "Bezelin" ) (1035 to 1043) the conversion to the Salian cathedral began. The building is the Romanesque core of today's Bremen Cathedral . Even before completion, the church, the cathedral library, the monastery building and a large part of the remaining urban development fell victim to the conflagration of the Bremen fire due to arson . Reconstruction started again immediately. He made greater progress under Archbishop Adalbert (1043-1072). As stone was becoming scarce, the defensive wall that had just been erected was torn down to speed up the construction of the cathedral.

This made it easier for the Saxon Duke Ordulf and his brother Count Hermann to capture and plunder Bremen with their army in 1064 .

Countess Emma and the Bürgerweide

Countess Emma von Lesum (around 975-1038) was a benevolent landowner and the first woman from Bremen who can be identified by name. One of the most beautiful folk tales of the 18th century is about the foundation of a pasture in 1032 : At that time, she wanted to give the citizens a meadow the size of which a man could walk around in an hour. Her brother-in-law and heir, Duke Benno of Saxony , increased the time to one day, but he chose a man without legs. The "cripple", however, developed unimagined strength and circled an area larger than today's Bürgerweide .

Ascent

A fire destroyed Bremen in 1041 . After the reconstruction, an economic upswing followed in the years 1043 to 1072 under Archbishop Adalbert , which was based in particular on trade with Norway , England and the northern Netherlands as well as with the hinterland on the Weser , in Saxony and parts of Westphalia. Bremen became an important trading center and trading center and according to Adam von Bremen

"Named like Rome and a gathering point for the peoples of the north."

But not only the trade brought success. The swampy land - the Hollerland east of Bremen - was drained with the help of Dutch settlers (treaty of 1106 with privileges for the settlers), protected by dikes in 1050, promoted by Archbishop Adalbert , the first monks - the Benedictines  - came to Bremen and built it Paul's Monastery in front of the city gates.

With the economic boom, the influence of the citizens in the city also grew. 1139 was written in episcopal documents from the civitas . Around 1157 it was reported by a citizens' committee representing the interests of the city.

Free imperial city

Gelnhauser privilege
The Gelnhauser privilege

In the so-called Gelnhauser Privilege of 1186, Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa certified the first law for the citizens of the civitas Bremensis . It contains the rule city ​​air makes free and provisions on inheritance law , which was common in city ​​legal documents of the Middle Ages . As a special feature, the city, which had been archbishop until then, was subject to the iustitia imperialis . For some chroniclers, Bremen became formally a free imperial city . However, independence from the archbishop had yet to be achieved.

Bremen was registered as a free imperial city several times in imperial registers of the 14th century, but not again in the 15th after it had failed to meet its obligations.

Renewed threats to urban independence during the period of absolutism required confirmations of imperial immediacy in the 17th and 18th centuries, such as the Linz diploma of 1646, which is sometimes mistaken for its beginning.

City Council
Bremen councilor: watercolor from the Renner chronicle

When the Gelnhauser privilege was granted, the citizenship may not yet have permanent self-governing bodies; When the citizens complain to the emperor about an arbitrary new tax from the archbishop, they refer to themselves (and the emperor in his answer as well) as concives (fellow citizens) - and the archbishop as their master.

In 1200, the citizens of Bremen made an appearance by making a settlement with the County of Altena . In 1206 there were regulations for the "burgenses" (citizens) by the archbishopric, who belonged to the citizens' committee. In an agreement with Archbishop Gerhard I called concordia . The city and the archbishopric will then face each other on an equal footing for the first time in 1217.

Since 1230, the town council has certified and sealed all community affairs. Initially, the councilors in the four parishes (neighborhoods) of Our Dear Women , St. Ansgarii , St. Martini and St. Stephani were elected by the citizens. The influence of the wealthy upper class increased steadily.

Since 1304 there have been 36 councilors, nine from each quarter. Of these, 12 were on oath for three years in office. The three thirds of the councilors - incumbent councilors from the upper class, councilors from the merchant class and councilors from the quarter ( meenheit ) - formed the Wittheit . Since 1330 at the latest, the electoral requirements for councilors were such that a small, wealthy upper class of around 30 families dominated the economic basis of the city and provided the incumbent "council third".

The mayor has been at the head of the ruling third of the council since 1344. From 1398 to 1852/53 there were (with interruptions) four mayors. For several centuries since 1433 there were 24 councilors and the four mayors from the four quarters, arranged in lines. Since the 15th century, academically trained lawyers were appointed councilors.

The city wall

The first city ​​walls and ramparts from 1032 and 1157 had become a coherent city wall - the murus civitatis  - around 1229 , which encompassed the entire old town with a few parts of the Stephaniviertel on the land side. The fortified town included an area to the right of the Weser, which stretched from today's Hutfilterstraße to the Schnoor and the ramparts. The first bridge crossed the Weser as early as 1244. From 1307 the rest of the Stephaniviertel was included in the city wall of the old town . The city could be reached on land through Stephanitor, Doventor, Ansgariitor, Herdentor, Ostertor and over the Weser through the bridge gate. Many other gates and gates also led to the Schlachte or the surrounding area. The existing city wall remained between Ansgariistadt and Stephanistadt until 1657, and was connected by a gate - the Natel  . This fortification system was reinforced around 1512 to 1514 by deepened trenches, earth walls, Zwingertürme (on the glory the so-called bride, Ostertor and Stephanitor) and cannons.

Disputes with the archbishop, city law
First Bremen city seal, used 1230–1365

With its 10,000 to 15,000 inhabitants, Bremen had legally and actually become a city with self-administration, fortifications and a market at the beginning of the 13th century, in which citizens, clergy and residents lived without civil rights.

In 1220, Archbishop Gebhard II stretched an iron chain across the Weser and demanded taxes from the ships for the passage. But the people of Bremen protested against this regulation, so that it was quickly abolished. In 1223 the title of Archbishop of Hamburg passed again to Bremen. In 1225 seven consules were installed as the city council. The council had its own seals, which indicated its claim to power, even if the power of the territorial prince, the archbishop, was respected.

In 1229 a town hall is mentioned for the first time, which was at the corner of Obernstraße and Sögestraße .

On the occasion of the dispute with the Stedinger farmers, Archbishop Gebhard II. Bremen confirmed his independent rights and city ​​rights in 1233 . The city thus increasingly developed into an imperial city ​​that was independent of the city ​​lord .

Further growth, internal conflicts

Bremen in the early 13th century, still without Weser bridge, town hall and Stephan wall, fantasy representation 1603

The general prosperity in Bremen grew. The Stephaniviertel was included in the city wall ring in 1305.

Legal uncertainty and increasing conflicts between the council and the ruling families with land and pensions - called "genders" - led to Bremen city law being codified for the first time from 1303 to 1308 , i.e. written down, and then constantly expanded. The town charter included provisions on the council, civil rights and all areas of civil, commercial, commercial and criminal law. Despite this development, further conflicts arose. In 1304 a member of the council, Arnd von Gröpelingen, was murdered. From this the council feud of 1304/1305 developed in the course of which the “decent” councilors and citizens expelled some of the most influential families (“sexes”) from the city. In 1349 unrest broke out again as a result of the murder of a councilor by a member of the Casal Brotherhood led by Conrad von Gröpelingen , which ended with the banishment of some influential patricians.

The city is now divided into four parish districts (see below). The respected families and guild masters have civil rights. You choose the wit of three times twelve men who served as councilors every third year. If a council member was selected, Wittheit chose a successor. Around 1330 the council members elected for life became an exclusive group. For years there were no new elections and the number of councilors was drastically reduced. It was agreed on the conditions under which candidates could apply for the office of council member:

"Free and conjugal birth, a minimum age of twenty-four years, possession of the town's land value in the minimum amount of thirty-two marks, the possibility of making a horse worth three marks available to the office as well as paying one mark to pay off the city's pension debt."

The Bremer Eke served mainly in the 14th and 15th centuries as a frequently used inland ship made of oak (Eke), which was used on the Weser mainly on the Upper and Middle Weser.

Archbishop feud, plague, Hoya feud, conflict with the Hanseatic League (until 1358/59)

The archbishop feud from 1348 to 1350 with the double election of Gottfried von Arnsberg (who later became archbishop) and Moritz von Oldenburg led to war and unrest. In addition, the plague reached Bremen around 1350 . It is said that 7,000 people died in one year alone out of a population of around 15,000. Immediately afterwards the Hoya feud followed from 1351 to 1359 with defeats in Bremen and costs for the release of prisoners. Bremen was broke. High wealth taxes were then required. At that time, in 1358, the Hanseatic League carried out a boycott against Flanders . Bremen, at that time possibly not a member of the Hanseatic League for a short time and financially weakened by the Hoya feud, had to send envoys to Lübeck. Bernhard von Dettenhusen and Heinrich Doneldey asked very humbly to return to the Hanseatic League and pledged to support the Boycott of Flanders and Hamburg in fighting the pirates on the Elbe.

The uprising from 1365 to 1366

Of the city's 15,000 inhabitants, very few were also citizens. A small upper class of about 30 families dominated the economic fundamentals. They made up a third of the council. They retained the office of councilor for life. The other two “council thirds”, Wittheit and Meenheit, were well-off citizens. The plague, the Hoya feud and the costly detachment of prisoners that this necessitated exacerbated social tensions.

In the so-called banner run protested in September 1365 some craftsmen (16-18) from the council third of the Meenheit  - wearing the Bremen banner against the unjust distribution of the necessary high monetary payments. They penetrated some of the houses of councilors and the mayor Albert Doneldey and insulted them as "traitors and sons of whores". In return, the leaders of the uprising were sentenced to death, their property confiscated and their wives and children banished. However, most of the insurgents managed to escape.

In 1365, Archbishop Albert II of Braunschweig-Lüneburg tried to rule the city with the help of these evaded craftsmen as a civil party. On the night of May 28-29, 1366, however, fled rebels took the city by surprise with the help of the Archbishop's soldiers. The soldiers burned the still wooden Roland that stood in the market square. Some members of the public and councilors fled to Delmenhorst . The rebels, ostracized by the Hanseatic League, only ruled the city for a short time. A reorganization of the council elections was introduced, in which the group of the meenheit  - the simple craftsmen - and that of the guilds were to dominate. The new council was unable to gain the support it needed from the citizens. On June 24th, the Hanseatic League outlawed the new council as a “traitor” in order to strengthen the rights of the free city against the archbishop. The evaded old councilors were able to recapture Bremen on June 27, 1366 with the help of Konrad II of Oldenburg and put an end to this social uprising. The "traitors" were slain in the fray, or then hanged, beheaded or whacked. The returned council restored the old claims to power of the upper classes and came to terms with the guilds.

Reconsideration : The alliance between Meheit and the bishop meant that the simpler craftsmen were adequately represented in the council, but only for the price of subordination of the city to the bishop, i.e. at the expense of imperial freedom. After these crises, Bremen recovered well and pursued an active power politics with territorial gains.

