1.
Spandau Citadel
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The Spandau Citadel is a fortress in Berlin, Germany, one of the best-preserved Renaissance military structures of Europe. Built from 1559–94 atop a medieval fort on an island created by the meeting of the Havel and the Spree, it was designed to protect the town of Spandau, in recent years it has been used as a museum and has become a popular tourist spot. Italian architect Francesco Chiaramella de Gandino started to plan the citadel in 1557 and was replaced by his compatriot Rochus Graf zu Lynar one year later, with four bastions, symmetrically arranged and connected by curtain walls, the Spandau citadel is an ideal example of a 16th-century fortress. Due to the formation, there is no blind spot for enemies to hide. In 1580, first troops were assigned to the Spandau Citadel which was completed only in 1594, swedish troops were the first to besiege the citadel in 1675 and Napoleon was the first to conquer it in 1806. During the French attack it was almost completely destroyed and had to be restored, in 1935, a gas laboratory was installed for military research on nerve gas. Close to the end of the Second World War, during the battle in Berlin, although several hundred years old, the Citadels tracé à litalienne design made the structure difficult to storm. So instead of bombarding and storming the Citadel, the Soviets invested it, after the Second World War, the Spandau Citadel was first occupied by Soviet troops. With the division of Berlin, Spandau and its Citadel was part of the British sector, the citadel was used as a prison for Prussian state prisoners such as German nationalist Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. It was not used as the prison for National Socialist war criminals, the citadel is composed of different buildings all related to defence or representative housing. The gate house with a bridge used to hinder attackers to enter the citadel. The Gothic hall building palace was used as residential building, in the bastion Königin,70 medieval gravestones were found bearing witness of Jewish life in the important trade town and the function of the citadel as a refuge. Julius tower is Spandaus most famous sight, originally built as a keep or watchtower, it was also used as a residence tower. Its castellated top was designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in 1838 and is an example of Romantic architecture. After the Franco-Prussian War 1870/71, part of the war reparations paid by France,120 million marks in gold coin, was stored at Julius tower until its restitution to France in 1919, the word Juliusturm has since been used in Germany for governmental budget surpluses. From 1950 to 1986, the citadel housed vocational school Otto Bartning, subsequently, more and more buildings were redesigned for museums and exhibition. Today, Spandau Citadel is famous for its open-air concerts during the Citadel Music Festival, scenes from the 1985 action film Gotcha. were filmed at and around Spandau Citadel
2.
Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
3.
Walter Schott
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Walter Schott was a German sculptor and art professor. His father Eduard was a well-known metallurgist who was the manager, after completing his standard education, he studied in Hanover then, from 1880 to 1883, at the Prussian Academy of Arts under Fritz Schaper. After 1885, he worked as a sculptor in Berlin. In 1930, he wrote an autobiography, defending his position and his remains were cremated and his ashes placed in an urn at his fathers grave in Ilsenburg. Mecklenburg Nymphenbrunnen, The original is in the park of Schlitz Castle near Lake Malchin but there are copies, most notably one in Central Park, New York. Other copy is present in the front of the Kasteel Den Brandt in De Brandt park located in Antwerpen. Berlin Figure Group 1 in the Siegesallee project of Wilhelm II, consisting of Albert the Bear as the figure, flanked by Bishop Wigger von Brandenburg. The statues were vandalized shortly after their dedication in 1898 and were damaged in World War II. They are now on display at the Spandau Citadel, grave memorial for Else von Falckenberg in the Jerusalem II Friedhof am Halleschen Tor. Statue of William I, Prince of Orange in front of the Stadtschloss, the original was destroyed in World War II, but a copy of the statue in Wiesbaden, dating from 1908, still exists. Presented as a gift to the city of Berlin by the AEG in 1953, currently in Humboldthain Park, Berlin-Gesundbrunnen Saalburg Bust of Kaiser Wilhelm II. It was placed in storage by the Communist government in 1955 and was restored in 1998 as part of the ceremonies accompanying the 100th anniversary of the Saalburgs restoration, battlefield at Gravelotte in Alsace Monument honoring the First Foot Guards. It was unique among monuments relating to the Franco-Prussian War in that it honored the fallen French soldiers. This was done at the suggestion of the Kaiser, after World War I, when Alsace was once again part of France, the French government removed the central angel figure and offered to sell it back to Germany. When the offer was refused, the statue was melted down, the base of the monument is still there. Walter Schott, Ein Künstler-Leben und Gesellschaftliche Erinnerungen aus Kaiserlicher Zeit, artNet, Various versions of the Kugelspielerin, Schotts most popular small sculpture. Literature by and about Walter Schott in the German National Library catalogue
4.
