Gottorp Treaty
With the Gottorp Treaty (also Gottorper settlement ) of 1768 between the Danish king and Hamburg , Denmark officially recognized the imperial immediacy of the Hanseatic city and its independence from the Danish ruled Duchy of Holstein .
Denmark waived the revision of a ruling by the Reich Chamber of Commerce in 1618, in which the court had confirmed Hamburg's status as a Free Imperial City , and recognized Hamburg's imperial immediacy as a Free Imperial City. At the same time, an extensive area exchange was agreed. In return, Hamburg released the Danish royal family and the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp from liabilities of more than 1.3 million Reichstalers .
background
In 1584 a process began about the imperial immediacy between the imperial fiscal on the one hand and Hamburg as the main defendant and the Danish-Schleswig-Holstein rulership on the other. However, Hamburg wanted to evade the burden of a Reich tax and initially successfully relied on a delaying tactic. It was not until Christian IV's striving for great power aroused a strong interest in Hamburg in an imperial immediacy and led to a turnaround in his policy. The city now passed suitable archive material to the Reich Chamber of Commerce. On July 6, 1618, the desired verdict was given and Hamburg was officially declared an imperial city.
The Danish king did not accept this ruling by the Imperial Court. In the Treaty of Steinburg of July 8, 1621, Hamburg was obliged to maintain the status quo for the duration of a review procedure. The turmoil of the Thirty Years' War prevented the proceedings from proceeding and it was not until 1766 that a favorable constellation emerged that was to lead to a peaceful agreement: Tsarina Catherine II , who was associated with the Holstein-Gottorp family, and an expansion policy against Turkey and Poland operated, wanted to assure himself of the goodwill of the Danish ruler. She was ready to swap claims on Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorfer territories for territories of the counties Delmenhorst and Oldenburg , which then took place in the Treaty of Tsarskoe Selo in 1773 . Since Hamburg had liens on Gottorf property, a starting point for new negotiations arose. In 1766, negotiators from the Hamburg Senate contacted the Grand Princely Privy Councilor, Caspar von Saldern , who served as Minister of State in Russia.
Content of the Gottorper comparison
As a result of the settlement negotiated at Schloss Gottorf near Schleswig , the princely members of the Holstein family, namely Holstein-Glückstadt and Holstein-Gottorf, accepted the independent position of Hamburg and the status of an Imperial Free Imperial City. Thus Hamburg was recognized as an imperial city.
The agreement provided for an extensive exchange of areas. Among other things, Hamburg returned 18 villages in the offices of Trittau and Reinbek to the Duchy of Holstein. They had been made available to the City of Hamburg since 1750 through loan and pawn contracts. In relation to the Holstein-Gottorp house, the city waived the courant to repay a debt amounting to around 338,000 Reichstalers. Hamburg exempted the Danish royal family from a debt of one million Reichstalern courant plus accrued interest.
For this, the Holstein enclaves within the Hamburg city area (Schauenburger Hof on Steinstrasse and Mühlenhof) were transferred to Hamburg. Hamburg also acquired the Elbe islands, lowlands and sands between Billwerder and Finkenwerder , the leasehold estates Veddel and Grevenhof (today part of Steinwerder ), the feudal estates Peute and Müggenburg , Griesenwerder , Kaltehofe , as well as the Pagensand and smaller Holstein-Gottorp parcels from former pledges.
The Danish Elbe pilotage system was given up, as was the Danish church sovereignty over Eppendorf, which belongs to Hamburg . Finally, Article 10 of the treaty granted Hamburg trade in Denmark and Norway the privilege of most-favored nation treatment and the sound tariff reduced.
Negotiating partner and ratification
In addition to the Russian State Minister Caspar von Saldern , Baron Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann was involved, who acted as a mediator between Hamburg and Denmark. The hereditary citizenship had approved the negotiations in September 1767. Senators Anton Wagener, Hieronymus Burmester, Justus Vincent Ritter and the Senate Syndicus Jacob Schuback signed the contract for Hamburg on May 27, 1768 .
Before signing the contract, Saldern secretly demanded 20,000 Reichstaler for his and his Petersburg friends' efforts. When Schimmelmann found out about this, he asked for a corresponding sum for himself. The Hamburg representatives also accepted presents, each received 500 ducats from the opposite party and had themselves dressed for the signing ceremony at city expense.
Christian VII ratified the treaty on July 3, the Hamburg citizenship on July 14, Tsarina Katharina II on October 4, 1768 and Emperor Joseph II confirmed the Gottorf settlement on May 30, 1769.
Interpretations
The historian Hans-Dieter Loose counts the Gottorper comparison as one of the "most important events in Hamburg's history of the 18th century, indeed Hamburg's history in general". The treaty ended the centuries-long dispute about the imperial immediacy of Hamburg and "made a significant contribution to its later development and position". He brought Hamburg into the possession of extensive islands and lands on the Elbe, which initially appeared to be of little value, but which today contain significant parts of the port and industrial areas that led to Hamburg's economic boom in the 19th and 20th centuries.
literature
- Gottorp comparison between the entire Gottorp house and the city of Hamburg from May 27, 1768 (= Document 68), in: Hamburg's way to the Reich and into the world - documents for the 750th anniversary of the Port of Hamburg. Edited by Heinrich Reincke , Hamburg 1939, pp. 235–250
- Hans-Dieter Loose : 200 years of the Gottorf comparison. State press office - reports and documents from the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg No. 128 of May 13, 1968
- Heinrich Reincke: Hamburg's rise to imperial freedom. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History 47 (1961), pp. 17–34 digitized version of the Hamburg State and University Library
- Heinrich Reincke: Hamburg territorial policy. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History 38 (1939), pp. 28–116 digitized version of the Hamburg State and University Library
- Johann Friedrich Voigt : In memory of the Gottorper contract of May 27, 1768. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History 6 (1875), pp. 188–192 Digitized version of the Hamburg State and University Library
- Ernst Christian Schütt: The Chronicle of Hamburg. Chronik Verlag (Harenberg), Dortmund 1991, p. 161, ISBN 3-611-00194-5
Individual evidence
- ^ Rainer Lagoni : national borders in the Elbe estuary and the German Bight. Constitutional-historical, constitutional and international law aspects of the law between countries , Berlin 1982, p. 24.
- ↑ Heinrich Reincke: Hamburg's rise to imperial freedom . In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History 47 (1961), p. 31
- ↑ Heinrich Reincke: Hamburg's rise to imperial freedom ... p. 33
- ↑ Hans-Dieter Loose: 200 years of Gottorper comparison. State press office - reports and documents from the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg No. 128 of May 13, 1968, p. 4
- ↑ Hans-Dieter Loose: 200 years of Gottorper comparison. State press office - reports and documents from the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg No. 128 of May 13, 1968, foreword