Churches and monasteries in the Middle Ages

Martini Church, behind the cathedral towers

The Roman Catholic diocese of Bremen existed from 787 to 1648. It was a suffragan from Cologne , but then became a metropolitan itself . The residence was initially Bücken , then Burg Vörde , (today Bremervörde ). In Bremen only the cathedral freedom remained under archbishop's sovereignty. After the Reformation from 1566 one could speak of an evangelical archbishopric . In contrast to the Lutheran territory of the Archdiocese, the city ​​of Bremen remained Calvinist . The secular possession of the diocese, the "Stift", became the Duchy of Bremen , which included the Elbe-Weser triangle .

The Bremen Cathedral

In 789 the first wooden cathedral was built. He was consecrated in the name of the apostle Peter . Work on the Salian Cathedral, the Romanesque core of today's cathedral, began under Archbishop Bezelin (1035-1043). Since 1223 the cathedral was a metropolitan cathedral . The three-aisled hall church received a Gothic ribbed vault , a double tower facade with rose windows, and the side aisles and east and west choirs were given a Gothic design. Around 1500 was under Archbishop Johann III. Rode von Wale replaced the north aisle of the Bremen Cathedral with a large hall with a mesh vault .

Liebfrauenkirche from Obernstrasse

The Parish Church of Our Lady

It was first built northwest of the market square in the 12th century and converted into an early Gothic hall church from 1229 onwards. It was the church of the council, later also a garrison church. The Romanesque crypt still comes from the earlier St. Vitus Church from 1013 to 1029. The west facade was restored in a historicizing manner in 1881 and the spire was placed on the north tower in 1964 according to plans by Dieter Oesterlen .

The St. Martini Church

It was built in 1229 in the old town on the Weser as an early Gothic three-aisled basilica and in 1384 it was converted into a late Gothic hall church. In 1944 the brick building suffered severe damage, which was removed in the 1950s.

The St. Ansgarii Church

It was built as an early Gothic basilica church from 1227 to 1250 and converted into a hall church in the 14th century. It has not survived after its destruction in 1944. A memorial commemorates the church. The St. Ansgarii church is now in Schwachhausen.

The parish church of St. Stephen

It was founded around 1050 by Archbishop Adalbert von Bremen in front of the western gates of the city and raised to the status of a collegiate and parish church in 1139 . The three-aisled Romanesque basilica was converted into a high-Gothic hall church at the end of the 14th century. The parish church was badly damaged in 1944 and only the central nave was renewed between 1947 and 1959.

Provost church St. Johann
The Church of St. Johann

The Johanniskirche was built in the 14th century near today's Schnoor as a monastery church of the Franciscan order ; initially as a basilica, soon afterwards as a three-aisled vaulted hall church. It is a concise example of the brick Gothic . The (first post-Reformation) Catholic community in Bremen, constituted in 1806, bought the hardly used provost church in 1816 and consecrated it as their parish church in 1823.

Parish parish

In the 13th century the church was divided into four parishes: Liebfrauen, Stephani, Angarii and Martini. The Benedictines had been in Bremen since 1050 . In 1225 the Dominicans and the Franciscans and in 1230 the Teutonic Knights came to Bremen.

Monasteries

The monasteries in Bremen have not been preserved. Historically there was in Bremen, the Benedictines - Monastery of St. Paul from 1050 to 1523, the Dominican Monastery of St. Catherine from 1253 to 1528, the Franciscan Monastery of St. John from 1258 to 1528, and the Commandery of the Teutonic Order 1230-1564 Structural remains of the monastery buildings have been preserved from the Katharinenkloster under the car park of the same name, the St. Johannis church from the Franciscan monastery and part of the lower church in the courthouse from the commandery.

Bremen and the Hanseatic League

Main trade routes of the Hanseatic League

Bremen was a member of the Hanseatic League four times . Overall, the membership time adds up to 252 years. The individual membership times:

  • 1260-1285
  • 1358-1427
  • 1438-1563
  • 1576-1669

As part of the Hanseatic League, Bremen, in which the brewing industry played a special role in the early Middle Ages, shipped very large quantities of beer in the 13th century . Bremen is therefore considered to be the “oldest beer trading city in Germany”. From the Weser the herbal beer , which was widespread at the time, went mainly to Scandinavia , Holland , Belgium and England . The first membership in the Hanseatic League ended after only 25 years. The reason for this was a conflict between the Bremen merchants, who continued to have an interest in the north-south trade that had prevailed since the 11th century , and the Hanseatic cities on the Baltic Sea. The Wendish city assembly in Wismar decided to block Norway in order to strengthen west-east trade. Bremen merchants refused to accept this decision. As a result, Bremen is said to have been excluded from the Hanseatic League.

Another reason for Bremen's difficulties with the Hanseatic League was its lax approach towards pirates. Bremen did not want to spoil its relations with the Frisians Butjadingens in the hope of gaining territorial rule over the land at the mouth of the Weser.

In a period of weakness in Bremen, the city was forced to rejoin the Hanseatic League in 1358 (see above). Bremen's interest in the Hanseatic League was often very selfish. If the merchants had advantages through the city union, they used it, but also liked to do business that went against the interests of the Hanseatic League. But at the Hanse gatherings in Lübeck, Bremen always demanded a high ranking - often unsuccessfully.

In 1427 Bremen was excluded from the Hanseatic League after Mayor Herbort Duckel fled Bremen in 1425 due to internal disagreements over Bremen loans and was able to mobilize the Hanseatic League against Bremen. In 1438 Bremen was accepted back into the Hanseatic League. It took part in the pirate wars against Burgundy - including Holland - and made peace with Burgundy in 1446. Between 1449 and 1530, six Hanseatic "day trips" (trips to meet, so to negotiate) took place in the now highly respected Hanseatic city, two of them, 1493 and 1494 as the Hanseatic Day for all members. The trade of Bremen merchants with u. a. Grain, fish, stone, wood and beer were oriented towards the Netherlands , England, Norway , the Upper Weser and Westphalia, but also towards the Baltic Sea cities .

Last but not least, cogs were built in Bremen. The wreck of a Hanse cog dates from 1380 , which was found relatively well preserved in 1962 during port expansion work in the mud of the Weser and is now in the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven . The Bremen cogs in particular were characterized by their ability to maneuver even in narrow harbor waters.

The loss of power of the Hanseatic League began with the strengthening of the sovereign territorial powers in the Baltic Sea area. In 1441 the Hanseatic League also had to recognize the economic equality of the Dutch. The Hanseatic League continued to lose importance, as the discovery of America in 1492 opened up new trading opportunities.

Bergen: Hansekontor Bryggen

The Bremer Bergenfahrergesellschaft gained strength with the decline of the Bergenfahrt in the cities of the Wendish Hansequartier on the Baltic Sea . From around the middle of the 16th century, Bremen rose to become the new leading power in the Bryggen office in Bergen .

From 1563 to 1576 Bremen was once again excluded from the Hanseatic League because of the religious dispute between Orthodox Lutherans and Reformed (see von Büren ).

At the beginning of the 17th century, the Hanseatic League was an alliance only in name. The Thirty Years' War , 1618-1648, brought the complete dissolution. At the Hanseatic Days of 1629 and 1641 Hamburg , Bremen and Lübeck were commissioned to preserve the best for the good of the Hanseatic League.

The fairway of the Weser silted up and often did not allow the cogs to travel to Bremen. They were therefore reloaded in Blexer Tief or at Brake , and the goods were transported on eken (Weser ships) between the berths and the Schlachte . The bellows had been closed to ships since 1602.

Around 1560, the Bremen merchant fleet had around 65 ships with a total load capacity of over 4,000 loads , which corresponds to around 8,000 tons. The number of ships increased to 107 ships at the end of the 16th century.

Bremen: rural areas in the 14th to 18th centuries between the Jade Bay and the Lower Weser

15th and 16th centuries

Bremen: Town Hall, Roland and Market

At the beginning of the 15th century, Bremen expanded and reached its greatest expansion and power in the Middle Ages. Around 1400 the peasant republics of Butjadingen and Stadland at the left mouth of the Weser, the rule Bederkesa , the spots Lehe , Land Wührden , Blumenthal , Nieder- and Obervieland , Huchting , Blockland , Borgfeld and Hollerland are Bremen territories.

Bremen 1603; Plan by W. Dilich

It was also the intention of the Bremen Council, designated Dominium Visurgis , to build a Bremen state on both sides of the Lower Weser in order to have direct access to the North Sea via the Weser estuary. From 1385 to 1424 the imperial city of Bremen ruled the islands of Butjadingen and Stadland on the left side of the Weser estuary. In the Battle of Golzwarden , Bremen defeated Count Christian VI in 1408 . von Oldenburg and his Frisian allies from Rüstringen and Burhave , took the count prisoner and received a ransom in the form of a pledge from the Land of Wührden (until 1411) as well as the court of Lehe. Bremen withdrew in 1424 after the territories were occupied by the East Frisian chiefs ( tom Brok , Focko Ukena , Sibet Lubben). In 1484 the state of Wursten, with the help of the city of Bremen , fought off the occupation by Duke Johann IV of Saxony-Lauenburg . In 1499 Count Johann von Oldenburg occupied the Stadland and Butjadingen. In 1500 the state of Wursten placed itself under the "protection" of the Archbishop of Bremen due to further threats from Saxony-Lauenburg . The territorial integration of the marshland at the mouth of the Weser into the territories of the diocese of Bremen and the county of Oldenburg could not be prevented in the long term.

City scales (Weser Renaissance)

From 1405 to 1410, the Gothic town hall was built on Bremen's market square on the initiative of Mayor Johann Hemeling . A new stone Roland was built as early as 1404 . It expressed the liberation of the people of Bremen from the power of the church. For this reason he looked and looks directly at the portal of the cathedral . From 1404 to 1407 the city built the Vredeborg (now Nordenham ) to control the Stadland and Butjadingen. In addition, forged documents were supposed to prove an increased legal status - Bremen wanted to be a free imperial city , but it will not be until 1646 ( Linz diploma ). In 1410 Bremen asserted itself against various Frisian chiefs and the county of Oldenburg to protect the Weser shipping in Rüstringen and secured the right to set buoys and beacons in the Lower and Outer Weser in a contract .

Soon afterwards, however, Bremen experienced considerable setbacks in terms of power politics. In 1424, Bremen was driven out of the northern left Weser regions by a coalition of the Rüstringer Frisian chiefs. There were riots and a coup in Bremen. The citizenship elected a new council. Mayor Herbort Duckel fled in 1425 and mobilized the Hanseatic League, which excluded Bremen from the city union in 1427. In 1428 the town charter was therefore revised with a differentiated council electoral law, which stipulated the participation of the community quarters , merchants ' guild, and handicraft offices in alternation. But only wealthy citizens could still be elected to the council. The dispute persisted, so that even from 1429 to 1436 the imperial ban was imposed on the city. Difficult decades followed.