Saxony-Anhalt
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Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked federal state of Germany surrounded by the federal states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia. Its capital is Magdeburg and its largest city is Halle, Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of 20,447.7 square kilometres and has a population of 2.34 million. Saxony-Anhalt should not be confused with Saxony or Lower Saxony, also German states, Saxony-Anhalt is one of 16 Bundesländer of Germany. It is located in the part of eastern Germany. By size, it is the 8th largest state in Germany and it borders four fellow Bundesländer, Lower Saxony to the north-west, Brandenburg to the north-east, Saxony to the south-east, and Thuringia to the south-west. In the north, the Saxony-Anhalt landscape is dominated by plain, the old Hanseatic towns Salzwedel, Gardelegen, Stendal, and Tangermünde are located in the sparsely populated Altmark. The Colbitz-Letzlingen Heath and the Drömling near Wolfsburg mark the transition between the Altmark region and the Elbe-Börde-Heath region with its fertile, sparsely wooded Magdeburg Börde. Notable towns in the Magdeburg Börde are Haldensleben, Oschersleben, Wanzleben, Schönebeck, Aschersleben, the Harz mountains are located in the south-west, comprising the Harz National Park, the Harz Foreland and Mansfeld Land. The highest mountain of the Harz is Brocken, with an elevation of 1,141 meters, in this area, one can find the towns of Halberstadt, Wernigerode, Thale, Eisleben and Quedlinburg. The wine-growing area Saale-Unstrut and the towns of Zeitz, Naumburg, Weißenfels, the metropolitan area of Halle forms an agglomeration with Leipzig in Saxony. This area is known for its highly developed industry, with major production plants at Leuna, Schkopau. Finally, in the east, Dessau-Roßlau and Wittenberg are situated on the Elbe in the Anhalt-Wittenberg region, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt is Magdeburg. It is the second-largest city in the state, closely after Halle, from 1994 to 2003, the state was divided into three regions, Dessau, Halle and Magdeburg, and, below the regional level,21 districts. Since 2004, however, this system has replaced by 11 rural districts. In April 1945 the US Army took control of most of the western and northern area of the future Saxony-Anhalt, group Control Council, Germany appointed the first non-Nazi officials in leading positions in the area. So Erhard Hübener, furloughed by the Nazis, was reappointed Landeshauptmann. By early July the US Army withdrew from the former Prussian Province of Saxony to make way for the Red Army to take it as part of the Soviet occupation zone, the previously Saxon Erfurt governorate had become a part of Thuringia. For the earlier history see the articles of these entities before 1945
5.
Bernhard, Count of Anhalt
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Bernhard, a member of the House of Ascania, was Count of Anhalt and Ballenstedt, and Lord of Bernburg through his paternal inheritance. From 1180 he was also Duke of Saxony, Bernhard was the youngest of the seven sons of Albert the Bear, Duke of Saxony from 1138 to 1142 and first Margrave of Brandenburg from 1157, by his wife Sophie of Winzenburg. In 1157 he was present together with his father and brothers at the funeral of the Wettin margrave Conrad of Meissen, two years later, Bernhard accompanied Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to Italy with his brother Margrave Otto I of Brandenburg. These territories eventually emerged as the nucleus of the Ascanian Principality of Anhalt, when his elder brother Albert died without male issue in 1172, Bernhard also inherited his County of Ballenstedt. In the same year he solicited the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in the Imperial Diet of Goslar for possession of Plötzkau, Bernhard nonetheless was able to confirm his possessions. When Henry the Lion was outlawed by the Emperor in 1180, previously the duchy had been divided, so that Bernhard could only receive the region between Meissen and the Mark of Brandenburg as his formal possession. Besides these, he received several small territories, the towns of Aken and Wittenberg. The dignity Duke of Saxony, Angria and Westphalia was only an empty title, the rich lands of Engern and Westphalia, in addition to the ducal title of Highness, were conferred on the Archbishopric-Electorate of Cologne. Bernhard was forced to support the Emperor in his war against Henry the Lion in 1181. In spite of his defeat, Henry the Lion was able to preserve his Allodial title, from which the Duchy of Brunswick, in Nordalbingien and the areas between the Elbe and the Baltic Sea, Bernhards vassals soon rebelled against him and gave their support to Henry the Lion. Bernhard tried to assert his claims, thanks to the support of his brothers Otto I of Brandenburg and Siegfried, at first the vassals of Artlenburg swore an oath of fidelity. After them, the counts of Ratzeburg, Danneberg, Luckow, however, the most powerful of these vassals, Count Adolf of Holstein, would not accept the Bernhards lordship and became his adversary. Conflicts broke out around Dithmarschen, in western Holstein, but without success for Adolf, after Adolfs defeat, Lauenburg on the lower Elbe, became the focal point for opposition to Bernhards rule. In 1183 another of Bernhards brothers, Count Dietrich of Werben died without surviving male issue and his possessions fell mostly to Bernhard. Warfare involving Henry the Lion also expanded to the Slavic countries, Henry Borwin I, the son of Pribislav, was a supporter of Henry the Lion like his father, and remained an opponent of Bernhard. His cousin Nicholas I, granted Burg Malchow by Henry the Lion in 1164, Borwin allied himself with Duke Bogislaw I of Pomerania and Nicholas with Prince Jaromir I of Rügen, a faithful vassal of Denmark. Borwin was taken into captivity by King Canute and was forced, like Nicholas, after incursions of the Danes in Pomerania in 1184 and 1185, Bogislaw shared the same destiny. With the success of the Danes, the Emperor in 1184 pressed for a balance between Bernhard and his vassal
6.
