History of Bremen (city)
For most of its 1,200 year history, Bremen was an independent city within the confederal jurisdiction of Germany's Holy Roman Empire. In the late Middle Ages, its governing merchant guilds were at the centre of the Hanseatic League, which sought to monopolise the North Sea and Baltic trade. To establish and confirm its independence, the city had to contend first with the Prince-Archbishop of Bremen, and then with the Swedes, who had become the masters of the surrounding, former episcopal, duchies after the Thirty Years' War.
In the late nineteenth century Bremen was drawn by Prussia into the German Empire. Thanks to new sea wharves and anchorage at Bremerhaven, the city became Germany's main port of emigration to the Americas, and an entrepôt for her late developing colonial trade. The Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) was founded in Bremen in 1857 and it later became one of the world's leading shipping companies.
In the twentieth century, Bremen, a broadly
Early history
The marshes and moraines near Bremen have been settled since about 12,000 BC. Burial places and settlements in Bremen-Mahndorf and Bremen-Osterholz date back to the 7th century AD. Since the Renaissance, chroniclers have assumed that Fabiranum or Phabiranon on Ptolemy's Fourth Map of Europe[1] (dating from AD 150) refers to Bremen. However, Ptolemy's coordinates actually suggest a site northeast of the mouth of the river Visurgis (Weser). In Ptolemy's time the Chauci lived in the area now called North-Western Germany or Lower Saxony. By the end of the 3rd century they had merged with the Saxons.
During the
The city's first stone walls were built in 1032, and the stone cathedral of St Peter's followed in 1042. These were marks of the wealth that was beginning to accumulate thanks to the North Sea trade. In the following century, Dutch settlers began to drain the surrounding wetlands and build the dikes that still characterise Bremen's surroundings.
In 1186 the
The city's remaining tax obligations to the Prince-Archbishop were both a burden and a lever of influence. The city participated in the
Hanseatic League
In 1260 Bremen joined the
Bremen was engaged in numerous military actions taken by the League, all aimed at maintaining and enhancing collective privileges. In the 1440s the city also engaged privateers on its own initiative, in order to attack the League's rivals in the North Sea. One notorious captain, known as Grote Gherd ("Great Gerry"), managed to capture thirteen ships from Flanders in a single expedition.[5]
Trade secured by the League brought both commerce and industry to Bremen and its surrounding region. Newer and finer woollen and linen fabrics, and even silks, were manufactured locally. The artisanal refinement of products from the textile industry could be found in other fields as well, such as etching, wood carving, armour production, engraving of metals, and wood-turning. Trade also increased exchanges with Italy and the Mediterranean, ensuring the early arrival of the Renaissance in northern Germany.[6] A legacy from that period is the regional architectural style known as the Weser Renaissance, which characterises the embellished facade added to the Bremen Rathaus in 1612.[7]
As for the League in general, much of the drive for the co-operation between otherwise rival cities derived from the fragmented nature of existing territorial governments, which had failed to provide security for trade. However, the League's importance declined in Bremen in the 16th century, as the United Dutch Provinces entered the competition and as greater princely authority consolidated, creating powerful monarchies such as Sweden, Denmark-Norway, Brandenburg-Prussia and England.[8] The last of the League's great trading posts (or Kontors), in Bergen, closed in 1754.
Struggle with the Prince-Archbishop
In 1350 Bremen was a city of 20,000, its trade flourishing thanks to the Hansekogge (
In response to the Prince Archbishop's attempts to exploit its internal struggles, the city further enhanced its fortifications. A particularly narrow gate, the so-called Bishop's Needle (
By the end of the 1360s, Albert's growing indebtedness placed Bremen in a favourable position, as the city was able to effectively purchase not only his rights in the city, but also his many surrounding fortresses and bailiwicks.
In 1421 Bremen reached its greatest extent, when the Duchy of
The Reformation
Bremen, long hostile to its Prince-Archbishop and the temporal power and pretensions of the Church, readily embraced the
In 1547 the chapter, meanwhile prevailingly Lutheran, appointed the Dutch
By the 1590s the majority of Bremen's burghers and city council had adopted
Thirty Years' War
Soon after the beginning of the Thirty Years' War Bremen declared its neutrality. In 1623 it rejected the appeal of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands to assist it in its struggle for independence against Habsburg Spain and imperial forces. Nonetheless, Imperial troops under Albrecht von Wallenstein and those of the Catholic League headed north. Wallenstein had visions of breaking-up the Hanseatic League, and of establishing new Baltic trade monopolies to benefit imperial favourites. In 1628, Bremen paid Wallenstein a hefty ransom to spare itself a siege, and by such means it was able to avoid occupation throughout the war.
In 1629 an imperial Edict of Restitution ordered Bremen to restore properties and rights within the city, including control of the Cathedral, to a once again Catholic Prince-Archbishop. The city refused, stating it would rather separate from the
Bremen had appealed for an imperial confirmation of its imperial immediacy, which, it argued, had been implicit in the Gelnhausen Privilege of 1186. In 1646 Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, granted the request in the Diploma of Linz, recognising Bremen as a Free Imperial City.
