History of Saxony-Anhalt

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The history of Saxony-Anhalt in the narrower sense begins in 1947 after the state of Prussia was dissolved . The most important predecessors of the State of Saxony-Anhalt were the Prussian Province of Saxony and the Free State of Anhalt .

history

Previous territories

The Prussian province of Saxony and the Duchy of Anhalt (later the Free State of Anhalt ) within their borders until 1945

In the middle of today's territory of Saxony-Anhalt was the Archbishopric of Magdeburg , which was promised to the Elector of Saxony in the Peace of Prague in 1635 and which had been secularized in the course of the Reformation . This "secular" Duchy of Magdeburg and the neighboring bishopric of Halberstadt came to the Kurhaus Brandenburg in 1680 after the death of the last administrator in accordance with the provisions of the Peace of Westphalia , which rounded off its holdings in the Altmark and extended them to the lower Saale (Halle) has been. After the Wars of Freedom , Prussia was able to take possession of more than half of the Kingdom of Saxony, namely the areas of the former Kurkreis , the Thuringian District and the Neustädter Kreis , the Merseburg and Naumburg-Zeitz Monasteries, as well as the counties of Mansfeld, Barby and Wernigerode, the Principality of Querfurt and the Albertine, formerly Electoral Saxon part of the county of Henneberg . With the reorganization of the now much larger state, these new acquisitions and the areas that had been Prussian since 1802 (Erfurt, the Eichsfeld, the former imperial cities of Mühlhausen and Nordhausen) were combined in a province of Saxony . The King of Prussia called himself from then on in his “Great Title” both “Duke of Saxony” and “of Magdeburg” as well as “Landgrave of Thuringia”. The province of Saxony therefore had the rank of duchy. The "old and new Prussian" areas were separated by the three duchies of Anhalt, which were in turn divided up many times. When the administrative districts were set up, they were initially not named after the main towns, but instead there were the districts of the governments of Thuringia (Erfurt), Saxony (Merseburg) and Lower Saxony (Magdeburg).

In July 1944 the province of Saxony was dissolved. The province of Magdeburg and the province of Halle- Merseburg emerged from the administrative districts of Magdeburg and Merseburg , while the administrative district of Erfurt was subordinate to the Reich Governor for Thuringia .

Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt

The borders of the GDR state Saxony-Anhalt from 1947 to 1952 can be seen in red, the external borders of the GDR districts Halle and Magdeburg in pink and the current borders of Saxony-Anhalt in black. The state of Saxony is marked in yellow, the state of Anhalt in green.

This area was occupied by both US and Soviet troops at the end of World War II . The Americans installed Erhard Hübener , who later became Prime Minister, as governor in May . However, the US troops withdrew from Yalta at the end of June 1945 due to the allied agreements . In July 1945, the two provinces, as well as the Free State of Anhalt (around Dessau), the Braunschweig enclave of Calvörde and the eastern part of the district of Blankenburg, as well as the Thuringian enclave of Allstedt, were united by the Soviet military administration (SMAD) to form the new province of Saxony and Hübener was appointed provincial president . The name of the province was changed in Saxony-Anhalt on the day of the first free state election on October 20, 1946. The election of the state parliament produced a Christian Democratic-liberal majority, an isolated case in the Soviet occupation zone and the all-party government, Cabinet Hubener II, was formed. When the first state constitution came into force on January 10, 1947 , the province was legally considered a state by Soviet order. On February 25, Prussia, to which the area previously belonged, was also dissolved. Halle became the state capital because Magdeburg was unable to fulfill its function as the capital at that time due to the severe war damage. The land had a size of 24,576 square kilometers.

In the following months there were repeated minor conflicts between Hübener and the military administration. The prime minister defied the Soviets against the participation of the state leaders from the Soviet occupation zone in the Munich prime ministerial conference with a threat of resignation. In 1948 there was a serious crisis when several ministers of the state government were arrested. Erhard Hübener initially resigned as Minister of Justice to protest against this action by the military administration and against the expropriation of large farmers. In January 1949 he also announced his resignation as Prime Minister at the end of the electoral term, officially for reasons of age.

Temporary dissolution

In 1952, as part of the administrative reform in the GDR, the state was de facto dissolved (corresponding state parliament decision on June 23, de jure it continued to exist for a few years) and largely divided into the two districts of Halle and Magdeburg . The eastern districts of Herzberg and Liebenwerda came to the Cottbus district , parts of the Torgau district and the Delitzsch district came to the Leipzig district . During this process, border adjustments took place in which individual cities and municipalities were incorporated into or outsourced to the neighboring districts, as a result of which the district boundaries shifted compared to the former state borders.

Re-establishment

On October 3, 1990, with German reunification, the state of Saxony-Anhalt was re-established with the former district territories of Halle and Magdeburg. The residents of the Artern district (Halle district) voted for Thuringia in a public survey in the summer of 1990 , and in the Jessen district (Cottbus district) they voted for Saxony-Anhalt. Magdeburg became the state capital. A state parliament was elected for the first time on October 14th .

1990s until today

Reinhard Höppner , Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt from 1994 to 2002

The beginning of the 1990s was marked by frequent changes of state governments and political affairs. As a result, the initially ruling CDU lost the second state elections after reunification and a state government of the SPD and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen ( Magdeburg model ) was tolerated by the PDS . Prime Minister Reinhard Höppner ruled the country for two legislative periods in a time of great economic and labor market restructuring, after the Greens left a single SPD government tolerated by the PDS. Saxony-Anhalt had the highest unemployment rate of all federal states. In the third electoral term since reunification, the DVU succeeded in entering the state parliament. However, this faction soon broke up due to internal disputes and was not re-elected to the state parliament in 2002. In 1994 there was a major district reform in Saxony-Anhalt (reduction of the number of districts from 37 to 21). The ongoing economic crisis led to another change of government in the 2002 elections. Since then, Saxony-Anhalt has been ruled by a CDU / FDP government and later by a CDU / SPD government under Wolfgang Böhmer .

Since the district reform of Saxony-Anhalt in 2007 , the state has consisted of three independent cities and eleven districts.

Prime Minister of the State of Saxony-Anhalt

Surname Political party Taking office Term expires
SBZ and GDR
Erhard Hubener LDPD December 3, 1946 August 13, 1949
Werner Bruschke SED August 13, 1949 July 23, 1952
The state of Saxony-Anhalt was dissolved between 1952 and 1990.
since 1990
Gerd Gies CDU October 28, 1990 4th July 1991
Werner Münch CDU 4th July 1991 November 28, 1993
Christoph Bergner CDU 2nd December 1993 July 21, 1994
Reinhard Höppner SPD July 21, 1994 May 16, 2002
Wolfgang Böhmer CDU May 16, 2002 April 19, 2011
Pure Haseloff CDU April 19, 2011 in office

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Geographical location, description of the traffic, inhabitants, area. (No longer available online.) City of Artern, archived from the original on September 23, 2015 ; accessed on December 22, 2014 .
  2. ^ Wittenberg district: Historical: to this day ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )