Hanover
Hanover or Hannover is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,061 inhabitants make it the thirteenth-largest city of Germany, as well as the third-largest city of Northern Germany after Hamburg and Bremen; the city lies at the confluence of the River Leine and its tributary Ihme, in the south of the North German Plain, is the largest city of the Hannover–Braunschweig–Göttingen–Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region. It is the fifth-largest city in the Low German dialect area after Hamburg, Dortmund and Bremen. Before it became the capital of Lower Saxony in 1946, Hanover was the capital of the Principality of Calenberg, the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg, the Kingdom of Hanover, the Province of Hanover of the Kingdom of Prussia, the Province of Hanover of the Free State of Prussia, of the State of Hanover. From 1714 to 1837, Hanover was by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, under their title of the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg.
The city is a major crossing point of railway lines and highways, connecting European main lines in both the east-west and north-south directions. Hannover Airport lies north of the city, in Langenhagen, is Germany's ninth-busiest airport; the city's most notable institutions of higher education are the Hannover Medical School with its university hospital, the University of Hanover. The Hanover fairground, due to numerous extensions for the Expo 2000, is the largest in the world. Hanover hosts annual commercial trade fairs such as the Hanover Fair and up to 2018 the CeBIT; the IAA Commercial Vehicles show takes place every two years. It is the world's leading trade show for transport and mobility; every year Hanover hosts the Schützenfest Hannover, the world's largest marksmen's festival, the Oktoberfest Hannover. "Hanover" is the traditional English spelling. The German spelling is becoming more popular in English; the English pronunciation, with stress on the first syllable, is applied to both the German and English spellings, different from German pronunciation, with stress on the second syllable and a long second vowel.
The traditional English spelling is still used in historical contexts when referring to the British House of Hanover. Hanover was founded in medieval times on the east bank of the River Leine, its original name Honovere may mean "high bank". Hanover was a small village of ferrymen and fishermen that became a comparatively large town in the 13th century, receiving town privileges in 1241, due to its position at a natural crossroads; as overland travel was difficult, its position on the upper navigable reaches of the river helped it to grow by increasing trade. It was connected to the Hanseatic League city of Bremen by the Leine, was situated near the southern edge of the wide North German Plain and north-west of the Harz mountains, so that east-west traffic such as mule trains passed through it. Hanover was thus a gateway to the Rhine and Saar river valleys, their industrial areas which grew up to the southwest and the plains regions to the east and north, for overland traffic skirting the Harz between the Low Countries and Saxony or Thuringia.
In the 14th century the main churches of Hanover were built, as well as a city wall with three city gates. The beginning of industrialization in Germany led to trade in iron and silver from the northern Harz Mountains, which increased the city's importance. In 1636 George, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, ruler of the Brunswick-Lüneburg principality of Calenberg, moved his residence to Hanover; the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg was elevated by the Holy Roman Emperor to the rank of Prince-Elector in 1692, this elevation was confirmed by the Imperial Diet in 1708. Thus the principality was upgraded to the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg, colloquially known as the Electorate of Hanover after Calenberg's capital, its Electors become monarchs of Great Britain. The first of these was George I Louis, who acceded to the British throne in 1714; the last British monarch who reigned in Hanover was William IV. Semi-Salic law, which required succession by the male line if possible, forbade the accession of Queen Victoria in Hanover.