From 1452 Count Gerd von Oldenburg impaired trade through land and piracy. In 1464 Bremen and its Frisian allies lost a battle, whereupon Count Gerd tried to attack Bremen. Only after an eventful war from 1474 to 1482 could he be defeated by a coalition of princes and cities.

After these feuds, Bremen and its trade were able to develop favorably. Many richly decorated Gothic gabled houses were built. In the following years the council had plans to create a Lower Weser State ( Dominium Visurgis ). But these efforts were unsuccessful. The Stadtland and Butjadingen were lost, the "pledge" of land dignity fell back to Oldenburg, and Bederkesa was in dispute.

Bremen merchants

The Schütting

The Bremen council consisted of merchants, pensioners and landowners, to whom lawyers were later added.

In 1451 the parents ” of the Bremen merchants had issued a statute. With the statutes for the "kopmann tho Bremen" , the organized self-government of the Bremen economy began, from which the Bremen Chamber of Commerce emerged in 1849 . The merchants had their seat in the Schütting . The merchants' guild and food store was initially on Langenstrasse. It was moved to the market square between 1425 and 1444, shortly after the town hall was built. From 1537 to 1538, the Bremen merchants had a slender Renaissance new building built. This third Schütting has been the seat of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce since 1849 . In 1895/99 he received the magnificent portal with the Low German inscription: "buten un binnen - dare un win"

Mint sovereignty in Bremen from 1541 to 1872

Originally, in the Middle Ages, only the archbishop had the right to mint since the 9th century . The mint (also known as Münze or Munte for short) in Bremen was pledged several times to the city by the archbishop from 1369 onwards. In 1469, the seizure of coins to the city ended. 1541, the city received a certificate of Bremen by Emperor Charles V . the right to mint, i.e. the authority to mint coins from Bremen and put them into circulation. Grote and Schwaren (the sware = heavy pfennig) in different values ​​were the common types of coins in Bremen until 1872 , despite the occasional later minting of gold guilders . Imperial coinage from the 16th century. On July 1, 1872, Bremen lost its mint sovereignty in the course of the establishment of the German Empire .

Reformation in Bremen

Heinrich von Zütphen

In the Middle Ages, the archbishop's cathedral area formed its own ecclesiastical "immunity"; it was not an urban area. The parish rights in the urban area were exercised by the four parishes of St. Stephan, St. Ansgarii, St. Martin and Liebfrauen. There were also the Dominican monasteries with St. Katharinen and the Franciscans with St. Johann. With Martin Luther, however, beliefs changed radically in Europe. Until 1521 there were no religious conflicts in this merchant town. It was not until 1522 that the Lutheran Augustinian monk Heinrich von Zütphen came through Bremen and preached in the Ansgariikirche. In the subsequent dispute with Archbishop Christoph , the council protected the monk. It was not until 1524 that he was burned as a heretic in Dithmarschen . But the Lutheran faith increasingly asserted itself in Bremen.

The former Augustinian prior of Antwerp, Jacob Probst , was appointed to Unser-Lieben-Frauen in Bremen around 1524, followed a short time later by Johann Timann . Bremen joined the Schmalkaldic League in 1531 through the mediation of Duke Ernst I of Braunschweig-Lüneburg .

Latin schools in Bremen

In 1528 the free "Schola Bremensis" was founded as a Latin school and the monastery schools responsible for education were dissolved. In 1562 - at the time of Mayor Daniel von Bürens  - the now reformed school expanded its range of courses to include the natural sciences. In 1610 it was reorganized into a pedagogical museum and the illustrious grammar school as an academic branch.

In 1642 the cathedral school at Bremen Cathedral was founded by the archbishop and the cathedral chapter as a Lutheran Latin school . In 1681 the school was expanded to include the Athenaeum as a department for students.

Uprising of 104 and New Unity

The uprising of the 104 men was a revolt in 1532, which was sparked by the use of the Bürgerweide, but was strongly influenced by the ideas of the Reformation with the equality of all people. The Commander of the Teutonic Order , who was claimed to be hiding the documents from the Bürgerweide, and his servants were murdered. The council was threatened with the "Comtur's trip" and forced to involve an elected body of 104 men in governing the city. Four mayors and six councilors moved to Bederkesa. The cathedral chapter had to flee. Evangelical preaching was only allowed in the cathedral. The 104 expropriated the Schütting in early 1532. But then the citizens and the 104 fell out. Finally, the council managed to regain power. In 1532 the spokesman for the 104, Johann Dove, was sentenced and executed on flimsy grounds despite the amnesty . In 1533 the merchants got their Schütting back, and in 1534 there was a new harmony and thus the restoration of the old Bremen town charter from 1433. The archbishop returned, but Bremen remained connected to the evangelical cause with a new church order.

Balthasar von Esens

In between, as an episode, so to speak, Bremen was threatened in 1538/39 by the pirate and junker Balthasar von Esens . In 1539 Bremen waged a successful pirate war on the Frisian coast; 81 prisoners were executed. In 1540 an army from Bremen besieged the place Esens ; the Junker died (his armor is on display in the Focke Museum ) and the danger to shipping was eliminated.

Schmalkaldic War

In the Schmalkaldic War and Bremen was affected. In 1547 the Catholic imperial forces advanced as far as the reinforced ramparts of Bremen, and since the besiegers had supply difficulties, they had to withdraw. A second siege by Duke Erich II of Braunschweig-Lüneburg had to be broken off because a relief army drove out the imperial ones.

Fortress construction

Merian: Bremen 1641

From 1599 the city ​​wall was converted by bastions according to plans by fortress builders Johan van Rijswijk and Johan van Valckenburgh and strengthened. Starting in 1623, the facilities to the left of the Weser in the now emerging Bremer Neustadt were tackled and completed in 1627. It was not until 1660 to 1664 that the existing bulwarks on the old town side could be modernized and further built.

The Reformed prevailed

Between 1547 and 1661 in Bremen the “ Reformed ” and the “ Lutherans ” fought over the new faith. Albert Rizäus Hardenberg , a Reformed preacher, lost the argument: the Lutherans initially prevailed. Mayor Daniel von Büren the Younger stood - albeit as part of a council minority - still to the Reformed party. In 1562 he and the revolting citizens prevailed against the majority in the council. These council members and five other priests left Bremen. They tried to mobilize emperors and princes against Bremen. Bremen was again excluded from the Lutheran Hanseatic League in 1563. In 1568 the Augsburg Confession was finally recognized by the contending parties. However, von Büren's personality then managed to reconcile. In 1576 Bremen became a member of the Hanseatic League again. The reformed church discipline prevailed around 1580 to 1586; Sculptures and altars in the churches have been removed.

1648 it came through the Peace of Westphalia finally to the secularization of the Archbishopric of Bremen, which as Duchy of Bremen , along with the equally secular Duchy of Verden as a territory Bremen-Verden to Sweden came.

17th and 18th centuries

Large Weser bridge with water wheel; Pen drawing by Johann Daniel Heinbach , 1764

Mayor Heinrich Krefting and later his nephew and Bremer Syndicus Johann Wachmann the Elder made a special contribution to a further development of the city law around 1600 and 1635 respectively.

In the 16th century, the fortifications around the old town had already been further developed. From 1602 and then from 1660 to 1664, the fortifications around the old town with moats and ramparts were adapted to the fortress conditions of the time. In 1615 the bastions at the Ostertor were expanded. It was not until 1623 to 1628, following initial suggestions from the Dutch fortress builder Johann von Rijswijk (1601) and plans by his pupil Johan van Valckenburgh (1614), that the Neustädter fortification with 7 bastions was built to the left of the Weser and the wall with a moat was created and in 1664 with the 8 . Bastion on Stadtwerder added.

The Schlachte around 1862, in the last days of its use as a trading port

The Weser silted up increasingly. It became more and more difficult for the merchant ships of the Bremen merchants to moor in the city center on the Schlachte .

From 1619 to 1623, therefore, the first artificial harbor in Germany was created by Dutch designers in Vegesack , which is located downstream, and is paid for and managed by the Seefahrt company . Since 1624, Count Anton Günther von Oldenburg on the Lower Weser raised a controversial Weser tariff at Elsfleth for two centuries . In 1638 the lower south tower of the cathedral collapsed. In 1673, Germany's first coffee house was opened on the market square in Bremen .

Latin school, high school and library

The former Katharinenkloster, drawing by Johann Daniel Heinbach, 1734
Latin school

With the introduction of the new faith through the Reformation , the authorities - according to the reformer Martin Luther's request  - should take care of the upbringing and education of the youth.

"Anno 1528 is tho Bremen a frey Schole arranged dorch the erbaren Radt" - this is the news about the establishment of the Schola Bremensis, the first Latin school. The school of scholars was located in the rooms of the former Dominican monastery of St. Katharinen . That was the beginning of the history of the old grammar school in Bremen .

In 1584 Christoph Pezel  - a confidante of Daniel von Bürens  - expanded the school to include an upper school class as an academic superstructure, a preliminary stage to the illustrious grammar school .

High school illustrious

In 1610, in addition to the six-class primary school, the Paedagogeum, the secondary school illustrious was established for university studies with the faculties of theology, law, medicine and philosophy. The forerunner of the University of Bremen existed from 1610 to 1810.

Bremensis Library

In 1628 the Syndicus Gerlach Buxdorff left his books to the city. In 1646 the city council bought the 2000 books and manuscripts of the late scholar Melchior Goldast . In 1660, the Bibliotheka Bremensis, the first scientific public library in St. Catherine's Monastery, was established from these holdings ; this was the forerunner of today's State and University Library Bremen .

Thirty Years War and its Consequences

In the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), Bremen was initially neutral. It was not until 1632 that Bremen supported the Swedes - albeit without troop contingents. During this time (1638) Archbishop Frederick II, Prince of Denmark , who later became King of Denmark and Norway, opened the cathedral for Lutheran services. In 1643/44 the Swedish general Hans Christoph von Königsmarck pushed north into the dioceses of Bremen and Verden. Bremen did not open its gates, however, and the general had to move away. In the last years of the Thirty Years' War Sweden made claims to the Diocese of Bremen and the Diocese of Verden , which Denmark had ceded in 1645 in the Peace of Brömsebro .

During these years, the people of Bremen endangered their imperial immediacy by the council paying homage in 1637 to Archbishop Friedrich II, elected in 1635, a member of the Danish royal family. 1637 was the confirmation of the privileges as a Free Imperial City by Emperor Ferdinand III. still easy to obtain, 1646 ( Linz diploma ) only for a high fee.

Efforts by Bremen to expand their sphere of influence down the Weser (see: Dominium Visurgis ) failed, although they already owned Butjadingen and Stadland on the left bank of the Weser and areas around Stuckenborstel to Rotenburg (Wümme) before 1646 . Only the Wümmewiesen and Hemelingen remained with Bremen.

For a long time before that, the archbishops were increasingly staying outside the city, at times in Bücken , and finally mostly in Bremervörde . In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia finally led to the secularization of the archbishopric, which as the Duchy of Bremen, together with the likewise secularized Duchy of Verden , came to Sweden as the territory of Bremen-Verden .

