#866 Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany

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When I was a child, my parents took me to see Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria. I thought it was fantastic and pretty and impressive, but I think I took it for granted that such castles are a normal thing to exist, not connecting the fantastical nature of fairy tales with the unlikelihood of reality. In truth, Disney modeled its Disneyland castle on this one, and not the other way around, and the castle has been open to the public since 1886 when its owner died.

Kept isolated by a smart drawbridge over a deep channel (although reachable by road via another path), it was the epitomy of all the stories -- imagination coming true. There was a fabulous museum with all the furniture and the stories of the family that built it. The reality was a unique imagination of a man - Ludwig II, who not only paid for it without using state funds and hired many local workers to build it, but managed to imagine the magnificent place itself -- a very well-fitted hideaway for a reclusive king -- picturesquely located, of course. 

Beautifully decorated both inside an out in a romanesque style, it is the perfect picture postcard image.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle

Monastic Island of Reichenau Germany

The remains of the Reichenau foundation bear outstanding witness to the religious and cultural role of a great Benedictine monastery in the early middle Ages. The Monastery of Reichenau was a highly significant artistic centre of great significance to the history of art in Europe in the 10th and 11th centuries, as is superbly illustrated by its monumental wall paintings and its illuminations. The churches retain remarkable elements of several stages of construction and thus offer outstanding examples of monastic architecture in Central Europe from the 9th to the 11th centuries.

Continent: Europe

Country: Germany

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (III)(IV) (VI)

Date of Inscription: 2000

The History of the Island of Reichenau

For over 1,000 years the history of the island of Reichenau, which lies in the northern reaches of Lake Constance, was closely intertwined with that of the monastery. The first Abbot, Pirmin, was given the task of building a monastery in honour of the Virgin Mary and Saints Peter and Paul. He oversaw the building of the first abbey, a wooden building, at Mittelzell on the northern shore of the island, as well as a three-winged cloister against the north side of the church. The whole building was gradually rebuilt in stone by 746. The monastery received generous endowments of land, and the island, an integral part of the abbey lands, was given over to agriculture. The monastery became a famous centre for teaching and creativity in literature, science, and the arts. The church was consecrated in 1048, in the presence of Emperor Henry III.

At the western end of the island of Reichenau, Egino, a former Bishop of Verona, built the first church of St Peter at Niederzell, consecrated in 799. The church was twice rebuilt and slightly altered in the 9th-10th centuries. The monastery buildings lay to the north, near the lake. In the late 11th and early 12th centuries the church was rebuilt and its two east towers were completed in the 15th century. Now dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, it became a parish church and was decorated in Rococo style in the 18th century. Abbot Heito III built the church of St George at Oberzell in the eastern part of the island in honour of the relic of the saint's head, which he brought back from a voyage to Rome in 896, the year of the church's consecration

Monastic Island of Reichenau Germany

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The former abbey of St Mary at Mittelzell features three aisles and opposed transepts. It retains its rectangular west tower, flanked by narrow porches and the broad west transept dating from the mid-11th century. Beneath this high tower lies the apse, in front of which stands the altar. The 12th-century nave with its wooden roof opens out into the east transept whose crossing is defined by four identical broad arches and the liturgical choir of the church dedicated in 816, the oldest parts of the church. The Flamboyant Gothic choir is flanked by a sacristy and treasury. The monastery built in the 17th century on the southern side of the church now houses the town hall and the presbytery.

The church of St Peter and St Paul at Niederzell is a Romanesque structure of three aisles culminating at the eastern end in three hemispherical apses concealed within a central block and flanked by two impressive bell towers. The central apse retains fine wall paintings from 1104-34 laid out in three rows. A figure of Christ in Majesty in a mandorla is surrounded by symbols of the Evangelists, the patron saints of the church, and cherubim. Above stands a row of Apostles and another of the Prophets. Other fragments of 12th-century wall paintings survive, particularly in the north chapel where they represent the Passion Cycle.