Rulers of Saxony
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This article lists Dukes, Electors, and Kings ruling over different territories named Saxony from the beginning of the Saxon Duchy in the 9th century to the end of the Saxon Kingdom in 1918. See Counts Palatine of Saxony In the 10th century the Emperor Otto I created the County Palatine of Saxony in the Saale-Unstrut area of southern Saxony. Hadugato Berthoald Theoderic Widukind Abo Banzleibs With the final removal of the Welfs in 1180, westphalia fell to the Archbishop of Cologne, while the Duchies of Brunswick and Lüneburg remained with the Welfs. The Ascanian Dukes had their base further east, near the Elbe, the post carve-up Saxony is therefore sometimes called the younger Duchy of Saxony. Also the counting of its dukes is discontinued, the second post carve-up duke Albert I is already usually counted as the first, although before 1180 he had one predecessor of the same name, being even his grandfather Albert the Bear. The new dukes replaced the Saxon horse emblem and introduced their Ascanian family colours and emblem added by a bendwise crancelin, symbolising the Saxon ducal crown, the later rulers of the House of Wettin adopted the Ascanian coat-of-arms. In 1314 both lines found themselves on different sides in a double election, eventually, the Dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg succeeded in 1356 after the promulgation of the Golden Bull. To distinguish him from other rulers bearing the title Duke of Saxony, for the predecessor see the section Ascanian or younger Duchy of Saxony above in this article. Of these, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, and Saxe-Altenburg lasted until 1918 and this article does not list the subsequent Ernestine dukes. The Golden Bull of 1356 confirmed the right to participate in the election of a Holy Roman Emperor to the Duke of Saxony in the Saxe-Wittenberg line, for the predecessor see the section Ascanian Dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg above in this article. The Holy Roman Empire came to an end in 1806, the Elector of Saxony, allied to Napoleon I, anticipated its dissolution by becoming the ruler of an independent Kingdom of Saxony in 1806. The legal line of succession of the house of Wettin has continued to the present, for later rulers, see List of Ministers-President of Saxony. House of Wettin Line of succession to the former Saxon thrones History of Saxony Coat of arms of Saxony House Laws of the Kingdom of Saxony
7.
Henry II, Duke of Saxony
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Henry the Proud, a member of the House of Welf, was Duke of Bavaria from 1126 to 1138 and Duke of Saxony as well as Margrave of Tuscany and Duke of Spoleto from 1137 until his death. In 1138 he was a candidate for the election as King of the Romans but was defeated by Conrad of Hohenstaufen, Henry came of age in 1123, in 1126 his father retired to Weingarten Abbey where he and his wife died shortly afterwards. As his elder brother Conrad had entered the Cistercian Order, Henry was enefeoffed with the Duchy of Bavaria and he shared the family possessions in Saxony, Bavaria and Swabia with his younger brother Welf VI. In 1127 he married Gertrude, the child of King Lothair III of Germany. Henrys father had promised her marriage and inheritance as reward for his changing to support Lothair in the royal election of 1125 against the Hohenstaufen rival Duke Frederick II of Swabia. Gertrude was heir of the properties of three Saxon dynasties, the House of Supplinburg, the Brunonids, and the Counts of Northeim, the marriage marked the expansion of power of the Welf dynasty, Bavarian dukes since 1070, to the northern parts of Germany. The couple had one son, Henry the Lion. After a war of devastation, Count Frederick submitted in 1133 and he was also given the private properties of late Margravine Matilda of Tuscany from the hands of Pope Innocent II. When Emperor Lothair died on his way back from Italy in December 1137, Henrys wealth, according to the contemporary chronicler Otto of Freising, after his appointment as Duke of Saxony he boasted of a realm stretching from sea to sea, from Denmark to Sicily. However, the qualities which earned him the cognomen of the Proud aroused the jealousy of the princes. The new king, Conrad III, demanded the Imperial Regalia which Henry had received from Lothair, but Conrad, who feared his power, refused to assent to this on the pretext that it was unlawful for two duchies to be in one hand. Attempts at a settlement failed, and when in July 1138 Henry refused to take the oath of allegiance, Bavaria was given to the Babenberg margrave Leopold IV of Austria, a half-brother of the new king Conrad. In 1139 Henry succeeded in expelling his enemies from Saxony and was preparing to attack Bavaria when he died in Quedlinburg. Henry is buried in the Imperial Cathedral of Königslutter next to his parents-in-law Emperor Lothair and his death left his son Henry the Lion underage who later would be given Saxony, while Henry II, Duke of Austria received Bavaria. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
8.