Bremen lost the First Bremen-Swedish War of 1654 for supremacy in the area of ​​the Duchy of Bremen-Verden by capitulating at the Burger Schanze . The First Stade settlement contractually sealed the end of this dispute on November 28, 1654. The parish of Lehe and the lordship of Bederkesa as well as the Burger Schanze remained with Sweden; Vegesack and Blumenthal stayed with Bremen. However, Sweden did not recognize the imperial immediacy of Bremen as a free imperial city . Only after the Second Bremen-Swedish War in 1666 was the independence of the city of Bremen recognized by Sweden in the Peace of habenhausen .

18th century

After the transfer of the Duchy of Bremen to the Electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg in 1715/19, however, the Electorate of Hanover questioned the imperial immediacy of the city of Bremen again. Negotiations began in 1733. In the Second Stade Comparison of 1741, however, the city of Bremen had to surrender significant parts of its land so that the now most powerful neighbor recognized its imperial immediacy. Bremen retained church patronage and jurisdiction in these areas .

Greenland whale

A more peaceful period followed temporarily. Merchants from Bremen began direct transatlantic trade with the USA in 1783 . The older Bremen shipping companies include Johann Lange Sohn's Wwe. & Co. from 1642, Cassel  & Traub from 1777 and the shipping company Friedrich Schröder from the beginning of the 19th century. The shipping company FA Vinnen & Co. dates back to 1819 and is considered the oldest shipping company in Bremen still in existence today.

Also Bremer sailors took in the 18th century on rewarding whaling by Greenland trips part. To this end, some merchants founded two Greenland companies, whose six ships "returned home with a rich blessing". In spite of drift ice , pack ice , violent northern storms and scurvy , 1,081 Bremen fishing vessels drove into the polar sea in the period from 1695 to 1798 . 22 ships remained at sea; most were crushed by the pack ice.

19th century

1800 to 1850

Bremen 1829

In 1802 the city commissioned the landscape gardener Isaak Altmann to transform the former city fortifications (see Bremen city fortifications ) into today's ramparts . With the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss , in 1803, Bremen regained the areas of Vegesack , Werderland , Niederblockland and the Vahr that had been ceded in the Second Stade settlement and gained Grolland , Schwachhausen and Hastedt anew.

In 1810 Martin Heinrich Wilkens founded the Bremer Silberwaren Fabrik (BSF). At the end of the 19th century, production was relocated to Hemelingen , which was still Prussian at that time .

French period in Bremen

In 1811 Bremen was again the scene of military conflicts. Napoleon had Bremen occupied and integrated it into the French state as the capital of the Département des Bouches du Weser and installed Philipp Karl Graf von Arberg as prefect in 1811 . After the defeat in the Wars of Liberation , the French troops left Bremen in 1814.

Bremen, a sovereign state

Steamship The Weser, 1816/17

From 1813 and 1814 to 1815, the city of Bremen sent its mayor Johann Smidt as diplomatic representative to the Allied headquarters and to the Congress of Vienna . He achieved that Bremen was accepted as a sovereign state in the German Confederation with its 41 member states, as a Free City like Frankfurt , Hamburg and Lübeck .

Bremen town house , 1819–1909
Postage stamps from Bremen, 1855–67

In 1804 Bremen opened its own post office, the Bremer Stadtpostamt, as well as post offices in the exclaves of Bremerhaven (1846) and Vegesack (1847). The first postage stamps were introduced in Bremen in 1855 (see the postal history and postage stamps of Bremen ).

Bremen teacher seminars existed in Bremen from 1810 to 1926. They served to train teachers in elementary schools and elementary schools . From 1945 to 1949 there was a pedagogical seminar . The facilities were the forerunners of the University of Education Bremen (1947–1971 / 73)

Mayor Nonnen founded Sparkasse Bremen with other merchants, mayors and senators in 1825 .

The first steamship built by Germans in Germany was built at Johann Lange's shipyard in 1816/17 . The paddle steamer Die Weser operated as a passenger and mail ship between Bremen, Vegesack, Elsfleth and Brake , and later also Geestemünde until 1833. The ship's profitability was adversely affected by the progressive silting up of the Weser. In order to gain access to maritime trade, Bremen acquired 89.5 hectares of land at the mouth of the Weser from the Kingdom of Hanover in 1827 and founded Bremerhaven . The mayor of Bremen, Johann Smidt , was primarily responsible for the establishment. The new port was built according to plans by the Dutch hydraulic engineer Jacobus Johannes van Ronzelen and completed in 1830. In addition to the handling of goods, passenger transport also flourished in the new port. Between 1832 and 1960 over seven million emigrants left the "Old World" via Bremen and Bremerhaven, and from 1847 Bremerhaven became the starting point for the first steamship line from Europe to America. After around 4,000 residents had settled around the port, Bremerhaven was raised to an independent city within the state of Bremen in 1851. The shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd was founded in Bremen in 1857 by H. H. Meier and Eduard Crüsemann . It initially operated the shipping connections from Bremen to Bremerhaven, the seaside resorts and England, but then expanded the freight and passenger services worldwide and rose to become the largest German shipping company alongside HAPAG . In the 1820s, 90 sailing ships were registered in Bremen. In 1880 the Bremen merchant fleet numbered 324 seagoing vessels, 68 of them steamers. In 1884 there were 356 seagoing ships.

A group of 34 art-interested merchants led by Senator Hieronymus Klugkist founded the art association in 1823. Through various foundations and other patrons, the association was able to open the Kunsthalle Bremen at Ostertor, planned by Lüder Rutenberg .

During the March Revolution of 1848, the Bremen Citizens' Association took the lead in the revolution. In March 1848 universal suffrage, a citizens' parliament, freedom of the press, separation of powers and independent courts were called for. The earlier poll taxes were replaced by an income tax law  - the first in Germany. A constituent assembly was elected and a constitution coined by Ferdinand Donandt was passed in 1848 and put into effect in 1849, which was unilaterally repealed by the Senate in 1852. Lasting achievements were the lifting of the gate lock in 1848 and the introduction of full citizenship for the residents of the new town and the suburbs.

1850 to 1899

Bremen 1865, plan on the occasion of the Second German Federal Shooting

In 1866, the independent coinage practiced since the Middle Ages ended. In the 19th century there was only irregular minting. Gold coins were no longer minted at all, although Bremen was the only German state to have a gold currency before the introduction of the imperial currency, but it was based on foreign coins. Not only the self-minted copper coins (1 and 2½ Schwaren and ½ Groten), but also the silver and billon coins were thus divisive coins . The following Bremen coins were still occasionally minted in the 19th century: 1 Groten from billon , as well as 6, 12 and 36 Groten coins.

New constitution

The Senate had used every means of power to crush the democratic movement from 1848 to 1850. After all, the Senate did not succeed in re-enforcing all the old privileges of the past 300 years. A new constitution was passed in 1854, which remained in force until the 1918 revolution. The general, equal right to vote could not be enforced. Half of the 150 members of the citizenry had to resign every three years; however, re-election was possible. Only all male citizens who had taken the Bremen citizen oath (the jury ) were eligible to vote . Voting was done according to the eight-class suffrage . From 1854 or from 1894, depending on the class, those eligible to vote could choose a different number of citizenship members.

See also Bremen citizenship from 1854 to 1933: election results and members

class Eligible voters Seats 1854 Seats 1894
1st Class Voters with an academic background 16 14th
2nd Class Merchants with Chamber of Commerce voting rights 48 40
3rd grade Tradespeople with the right to choose a trade chamber 24 20th
4th grade Remaining voters; up to 1894 staggered according to income:
over 500 thalers, 250 thalers to 500 and under 250 thalers per 10 MPs
30th 48
5th grade Voters living in Vegesack 6th 4th
6th grade Voters residing in Bremerhaven 6th 8th
7th grade Voters with the right to vote in the Chamber of Agriculture 10 8th
8th grade Voters residing in the rest of the country 10 8th

The votes of 17 voters in the 1st to 3rd class had the same significance as the votes of 297 voters in the 4th class, based on the proportion of the population. Since the fourth grade was so drastically restricted in their right to vote, the rule of the upper class was secured. The senators continued to be elected for life. In practice, many poorer residents could not acquire citizenship because of the registration fee and therefore had no right to vote. Thus, until 1918, broad sections of the population in Bremen were not involved in the parliamentary process of political participation - in 1911 not even a third of the Reichstag voters were entitled to vote in the citizenship elections. The grouping and political work of the MPs within the citizenry through the political parties was largely unknown until 1918, apart from a certain influence of the SPD.

Bremen in the German Empire
Bremen 1885
(Meyers Konversationslexikon, 4th edition. 1885/1890)

In the course of national efforts in Central Europe, Bremen joined the North German Confederation after the German War of 1866 . Then after the victory of the North German Confederation and the allied southern German states in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, the German Empire was founded. Bremen was given the constitutional name of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and had one vote in the Federal Council . By joining the German Reich, Bremen's city law was replaced by particular law and finally by the law of the realm ( criminal law from 1871, private law ( BGB ) 1900, council constitution 1920). In 1888 Bremen joined the German Customs Union and opened the first free port .

Labor movement

In 1864 the General Workers' Association for Bremen began its work under the direction of Gustav Deckwitz . By the end of the 1870s, several groups of the workers 'movement had emerged in Bremen: the small workers' association of Deckwitz, the large General German Workers 'Association (ADAV) under the leadership of Wilhelm Frick, the Vorwärts association and the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) led by August Kühn . In 1874 the ADAV even moved its headquarters from Berlin to Bremen. In 1875 the groups united to form the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAP), today's SPD was created. In 1878 the SAP ban also affected the labor movement in Bremen. Nevertheless, the first time an SAP representative was in the 1881 citizenship elected and in 1884 it was then already five deputies. It was not until 1890, with Julius Bruhns and in 1903 with Hinrich Schmalfeldt (1930 honorary citizen of Bremerhaven), that social democrats from Bremen were elected to the Reichstag for the first time . The Bremer Bürgerzeitung was immediately created as a mouthpiece in 1890 . Prominent members at that time were Wilhelm Hasenclever , Wilhelm Liebknecht , Hermann Rhein , Wilhelm Pieck and Friedrich Ebert in and for Bremen .

The unions were able to increase in Bremen after the lifting of the prohibitions of 4,554 (1894) to 1900 to 10,341 and up to the First World War to 36,085 members.

Women's movement

In the 19th century there was no right to vote for women , it was only introduced in 1919/20.

Education for girls was to be a matter of private schools until 1916. Girls were also taught in the clip schools or parish schools from the middle of the 19th century. In the Bremen school system there were higher girls or daughter schools only since 1858. Around 1870 there were five private higher daughter schools in Bremen. 1867 was among others by Marie Mindermann , Ottilie Hoffman and Henny Sattler in Bremen association for the extension of the female work area, in the following years, female employment club was called and since 1867 as women's employment and training club changed its name (FEAV). The struggle of the women's movement had its first climax in the 1890s when women rebelled against the planned family law of the new German Civil Code (BGB). Only since the repeal of the association laws of 1908 did women have formal access to political associations.