In the church of St George at Oberzell a two-storey porch and a western apse dating from the early Romanesque period lead into the Carolingian church consisting of three aisles and a west choir of complex structure topped by a tower. The walls of the nave are decorated with remarkable early medieval wall paintings depicting the miracles of Christ. Each of the scenes is framed by decorative bands while painted busts feature between the arches of the arcade and figures of the Apostles between the windows. The chapel of St Michael on the first floor of the porch is also decorated with wall paintings depicting the Last Supper.

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Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen Germany

Consolidation of the mining claim area was completed in December 1847: the area concerned covered 13.2km2. At that time it was the northernmost mine in the region. It belongs to the Gelsenkirchen anticline, in which the coal seams, averaging 1.17m thick, are deeply stratified. Mining began in the mid-19th century at a depth of c 120m and finished at the fourteenth level (1200m). By the end of mining the underground roadways extended over 120km; they were accessed by twelve shafts, opened up progressively between 1847 and 1932. When Zollverein XII was opened, the earlier shafts were used solely for the movement of men and supplies; all the extracted coal was handled by the new shaft until the mine closed in 1986. The methods of mining evolved as technology developed from hand picks to mechanized coal cutting.t

Continent: Europe

Country: Germany

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (II)(III)

Date of Inscription: 2001

Zollverein Coal Mine

The coals being extracted at Zollverein were especially suitable for coking. Consequently, the first stack-type cokeovens were built there in 1857. The coking plant expanded considerably over the decades that followed. However, when the Zollverein mine was taken over by the steel company, Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG, in 1926, a new coking plant (the Nordstern plant) was built to process all the coal from its pits in the region. Coke production returned to Zollverein in the late 1950s, when the then holding company for the mines in the region, Gelsenkirchen Bergwerks AG, decided to build a new coking plant to supplement the Nordstern plant. It began production in 1961 from eight batteries, each of 24 ovens, producing 8600t per day; there were also facilities for processing by-products such as tar, sulphuric acid, benzene, ammonium compounds, and gas. This plant closed down in 1993 because of the fall in the demand for coke.

The construction of the stretch of the Cologne-Minden railway between Oberhausen and Hamm in 1847 was decisive for the location of the early Zollverein shafts, which were sunk 500m from the new line so as to facilitate transport of the coal and coke produced. The first passenger station did not open until forty years later. There were also links with the Emscher Valley line, also opened in 1847, which cut the north-western corner of the Zollverein concession. There followed a series of internal link lines during the next eighty years. It was connected with that of the neighbouring Bonifacius mine after Zollverein was taken over by Vereinigte Stahlwerke in 1926.

Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen Germany

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Coal mining produces enormous quantities of waste material, which is deposited in the characteristic pit heaps. The earliest of these, to the east of shaft 1/2, was planted with trees in 1895 and used as a recreational area for the mine officials. A second grew to the west of shaft 1/2 from that time, and in 1932 was used for pond management, to dry out the boiler-ash and coal slurries from Zollverein XII. A heap begun in 1880 was partially cleared in 1958 to provide land for miners' housing. Other heaps were used for filling areas where coal had been removed from a steeply dipping seam and on an abandoned airfield.

Intensive mining resulted in a number of subsidences, in some places as deep as 25m. This necessitated clearance of irretrievably damaged housing and other facilities. Subsidence exacerbated the water problems in the so-called Emscher Zone, where mining adversely affected the gravitational flow and created large areas of swamp. Local industries and municipalities created the Emscher Association, which carried out a number of projects using pumping stations and creating polders.

The workforce steadily increased to c 5000 by the end of the 19th century. During the 20th century it fluctuated between 5000 and 8000. Because there were no alternative property developers when work began in 1847, Zollverein began to construct housing for its workers. Building projects were integrated with the mine operating programmes.

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Large building sites were purchased and by 1860 146 flats were ready for occupancy; at that time the mine employed 710 workers. This "Hegemannshof Colony" expanded steadily (by the turn of the century it covered around 90ha), and subsequently two more colonies, "Ottekampshof" and "Beisen," were added. By World War I the property owned by the mine had grown to over 720ha. However, this was by no means adequate for a workforce that numbered some 5000 at that time. Between the two World Wars new workers' housing developed, notably the housing estate built by the Trust Agency for Miners' Housing. In the late 1920s the mine could provide each of its salaried employees and officials with an apartment, but only some 3000 were available for the 8000 workers.