As a male-line descendant of George I, Queen Victoria was herself a member of the House of Hanover. Her descendants, bore her husband's titular name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Three kings of Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, were concurrently Electoral Princes of Hanover. During the time of the personal union of the crowns of the United Kingdom and Hanover, the monarchs visited the city. In fact, during the reigns of the final three joint rulers, there was only one short visit, by George IV in 1821. From 1816 to 1837 Viceroy Adolphus represented the monarch in Hanover. During the Seven Years' War, the Battle of Hastenbeck was fought near the city on 26 July 1757; the French army defeated the Hanoverian Army of Observation, leading to the city's occupation as part of the Invasion of Hanover. It was recaptured by Anglo-German forces led by Ferdinand of Brunswick the following year. After Napoleon imposed the Conv
Burgwedel
Burgwedel is a town in the district of Hanover, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated 15 km northeast of Hanover. Burgwedel consists of the following boroughs: Engensen Fuhrberg Großburgwedel Kleinburgwedel Oldhorst Thönse Wettmar The members of the Roman Catholic St. Paul's parish community Burgwedel builds the second largest religious community of the town. St. Paul's belongs to the diocese of Hildesheim, part of the ecclesiastical province of Hamburg. Carl Graf von Alten, Hanoverian-British general and statesman Otto Wöhler, General of the Wehrmacht and war criminal Valmir Sulejmani, German footballer Karsten Friedrich Hoppenstedt, Member of the European Parliament Willi Reimann, former footballer and football coach Gundis Zámbó, actress Mike Hanke, footballer Christian Wulff, former Federal President, former Lower Saxony Minister President Bettina Wulff, wife of Christian Wulff Gerald Asamoah, footballer Dieter Schatzschneider, soccer player Hermann Bahlsen, bakery factory manufacturer
Berlin–Lehrte railway
The Berlin–Lehrte railway, known in German as the Lehrter Bahn, is an east-west line running from Berlin via Lehrte to Hanover. Its period as a separate railway extended from its opening in 1871 to the nationalisation of its owner, the Magdeburg-Halberstadt Railway Company on 1 July 1886; the company’s Berlin station, the Lehrter Bahnhof was torn down in 1958. The 239 km long route, still open, runs from Berlin Hauptbahnhof in a westerly direction to Spandau. From there it runs through Rathenow, Oebisfelde and Gifhorn to Lehrte, where it connects with the Hanover–Brunswick line to Hanover; the Lehrte railway has a maximum speed of 200 km/h on the busy line between Hanover and Oebisfelde, which forms part of the Hanover–Berlin high-speed line. Between Oebisfelde and Berlin, the new line runs parallel with the Lehrte line; the Lehrte line is unelectrified between Wustermark in the western of the suburbs of Berlin and Vorsfelde, near Wolfsburg, as long-distance passenger services use the new line.
In 1867, Adolph von Hansemann's Magdeburg-Halberstadt Railway Company obtained the concession for the construction of this line, a branch from Stendal via Salzwedel to Uelzen, the so-called America Line. The route would reduce the distance between Berlin and the Rhine Province compared to the existing line via Potsdam and Brunswick, it went into service in the following stages: 15 March 1870: Stendal–Salzwedel 1 February 1871: Gardelegen–Stendal–Spandau 15 July 1871: Spandau–Berlin 1 November 1871: Lehrte–Gardelegen for freight. From 1884 the operations in Berlin of the Lehrte Railway were united structurally and operationally more and more with the nearby Hamburg Railway; this was accompanied by the separation of passenger and freight transport in Berlin with the building of the relief line between Wustermark and Nauen, the construction and refurbishment of the Spandau station and the opening of the Wustermark marshalling yard completed before the First World War. The railway line became important for passenger and freight transport between Berlin and Hanover, the Ruhr and Bremen.
With the division of Germany after the Second World War, the line lost most of its long-distance passenger trains. Because of the need to make reparations, the rail networks in the Soviet occupation zone were reduced to a minimum due to strange, time-consuming operating procedures for rail movements that resulted. In Berlin, the remaining traffic was concentrated on other routes and stations, so that Berlin's Lehrte station ceased operation in 1952. In 1974 a 970 m long cut and cover tunnel was completed under the newly constructed Elbe Lateral Canal. Starting in 1976 the line between Wustermark and Berlin began to be used for transit trains between Berlin and Hamburg. New passport inspection facilities were set up in Berlin-Staaken station. After German reunification in 1991, long-distance trains from Berlin to Hanover returned to the line. In the 1980s, planning was untaken on upgrading the Lehrte railway for high-speed transit traffic between West Germany and West Berlin, it was planned to build a new track parallel with the Lehrte railway for transit traffic, with the existing tracks used for the domestic services within the German Democratic Republic.
This plan is reflected in the line as built with the old railway, still not electrified, being used for regional services. The first connection to the new Berlin Ringbahn was built in 1879 when a connection was built in Fürstenbrunn to the Charlottenburg-Westend freight yard; this connection was further developed in 1882 to create a link for passenger trains between the Lehrte railway and the Berlin Stadtbahn to connect with Charlottenburg station. For the same purpose a connection was built in 1882 between the Hamburg railway and the Stadtbahn between Ruhleben and Charlottenburg station. With the nationalisation of the Hamburg railway in 1884, its operation was further integrated with the Lehrte railway in Berlin and Spandau: Transfer of Hamburg passenger services to Berlin's Lehrte station and closure of the Hamburger Bahnhof in October 1884 Merger of their goods yards in Berlin in May 1893 Restructuring between 1888 and 1892 of the two company’s stations in Spandau, with the station west of the Havel river becoming the freight yard and station east of the Havel becoming the passenger station.