North German Lloyd
Company coat of arms of North German Lloyd

Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann founded the Norddeutscher Lloyd shipping company in Bremen in 1857 . It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies and sustainably promoted the economic development of Bremen and Bremerhaven. With the ships Kaiser Wilhelm der Große , Kronprinz Wilhelm , Kaiser Wilhelm II , Bremen and Europa , the shipping company was able to win the Blue Ribbon five times for the fastest Atlantic crossing between 1898 and 1930 .

Weser correction

To develop the new ports, Ludwig Franzius straightened the Weser between 1875 and 1895 ( see also Weser correction ).

Park building around 1900

Bürgerpark: On June 28, 1866, one year after the Second German Federal Shooting on the treeless site, the first part of the Bürgerpark was laid out by the Bürgerparkverein (on the initiative of Hermann Holler and chaired by Justin Löning) according to a plan by Wilhelm Benque expanded to a size of 202 hectares - including urban forest - over the next few decades. Franz Ernst Schütte made a significant contribution to the construction of the park.

Cotton Exchange 2006

Cotton Exchange: The Bremen Cotton Exchange was founded in 1872. It is based in the old stock exchange.

Shipyards: In 1872 the Werft Aktien-Gesellschaft "Weser" - AG Weser  - was founded in Bremen-Gröpelingen . At times, up to 20,000 people were employed at the shipyard. Many torpedo boats , submarines , cargo ships , passenger ships (including the Bremen in 1929 ) and later large tankers were built by them. In 1983 the shipyard was closed. In 1893, the Bremer Vulkan AG shipyard was founded in Bremen-Nord . It developed into a large shipyard with up to 4000 employees, which built over 1000 ships, u. a. many for the North German Lloyd . After the bankruptcy in 1996, it stopped shipbuilding in 1997.

From 1872 to 1875 the Kaiserbrücke was built to relieve traffic. After the reconstruction from 1950 to 1952 it was called the Mayor Smidt Bridge .

Hanover station

Railway: ( See also: List of train stations in the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen ) The Hannoversche Bahnhof was built as the first train station in Bremen according to plans by Baurat Mohr and Alexander Schröder in 1847 after the opening of the Bremen - Hanover railway line, roughly on the site of today's main train station. The Neustadtsbahnhof for the Oldenburg railway line was built in the neo-Gothic style in the Neustadt in 1867 . The Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn built the Venloer Bahnhof, which was also called Hamburger Bahnhof , at the current location of the town hall in 1870–1873 after the Wanne - Hamburg line opened .

Weserbahnhof

Furthermore, the Weserbahnhof north of the Stephaniviertel was built in 1857/59 as a freight station in the Bremen free port . In 1891, the Centralbahnhof or State Railway Station , built according to the plans of the architect Hubert Stier , and later the main railway station , went into operation and the Hanover railway station was demolished. In 2000 the main station was fundamentally rebuilt.

The small railway Bremen – Tarmstedt was in operation from 1900 to 1956 with the Bremen Parkbahnhof (today the location of the town hall).

Tram: The Actiengesellschaft Bremer Pferdebahn ( Bremer Straßenbahn AG from 1890 ) was founded in 1876 . The request of the engineer Carl Westenfeld to be allowed to operate the "projected horse-drawn railway from Heerdenthore to Horner Brücke" was granted. On June 4, 1876, a railway line opened from Herdentor via Vahrster Bridge and in 1877 on to Horn. In 1883 it was extended to the city. The rival company Große Bremer Pferdebahn started a line from Hastedt to Walle (now line 2) in 1879. The companies expanded their networks: Zum Freihafen (1888), Hohentor (1889) and Arsterdamm (1880/1884). In 1890, on the occasion of the Northwest German Trade and Industry Exhibition in the Bürgerpark, the route from the stock exchange to the exhibition grounds was electrified on a trial basis. The system had proven itself, so the conversion of the network was carried out from 1892 to 1913. The Bremer Straßenbahn AG took over the Great Bremen Horse Railroad in 1899 .

The Domsheide with court around 1900

Exhibition: In 1890, the Northwest German Trade, Industry, Trade, Marine, Deep Sea Fishing and Art Exhibition took place on the grounds of the Bremer Bürgerpark , an exhibition organized jointly with the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg and the Prussian Province of Hanover.

The Bremen Regional Court was and is located in the so-called Old Court House between Buchtstraße, Violenstraße and Ostertorstraße in the old town of Bremen. The old court house for the regional court was built in 1895 on the Domsheide in the style of historicism based on the designs of the Oldenburg architects Weber and Klingenberg . The previously undeveloped area of ​​the diocese of Bremen belonged to the city of Bremen only since the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803. The old court house survived the Second World War largely unscathed, despite severe bomb damage in the inner city of Bremen.

Bremer Haus: Between the mid-19th century and the 1930s, the so-called Bremer Haus developed , an English type of house that shaped many parts of the city such as Schwachhausen , Ostertor and Steintor as well as the Neustadt .

The Bremen school dispute from 1905 to 1907 was the dispute over the reform of religious education. After 1945 it was possible for the state schools to offer Biblical history without the participation of the churches.

20th century

new town hall
Map of Bremen city center between 1901 and 1903

1900 to 1933

Through state treaties of 1904 and 1905, Bremen and Prussia exchanged areas in the north, east and west of Bremerhaven, which from then on belonged to Bremen, for areas on the Wümme , which now went to Prussia. Bremen later tried to free itself from some onerous requirements from the state treaties in a procedure before the State Court for the German Reich , citing the clausula rebus sic stantibus , but failed in 1925.

Until 1913 the New Town Hall was built according to plans by Gabriel von Seidl .

Proclamation of the takeover of power by the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council on November 15, 1918
revolution

On November 6, 1918, reached November Revolution Bremen. Adam Frasunkiewicz announced the planned formation of a workers and soldiers council from the balcony of the town hall . The liberal bourgeoisie resisted and organized themselves into a citizens' committee, which was chaired by the shipowner Adolf Vinnen ( DVP ) on December 9, 1918. On January 10, 1919, the Bremen Council Republic was proclaimed. On 4 February 1919, 600 volunteers from a Caspari Freikorps smashed the Soviet republic with military force on behalf of the Reich government and in agreement with social democratic and bourgeois forces in Bremen. A state of emergency has been imposed. A provisional government led by the MSPD now ran the Senate. 88 people lost their lives, including 28 defense lawyers, 26 soldiers and 29 civilians: around 150 were wounded.

New constitution

On March 9, 1919, the constituent Bremen National Assembly was elected. The constitution was drawn up under the decisive influence of Senator Theodor Spitta ( DDP ). While the Left ( KPD , USPD ) strived for a Socialist Free State with elements of the Soviet Republic, the majority of the MSPD and the liberal parties (DDP and DVP) prevailed and on May 18, 1920 a parliamentary state constitution was promulgated, which was valid until 1933.

1919 to 1933
TS Bremen before the maiden voyage (1929)

With the proclamation of the Weimar Constitution , the city republic of Bremen became a downgraded member state of the federal Weimar Republic . Karl Deichmann ( SPD ) acted as President of the Senate and thus mayor of Bremen in 1919/20, followed by Martin Donandt until 1933 .

More than 1200 people died of the Spanish flu between 1918 and 1920, including the former director of the Bremen Cathedral School and politician Hinrich Hormann (1863–1920).

From 1904 to 1934 the Hellingstrasse was built as Böttcherstrasse with funds from the businessman Ludwig Roselius ( Kaffee HAG ) according to plans by Bernhard Hoetger . After the destruction caused by the air raids on Bremen in World War II, the buildings were restored until 1954.

Bremen Airport developed from the air base on Neuenlander Feld, and in 1920 the Dutch KLM started its first scheduled flight from Bremen. The Bremen tradition in aerospace technology goes back to the establishment of Bremer Flugzeugbau AG in 1923, from which the Focke-Wulf company later developed. This merged in 1961 with Weser-Flugzeugbau to form VFW (from 1981 part of Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB)). The VFW space division was spun off in 1964 to the Bremen ERNO ( Entwicklungsring Nord ) and in 1982 to MBB-ERNO. Today's Airbus plant emerged from the aircraft construction division of the former aerospace company DASA ( EADS from 2000 , Airbus Group since 2014 ). Astrium Bremen has been part of Airbus Defense and Space since 2014 . The civil and military space activities of the former EADS were merged into Astrium in 2006 .

In 1928 the Columbuskaje in Bremerhaven was inaugurated. From there, won the 1,929 at AG Weser built turbines - fast steamer " TS Bremen " of the North German Lloyd , the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing.

Carl FW Borgward 1924 founded the Bremen Kühlerfabrik Borg Ward & Co. from in the 1930s, the major Borg Ward - automotive group with the brands Borgward, Hansa , Goliath and Lloyd developed. Almost 22,000 people were employed in the five plants of the Borgward Group in 1959, which in addition to cars, trucks, etc. a. manufactured in Osterholz-Scharmbeck . At the end of 1960, Bremen's largest employer, whose best-known car model was the “ Isabella ”, got into financial difficulties which, following a crisis management that is still controversial , led to bankruptcy the following year. In the 1960s, Hanomag ( Hanomag-Henschel from 1969 ) , which was part of the Rheinstahl Group , took over the former Borgward parent plant in Sebaldsbrück , which is now part of the Mercedes-Benz Cars division of Daimler AG as a Mercedes-Benz automobile plant .

The “ House of the Reich ” was built as the “office building” in 1928–1931 by the North German wool combing & worsted spinning mill (North Wool) . Shortly before the building was completed, the company went bankrupt. The German Reich then took over the building for the Reich Finance Administration in 1934 . At first it was the state finance office Weser-Ems, then the Bremen official seat of the NS - Gauleiter Weser-Ems resident in Oldenburg (Oldb) , who was in personal union " Reichsstatthalter " for the state of Oldenburg (actually " Free State ") and the (Free) Hanseatic City of Bremen. After 1945 it became the seat of the American military government for Bremen. The Bremen Senator for Finance took over the building in 1947.

1933 to 1945

View towards the market square of the cathedral through
Obernstrasse , which is hung with swastika flags , 1938

In the 1930 Reichstag elections in Bremen around 12% of the voters voted for the NSDAP, in 1932 as much as 21.2% and in 1933 as much as 32.6%, which is for the first time slightly more than for the SPD . Just one day after the Reichstag elections, on March 6, 1933, the senators of the SPD Wilhelm Kaisen , Wilhelm Kleemann and Emil Sommer had to resign. Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick appointed Richard Markert as acting police senator. The Senate announced his resignation and in the evening the swastika flag waved from the town hall. The proportion of votes in the citizenry was brought into line with the result of the Reichstag elections. The KPD deputies were excluded from the citizenship. On March 18, 1933, Mayor Martin Donandt and the other four senators resigned and the NSDAP took over government with the swift involvement of Bremen's bourgeois economic elite, which was organized in the Chamber of Commerce and the House of Seafaring .