After World War II new estates consisting of apartment blocks were built by the housing association established by Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG, such as the Kaldekirche, Westerbruch, and Kapitlacker estates from the 1950s. The Glückauf estate was built by the miners themselves working in collaboration. The houses were owned by private individuals. Two Pestalozzi villages were also built for apprentices. In 1958 there were 7061 dwellings available for a workforce of 8000.

From the start the mine provided consumer services for its employees, selling food and manufactured goods at low prices. They began on a "cooperative" basis, profits being returned to consumers in the form of an annual dividend. This scheme, with its six outlets, was taken over as a company enterprise by Vereinigte Stahlwerke. The system gradually declined after World War II because of competition from commercial stores, and the remaining outlets were bought out in the 1970s.

From the mid-1920s the mine provided welfare services for its employees. The first welfare centre was set up in 1928 (it was rehoused in 1938) and the second in 1934. A large modern welfare centre designed by Fritz Schupp was built in 1953. However, Zollverein closed its welfare facilities in the early 1960s, in line with the current trend in the Ruhr.

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Classical Weimar Germany

The high artistic quality of the public and private buildings and parks in and around the town testify to the remarkable cultural flowering of the Weimar classical period. Enlightened ducal patronage attracted many of the leading writers and thinkers in Germany, such as Goethe, Schiller and Herder, to Weimar in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, making it the cultural centre of the Europe of the day. Weimar became the capital of the Duchy of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach in 1572. For many years the painter Lucas Cranach the Elder worked in Weimar, where he died in 1553. This marked the start of a long period of growing cultural importance in which many painters, writers, poets, and philosopher lived in the city - Johann Sebastian Bach, Christoph Martin Wieland, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schiller, Franz Liszt, Henry van de Velde, and Walter Gropius.

Continent: Europe

Country: Germany

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (III)(VI)

Date of Inscription: 1998

Classical Weimar's Eleven Separate Buildings

Goethe's House: A Baroque town house was built in 1707-9 and underwent a number of alterations during Goethe's occupancy. The original interior furnishings are preserved in a number of rooms. Schiller's House: A simple late Baroque house built in 1777 incorporating part of a 16th-century outbuilding (the Mint). Most of the rooms are furnished as they were during the lifetime of the poet.

City Church, Herder House and Old High School: A three-aisled hall church with five bays and a pentagonal chancel and a west tower surmounted by an octagonal spire, containing an altar triptych by Lucas Cranach the Elder. The three-storey Herder House was built in the mid-16th century on the foundations of an earlier Renaissance structure. The Old High School, commissioned by Duke Wilhelm Ernst, was built in simple Baroque style.

Classical Weimar Germany

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City Castle: The present ensemble is an imposing slightly irregular four-winged building round a large courtyard. The decorations and furnishings of the interior are in classical style.

The Dowager's Palace: The centre of intellectual life at the height of classical Weimar consists of a group of relatively plain Baroque two- and three-storey buildings round a courtyard. The Duchess Anna Amalia Library: in 1761 Duchess Anna Amalia commissioned the State Architect to convert the Renaissance 'Little French Castle' into a library. The main central section is a three-storey building on a rectangular plan in Baroque style. The Princes' Tomb and the Historic Cemetery: Grand Duke Carl August commissioned the construction of a family tomb from Clemens Wenzeslaus Coundray in 1823. In addition to members of the family, Schiller and Goethe were also buried in this mausoleum.

Park on the Ilm with the Roman House, Goethe's Garden, and Garden House: South of the town in the valley through which the Ilm flows. It is dominated in the north by Goethe's Garden House and in the south by the Roman House.

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Belvedere Castle, Orangery and Park: The castle is a two-storey Baroque structure; the central section is square in plan and has a small tower surmounted by a cupola. On either side there are connecting buildings leading to oval-plan pavilions with pointed cupolas. The orangery is U-shaped in plan, with the house of the head gardener in the centre.

