Free City of Lübeck
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Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck Freie und Hansestadt Lübeck (German) | |||||||||
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1226–1811 1815–1937 | |||||||||
Status | Free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire Member of the German Confederation Member of the North German Confederation State of the German Empire State of the Weimar Republic | ||||||||
Capital | Lübeck | ||||||||
Official languages | German | ||||||||
Religion | Evangelical Lutheran Church in the State of Lübeck | ||||||||
Government | Republic | ||||||||
History | |||||||||
1226 | |||||||||
• Annexed by French Empire | 1811 | ||||||||
1815 | |||||||||
1 April 1937 | |||||||||
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Today part of | Germany |
The Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck (German: Freie und Hansestadt Lübeck) was a city-state from 1226 to 1937, in what is now the German states of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
History
Imperial Free City and the Hanseatic League
In 1226, Emperor
In 1359, Lübeck bought the ducal
In 1370, Lübeck further acquired—by way of collateral for a loan—the Lordship of Bergedorf, the Vierlande, half the Sachsenwald (Saxon Forest) and Geesthacht from Duke Eric III, who had meanwhile succeeded his late brother Albert V.[2] This acquisition included much of the trade route between Hamburg and Lübeck, thus providing a safe freight route between the cities. Eric III retained a life tenancy of these lands.
Arrivals | % | Origin, destination | Departures | % |
---|---|---|---|---|
289 | 33.7 | Mecklenburg-Pomerania | 386 | 42.3 |
250 | 26.8 | Skania | 207 | 22.8 |
145 | 16.8 | Prussia | 183 | 20.1 |
96 | 11.2 | Sweden | 64 | 7 |
35 | 4.3 | Livonia | 43 | 4.7 |
28 | 3.2 | Fehmarn | 27 | 3 |
12 | 1.6 | Bergen | - | - |
3 | 0.4 | Flanders | 1 | 0.1[3] |
Lübeck and Eric III further stipulated that once Eric had died, Lübeck would be entitled to take possession of the pledged territories until his successors could repay the debt and simultaneously exercise the repurchase of Mölln. By this stage the sum involved was calculated as 26,000 Lübeck Marks, an enormous amount of money at that time.[4]
In 1401, Eric III died without issue and was succeeded by his second cousin Eric IV, Duke of Saxe-Ratzeburg-Lauenburg. In the same year Eric IV, supported by his sons Eric (later reigning as Eric V) and John (later John IV), captured the pawned lands without making the agreed repayment and before Lübeck could take possession of them. Lübeck acquiesced.[5]
In 1420, Eric V attacked
The Hanseatic League, under Lübeck's leadership, fought several wars against Denmark with varying degrees of success. Whilst Lübeck and the Hanseatic League won in 1435 and 1512, Lübeck lost when it became involved in the Count's Feud, a civil war that raged in Denmark from 1534 to 1536. Lübeck also joined the Schmalkaldic League. After its defeat in the Count's Feud, Lübeck's power slowly declined. Lübeck remained neutral in the Thirty Years' War, but with the devastation of the war and the new transatlantic orientation of European trade, the Hanseatic League, and thus Lübeck, lost importance. After the de facto disbandment of the Hanseatic League in 1669, Lübeck remained an important trading town on the Baltic Sea.
Napoleonic era
Lübeck remained a Free Imperial City even after the
Under the Continental System, trade suffered, and from 1811 to 1813, Lübeck was formally annexed as part of the First French Empire.
Reestablishment as sovereign state in 1813
Lübeck reassumed its pre-1811 status in 1813. The 1815
After the
Incorporation into Schleswig-Holstein
In 1937, the Nazis passed the
Lübeck was occupied by the
Notable people
- Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723), German-British court painter
- Thomas Mann (1875–1955), German author, Nobel Prize in Literature laureate
- Wilhelm Mohnke (1911–2001), Brigadeführer in the Waffen-SS
- Willy Brandt (1913–1992), German politician
See also
- Lübeck
- Timeline of Lübeck history
- Free City of Frankfurt, a city-state annexed by Prussia in 1866.
References
- ^ Elisabeth Raiser, Städtische Territorialpolitik im Mittelalter: eine vergleichende Untersuchung ihrer verschiedenen Formen am Beispiel Lübecks und Zürichs, Lübeck and Hamburg: Matthiesen, 1969, (Historische Studien; 406), p. 88, simultaneously: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 1969.
- ^ Elisabeth Raiser, p. 90.
- ^ G.Lechner, Die Hansischen Pfundzollisten des Jahres 1368 (1935), pp.48, 53, 66, 198
- ^ Elisabeth Raiser, pp. 90 seq.
- ^ Elisabeth Raiser, p. 137.
- ^ Hamburg integrated the area into its state territory, making up most of its today Borough of Bergedorf.
- ISBN 978-1-932-97021-0.
- ^ Lübeck: The town that said no to Hitler, Simon Heffer, The Daily Telegraph; retrieved 28 June 2010.