On May 6, 1933, Interior Minister Frick Carl Röver , NSDAP Gauleiter Weser-Ems and Prime Minister of Oldenburg , appointed “ Reichsstatthalter ” for Bremen and Oldenburg. With the law on the rebuilding of the empire of January 30, 1934, Bremen was added to the Reichsgau Weser-Ems with its seat in Oldenburg (Oldb) and thus lost its political independence. NSDAP district leader Bremen became Paul Wegener in March 1933 , followed by Bernhard Blanke in July 1934 and Max Schümann in 1942 . After Röver's death in May 1942, Paul Wegener became Gauleiter Weser-Ems.

Bremen mayors at this time were Richard Markert (1933/34), Karl Hermann Otto Heider (1934–1937), Johann Heinrich Böhmcker (1937–1944) and Richard Duckwitz (1944/45, acting ).

The area of Bremerhaven , which belongs to Bremen , fell to the city of Wesermünde in the Prussian province of Hanover in 1939 , with the port area largely remaining with the city of Bremen and since then forming the city ​​of Bremen's overseas port area Bremerhaven . As a result of the fourth ordinance on the rebuilding of the Reich on November 1, 1939, the Bremen urban area was enlarged to include Lesum , Grohn , Schönebeck , Aumund , Blumenthal , Farge , Hemelingen and Mahndorf as well as Vegesack and the municipalities of Büren , Grambkermoor and Lesumbrok of the Bremen district.

As in the whole of the German Empire, any resistance to National Socialism was suppressed in Bremen . Special courts established since 1940 broke the law. Political prisoners were transported to concentration camps . Many of the 1,438 Jews in Bremen fell victim to the deportation of Jews from Germany and were murdered in extermination camps . In the camps Mißler , Farge , Blumenthal, Neuenland, Obernheide, Osterort, Schützenhof, Uphusen and the Borgward camp, the prisoners had to do forced labor ; over a thousand of them lost their lives. In the final phase of the Second World War , the crimes against slave labor and prisoners of war increased .

View over the destroyed Walle to the southeast towards the center. The bunker Zwinglistrasse in the middle between Utbremer (left) and Wartburgstrasse

During the 173 air raids on Bremen , many parts of Bremen were badly damaged. In particular, the western area around Walle with the ports and the shipyard AG Weser in Gröpelingen became a target for Allied bombers, likewise in Sebaldsbrück the atlases and the headquarters of the Borg Ward -Konzerns, which also includes the Hansa-Lloyd and Goliath-Werke in Hastedt included . In addition to Bremer Vulkan / Vegesacker shipyard especially the most was Bremen Airport is moved and in Hastedt Focke-Wulf -Flugzeugbau frequently the destination of the air war in World War II .

During the 132nd and heaviest air raid on the night of August 18-19, 1944 with 500 bombers, 68  air mines , 2,323 high  explosives , 10,800  phosphorus and 108,000 stick  bombs were dropped. 25,000 homes were lost in the attack. A total of 8,248 residential buildings, 34 public buildings, 37 industrial and 80 commercial buildings were completely destroyed. There were 1054 dead, 72 seriously injured, 677 slightly injured and 49,100 homeless. Over 4,000 people were killed in the air raids on the Hanseatic city; 65,000 apartments (62 percent) were destroyed. After the occupation of the city by the British Army on April 26, 1945, most of the troops moved further north-east to Hamburg , which was reached on May 3.

1945 to 1999

Wilhelm Kaisen era
Unloading cotton from the ERP program in Bremen from the US freighter P6T.Seafarer of the United States Marine Corporation from Delaware , March 1949

In the post-war period of Germany , Bremen and Bremerhaven initially became part of the British zone of occupation . From 1947 the cities belonged to the American zone as an exclave in the British-occupied area . The license plate was therefore from 1948 to 1956 AE for "American exclave". The United States Armed Forces claimed the area for themselves in order to gain access to the seaports (port of embarkation). This made it easier for Bremen to maintain its independence from the Lower Saxony region. By agreement of the British and American occupation authorities of October 1946 and by Proclamation No. 3 of the American military government of January 21, 1947, the urban and rural areas of Bremen and the urban district of Wesermünde, including Bremerhaven, became an as Country to be designated administrative area declared.

From 1945 to 1965 Wilhelm Kaisen ( SPD ) was Governing Mayor and from 1948 President of the Senate and Mayor was the leading figure in the country (see Senate Kaisen I , II , III , IV , V , VI , VII ).

On October 21, 1947, the state constitution of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, drafted by Mayor Theodor Spitta (BVP / FDP ) and passed by the Bremen citizenship on September 15, 1947 and adopted by referendum on October 12, 1947, came into force. In 1949 Bremen became a state of the Federal Republic of Germany .

At the beginning of the 1950s, trade and industry grew again in Bremen. The Bremen shipyards and major shipping companies , the Borgward group with Goliath and Lloyd , along with smaller companies such as Eduscho , Ronning and Vitakraft , experienced new sales records. Radio H. Mende & Co. , which previously operated in Dresden , was re-founded in 1947 in the Hemelingen district of Bremen by Martin Mende under the name Nordmende and developed into one of the leading German manufacturers of radio and television sets during the economic miracle .

Restoration or reconstruction of the historical building stock took place only to a limited extent. Representative old buildings have been preserved or restored, especially around the market square. Only the Schnoor , the former fishing district, gives the impression of a medieval old town quarter .

In addition to the need for economic restructuring, the 1960s were characterized by the will to remain independent as a city-state . After the bankruptcy of the Borgward Group in 1961, at that time the largest employer in the city, before Großwerft AG Weser , and the decline in the importance of the Bremen port group (commercial ports Überseestadt and industrial ports ), etc. a. to create new jobs with the United Flugtechnische Werken (VFW), ERNO and the sale of the former Borgward main plant in Sebaldsbrück (today's Mercedes-Benz automobile plant ) to Hanomag and to sharpen the profile as a science location with a focus on aerospace technology . In the shipyard crisis that was already becoming apparent at the end of the decade , the decline of AG Weser and Bremer Vulkan could only be slowed down, but ultimately not prevented.

Bremen: The New Vahr

After the war, the population development of Bremen recorded strong growth. At the end of 1940, 441,000 people lived in the city. The number fell to 370,000 by the end of 1945 and rose by over 50 percent to 570,000 in the 16 years to 1961. The historical high was reached at the end of 1969 with around 607,000 people from Bremen. In addition to the reconstruction of the destroyed city, additional living space had to be created in the 1950s because of the refugees and displaced persons from the eastern regions , a positive birth balance and the increased need for living space per inhabitant. The first zoning plan was drawn up in 1957 with an unrealistic population forecast of 750,000 inhabitants. A new zoning plan in 1967 on the same basis should regulate the further urban development. From the mid-1950s to the mid- 1970s, reconstruction such as in Walle and Gröpelingen and the construction of many new large housing estates  - such as u. a. in the Vahr , in Osterholz-Blockdiek , Huchting , Grohn ( Grohner Düne ), Kattenturm and Osterholz-Tenever, as well as through settlement additions such as in Blumenthal , habenhausen or Neustadt-Huckelriede  - up to 170,000 apartments were created in a short time (1945–1975) , many of them in social housing .

By 1954, the Böttcherstrasse , which was destroyed in the war, was largely restored to its original state by the Bremen coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius junior ( Kaffee HAG ). The Sparkasse Bremen bought all of the buildings in 1989, except for the Atlantis house , which had already been sold to a hotel group.

In the 1960s, the Neustädter Hafen with Basin II, Lankenauer Hafen and turning basin was realized on the left side of the Weser , and construction of the freight center (GVZ) in Bremen-Strom began. During the construction of the harbor basin, a Hanse cog from 1380 was found and secured in the Weserschlick. The Bremer Kogge is now in the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven .

During the storm surge in 1962 on the German North Sea coast on the night of February 17, large areas on the Lower Weser were also flooded, including the Bremen urban area to the left of the Weser (see also map of the flooded areas)

On the flight LH 005 crashed on the evening of 28 January 1966 in Frankfurt / Main coming Convair CV-440 D-ACAT of Lufthansa during the landing approach to the airport Bremen for a go-around on the Kladdinger meadows (municipality Stuhr ) next to the Ochtum . All 46 inmates, including seven swimmers from the Italian Olympic team and the actress Ada Chekhova , daughter of Olga Chekhova and mother of Vera Chekhova , were killed.

The rapid growth led to speculative property trading and the building land scandal of 1969. In Hollerland in Horn-Lehe , based on information from SPD parliamentary group leader Richard Boljahn, not only the Bremen property company Weser, but also the housing company Neue Heimat (Boljahn was on the supervisory board) and the real estate agent Willi Lohmann speculatively large areas that were later to be used for development. Building Senator Wilhelm Blase (SPD) and Boljahn lost their offices. Only 25 years later was a smaller part of the Hollerland actually built on.

Reconstruction of the Weser bridges
The Great Weser Bridge, inaugurated in 1895 and demolished in 1961, seen from the old town towards the Teerhof , around 1914

In one of the last major air raids on Bremen , the Adolf Hitler Bridge ( West Bridge, today Stephanibrücke ), opened in 1939 , was destroyed on March 30, 1945. After the bombing one week earlier (March 23), the Bremen railway bridge to the west of it , which was still a swing bridge at the time , could not be returned to rail traffic until December 9, 1946. The Great Weser Bridge, inaugurated in 1895 (from 1933 to 1939 Adolf Hitler Bridge, until 1947 Lüderitz Bridge, today Wilhelm Kaisen Bridge) and the Kaiser Bridge from 1916 (today Mayor Smidt Bridge ) became one on April 25, 1945 Day before the occupation of the city by the British Army , blown up by pioneers of the German Wehrmacht . At the end of the war , pedestrians could still use the footbridge over the Weser weir in Hastedt , which was also blown up by German pioneers on April 22, 1945, and a temporary crossing on the girders of the railway bridge.

In addition to the blown up Lüderitz Bridge, the US pioneers ( USACE ) built the 147 m long Memorial Bridge as an emergency bridge and next to the Kaiserbrücke, which was also destroyed , the 120 m long Truman Bridge , named after US President Harry S. Truman , was built in April 1946 . Both temporary arrangements were destroyed together with the railway swing bridge in the Bremen bridge disaster on March 18, 1947 and the center again had no connection to the districts left of the Weser.

From 1950 to June 28, 1952 (other sources June 30, 1952) the 220 m long Bürgermeister-Smidt-Brücke made of steel, named after Johann Smidt , Bremen's mayor from 1821 onwards, was built to replace the Kaiserbrücke .