Tiefurt Castle and Park: A modest two-storey Baroque building linked by a wooden-framed to the former farm building, with buildings and memorials within the park.

Ettersburg Castle and Park: the Old Castle consists of three wings round a spacious courtyard. The shorter east wing abuts the castle church. The New Castle is a more compact four-storey structure. The park is relatively small and abuts the surrounding forest.

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Wartburg Castle Germany

The Castle of Wartburg is an outstanding monument of the feudal period in central Europe. It is rich in cultural associations, most notably its role as the place of exile of Martin Luther, who composed his German translation of the New Testament there. It is also a powerful symbol of German integration and unity. The legendary creation of the castle is attributed to Count Ludwig der Springer. The first steps in its construction were taken in 1067, and it became one of the key points in the early years of Ludovician sovereignty.

Continent: Europe

Country: Germany

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (III)(VI)

Date of Inscription: 1999

Wartburg Castle

This sovereignty grew more firmly established during the first half of the 12th century. Raised to the dignity of Landgraves, the Ludovicians supported the policies of the Stauffen emperors. The building of the palace in the second half of the 12th century illustrates their status as Princes of the Empire. In 1227 Heinrich Raspe IV, the brother of Ludwig IV, succeeded him and, espousing the pope's cause, was appointed King of Germany on the initiative of Innocent IV. His death in 1247 ended the Ludovician dynasty.

The Margrave of Wettin, Heinrich von Meissen, took possession of Wartburg. The transfer of the seat of power to Gotha and subsequently to Weimar at the beginning of the 15th century marked the beginning of the castle's decline. From the 16th century onwards, the castle was kept more or less in a state of repair; although abandoned as a seat of power, its strategic importance was nonetheless highlighted several times. After the Napoleonic wars, a national sentiment emerged which revelled in the image of ancient Germany as symbolized by Wartburg Castle.

Wartburg Castle Germany

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In the first half of the 19th century, on the initiative of the Grand Duke of Saxony, the entire site was completely renovated: the remains of the palace were raised from their ruins, the curtain wall restored, and the remainder of the buildings reconstructed under the supervision of architect Hugo von Ritgen. The large parts played by assumptions in the reconstruction have rather more to do with the romantic imagination than with historical reality.

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In 1945, the bombing of Eisenach spared Wartburg, although the castle was later pillaged by Soviet troops. The German Democratic Republic made Wartburg Castle a national monument; since the reunification of Germany, restoration work has concentrated primarily on the interiors and on the problems of preserving the stonework on the palace facades.

The castle occupies a rocky spur looking north and south, in the midst of the forest that looks down over the city of Eisenach. Its layout corresponds in essence to that of the original fortress, particularly the palace, the ramparts, the South Tower, and the outworks, which are now partially buried or in ruins. In architectural terms, The rocky spur is reached from the northern end, occupied by a tower with a drawbridge, followed by a number of outbuildings which form an outer courtyard. Next follows the lower courtyard, the main features of which are the keep and the palace, onto which the Knights' Baths back. The South Tower marks the farther end of the spur. The centre of the lower courtyard is occupied by a cistern.

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Museumsinsel Museum Island Berlin Germany

The art museum is a social phenomenon that owes its origins to the Age of Enlightenment and its extension to all people to the French Revolution. The Museumsinsel is the most outstanding example of this concept given material form and a symbolic central urban setting, and one that illustrates the evolution of modern museum design over more than a century. The present importance of the Museumsinsel began when the Altes Museum was built to the designs of Karl Friedrich Schinkel in 1824-28. A plan to develop the part of the island behind this museum was drawn up in 1841 by the court architect, Friedrich August Stuler, on the orders of Friedrich Wilhelm IV. The first element of this plan to be built was the Neues Museum (1843-47). The next step did not take place until 1866, when the Nationalgalerie, the work of Johann Heinrich Strack, was built. Another two decades passed before the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (now the Bodemuseum) was built in 1897-1904 to the designs of Ernst von Ihne, and Stüler's plan was completed in 1909-30 with the construction of Alfred Messel's Pergamonmuseum.

