Witzeeze

coat of arms	Germany map
	Coordinates: 53 ° 27 '  N , 10 ° 37'  E
Basic data
State :	Schleswig-Holstein
Circle :	Duchy of Lauenburg
Office :	Books
Height :	16 m above sea level NHN
Area :	10.46 km 2
Residents:	905 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	87 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	21514
Area code :	04155
License plate :	RZ
Community key :	01 0 53 132
Office administration address:	Amtsplatz 1 21514 Büchen
Website :	www.witzeeze.de
Mayor :	Dennis Gabriel ( CDU )
Location of the municipality of Witzeeze in the Duchy of Lauenburg

Witzeeze is a municipality in the Duchy of Lauenburg district in Schleswig-Holstein on the Elbe-Lübeck Canal . At the lake lies in the municipality.

history

Beginnings

The village originally arose in the former Saxon-Slavic border area on the Delvenau , about 500 meters further east from today's village center. Here the Limes Saxoniae separated the settlement area of ​​the Holsten from that of the Abodritic sub-tribe of the Polabians . Archaeological finds testify to a Slavic settlement. After the establishment of the County of Ratzeburg in 1143, the village was first mentioned in the Ratzeburg tithe register from 1230 , at that time still as Wutsetse . The name is of Slavic origin and means “the knocked down”, “the mess” and thus points to the construction of a barrier by cutting trees one to two meters high and then planting climbing thorns in order to be able to move into the German-Slavic border area to create an impenetrable obstacle.

According to the entry in the Ratzeburg tithe register, the village had 20 full-time farmers and was therefore comparatively large by medieval standards. The convenient location on a branch line of the Alte Salzstrasse could have been one of the reasons for the size of the place. The importance of this trade route grew with the construction of the Delvenau-Stecknitz Canal between 1391 and 1398. In 1608 the village came from the parish of Lütau to the parish of Pötrau .

The Thirty Years War and its Consequences

The Thirty Years War was a time of destruction for Witzeeze. Located directly on two important arteries, the army marched through the village. In 1630 it was completely destroyed by the withdrawing troops of Johann T'Serclaes von Tilly and after the reconstruction in 1636 it was devastated again by the Swedes. In the period that followed, Witzeeze remained a rather smaller village.

At the end of the Second World War

Germany lost World War II in 1945 and it was gradually occupied. In the last days of the war, the Allied troops moved further and further north. Preparations for the expected fighting began in April in the Duchy of Lauenburg. Positions, foxholes, trenches and anti-tank traps equipped with mines were established. In addition, various bridges were prepared for blasting. After the British, the April 19, Lauenburg opposite side of the river at Hohnstorf reached, taught German in the farming village Witzeeze a general command, which should continue to build the improvised Elbverteidigung. There were only thrown together remnants of various units and young people with insufficient military training, whose equipment was also inadequate. There were hardly any heavy weapons left.

On April 29, 1945, the British troops deployed from Artlenburg to the opposite bank of the Elbe near Schnakenbek . There they set up a bridgehead . Then the city of Lauenburg was occupied. In the early hours of May 1st, Witzeeze was also captured by British troops. The British then pushed further north, to Büchen , which, after more violent fighting, was captured on the same day. Lübeck could then be occupied on May 2nd . On the same day, the executive government of the Reich fled from the Eutin - Plön area, 70 kilometers further north, from the approaching British troops to Flensburg - Mürwik . The following day, the British soldiers marched into Hamburg, not far to the west . The day after, all German troops in northwest Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark were finally capitulated .

Since the post-war period

With the influx of refugees at the end of the war, the population of the small farming village rose to 811 (see Refugees in Schleswig-Holstein after the Second World War ). Today the place Witzeeze is mainly a residential community, whose inhabitants commute to Hamburg and the surrounding cities.

In 2012 Witzeeze won the state competition “Our village has a future” and represented Schleswig-Holstein in the 2013 national competition.

coat of arms

Blazon : "In gold with a black border over a blue wavy bar, a black old freight wagon seen from the rear, accompanied on both sides by an upright green oak leaf."

Attractions

The list of cultural monuments in Witzeeze includes the cultural monuments entered in the list of monuments of Schleswig-Holstein.

• The historic Dückerschleuse of the former Stecknitz Canal as a cultural monument
• The lock on the Elbe-Lübeck Canal from 1900, which is operated only with hydropower according to the Hotopp principle

Others

In 1986 ZDF filmed the three-part Jokehnen in Witzeeze - or how long do you travel from East Prussia to Germany?

Web links

Commons : Witzeeze  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Witzeeze parish

Individual evidence

1. ↑ North Statistics Office - Population of the municipalities in Schleswig-Holstein 4th quarter 2019 (XLSX file) (update based on the 2011 census) ( help on this ).
2. ↑ Schleswig-Holstein topography. Vol. 10: Timmaspe - Ziethen . 1st edition Flying-Kiwi-Verl. Junge, Flensburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-926055-92-7 , p. 344 ( dnb.de [accessed on August 9, 2020]).
3. ^ Matthias Hardt: Lines and seams, zones and spaces on the eastern border of the empire in the early and high Middle Ages. In: Walter Pohl / Helmut Reimitz (ed.): Limit and difference in the early Middle Ages. Austrian Academy of Sciences, phil.-hist. Kl. Memoranda 287. Research on the history of the Middle Ages 1. Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-7001-2896-7 , p. 50 ff.
4. ^ Lübecker Nachrichten : Last fighting in spring 1945 , from: April 14, 2015; accessed on: May 30, 2018
5. ^ Lübecker Nachrichten : Last fighting in spring 1945 , from: April 14, 2015; accessed on: May 30, 2018
6. ↑ Kröppelshagen-Fahrendorf village newspaper. End of the war 70 years ago , p. 10, from: Spring 2015; accessed on: May 30, 2018
7. ^ Lübecker Nachrichten : Last fighting in spring 1945 , from: April 14, 2015; accessed on: May 30, 2018
8. ^ Bergedorfer Zeitung : Series: 65 years ago. When the war came to Lauenburg on: April 28, 2010
9. ↑ Kröppelshagen-Fahrendorf village newspaper. End of the war 70 years ago , p. 10, from: Spring 2015; accessed on: May 30, 2018
10. ↑ Schleswig-Holstein's municipal coat of arms