The middle section of the Lüderitzbrücke was used again by autumn 1947 and the Weser crossing was reopened on November 29, 1947 under the old name of the Große Weserbrücke . From 1958, today's 151 m long and 30 m wide bridge was built next to it, which Mayor Wilhelm Kaisen opened on December 22, 1960 . After Kaisen's death in December 1979, it was given the current name Wilhelm-Kaisen-Brücke the following year .

The Kleine Weserbrücke built in 1903 over the Kleine Weser , also known as the Bridal Bridge (“The Bride” was one of Bremen's powder towers in the city ​​wall ), was only slightly damaged in the war. The Neustadt portal was removed in 1953. From 1958 to 1960 this bridge was replaced by a new building.

Karl-Carstens-Bridge : section over the Werdersee (from the west)

In addition to the Weser bridges in the center, the Werder bridge was built between 1966 and June 15, 1970 , and leads from the eastern suburb to Obervieland . It is popularly called the Strawberry Bridge. In 1999 it was named Karl Carstens Bridge after the Bremen CDU politician Karl Carstens (1914–1992, Federal President from 1979 to 1984).

With the motorway bridge of the BAB 1 , another six- to eight-lane bridge was led over the Weser on the eastern edge of the city around 1969. The BAB 281 to a ring north of the city and Bremen ports Gröpelingen close Bremen with a Wesertunnel after its completion. However, the entire route is currently only partially approved . The construction of the Weser tunnel should be financed privately and be borne by assignments from the toll income. After the economic failures of the Warnow tunnel in Rostock and the Travetunnel in Lübeck (both deficit), this approach is now questionable.

Hans Koschnick as President
Hans Koschnick

For 18 years Hans Koschnick (SPD) shaped the political fortunes of the city as President of the Senate from 1967 to 1985 (see Senate Koschnick I , II, III , IV , V ), whereby the SPD ruled from 1971 to 1985 without a coalition with another party .

The tram riots among schoolchildren in Bremen in January 1968, triggered by price increases, sparked considerable protests on the Domsheide for two weeks in Bremen. The police acted with unreasonable severity against the young occupants of the rails. The population increasingly showed solidarity with the students. Mayor Annemarie Mevissen tried courageously to calm down. Mayor Koschnick finally withdrew the price increases. Therefore, price increases for local public transport in Bremen could not be enforced again until 1976/1977.

On February 6, 1979, a fire in the Rolandmühle caused the most powerful flour dust explosion in German history, in which 14 people were killed and another 17 were injured, some seriously. The fire was not considered to be extinguished until March 12, 1979. The accident caused property damage of over 100 million DM. The Roland mill was completely rebuilt.

On May 6, 1980, on the occasion of the swearing-in of recruits by the Bundeswehr in the Weser Stadium , serious clashes broke out between left-wing counter-demonstrators, the police and field hunters. There were several hundred injured. The "Bremen Bundeswehr riots" are also seen as the "hour of birth" of the West German Autonomists .

House of the Bremen Citizenship

The Bremen citizenship  - city and state parliament - met from 1946 to 1966 in the town hall. In 1966 she received her House of Citizenship on the market square, built according to the heavily controversial plans of the architect Wassili Luckhardt .

City Hall Bremen (2016)

The Bremen City Hall was built between 1961 and 1964 as a result of a competition based on a design by the Viennese architect Roland Rainer . The design includes a rare supporting structure with a suspension rope construction, which was removed in the course of the renovation. The abutments of the suspension ropes, which are also an important landmark of Bremen, have been preserved. In 2001/02, the exhibition area was enlarged with the addition of Hall 7 and subsequent additional halls. In 2004 the town hall was renovated, the official names of which changed as follows: 1964–2004: Stadthalle Bremen, 2005–2009: AWD-Dome, 2009–2011: Bremen-Arena, since 2011: ÖVB-Arena .

Container terminal

The container terminal in Bremerhaven, located in the city ​​of Bremen's overseas port area , with the longest river quay in the world (almost 5 km), has been expanded in sections since 1975. Sea freight throughput was over 50 million tons in 2007.

After the Borgward group went bankrupt in 1961, Hanomag initially took over its main plant in Sebaldsbrück and the truck plant in Osterholz-Scharmbeck . The successor Hanomag-Henschel -ahrzeugwerke (HHF) was finally taken over in 1971 by Daimler-Benz AG, which from 1979 expanded the Bremen plant into a modern automobile factory for the production of the Mercedes-Benz 190, which was manufactured from 1982 . At peak times, up to 18,000 people were employed in what is now the Daimler Group's second-largest car plant after Sindelfingen . Mercedes-Benz Cars currently employs 12,500 people in the Bremen plant.

1985 to 2000

From 1985 to 1995 Klaus Wedemeier (SPD) was President of the Senate. From 1991 to 1995 the Senate Wedemeier III consisted of a so-called traffic light coalition ( SPD , FDP and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen ).

In 1992 the Federal Constitutional Court ruled, because of the extreme budgetary emergency , that the state of Bremen was entitled to emergency budget aid from the federal government and the federal states . Around 16 billion marks were granted to Bremen in the following years up to 2004. The goal of redeveloping the extreme budgetary emergency was not achieved because the SPD / CDU  coalition senate from 1995 to 2005 under the leadership of Dr. Henning Scherf did not change a significant portion of the financial aid not for debt relief, but for new investments and the unjust tax distribution for the city states was not changed.

Newer urban development
Ostertorsteinweg between Ulrichsplatz and Sielwallkreuzung

Downtown

The construction of an inner ring of a city freeway, which was supposed to lead through the Ostertor (Mozarttrasse) and the Neustadt ( Kirchweg ), failed in the 1970s due to the protest of the citizens and the street ends at Rembertiring. The Ostertorviertel (called the quarter ) and the Steintorviertel , on the other hand, were fundamentally renovated with funds from urban development funding from 1970 to 1990.

The structures of the inner city were significantly improved between 1985 and 2005. The pedestrian system with Obernstraße , Sögestraße , Langenstraße, Papenstraße, Pieperstraße, Bonehauerstraße, Markt, Domshof and Liebfrauenkirchhof etc. was expanded and completely redesigned. In the middle of the north-south axis a chain of covered passageways created (from north to south: Ansgari-, Lloyd - St. Catherine and Domshofs Passage) and Am Wall , a glass canopy. The system of multi-storey car parks in the city center has also been significantly expanded. In 1986 the telecommunications tower in Bremen was completed.

Teerhof : residential houses

From 1990 to 1995 the war-torn Teerhof Island between the old town and the new town was rebuilt after an international competition and connected to the old town via a pedestrian bridge. The Weser promenade on the Schlachte was redesigned from 1992 to 2001. The Schlachte became a popular area for gastronomy (food mile).

On the Bürgerweide , the location of the Bremer Freimarkt , the town hall was enlarged between 1990 and 2005 , a congress center was built and several exhibition halls were built. As part of a renovation (1995, 1998-2001), the main station was given a north exit and thus a pedestrian connection to the Bürgerweide through a passage. The station forecourt was also redesigned.

Bremen-North

In Vegesack , the ferry quarter and the pedestrian area between Vegesack train station / harbor and Sedanplatz were renovated and redesigned between 1970 and 1990.

Überseestadt

Since 2000, Bremen has been building the new Überseestadt district in the port area, with 300 hectares three times the size of Bremen's old town, making it one of the largest urban development projects in Europe. In 1998, the basin of the Überseehafen was filled with three million cubic meters of sand from the Outer Weser and built over.

University development

In 1947, the Bremen University of Education was founded for the Bremen teachers' seminars (1910 / 1921–1926) and the educational seminar (1945–1949) . It was in Long Row No. 81 in Walle . The course has lasted six semesters since 1950. From the mid-1960s, the PH became more scientific. In 1966, 850 prospective teachers studied here.

Campus of the University of Bremen

The University of Bremen was founded in 1971. It is one of the younger universities in Germany and has around 20,000 students and over 1,500 scientists. The founding phase was very controversial and led to the termination of the coalition of SPD and FDP in the first Koschnick Senate . In 1971/1973 the Bremen University of Education was integrated. The founding rector was Prof. Thomas von der Vring from 1970 to 1974 . The Bremen model initially earned the University of Bremen the reputation of a “red executive forge”. This picture changed decisively after 1990.

Bremen technical center before 1917, today University of Bremen

In 1982 the University of Bremen was established as a university of applied sciences, through the merger of the universities of business, technology, social education and economics and nautical science. It has around 8,000 students spread across three locations in Bremen-Neustadt .

From 1979 to 1988 the integration process of the former art and music academy took place, which were merged to form the Bremen University of the Arts (HfK Bremen). The oldest forerunner institution was from 1873. With the locations in Speicher XI in Überseestadt and in Dechanatstrasse ( Bremen-Altstadt ) it has around 900 students and 300 employees.

1999 in Bremen-Grohn the Jacobs University Bremen (until 2007: International University Bremen) as a private college by the city of Bremen, Bremen University and Rice University , Houston , Texas founded. It has around 1100 students and 280 employees.

21st century

Storage XI

In 2000 the Senate decided to restructure the old harbor areas . In 2003, the Überseestadt master plan was created . The area was increasingly developed. Since 2006 the new tram line has traversed 3 parts of the area. The wholesale market , the port museum and areas of the Bremen University of the Arts and commercial buildings were located in Speicher XI . In the Weser Quarter , the Weser Tower is to be built as the tallest office building in the city. Residential, commercial and office buildings are being built in the Überseepark district .

The Beck & Co brewery was taken over in 2002 by the Belgian group Interbrew (today: InBev ). 2004 was the town hall and the landmark of the city, the stone Bremer Roland , the UNESCO - World Heritage declared.

In November 2005, Jens Böhrnsen (SPD) succeeded Henning Scherf (SPD) as President of the Senate. He headed the Böhrnsen I Senate (SPD and CDU) until 2007 and then the Böhrnsen II Senate and the Böhrnsen III Senate (SPD, Greens). In 2009 the city received the title Place of Diversity awarded by the federal government .

In 2016, Bremen was awarded the honorary title of “ Reformation City of Europe ” by the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe .

Incorporations

Bremen 1885/1890 (from: Meyers Konversationslexikon)

Like most of the former Free Imperial Cities, Bremen was able to win over villages in the course of history in addition to the actual city area. The "state area" of the Free Imperial City of Bremen therefore consisted of the actual urban area, the so-called "land area", ie a large number of rural communities, which were later referred to as the Bremen district , and the city of Vegesack , which was formed from an old village after the establishment of the The port had developed into a patch (from 1794) and finally into a small town (town charter since 1850). From 1827 to 1939 and then again from 1947 Bremerhaven belonged to the state territory of Bremen, i.e. to the state of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen . The free port in Bremerhaven is also an exclave of the city of Bremen, i.e. a district of the city of Bremen. The cities of Bremerhaven and Vegesack as well as the municipalities of the Bremer Landgebiet had more or less their own administration or the citizens of these municipalities had different rights than the citizens of the city of Bremen.