Continent: Europe

Country: Germany

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (II)(IV)

Date of Inscription: 1999

Museumsinsel five museum buildings

The Altes Museum is a two-storey structure with a rectangular ground plan on a high base with its exhibition rooms ranged round two inner courts and a central two-storey domed rotunda with skylight. The side and rear elevations are relatively plain, but that facing the site of the former Schloss is a high portico supported on eighteen sandstone Ionic columns and two corner pilasters. Access is by means of a seven-bay wide stairway with broad stringers.

The layout of the Neues Museum is comparable with that of the Altes Museum, but the rotunda of the latter is replaced by the monumental main staircase. Unlike the Altes Museum, to which it was originally linked by a passageway, it is a relatively plain structure, more in the style of the Schinkel School. The richly decorated interior contrasts with the plain exterior. There is an interesting innovative structural feature. The traditional low-vaulted ceilings of timber beams and masonry are replaced on the third floor by an arch-chord construction using cast-iron arches and pairs of wrought-iron chords. This lightweight form of construction was necessitated by the poor foundation parameters.

Museum Island Germany

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The Nationalgalerie, a high ashlar block-like base with rectangular windows, is surmounted by a Corinthian pseudo-dipteral temple of in antis type with an open portico. There are also high rectangular windows in the exterior wall set back behind the columns. The rear is in the form of a semi-circular conch. A double-winged open staircase with five flights of steps leads up to the pedimented portico with its Corinthian columns. The building is clad throughout with Nebra sandstone. The four-storey building has a rectangular ground plan with apse-like terminal features. There is a cellar and an exhibition floor in the basement section and two exhibition halls in the superstructure. It is lavishly decorated with symbolic imagery in the form of sculptures, reliefs, and paintings. The upper exhibition floor was originally laid out as a vast banqueting hall, but is now converted for displays.

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The Bodemuseum is a neo-Baroque structure in a commanding position on the north-western tip of the island. Clad in sandstone and with a low stone base, it rises to two storeys, linked by Corinthian pilasters and crowned with a balustrade. The rounded entrance frontage is decorated with the same columns and with rounded open arches. The entrance with its impressive staircase is beneath the smaller of the two domes. It gives on to two lateral wings and a centre section which are linked by transverse sections so as to form five inner courtyards.

The three-winged Pergamonmuseum was built to exhibit the greatly expanded collections of antiquities resulting from German excavations at Pergamon and other Greek sites in Asia Minor as well as those from Mesopotamia formerly housed in the Vorderasiatisches Museum. It rises directly from the Spree, like the Bodemuseum, with which it is harmonized in scale and proportions. The centre block and the side wings are windowless, given structure by flat giant pilasters and steep pediments.

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Garden Kingdom of Dessau Worlitz Germany

The Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz is an outstanding example of the application of the philosophical principles of the Age of the Enlightenment to the design of a landscape that integrates art, education and economy in a harmonious whole. The first essays in landscape design began with the foundation of Oranienbaum, with its unified layout of town, palace, and park from 1683 onwards. The resulting complete Baroque ensemble, with obvious Dutch connections deriving from its designer, Cornelis Ryckwaert, has survived to the present day.

Continent: Europe

Country: Germany

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (II)(IV)

Date of Inscription: 2000

English Landscape Gardens

The developments on these lines took place around 1700 with the reclamation of marshy areas along the Elbe and the creation of planned villages and farmsteads. During the reign of Prince Leopold III Friedrich Franz of Anhalt-Dessau (1740-1817), an extensive landscape design project was begun around 1765 over the entire principality. This ambitious programme was launched in close collaboration with the architect and art theorist Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff (1736-1800). Landscape design, public education, and encouragement of the arts were closely integrated in this scheme. Wörlitz became the point of departure for wide-ranging improvements based on English landscape gardens and neoclassical architecture.