Swedish wars
Year | Pop. | ±% p.a. |
---|---|---|
1350 | 20,000 | — |
1810 | 35,800 | +0.13% |
1830 | 43,700 | +1.00% |
1850 | 55,100 | +1.17% |
1880 | 111,900 | +2.39% |
1900 | 161,200 | +1.84% |
1925 | 295,000 | +2.45% |
1969 | 607,185 | +1.65% |
1995 | 549,357 | −0.38% |
1998 | 550,000 | +0.04% |
2001 | 540,950 | −0.55% |
2005 | 545,983 | +0.23% |
2006 | 546,900 | +0.17% |
2009[13] | 547,685 | +0.05% |
2012 | 548,319 | +0.04% |
2014[14] | 548,547 | +0.02% |
Sweden did not accept that its new imperial fief of
In 1664, after Bremen was again seated in an Imperial Diet, the Swedes, under Carl Gustaf Wrangel, laid siege. In response, a coalition of rival powers, including Brandenburg-Prussia, Denmark, and the Netherlands, was formed in defence of the city, leading to the Treaty of Habenhausen (1666) and to the end of any further Swedish attempt to seize the city.
In 1712, during the
19th century
As part of his effort to enforce the
After Prussia defeated Austria in 1866 and annexed Hannover, Bremen joined Berlin in the North German Confederation. With the German victory over France in 1871, the Confederation was expanded under broadly the same Prussian-dominated constitution to form the German Empire.
Meanwhile Bremen was developing as an industrial port. The first German steamship was manufactured in 1817 in the shipyard of Johann Lange. However, further development of the harbour, which was 37 kilometers upstream from the sea, was limited by the continuous silting of the Weser. In 1827, Bremen Mayor Smidt succeeded in purchasing a strip of land from the Kingdom of Hanover at the mouth of the Weser, establishing the harbour of Bremerhaven.[15]
Together with rapidly growing railroad connections, the development of this new sea port made sure that Bremen retained its leadership over Hamburg as Germany's main port for migrants travelling to the Americas, not only from southern and eastern Germany, but also from Central and Eastern Europe from the 1880s onwards.[16] It also allowed Bremen to serve as Germany's entrepôt for colonial trade, importing and processing coffee, tobacco, cotton and rice. This latter trade grew, as Germany began to acquire her own African and South Sea possessions after 1884.[17]
Colonial expansion, and a parallel programme of naval construction, was strongly supported by merchant interests in Bremen, organised in the Kolonialverein (Colonial Union).
The combination of mass Trans-Atlantic emigration and the colonial trade spurred the growth of major international shipping companies in Bremen. The greatest of these - now a part of Hapag-Lloyd- was Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL), founded in 1857.
20th century
Left-liberal city
As an international port and industrial centre, Bremen had a strong liberal and left political tradition. In the last elections to the Imperial Reichstag in January 1912, the Social Democrats (SPD) secured over half the votes, 53.4%, Left Liberals (Linksliberale) took another 41.4% and only 5.1% went to the Conservatives.[22]
Following defeat in World War I, and the chaos induced by naval and army mutinies, as well as hardships from a prolonged British blockade, Bremen was briefly governed by a revolutionary workers' and soldiers' council.
After two months, on 10 January 1919 the Independent Social Democrats on the council, along with the fledgling communist party, the Spartacus League, declared Bremen to be a Soviet (or Council) Republic, in defiance of the SPD-led government in Berlin. Within three weeks the republic was crushed by the right-wing military Freikorps.[23] Despite the repression of revolutionary attempts, and continued division, the left maintained a strong presence in Bremen.
In the last broadly free election of the Weimar Republic in November 1932, the Social Democrats won 31.2% of the votes in Bremen, while the Communists (KPD) received 16.8%. The Nazis polled 20.8%, 50% below their national result.[24][25]
Under the Hitler regime
After the Reichstag Fire Decree of 27 February 1933, the new Hitler regime began arresting or forcing into hiding members of the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party. Violence broke out in Bremen on the day before the Reichstag election of 5 March 1933, and 40 persons were arrested.[26] That same day, the Nazi Party Kreisleiter for Bremen, Otto Bernhard , called for a reorganization of the Senate and the dissolution of the Bürgerschaft. In that heavily compromised national election, the Nazis still achieved only 32.7% of the popular vote in Bremen, far below their 44% national average.[27]
The following morning a large crowd led by
On 31 March 1933, the Nazi government enacted the
1,438 people were registered as members of the Jewish community in Bremen at the beginning of 1933 (0.2% of the city's population). Of these, about 930 had managed to leave Germany by 1941.
In the war-plan economy of the new regime, Bremen was a centre not only of naval, and particularly submarine (U-boot), construction, but also of aircraft production.
