Plön
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Plön | |
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Coordinates: 54°9′44″N 10°25′17″E / 54.16222°N 10.42139°E | |
Country | Germany |
State | Schleswig-Holstein |
District | Plön |
Government | |
• Mayor | Lars Winter (SPD) |
Area | |
• Total | 36.73 km2 (14.18 sq mi) |
Elevation | 26 m (85 ft) |
Population (2022-12-31)[1] | |
• Total | 8,941 |
• Density | 240/km2 (630/sq mi) |
Time zone | UTC+01:00 (CET) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC+02:00 (CEST) |
Postal codes | 24301–24306 |
Dialling codes | 04522 |
Vehicle registration | PLÖ |
Website | www.ploen.de |
Plön (German pronunciation:
Plön has a grammar school with a 300-year history, and is home to a German Navy non-commissioned officer school and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology. The town, nestled as it is in the hilly, wooded lake district of Holstein Switzerland (Holsteinische Schweiz), also has importance in the tourism industry.
History
In the course of the
In 1075,
In 1236, Plön was granted
Between 1561 and 1729, Plön was the capital of the Duchy of
In 1761 the Duchy fell back into the hands of the Danish crown. Plön remained under Danish rule until the Second Schleswig War in 1864. Although it was the Danish king's summer residence from time to time, it remained otherwise a sleepy provincial town of about 2,000 inhabitants. The cultural life of the minor residence was charmingly described by Rochus von Liliencron in his "Childhood Memories". In the mid-19th century, the Danish crown prince spent a few years of his summer vacation in Plön Castle, since when it has been decorated in white plaster with a gray roof.
In 1867 Plön became a
In 1891
The Wehrmacht barracks at Stadtheide near Plön became the temporary location of the remaining members of the Hitler cabinet who had fled Berlin after the death of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945. Hitler believed that
On 1 May, Commander of the Navy, Admiral Karl Dönitz, moved into the buildings of the Stadtheide Barracks but it was to be a short stay. Dönitz announced that Hitler had fallen and had appointed him as his successor. On 2 May Dönitz and the new Government Executive of the Reich fled to Flensburg before the approaching British troops and formed the short-lived Flensburg Government.
After WWII Plon was chosen as the site for King Alfred School, a secondary school for British Forces children under the headmastership of Freddie Spencer Chapman with his staff at the Ruhleben Barracks site, As such the town holds a place of affection with many former pupils across the world and the declining number of surviving teachers and their families. King Alfred School, Plön can rightly claim to be the first fully comprehensive school in the UK system. This school existed from 1948 to 1959. The Ruhleben Barracks site had been the German Navy U-boat training school and has now reverted to a similar function as M.U.S the non-commissioned officer school. The street nearby has a Lighthouse restaurant and down the street is a camping trailer park then a drug abusal hospital and a retirement castle. There are interesting free time activities like canoeing, walking and wandering in the woods or on the great lake.
The German boarding school in Plön Castle was closed in 2001 under the state government of
The Princes' House is affectionately called the "Pearl of the
Relics of the Cold War can be found in the form of explosive vehicle traps along the Fünf-Seen-Allee ("Five Lake Lane") near the old Five Lake Barracks (formerly home to the 6th Engineer Battalion (Pionierbataillon 6) and 6th Panzergrenadier Division), in Plön-Stadtheide.
Politics
Town council
Plön's town council consists of 23 councillors.
CDU |
SPD | FWG-Plön | Die Grünen |
FDP | Total | |
2013 | 8 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 23 seats |
(as of municipal election on May 2013)
Mayor
After a runoff on 21 November 2004 Jens Paustian became Plön's mayor. In 2016 Lars Winter won the elections and is now the mayor
Coat of arms
The coat of arms shows on a silver background above silver and blue waves in which a red fish is swimming, a red, full-width, low crenellated wall made of bricks, on top of which is a short, red crenellated tower with two black window arches; over the tower hovers Holstein's coat of arms (in red a silver nettle leaf)
Partnerships
- Plau am See, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, since 1990
- A sponsorship arrangement also exists with the town of Zhilino (formerly the German town of Schillen) in the old Tilsit-Ragnit district in Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast, in what was once East Prussia.