This unified scheme of buildings, gardens, and works of art, with a pervasive educational theme became the outward expression of the Enlightenment. Schloss Wörlitz was built in 1769-73 and it was the first neoclassical building in Germany. The Gothic House (1774) established a vogue for Gothic Revival buildings all across Europe. A number of other landscape projects in the principality date from this period. One of the most innovatory was the Chinese garden at Oranienbaum (1790), based on the theories of the English architect Sir William Chambers.

Garden Kingdom of Dessau Worlitz Germany

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The roads and dykes that were essential for infrastructural development were planted with avenues of fruit trees, giving them an ornamental aspect. By the time Prince Franz died in 1817 virtually the entire principality had become a unified garden. Despite industrialization and the consequent expansion of Dessau since 1900, the characteristic features of the landscape have been preserved.

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The Garden Kingdom lies in the meadow landscape of the rivers Elbe and Mulde, the floodplains of which reach in places to the parklands. The core of the Garden Kingdom is the historic gardens, with their buildings and sculpture. In addition to the historic garden enclosures, neoclassical and neo-Gothic structures such as dyke watchtowers, hostelries, statues and bridges are to be found widely distributed, acting as key features of the landscape. The agricultural areas, such as fields, meadows, and orchards, have been improved by ornamental tree plantings, so as to enhance the aesthetic appearance of the landscape.

The western group consists of the Kühnauer Park, the Georgium, and the Beckerbruch. The Kühnauer Park, on the southern shore of the Kühnauersee, is a narrow elongated garden laid out in 1805 with views over the lake and its islands. Its orchards and vineyard have been partially restored. The main viewpoint is the Vineyard House, an Italianate classical building of 1818-20. Other buildings are the neoclassical Schloss Kühnau (c . 1780) and the Romano-Byzantine Church (1828-30). The Georgium or Georgengarten is a small neoclassical country house surrounded by a garden of 21.3 ha in the English style.

The garden contains a number of buildings and monuments, including the Roman Ruin and an open rotunda temple. The adjacent area of the Beckenbruch was left relatively untouched as a landscape of marsh and meadows, with a few statues and small structures inserted into it. It is designed so as to merge gradually into the Georgengarten. The central group is made up of the Luisium, the Sieglitzer Berg, the Tiergarten (part), and the villages of Mildensee and Waldersee. A wetland to the north-east of Dessau forms part of this group. The area of meadows in the bend of the Mulde was originally part of the system of dykes surrounding Dessau, laid out as garden scenery; it is now the Schillerpark.

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Historic Centres of Stralsund and Wismar Germany

The historic towns of Wismar and Stralsund are situated in north-eastern Germany on the Baltic Sea coast. The cities were founded as part of the German colonization of the Slav territories in the late 12th or early 13th centuries. Both cities emerged as important trading places in the 14th century as part of the Hanseatic League. After the Thirty Years' War the towns came under Swedish rule from the 17th to the early 19th centuries. Under the subsequent changing political situations there was a period of stagnation, but from the second half of the 19th century a gradual economic improvement began. The historic centres survived the World War II bombardments and were part of the German Democratic Republic until German unification.

Continent: Europe

Country: Germany

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (II)(IV)

Date of Inscription: 2002

Foundation

Both Wismar and Stralsund were founded in places that were known to be good anchorages. Wismar emerged at the beginning of the 13th century, 5km from Mecklenburg, an old centre of the Slav Obodrites. It was close to a Wendish fishing village on the seacoast, along an old trade route, the Via Regia. In the early 13th century it developed rapidly owing to its favourable location and excellent harbour. The position of Stralsund, further to the east of Wismar, was also chosen for the potential of its harbour, and it gained additional merit from the off-shore island of Strela (later Danholm).

Wismar is first mentioned in 1229 and Stralsund in 1234, already well-established in a period when the towns were probably granted corporation statutes. These statutes, known as the Lubeck Law, were aimed at towns in the Baltic region and covered all necessary legal instruments, including common law, commercial law, market law, and building law. Having obtained corporation statutes, both towns also built defence systems, which completed by the end of the 13th or early 14th centuries.