The villages of Grohn, Schönebeck, Aumund, Hammersbeck, Fähr, Lobbendorf, Blumenthal, Farge and Rekum became part of the city of Bremen in 1939.
Post-War reconstruction
On 1 August 1945, the US military government appointed Wilhelm Kaisen (SPD) (Senator for social services before 1933) mayor of Bremen, a position he continued to cover through several elections until his retirement in 1965. With the initial support of the Communists and the Liberals, Kaisen worked to re-establish the pre-Hitler democratic order. To prevent Bremen's incorporation into the recently formed state of Lower Saxony (within the then British zone of occupation), he successfully took the case for Bremen's traditional independence to the United States in 1946.
On 20 November 1945, a group of Polish DPs from Tirpitz Camp invaded a house where a family of 13 people were staying that night, including children and young adults. After the residents had handed over their food and their few valuable objects, they were taken to the basement and shot. 43 year old Wilhelm Hamelmann was the sole suvivor, by playing dead. He later attracted considerable attention by publicly forgiving the perpetrators and pleading for them to be pardoned, despite them killing his wife and children.[39]
Bremen's signature Renaissance-fronted gothic Town Hall (Rathaus), the statue of Roland (1404) (symbol of the city's independence), and the 11th-century cathedral (Bremer Dom) survived Allied bombing. Limited efforts were made to restore other damaged structures of the old city, as priority was given to the construction of new much-needed housing, in light of the increase in population and arrival of many German refugees from eastern territories annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union. The restoration of industrial production and transport were also given priority in this initial reconstruction phase.[40]
Between the 1950s and 60s Bremen's economy boomed, in line with the West German Wirtschaftswunder. This saw the growth, and permanent settlement of a large migrant worker population, drawn largely from Turkey and Southern Europe.
After the Wirtschaftswunder
Some of the city's heavier industries failed to recover from the oil-price-shock recession of the early 1970s and from the growth of industrial output in East Asia. Specialist construction yards, ship outfitters and parts suppliers remain,[41] but AG Weser (which employed 16,000 workers at its peak) and Bremer Vulcan, Bremen's two major shipbuilders, closed in 1983 and 1997 respectively. Further job losses were caused by the restructuring and increasing mechanisation of harbour-related activities and other industrial sectors. Semi and unskilled harbour workers found it very difficult to re-enter the labour market, and unemployment—for a period in the 1980s almost double the West German average—remained comparatively high.[42]
At a time when these changes in the economy were forcing the Senate to spend more on social services, suburbanisation was reducing Bremen's population and tax revenue. Incorporating surrounding suburban municipalities was not an option for Bremen, as these belonged to the state of Lower Saxony.[42]
Following the 1991 elections, the SPD, while remaining the strongest political party, was obliged to form coalitions and therefore make political compromises. The first coalition was established with the smaller liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Green Party. It became clear to city leaders that the process of decline could be slowed down through public subsidies protecting less competitive industries, though it was also clear that the process could not be fully stopped, or even less reversed. The idea of cutting subsidies and reorienting economic policy was particularly difficult for the Social Democrats, given their strong traditional links to manual workers and trade unions.[42]
Eventually, and with offers of financial assistance from the European Union, a consensus developed on the need to support established economic sectors based on advanced technological developments, such as aerospace and aircraft production, automobile production, maritime and logistics services, and to develop education and business-park infrastructure for the emergence of new science-based and digital enterprises. In this the University of Bremen, founded in 1971, has been accorded a key role. It is one of 11 institutions classed as an "Elite university" in Germany, and teaches approximately 23,500 people from 126 countries.[43] Further investment went into the revitalisation of the city centre but a culture-driven regeneration around entertainment and tourism was not very successful. Several experts described Bremen’s service sector as underdeveloped, due to a lack of major company headquarters.[42]
At the turn of the new century, unemployment In Bremen stood at 14%, a rate matched in the Federal Republic only by the "new states" in former East Germany.[1]
The new immigrant city
As an international port and industrial centre, Bremen has always drawn people from abroad. In recent decades, the changing economy and international events have contributed to a rapidly changing population mix.
As of 2020, close of a third of the city population were of recent non-German origin.[44] People of Turkish origin (first, second and third generation) remain the largest non-German ethnicity (there are 23,000 Turkish-born residents) but as a result of refugee resettlement since 2015 they are now closely followed by Syrians (18,000), and by people form central and eastern Europe, notably from Poland, Bulgaria and Romania.[45]
Hegemony of the SPD
Save for 1918-22, when briefly they split, the Social Democrats have been the leading party in every free election in Bremen since 1912. They have formed, either singularly (1971-1991) or in coalition, every administration since 1945. Since 2007 they have governed with the Greens, a coalition joined in 2019 by the Left (die Linke), the SPD having won their lowest share of the popular vote, 24.9%, since the war. There was a recovery in the 2021 Federal elections, with Social Democrats in Bremen taking a third of the vote.[2]
See also
References
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