- Ksour Essef, Tunisia, since 1969
- Plöns Kreis is the partnership of Lääne-Virumaa county in Estonia
Transport
The
The town is a highway hub, being on the junction of the federal roads (Bundesstraßen) B 76 (east-west) and B 430 (southwest-northeast).
Suburbs
The village of Koppelsberg lies on the B 430 to the west of the town. The village of Sandkaten (municipality of
Culture
Places of interest
Plön Castle
Parnass Tower
The Parnass Tower is a 20-metre-high, steel lattice tower on a stone plinth erected in 1888 as an observation tower by the Plön Tourism Society (Plöner Verschönerungsverein). It is open from April to October.
Water tower
The old Plön Water Tower (Wasserturm Plön) of 1913 lies in the east of the town and is used today as a residence.
Planet Walk
On Plön's Planet Walk the solar system is mapped on a scale of 1:2,000,000,000, starting from a symbol of the sun on the landing stage on Market Bridge.
Museums
Museums in Plön include the
Krieglstein Puppet Theatre
Opposite the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology (until 2007: the MPI for Limnology) is the Krieglstein Puppet Theatre. Ute Krieglstein designed the yarn dolls, including the set and plays songs, composed by her, with her husband, Gerd, who is responsible for the technology. After years as a touring company in Germany, in other European countries and several guest performances in South Korea their company, "Puppen & Co", has had a permanent venue in Plön since 2000.
Literature: "Wonderful times in Wonderful Plön"
My romantic attachment began, of course, in the cradle, shaped by the whole course of those early days. It grew stronger, not least through the nourishment it received from the romantic beauty of Plön and its countryside. The little town nestles, surrounded by lakes, on a narrow strip of land encircling the low hill, whose heights are occupied by the old ducal palace, ringed by old trees, avenues and terraced, sloping gardens. Around the sprawling waters of the lakes, which can be seen from above in a single sweeping gaze, runs a belt of beautiful beech forest over serries of hills, interspersed with a gay, fertile landscape. When, in the evening of a bright summer's day, the moon casts its beams over the gently stirring waves of the lake surface, what a wonderful decoration to play romantic games with the heart over the terraces and under the old trees…" ~ Rochus von Liliencron, 1902, in his Jugenderinnerungen ("Memories of Childhood")
Personalities
- Georg Michael Telemann (1748–1831), church musician and composer
- Friedrich Carl Gröger (1766–1838), portrait painter and lithographer
- Rochus von Liliencron (1820–1912), Germanist, music historian and editor of the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie
- Karl Christian Bruhns (1830–1881), astronomer
- dendrologist,
- Karl von Graffen (1893–1964), general lieutenant in the Second World War
- Karl Mauss (1898–1959), officer and general
- Lauritz Lauritzen (1910–1980), politician 8(SPD)
- Nick St. Nicholas (1943- , Bass player American Rock Band Steppenwolf
References
- Statistisches Amt für Hamburg und Schleswig-Holstein.
- ^ Helen Roche: Surviving ‘Stunde Null’ - Narrating the Fate of Nazi Elite-School Pupils during the Collapse of the Third Reich. German History, Vol. 33, No. 4, pp. 570–587.
- ^ Internatsgymnasium Schloß Plön (ed.): Alternativer Stadtführer zu den Stätten des Nationalsozialismus in Plön, 1989, Plön
- ^ Marit Hofmann (2020): Der Plön-Fluch. nd-aktuell, 18 December 2020, accessed: 2 June 2023.
External links
- A Cordial Welcome to Plön (in German)
- Official website (in German)
- Fielmann-Akademie Schloss Plön with detailed history of Schloss Plön
- Gymnasium Schloss Plön
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
- King Alfred School Plön
- Ingo Buth – Small town politics whistleblowed by local elderman