Land Hadeln

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Location of the land of Hadeln in the Holy Roman Empire (1560)
The large seal of the land of Hadeln (13th century) shows the patron saint of the land: St. Nicholas of Myra in the bishop's robe

The Land Hadeln is a historical landscape - as well as a former district that existed until 1932 , continued by the non-congruent district with its seat in Otterndorf until 1977 - on the Lower Saxon Elbe , in the triangle between the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser . Together with the land of Wursten and the common hinterland, it still forms a typical, relatively closed cultural area today.

The name goes back to a place Haduloha in the north of the Hohen Lieth, which is mentioned in the Franconian Reichsannalen and other texts of the 8th and 9th centuries as locus Haduloha . In the 11th century, the whole north of the Elbe-Weser triangle was then called Haduloga or Hathleria . After the cultivation of the coastal marshes began at the beginning of the 12th century, the designation of the landscape increasingly narrowed to the new land on the south bank of the Elbe estuary.

On January 1, 2011, the previous joint municipalities of Hadeln and Sietland were merged to form the new joint municipality "Land Hadeln" .

landscape

The Otterndorf lock with pumping station; on the right the diesel pump house, on the left the electric pump house
Affected area in the event of a "small" storm surge of only 4.5 m when a dike breached on the Glameyer-Stack, Otterndorf

Today, the name Land Hadeln is essentially limited to the diked marsh in the lowland bay south of the Elbe estuary. It is surrounded by sandy meltwater deposits and moraines from the Saale Glaciation ( Pleistocene ), such as the Geestrücken of the Hohen Lieth in the west, the Westerberg (56 m above sea level), and the Wingst (74 m above sea level) in the east. In the south there are extensive low and high moors between the Geest Islands , which, however, have been cultivated with the exception of small remains in the Ahlenmoor .

The marshland itself is subdivided into the fertile march, the so-called "highlands" (approx. 1-2 m above sea level), and the " sietland " on the edge of the moors. The difficult drainage takes place, in addition to the small lock at Altenbruch , mainly through the pumping station in Otterndorf . There the water of the Medem and its numerous tributaries, as well as the water of the Hadler Canal, part of the Elbe-Weser shipping route , is pumped into the Elbe. Before that, the Sietland in particular, which is up to 0.8 m below sea level, was chronically threatened by flooding.

The country of Hadeln is located in the Lower Elbe region . The proximity to the Elbe estuary and the North Sea entails the risk that in the event of a dike breach during a storm surge , large parts of the area, which is largely just above sea level, would be flooded. One possible scenario is described in the article Glameyer Stack .

Traditionally, agricultural use predominates, with grassland and dairy farming on the Geest and in Sietland, with arable farming and fruit farming in the highlands.

After the closure of the cement plant in Hemmoor , the already small proportion of jobs in industry decreased even further. Many employees therefore commute to the port cities of Cuxhaven , Bremerhaven and Stade . The economic importance of tourism , especially in the beach areas of Otterndorf and the moor edge lakes near Bad Bederkesa , is increasing steadily.

history

middle Ages

The first written mention of Hadeln can be found at the end of the 10th century in the Saxon tribal legend in Widukind von Corvey . In other medieval chronicles the area "where the ocean washes Saxony" is called Haduloha, or Hatheleria. In the year 797, Charlemagne is said to have penetrated as far as Hadeln during a campaign against the Saxons and Frisians .

During the Viking invasions of the 9th to 11th centuries, Hadeln became part of the county of Lesum . In the 10th century the Udons established themselves as Counts of Heilangau , better known under the later name Grafschaft Stade . In 1063 the Udons sold their imperial immediacy to the Archdiocese of Bremen , but as its vassals continued to be the direct sovereigns. The development of the marshland according to Hollerrecht began around 1100 . With the increase in cultivated land and population, Hadeln was separated as a county from the county of Stade, which after the death of Count Rudolf II became an object of controversy between Archbishop Hartwig I of Bremen and Heinrich the Lion , who initially prevailed. After the quarrel between the Duke of Guelph and Friedrich Barbarossa and his deposition by the emperor, the emperor awarded the ducal dignity of eastern Saxony to the Ascanians . Archbishop of Bremen was Heinrich's partisan Hartwig II at the time . After the death of the son of Heinrich the Lion, Heinrich V , the county of Stade fell back to the archbishopric. In the meantime, Hadeln's self-government, made up of mayors and lay judges, had strengthened and instead accepted the Ascanian Duke Bernhard III in 1210/11 . as sovereigns.

After that, the land of Hadeln formed a largely independent peasant republic under the loose supremacy of the dukes of Saxony-Lauenburg . Every time there was a change of government, the Hadlers had their freedoms and privileges reaffirmed on the Warningsacker between Otterndorf and Altenbruch . In contrast to the neighboring country of Wursten, the Neuenwalde monastery and local aristocratic families were also able to acquire real estate in the country of Hadeln, but without gaining greater political influence on the country.

