The beginning of Hammaburg

The history Hamburg begins with the construction of the castle of Hammaburg at the beginning of the 8th century in the area between the river Elbe and the lake Alsteren. The castle was ordered built in the year 808 by Emperor Karl the Great in defense of Vikings from the north and slaves from the east.

The castle was destroyed and rebuilt many times over the following centuries, including the ravaged Vikings under the Danish King Erik area and destroyed in 845 the city, which at that time had about 500 inhabitants. Again in 880 Hammaburg was ravaged; this time by both Danes and slaves.

 

Ecclesiastical Hamburg

In 831,  Hammaburg became the home of Ansgar, the Apostle of the North, who was ordained an archbishop. In 847, the Archdiocese’s seat was merged with Bremen, and it was from here that he went to Scandinavia and Christianized the Vikings; in Denmark immediately to the north.

With the Archbishop’s seat in 831, Hamburg also gained a cathedral; Saint Mary’s. Here the pope Benedict V was not approved by the emperor in 966. The church ended up being demolished in the years 1804-1807, and the only remembrance today is the street name Domstraße, which occupies the location of the historic church.

 

Trade and town rights

With increasing trade, however, Hamburg’s role quickly shifted from defense and church bastion to a market town, and with important Lübeck’s founding on the Baltic, Hamburg became the natural port with access to the North Sea.

In 1189, Hamburg was officially modeled on city rights under Lübeck, thereby establishing it as a city. The initiative came from a number of merchants, and shortly afterwards Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa gave Hamburg a number of privileges as a sanctuary in the empire, including duty and trade rights. The privileges were granted following Hamburg’s support for the emperor’s crusade.

 

The Danish time

Duke Valdemar, the later Danish king Valdemar II, overcame Count Adolf of Rendsburg, and this later escaped from prison by surrendering all land north of the Elbe. The German-Roman emperor demanded the land in 1214, and Hamburg was under Danish control.

The Danish era lasted only until 1227, when the battle of Bornhøved in Holsten on July 22 became decisive for Holsten, Mecklenburg and Pomerania to switch to German counts from the Danish crown. Before then, the Danish government had gathered Hamburg as a city under a set of laws and governed from one place.

 

New development from the 13th century

From 1230 new, larger defenses were established around Hamburg, which, like many other cities in the Middle Ages, had city walls and gates in a ring around it. These plants are still visible today in Hamburg’s cityscape, such as the park Planten un Blomen, which has just been built on the old fortress areas.

In 1264, the city senate passed a law that imposed severe penalties for practicing violence against, killing or eating swans. This somewhat special law was due to a belief that Hamburg would remain a sanctuary as long as there were swans in the Alster. A number of other laws regulated various other more or less curious conditions in the thriving city.

 

Hamburg in the Hanseatic League

In 1241, over the following centuries, the successful Hanseatic League was established through two agreements between Hamburg and Lübeck. One agreement meant that the cities would defend their freedom and rights together, while the other meant securing the road between the two cities.

With these agreements, the Hanseatic League’s cities, and thus Hamburg’s importance and economy grew. The important trade was invested in, and the paving of the central east-west street of the city was just the third in Northern Europe to receive this paving; and it was named Steinstraße, which you can still find in the city center.

Hamburg, in 1266, entered into an agreement with the English King Henry III, which allowed the city’s merchants to set up a Hanseatic office in London, thereby manifesting the city’s overseas perspectives.

The field was introduced as currency in 1377 by the Vendish Coin League, founded by the cities of Hamburg, Lübeck, Lüneburg, Rostock and Wismar.

By this time Hamburg had grown to 14,000 inhabitants and was thus the third largest city in the Hanseatic League. Only Cologne and Lübeck were larger.

 

Reforms and progress

In 1410 Hamburg got its first constitution, and with the wave of reform in the 16th century a Protestant state church was formed in Hamburg. The city senate had asked Martin Luther to send his colleague Johannes Bugenhagen, who established the new church.

Over the centuries, Hamburg’s economic life flourished, and as the Hanseatic League’s power and dominance diminished, Hamburg continued to grow steadily, establishing its own economic infrastructure. The city’s stock exchange opened in 1558 and Hamburg Bank in 1619.

A number of Dutch merchants also flocked to the city after a period of religious persecution in their home country – it further substantiated Hamburg’s position. The city also established its own military to protect the city’s merchant fleet.

At the end of the 17th century and until 1768 there was fierce competition between Hamburg and the Danish Altona for trade and shipping. The conflict ended with a political agreement in 1768, after which Hamburg gained new growth potential.

 

The Napoleonic period

Napoleon incorporated Hamburg in France in 1810, and it had a temporary impact on development. The city was exposed to a mainland barrier that made much of the trade difficult, partly taken over by the neighboring town of Altona (which is now part of Hamburg). It belonged to the Danish Empire and was thus subject to other conditions.

After Napoleon’s fall in 1815, Hamburg became part of the new German federation, and in 1819 the city was established as its own state, “The Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg”. Soon after, the city regained its commercial base and thus its thriving economy, a situation that was further improved with all the new possible trade routes and partners in Africa, America and Asia.

 

The Great City Fire

On May 4, 1842, marked itself significantly in the history of Hamburg. In the street Deichstraße started a fire that quickly spread to large parts of the city. The fire was first extinguished on May 8, and it caused a setback for Hamburg. The great fire destroyed up to a third of the city; among others, the town hall and most of the city’s large churches went up in smoke.

Although Hamburg was quickly rebuilt, it was a costly affair, but here too the city rebuilt despite the fact that tens of thousands had become homeless and many institutions and churches needed to be rebuilt.

 

19th Century Development

In the latter half of the 19th century, Hamburg’s growth boomed. The population reached over 800,000 and had thus quadrupled in a few decades. It was not least the large and rapidly growing traffic across the Atlantic that made Hamburg one of Europe’s largest port cities with all that belonged to it.

The port was continuously expanded and a new part was put into service. Speicherstadt, which today is an exciting new and alternative activity and residential district, grew with many large warehouses and trading companies for the constantly increasing international sea trade. The city was growing, and industrialization was also characterized by, for example, a number of shipyards. The city was Germany’s second largest after the capital Berlin.

 

Hamburg in the 1900s

Hamburg had, in the early centuries of growth, bought land by the Elbe in order to expand its trading capacity. In 1938, the city itself was expanded by including not least Altona and Harburg in Hamburg itself.

The 20th century was also marked by the two world wars, where Hamburg, with its many large yards and high industrial production, was the target of allied bombings. Both the bombs themselves and the subsequent fires destroyed much of the city center. The vast port areas were almost completely destroyed, as did some of the city’s extensive industrial facilities.

The subsequent rebuilding of Hamburg went strongly in the following years, and it created new economic growth for the city, which happened to be large parts of West Germany.

 

Hamburg today

Today, Hamburg remains its own federal state in the Republic as “The Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg”. Hamburg’s inhabitants are wealthy, and the city’s port is the dominant one in Germany and among Europe’s largest. The city is rich in educational places and the cultural scene is very active. The population is very international and this makes the city one of Germany’s windows to the world.

Major development projects along the harbor put new Hamburg on the world map, where the entire warehouse district Speicherstadt, the new development HafenCity and the exodus Museum BallinStadt lead to tourists and citizens favor new experiences. The crown of the work in the middle of the Elbe of the city’s new landmark, Elbphilharmonie, which rises on top of a now former warehouse.