Henry the Lion
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Henry the Lion was a member of the Welf dynasty and Duke of Saxony, as Henry III, from 1142, and Duke of Bavaria, as Henry XII, from 1156, the duchies of which he held until 1180. At the height of his reign, Henry ruled over a vast territory stretching from the coast of the North and Baltic Seas to the Alps, Henry achieved this great power in part by his political and military acumen and in part through the legacies of his four grandparents. Born in Ravensburg, in 1129 or 1131, he was the son of Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, who was the son of Duke Henry the Black, Henrys father died in 1139, aged 32, when Henry was still a child. King Conrad III had dispossessed Henry the Proud of his duchies in 1138 and 1139, handing Saxony to Albert the Bear and this was because Henry the Proud had been his rival for the crown in 1138. Henry III, however, did not relinquish his claims to his inheritance, a participant in the 1147 Wendish Crusade, Henry also reacquired Bavaria by a decision of the new Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1156. However, the East Mark was not returned, which became Austria, Henry is the founder of Munich and Lübeck, he also founded and developed numerous other cities in Northern Germany and Bavaria, a. o. Augsburg, Hildesheim, Stade, Kassel, Güstrow, Lüneburg, Salzwedel, Schwerin, in Brunswick, his capital, he had a bronze lion, his heraldic animal, erected in the yard of his castle Dankwarderode in 1166 — the first bronze statue north of the Alps. Later, he had Brunswick Cathedral built close to the statue, in 1147, Henry married Clementia of Zähringen, thereby gaining her hereditary territories in Swabia. In 1165, Henry married Matilda, the daughter of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, during Fredericks first invasion of northern Italy, Henry took part, among the others, in the victorious sieges of Crema and Milan. In 1172, Henry had taken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, meeting with the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller, spending Easter of that year in Constantinople. By December 1172, he was back in Bavaria and in 1174 and he did not consider these Italian adventures worth the effort, unless Barbarossa presented Henry with the Saxon imperial city Goslar, a request Barbarossa refused. Barbarossas expedition into Lombardy ultimately ended in failure and he bitterly resented Henry for failing to support him. Declaring that Imperial law overruled traditional German law, the court had Henry stripped of his lands, Frederick then invaded Saxony with an Imperial army to bring his cousin to his knees. Henrys allies deserted him, and he finally had to submit in November 1181 at a Reichstag in Erfurt and he was exiled from Germany in 1182 for three years, stayed with his father-in-law, in Normandy before being allowed back into Germany in 1185. He was exiled again in 1188 and his wife Matilda died in 1189. When Frederick Barbarossa went on the Crusade of 1189, Henry returned to Saxony, mobilized an army of his faithful, only the churches were left standing. Henry the Lion remains a figure to this day. During World War I a nail man depicting Henry the Lion, nazi propaganda later declared Henry an antecessor of the Nazis Lebensraum policy and turned Brunswick Cathedral and Henrys tomb into a National Place of Consecration
9.
Elector of Brandenburg
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This article lists the Margraves and Electors of Brandenburg during the period of time that Brandenburg was a constituent state of the Holy Roman Empire. The Mark, or March, of Brandenburg was one of the constituent states of the Holy Roman Empire. It was created in 1157 as the Margraviate of Brandenburg by Albert the Bear, Margrave of the Northern March. In 1356, by the terms of the Golden Bull of Charles IV, the early rulers came from several different dynasties, but from 1415 Brandenburg and its successor states were ruled by the House of Hohenzollern for over 500 years. From 1618 onward, Brandenburg was ruled in union with the Duchy of Prussia. The titles of Margrave of Brandenburg and Elector of Brandenburg were abolished along with the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, from 1871 to 1918 the Hohenzollerns were also the German Emperors. The upper president carried out central prerogatives on the provincial level and these parliaments legislated within the competences transferred to the provinces. The provincial diet of Brandenburg elected an executive body, the provincial committee, and a head of province. Self-rule was abolished under the Nazi dictatorship, after being abolished in a reorganization of the territories administered by the German Democratic Republic, the Land Brandenburg was restored in the prelude to German unification in 1990. Matthias Platzeck, 2002–2013 Dietmar Woidke, since 2013