Until the middle of the 19th century , the actual urban area of ​​Bremen only comprised the so-called old town , the new town (left of the Weser) and the suburbs outside the ramparts. From 1849, neighboring rural communities were incorporated into the urban area in several sections. As a result, the Bremen district steadily shrank until it was completely dissolved in 1945 and its communities were incorporated into the city of Bremen. From 1945 onwards, the state and urban areas of Bremen were initially identical. Bremerhaven was called Wesermünde at that time and belonged to the Prussian province of Hanover. Only since 1947, when Bremerhaven was re-integrated into the state of Bremen, did the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (again) consist of two cities.

Bremen state territory since 1800

Table and map

In detail, the following municipalities were incorporated into the city of Bremen (in brackets the area growth of the city area in hectares ):

  • January 1, 1849: Pagentorn, Utbremen, Pauliner Marsch , Stephanikirchweide and citizen cattle pasture (1212 hectares)
  • February 3, 1872: Stadtwerder (205 hectares)
  • 1875: Parts of the rural communities Neuenland (Buntentor) and Woltmershausen (342 hectares)
  • 1885: part of the rural community of Walle (28 hectares)
  • October 21, 1892: Parts of the rural communities of Walle and Gröpelingen (256 hectares)
  • April 1, 1902: rural communities: Bremen-Schwachhausen , Hastedt and parts of the rural communities Walle, Gröpelingen and Woltmershausen (2770 hectares)
  • April 1, 1921: rural communities Oslebshausen , Neuenland and parts of the rural communities Oberneuland -Rockwinkel, Osterholz , Horn , Grambke , Arsten , habenhausen and Rablinghausen (3490 hectares)
  • 1923: Part of the rural community Oberneuland / Rockwinkel (21 hectares)
  • April 1, 1938: Port area of ​​the city of Bremerhaven
  • November 1, 1939: rural communities Büren, Grambkermoor and Lesumbrok as well as the city of Vegesack (together 2,106 hectares) and the rural communities of Aumund, Blumenthal , Farge, Grohn, Lesum and Schönebeck (all districts of Osterholz ) and Hemelingen (including Arbergen), which are part of the Prussian province of Hanover and Mahndorf (both districts of Verden + Altkreis Achim) (together 6787 hectares). The parish of the Achim -Bollen district belongs to the Arbergen church and thus to the Bremen regional church.
  • December 1, 1945: Land communities Osterholz , Rockwinkel , Borgfeld , Lehesterdeich , Blockland, Strom , Seehausen , Lankenau, Huchting , Arsten and habenhausen
    The resulting dissolution of the Bremen district with a total of 13,977 hectares was an administrative form within the state of Bremen and not an extension of the State of Bremen in the Hanover / Prussian region.

Population development

In 1350 Bremen had around 20,000 inhabitants. In the Middle Ages and the early modern period , the city's population grew only slowly and fell again and again due to the numerous wars, epidemics and famine.

With the beginning of industrialization Bremen had 28,000 inhabitants (1748). After that, a strong population growth began in Bremen. While the population of the city was only 35,000 in 1812, it already exceeded the limit of 100,000 in 1875, making Bremen a major city .

In 1911 the city had 250,000 inhabitants, which was double that of 1890. In 1939 the population increased by 68,515 people through the incorporation of Vegesack and other municipalities. By 1956 there were more than half a million inhabitants. In 1969 the city's population reached its historic high of 607,184. Since then the population has fallen again. However, this trend has been reversed in the last few years. On December 31, 2005 the "official population" was 546,852, on November 1, 2006 then 548,477 inhabitants.

See also

Portal: Bremen  - Overview of Wikipedia content on Bremen

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Herbert Schwarzwälder: The great Bremen Lexicon. Edition Temmen, 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
  2. ^ Hugo Meyer: The name Bremen. In: Bremisches Jahrbuch. Volume 1. Bremen 1863, pp. 272-284.
  3. Guide to prehistoric and protohistoric monuments. Volume 2: Bremen, Verden, Hoya. 1965, p. 22 ff.
  4. Matthäus Merian: Topographia Saxoniae Inferioris: Bremen (1653) in Wikisource .
  5. Bill Thayer: The Geography of Claudius Ptolemy ("The Geographia of Claudius Ptolemy" as a table in Greek and Latin with English translation), 2nd book, 4th map - Germaniae magnae situs (Europae tabula quarta). In: penelope.uchicago.edu, accessed on September 12, 2018 (the discrepancy between ancient and English chapter numbers is due to the fact that the best-known English translation counts the chapters differently than the original Greek text).
  6. ^ Rudolf Stein: Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance architecture in Bremen. P. 17.
  7. Erich Keyser: The emergence of Bremen. In: Bremisches Jahrbuch No. 45, 1957.
  8. ^ Vita Willehadi. Author unknown; In the state archive of North Rhine-Westphalia Westphalia department in Münster I, 228 (saec. XII)
  9. ^ Wilhelm Tacke: Brief history of the Bremen cathedral . ( Memento from October 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) uni-bremen.de; accessed on September 11, 2018
  10. ^ Adam of Bremen: Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum. ( Memento of February 7, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Liber III., Capitulum 43 (Latin).
  11. Thomas Hill: The city and its market. Bremen's regional and external relations in the Middle Ages (12th – 15th centuries) (= quarterly journal for social and economic history . Supplements. No. 172). Steiner, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-515-08068-6 (Zugl .: Kiel, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 2001).
  12. ^ Bremen document book. Vol. I, No. 70 and 71 (p. 81/82) from the years 1187/88.
  13. Karolin Bubke: The Bremen city wall. State Archive Bremen, 2007, ISBN 978-3-925729-48-5 .
  14. ^ Herbert Schwarzwälder: "Bannerlauf" and "Verrat" in Bremen 1365-1366, in Bremisches Jahrbuch. Volume 53, 1975.
  15. ^ Philippe Dollinger: The Hanseatic League. Stuttgart, 1998, ISBN 3-520-37105-7 .
  16. ^ Friedrich Prüser : Home chronicles of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (= home  chronicles of the cities and districts of the federal territory . III, 1). Archive for German Home Care, Cologne 1955, p. 519 .
  17. ^ Ulrich Weidinger, in: Bremisches Jahrbuch. Volume 88, 2009, denies that Bremen was hindered shortly before 1358.
  18. Herbert Schwarzwälder: Bremen's inclusion in the Hanseatic League in 1358. In: Hansische Geschichtsblätter. Volume 79, 1961.
  19. Hartmut Müller: Investigations on the Bremen shipping company in the 17th century. In: Bremisches Jahrbuch. Volume 53, 1975.
  20. Viviane Deak, Yvonne Grimm, Christiane Köglmaier-Horn, Frank-Michael Schäfer, Wolfgang Protzner: The first coffee houses in Würzburg, Nuremberg and Erlangen. In: Wolfgang Protzner, Christiane Köglmaier-Horn (Ed.): Culina Franconia. (= Contributions to economic and social history. Volume 109). Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-09001-8 , p. 249.
  21. This questioning and laboriously bought reconfirmation of imperial immediacy by neighboring territorial states was not unusual in the period of absolutism , see the Gottorp comparison between Hamburg and Denmark in 1768.
  22. Schaffermahlzeit. The Greenland Voyage. ( Memento from May 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: schaffermahlzeit.eu, accessed on April 14, 2019.
  23. The first steamship built in Germany was the Princess Charlotte of Prussia , which was launched in 1816 at the John Barnett Humphreys shipyard in Pichelsdorf near Spandau.
  24. ^ Arnold, Küthmann, Steinhilber, Large German Coin Catalog from 1800 to Today (AKS) in Bremen
  25. Erika Thies: The history of citizenship. In: Weser courier. April 30, 2011, p. 11.
  26. Peter Kuckuk : No red star over Bremen: causes, development and consequences of a revolution. In: Karin Kuckuk: In the shadow of the revolution. Lotte Kornfeld - Biography of a Forgotten Woman (1896–1974). With a foreword by Hermann Weber, a contribution by Peter Kuckuk and a letter from Lotte Kornfeld. Donat, Bremen 2009, ISBN 978-3-938275-48-1 , p. 110.
  27. ^ Herbert Black Forest: The Great Bremen Lexicon. Volume 1: A-K. 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X , p. 156.
  28. ^ Christian Paulmann: The Social Democrats in Bremen, 1864-1964. Schmalfeldt Publishing House, Bremen 1964.
  29. Helge Hommers: When Bremer shot at Bremer . In: WK Geschichte Bremen 1918–1939 . Ed .: Weser-Kurier , Bremen 2019.
  30. Frank Hethey: Mass death after a short violent illness . In: WK Geschichte Bremen 1918–1939 . Ed .: Weser-Kurier , Bremen 2019.
  31. On the integration of Bremen's bourgeois elites into the NSDAP state, cf. also article Richard Markert , from the section on the rise to mayor of Bremen under National Socialism ;
    Inge Marßolek , René Ott, Peter Brandt: Bremen in the Third Reich - Adaptation, Resistance, Persecution. Schünemann, 1986, ISBN 3-7961-1765-1 , p. 131 f.
  32. ^ Law on the rebuilding of the empire. verassungen.de; accessed on April 14, 2019.
  33. ^ Fourth ordinance on the rebuilding of the Reich of September 28, 1939. verfassungen.de; accessed on April 14, 2019.
  34. Official Gazette of the Military Government of Germany, American Control Area , Edition C (April 1, 1947), p. 1 ( d-nb.de ).
  35. Ordinance No. 76 of the British Military Government of December 31, 1946. In: Official Journal of the Military Government of Germany, British Control Area , 1947, p. 411 ( d-nb.de ).
  36. ^ Deichverband on the right bank of the Weser: Map of the flooded areas in Bremen 1962. dvr-bremen.de; accessed on April 14, 2019.
  37. Frank Hethey: No more answer from Lufthansa flight 005. (No longer available online.) In: bremen-history.de. Frank Hethey, January 31, 2016, archived from the original on February 26, 2018 ; accessed on April 13, 2019 (private website).
  38. ^ Bremen, Mercedes-Benz plant. In: daimler.com, accessed on September 12, 2018.
  39. ^ Günter Dannemann, Stefan Luft (Ed.): The future of the city states. Kellnerverlag, Bremen 2006.
  40. Gerald Sammet: Bremen: On the quay of good hope. (No longer available online.) In: merian.de. Merian , December 2010, archived from the original on December 10, 2010 ; accessed on April 13, 2019 .
  41. City portrait of the project “Reformation cities of Europe”: Reformation city of Bremen. Germany. Close the cathedral, the Reformation is coming! In: reformation-cities.org/cities, accessed on November 9, 2016. On the importance of Bremen in the history of the Reformation, see also the section on religious and ideological communities , the article Bremen church history and the city portrait of the project “European Station Path”: Bremen ( Memento from June 29, 2019 in the Internet Archive ). In: r2017.org/europaeischer-stationsweg, accessed on November 9, 2016.
  42. a b c Publications. staatsarchiv.bremen.de; accessed on April 14, 2019.