Historic Centres of Stralsund and Wismar Germany

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The Hanseatic period

The Hanseatic League emerged in the 13th century, first as an association of north German merchants who resided in foreign countries. From the end of the 13th century, this association developed into the Hanseatic League of Towns. It soon assumed leadership in the region of the North Sea and the Baltic. In its heyday the League extended to some 200 towns. Centred on Lubeck, the League was organized in four sections: Wendish, Westphalian, Saxon, and Prussian. The most important of these was the Wendish section, which included Wismar and Stralsund. From the 1470s, the power of the Hansa started diminishing, when sea traffic was shifted from the Baltic to the Atlantic with the growing importance of the Netherlands and England. Wismar and Stralsund joined the League in 1293, together with Lubeck, Rostock, and Greifswald.

By the 13th century Wismar and Stralsund had developed commercial activities, involving intermediate trade in cloth from Flanders, wool from England, metal goods from Westphalia, wood, tar, ash, honey, furs, and wax from Latvia and the Rus, salt, at first from Luneburg, then from the bay of Bourgneuf, wine from the Rhine, France, Spain, and Portugal, and fish from Norway and Schonen. The production of beer became particularly important, especially in Wismar. Beer was a leading product that was used not only as a drink but also as a basic ingredient in food and even in medicine.

At the beginning of the 14th century, conflicts between Wismar and Mecklenburg gave rise to a war between the coalition of north German princes and the Danish King and the emerging towns of Lubeck, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, and Greifswald, which were striving for independence. While Wismar suffered a defeat, Stralsund emerged as a leader in 1316, becoming the most powerful city in Pomerania and the capital of the entire region. From here started the heyday of the Hanseatic League, resulting in important building activities, especially from 1330 to 1380.

This building boom brought forth the so-called Sundische Gotik, a particular form of brick architecture and an expression of the economic growth and increasing political power of Stralsund. The treaty of the Peace of Stralsund, on 24 March 1370, resulted from the negotiation between the Cologne Federation (1367), consisting of the Hanseatic and Dutch towns, on the one side and the Imperial Council of the Kingdom of Denmark on the other. This treaty further strengthened the power of Hansa as a significant actor at the European level.

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The Swedish period

From the late 15th century, with the diminishing power of the Hansa, the commercial and political importance of Wismar and Stralsund was considerably weakened. As a result of the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), both towns came under Swedish rule, later playing a decisive role as administrative centres in the Swedish power system. As the Supreme Court for all the German possessions of the Kingdom of Sweden, the Royal Swedish Tribunal was set up in the princely court (Furstenhof) of Wismar.

Under Swedish rule the fortifications of the towns were rebuilt reflecting the new requirements in warfare. Owing to the lack of hinterland, commercial activities were limited, although there was a brief flourishing from 1651 due to exemption from customs duties. With the defeat of the Swedes in the Nordic War of 1700-21, Wismar was occupied by Danish, Prussian, and Hanoverian troops and all its defensive structures were demolished. Wismar remained under Swedish rule after the peace treaty of 1720 but had already lost its importance. Stralsund, however, became the political capital of Swedish Western Pomerania. A number of Baroque gabled houses, as well as a series of factories, survive from this period.

The 19th and 20th centuries

The Swedish era ended in both cities at the beginning of the 19th century and the political situation changed. Wismar initially returned to the Duchy of Mecklenburg, but its position remained ambiguous and it still retained a Swedish link until 1903. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Stralsund became part of Prussia, but there was little improvement in the economy. In 1848 Wismar acquired a railway link, which led to the building of a new harbour and improved development but left the medieval part untouched.

Stralsund had a railway in 1863, which allowed industrial development to begin, and it also became the chief port of the Prussian navy. From the early 19th to the early 20th centuries the populations of the two cities doubled (Stralsund from 15,000 to 32,000 and Wismar from 10,000 to 19,000). Towards the end of World War II the towns suffered air raids but the historic centres remained largely intact. From 1945 both towns were part of the Soviet zone, from which the German Democratic Republic emerged. This period saw important economic development, the establishment of small industrial companies, the construction of shipyards, and the expansion of the seaport activities.

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