After the Ritzebüttel Castle fell from the Lappes to Hamburg in 1393 , the influence of the Hanseatic city increased in the Land of Hadeln with the establishment of the Ritzebüttel Office (today Cuxhaven ) in 1394. In Otterndorf , which was granted town charter in 1400 and where there is evidence of a Latin school early on, the people of Hamburg helped rebuild the castle, which had previously been destroyed by the Archbishop of Bremen, and from 1407 to 1481 the land was even in Hamburg lien. However, when the Hamburgers tried to monopolize the export of wheat, an uprising broke out in 1456. After the conflict ended in a draw, a permanent compromise solution was finally reached between the powers of the lordly bailiff or graves in Otterndorf and the rest of the self-government of the Hadler estates .

Peasant Wars and Reformation

When Duke Johann IV of Saxony-Lauenburg was finally able to free the Land Hadeln from the Hamburg pledges, he tried in 1484 to militarily enforce his old claims to the neighboring Bailiwick of Bederkesa and the Land of Wursten, but failed miserably. His successor, Duke Magnus , also suffered a heavy defeat against the warlike Wurster in 1499. After the first war of conquest of Bremen's Archbishop Christoph von Braunschweig-Lüneburg against the Land Wursten, the Hadlers also took part in the following uprising in 1518 and plundered the archbishop's office in Neuhaus . After the Wurster's final submission in 1524, the Hadler suffered from the reprisals of the archbishop's soldiers.

Around the same time, Protestantism was gaining a foothold in the country of Hadeln. Due to his toughness, ruthlessness and greed for money, not only Archbishop Christoph lost prestige and credibility, but also his provost von Hadeln-Wursten. After long tactics, the Hadlers, with the backing of Duke Magnus, gradually filled all the preaching posts that became vacant with Protestants from 1526 onwards, and in 1535 a separate Hadler church court (consistory) was set up in Otterndorf, which from then on had the right to patronage .

Duke Magnus' successor arranged for the Hadler Land Law to be written down in 1543 . After he had given up all claims to Bederkesa, Lehe and the Land Wursten in 1567, the Land Hadeln remained, apart from a short interlude between 1581 and 1585, a Lauenburg exclave, largely enclosed by archbishopric territory. In this way, the land of Hadeln had survived the phase of the military subjugation of the free marshes by the territorial rulers and was the only march able to maintain its constitution and many of its medieval privileges well into modern times.

The end of Ascanian rule

During the Thirty Years War , the country of Hadeln also suffered occupation by Danes, Imperialists and Swedes. In 1631 and 1632 the Hadler Landwehr participated on the side of the Swedes in the successful battles against the Catholic League . But even after the diocese of Bremen was secularized in 1648 and fell to Sweden, the country of Hadeln remained Lauenburg. Even during the following disputes between Denmark and Sweden for supremacy in Northern Europe in the First Northern War (1655-1660), the Hadler estates continued to rely on self-defense by the Landwehr.

With the death of Duke Julius Franz in 1689, the Ascanian house of Saxony-Lauenburg became extinct, and the duchy, together with the Land of Hadeln, came under direct imperial sovereignty and administration as a settled fiefdom. During the Second Northern War (1700–1721) the Hadlers supported the Swedish guard and the imperial guard against an attempt to conquer the Kurhannover, allied with Denmark, in 1715 . As a result, however, displeasure about the constant presence of foreign, Catholic soldiers in the country increased. When Emperor Charles VI. Hadeln handed over to Kurhannover in 1731, this was done with the approval of Hadler, because their self-government remained largely unaffected.

Hanoverian rule and "French times"

In the course of the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), the Hadler estates repeatedly opposed the recruitment of soldiers, citing their old privileges. It was not until shortly before the end of the war that a Hanover regiment forced a draft for the first time. During the coalition wars (1792–1797 and 1798–1802) against revolutionary France, however, recruiting could again be bypassed.

At the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars there were several occupations of the militarily weak Kurhannover from 1801 to 1805, alternately by Prussia, France and Prussia again. From 1806 the French set up the continental barrier against England, and in 1810 the entire German coastal area was finally declared part of the French Empire. The constitution of the country of Hadeln was repealed and there were extensive levies of soldiers and seamen.

After the expulsion of the French, the Electorate of Hanover was enlarged and made a kingdom in 1814. The restored Land Hadeln was given its own deputy seat in the Land estates assembly in Hanover, and even a second after the constitutional reform of 1819. In contrast to the conservative knighthood , the dominant representatives of free rural property, the Hadler deputies almost always took a liberal position. For this reason, the breach of the constitution in 1837 by Ernst August von Hannover aroused great outrage, especially among the Hadlers who believed in the treaty. The planned amalgamation of the state of Hadeln with the duchies of Bremen and Verden was then rejected by the Hadlers.

