Wendland

Approximate location

The Wendland (also Hannoversches Wendland ) is a landscape in eastern Lower Saxony that is largely congruent with today's Lüchow-Dannenberg district .

Surname

In the north, the Wendland is bordered by the Elbe floodplain

Wendland is not a traditional area name. The term only came up around 1700, when a pastor from Wustrow reported on the language, habits, customs and manners of the Polish inhabitants of this region. He saw the residents in the Dannenberg authorities as Wenden and then named the area as Wendland. Claims that the Wendland is traditionally restricted to the immediate vicinity of the district town of Lüchow (Wendland) cannot be historically proven. Rather, the settlement area of the eponymous Wends once extended beyond today's Lüchow-Dannenberg district to other parts of Lower Saxony and parts of the federal states of Brandenburg , Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt . Since the area defined here only encompasses the Wendish territories that were then Hanoverian , today Lower Saxony, the more apt designation Hannoversches Wendland came about . The designation gained popularity from the 1970s, especially in the context of the anti-nuclear protests and the related establishment of the " Republic of Free Wendland ".

landscape

In the west, the partly wooded Drawehn mountain range characterizes the Hannoversche Wendland; View from the Hohe Mechtin

The Lüchower Landgraben and Grenzgrabenniederung separates the Wendland in the south from the Altmark; View over the "Flötgraben" to the Lemgow

Geographically, the western Wendland represents the eastern edge of the Lüneburg Heath , which was shaped during the Saale Ice Age , and is partly part of the Ostheide . The landscape here is determined by the Drawehn ridge , which is also known as the East Hanoverian gravel terminal moraine . It is a sandy geest that was afforested with pine trees. With infertile soils and water poverty as a result of the permeable soil, it has always been unsettled in its history. Most of the Hanoverian Wendland lies in the glacial valley of the Elbe . A distinction is made between the actual Elbe valley floodplain in the north and the Lüchower lowland. The latter is a low terrace, which is criss-crossed by numerous running waters - the largest being the Jeetzel -, canals and ditches. Heights are formed by small, island-like ground moraines such as Öring, Lemgow, Langendorfer Geestinsel and Höhbeck . In the east there is the Gartower Forest on a large drifting sand plain (see also: Wendland and Altmark ).

Culture and history

The Wendland is significantly shaped by the Polish culture. In the Middle Ages, in remnants up to the early modern period, the Wendland was inhabited by Slavs , who were referred to as Wends in the entire German-speaking area . Numerous place names of Slavic origin have survived. The Slavic language of the Wendlanders, Drawenopolabic , became extinct in 1756. Until then, the Wendland was the westernmost point of the Slavic language area. The numerous round villages are also typical of the Wendland .

Until the fall of 1989/90, the Wendland, which stretched sack-like into the GDR area, was the border area . Since the end of the 1970s it has become known nationwide through the protests against the Gorleben nuclear waste storage facility and because of the "proclamation" of the Free Wendland Republic in 1980.

Since 1989, the cultural country party has taken place annually in Wendland between Ascension and Whitsun as one of the most extensive cultural events in Germany.

A description of the religious history of the region can be found under church district Lüchow-Dannenberg .

Forms of settlement

View into the Rundling Satemin , three kilometers west of Lüchow

In the Hanoverian Wendland, the rural settlement type of the Rundling is widespread and preserved. Almost all Rundlinge still have place names of Slavic origin today. Circular villages were once, especially in the Middle Ages, widespread in Germany and Europe, but only in Wendland did the ground plan and buildings develop into the village shape known today as the Rundling. The reason for the specific shape of the villages is still the subject of research.

In more than 100 villages, the round shape can still be seen in the townscape today. But also in the neighboring Altmark as well as in the eastern parts of the districts of Lüneburg and Uelzen a considerable number of rounds has been preserved. In contrast to those of the Hanoverian Wendland, these are often more strongly shaped. The reason given for the unusually good state of preservation of the Rundlinge in the Hanoverian Wendland is usually the relatively remote location and the region's low economic prosperity. However, socio-cultural reasons also seem to have played an important role.

Application for the proposal list (tentative list) as a World Heritage site

After a selection process started in 2011, the Rundlingsdörfer in the Hanoverian Wendland were nominated in 2012 by the state of Lower Saxony as a cultural landscape for the German tentative list for future UNESCO World Heritage applications, as announced by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture on June 18, 2012. In 2014, the Standing Conference decided that the Rundlingsdörfer were not among the 10 selected objects of the 32 applications. They were nominated again in the following cycle for the selection of new World Heritage sites in the years 2017–2019, but the initiative failed again.

The candidacy of 19 selected Rundling villages was justified by the fact that they represent a selection of distinctive high-medieval colonization settlements in the Lüchow-Dannenberg district. The uniqueness of the round villages press by the interaction of a striking local ground plan, a large density of gable permanently aligned on the central square Low German hall worldwide from and a region-specific expression this house type. The state of Lower Saxony hoped for a chance of success in the candidacy because the Rundlingsdörfer belong to the underrepresented categories of cultural landscapes and rural architecture within the world heritage.

literature

Wendland Lexicon . Ed .: Wolfgang Jürries and Berndt Wachter , Köhring, Lüchow 2008, Vol. 1: A – K, 2nd edition, 424 pp., Ill., Kt, ISBN 978-3-926322-28-9 ; Vol. 2: L-Z., 640 S., Ill., Graph. Darst., Kt., ISBN 978-3-926322-45-6
Ingeborg Harms: The Wendland. in: German Landscapes. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2003. ISBN 3-10-070404-5
A. Danneberg, T. Danneberg, B. Eisermann, A. Krüger, B. Sturm: 750 years Trebel, 1251–2001. Köhring, Lüchow 2001.
Burghard Kulow: Back then in Wendland. edition limosa, Clenze 2008. ISBN 978-3-86037-345-3
Herbert Röhrig : Rescue of Rundlingen in the Hanoverian Wendland , with the supplement by Ernst Preising: The landscape of the Wendland and its peculiarities , from: "Lower Saxony". Magazine for home and culture . 1969, issue 4, Hildesheim: Lax, 1969