While general displeasure with the government in Hanover persisted after the March Revolution of 1848, many of Hadler's special regulations were eliminated through several legal reforms, and in 1855 there was another breach of the constitution. On the other hand, around the same time, the construction of the highway and the Hadler Canal laid the foundations for the further economic development of the country of Hadeln. During the German-Danish War of 1864, however, the military helplessness of the kingdom proved once again. When Hanover was finally annexed by Prussia in 1866, there was hardly any opposition from the population. In 1879 the Prussian judicial administration took away a large part of its remaining tasks from the Hadler parish courts. In 1884 the Hadler estates were dissolved, in 1885 the consistory (church court). With this, the last remnants of Hadler self-government came to an end, but some police functions of the Hadler parish courts still survived as competencies of the now established Hadeln district , which existed until the Prussian district reform of 1932.

Culture and sights

Peasant coat of arms on St. Jacobi Church in Lüdingworth, above the coat of arms of the sovereign Franz II of Saxony, Engern and Westphalia (Lauenburg) . Abbreviated inscription: V. [on] G. [ottes] G. [naden] F. [ranz] H. [educated] Z. [u] S. [achsen,] E. [ngern] U. [nd] W . [estfalen]

The wealthy marshland farmers were particularly characterized by their pronounced sense of independence. They had their own family coats of arms , ate separately from the servants, and often had private tutors for their children. Farmers with a university degree were not uncommon. Johann Heinrich Voss (1751–1826) translated the Odyssey into German during his time as principal at the Otterndorfer Latin School (1778–1782) .

The magnificently furnished churches, " Bauerndome ", are known for their sophisticated carvings and for the famous organs, for example by students of Arp Schnitger (1648–1719). Typical of the Elbmarschen are the large, today seldom thatched, red brick farmhouses with white half-timbering .

Typical half-timbered houses in North Leda

Since wheat also thrives in the marshland, unlike in most parts of northern Germany, cooked dumplings (" Klüten ") were also a staple food. Culinary specialties are the Hadler wedding soup,Brunklüten ” baked in fat at Christmas time, and “ Welfenpudding ”.

One of the most prominent Hadlers is the Arabian researcher Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815), a farmer's son from Lüdingworth . The first Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf (1893–1961), was born the son of a farmer in Neuenkirchen near Otterndorf. There was also Martin Kröncke born (1705-1774), who spent his first 22 years of life in the country Hadeln and later as Generalmünzdirektor the King of Prussia was one of the key financial officials of his time. The musicologist and music teacher Hermann Rauhe (* 1930) comes from Wanna .

See also

literature

Publications in the Niederdeutschen Heimatblatt

  • Heiko Völker: Saint Nicholas in the land of Hadeln. How Saint Nicholas got into the coat of arms of the district of Cuxhaven . In: Men from Morgenstern , Heimatbund an Elbe and Weser estuary e. V. (Ed.): Niederdeutsches Heimatblatt . No. 791 . Nordsee-Zeitung GmbH, Bremerhaven November 2015, p. 2–3 ( digitized version [PDF; 1.5 MB ; accessed on October 12, 2019]).
  • Giesela Tiedemann: No room in the hostel. The hostel system in the country of Hadeln . In: Men from Morgenstern , Heimatbund an Elbe and Weser estuary e. V. (Ed.): Niederdeutsches Heimatblatt . No. 808 . Nordsee-Zeitung GmbH, Bremerhaven April 2017, p. 2 ( digitized version [PDF; 5.9 MB ; accessed on July 17, 2019]).
  • Heiko Völker: The Christmas flood of 1717 and its consequences in the land of Hadeln. "My heart, swimming in tears, won't let me write any more" . In: Men from Morgenstern, Heimatbund an Elbe and Weser estuary e. V. (Ed.): Niederdeutsches Heimatblatt . No. 816 . Nordsee-Zeitung GmbH, Bremerhaven December 2017, p. 2–3 ( digital version [PDF; 10.4 MB ; accessed on July 5, 2019]).
  • Heiko Völker: Troubled times for the population. End of war and November Revolution in the country of Hadeln . In: Men from Morgenstern, Heimatbund an Elbe and Weser estuary e. V. (Ed.): Niederdeutsches Heimatblatt . No. 828 . Nordsee-Zeitung GmbH, Bremerhaven December 2018, p. 1–2 ( digitized version [PDF; 3.1 MB ; accessed on July 4, 2019]).

Web links

Commons : Samtgemeinde Land Hadeln  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Hans-Ulrich Hucker: The problem of rule and freedom in the regional communities of the Middle Ages in the Lower Weser area. (Dissertation, Münster 1978), available a. a. in the State Archives Bremen (No. 538 U) and in the library of the men from the morning star .
  2. Lower Saxony State Chancellery (Ed.): Ordinance on the merger of the combined communities of Hadeln and Sietland . Lower Saxony Law and Ordinance Gazette (Nds. GVBl.). No. 10/2010 . Hanover April 7, 2010, p. 162 ( digitized version ( memento from March 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF; 141 kB ; accessed on October 10, 2019] p. 2).