In 1885 a freight rail had been built here to create a link between the two lines. At the same time, the two pairs of tracks between Berlin and Spandau were rearranged to operate as passenger-only and freight-only tracks, with the Lehrte tracks being used for freight trains; as part of development of the Ringbahn with four tracks Moabit station was rebuilt. Putlitzstraße station opened in 1898 allowed for the first time transfers between trains on the north ring and suburban trains between Spandau and Berlin's Lehrte station. More stations were opened on the Lehrte railway: Staaken Fürstenbrunn for the Siemens workers of Siemensstadt Jungfernheide The growth of long-distance and freight services made necessary the radical transformation of the Spandau railway between 1905 and 1912, it was necessary to relocate freight services, for which the Berlin railway had become too congested, to outer areas. Between Ruhleben and the Spandau fr
Berlin
Berlin is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3,748,148 inhabitants make it the second most populous city proper of the European Union after London; the city is one of Germany's 16 federal states. It is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, contiguous with its capital, Potsdam; the two cities are at the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg capital region, which is, with about six million inhabitants and an area of more than 30,000 km², Germany's third-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main regions. Berlin straddles the banks of the River Spree, which flows into the River Havel in the western borough of Spandau. Among the city's main topographical features are the many lakes in the western and southeastern boroughs formed by the Spree and Dahme rivers. Due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. About one-third of the city's area is composed of forests, gardens, rivers and lakes; the city lies in the Central German dialect area, the Berlin dialect being a variant of the Lusatian-New Marchian dialects.
First documented in the 13th century and situated at the crossing of two important historic trade routes, Berlin became the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world. After World War II and its subsequent occupation by the victorious countries, the city was divided. East Berlin was declared capital of East Germany. Following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all of Germany. Berlin is a world city of culture, politics and science, its economy is based on high-tech firms and the service sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations and convention venues. Berlin serves as a continental hub for air and rail traffic and has a complex public transportation network; the metropolis is a popular tourist destination. Significant industries include IT, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology and electronics.
Berlin is home to world-renowned universities, orchestras and entertainment venues, is host to many sporting events. Its Zoological Garden is one of the most popular worldwide. With the world's oldest large-scale movie studio complex, Berlin is an popular location for international film productions; the city is well known for its festivals, diverse architecture, contemporary arts and a high quality of living. Since the 2000s Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene. Berlin lies in northeastern Germany, east of the River Saale, that once constituted, together with the River Elbe, the eastern border of the Frankish Realm. While the Frankish Realm was inhabited by Germanic tribes like the Franks and the Saxons, the regions east of the border rivers were inhabited by Slavic tribes; this is why most of the villages in northeastern Germany bear Slavic-derived names. Typical Germanised place name suffixes of Slavic origin are -ow, -itz, -vitz, -witz, -itzsch and -in, prefixes are Windisch and Wendisch.
The name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of today's Berlin, may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. 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. Of Berlin's twelve boroughs, five bear a Slavic-derived name: Pankow, Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Treptow-Köpenick and Spandau. Of its ninety-six neighborhoods, twenty-two bear a Slavic-derived name: Altglienicke, Alt-Treptow, Buch, Gatow, Kladow, Köpenick, Lankwitz, Lübars, Marzahn, Prenzlauer Berg, Schmöckwitz, Stadtrandsiedlung Malchow, Steglitz and Zehlendorf; the neighborhood of Moabit bears a French-derived name, Französisch Buchholz is named after the Huguenots. The earliest evidence of settlements in the area of today's Berlin are a wooden beam dated from 1192, remnants of a house foundation dated to 1174, found in excavations in Berlin Mitte; 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, Berlin, across the Spree in what is now called the Nikolaiviertel, is referenced in a document from 1244. 1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, profited from the staple 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, their internal administrations still being separated. In 1415, Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. During the 15th century, his successors established Berlin-Cölln as capital of the margraviate, subsequent members of the Hohenzol
Garbsen
Garbsen is a town in the district of Hanover, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on approx. 11 km northwest of Hanover. The town consists of 13 districts: Altgarbsen Auf der Horst Berenbostel Frielingen Garbsen-Mitte Havelse Heitlingen Horst Meyenfeld Osterwald Oberende Osterwald Unterende Schloss Ricklingen Stelingen Garbsen is twinned with: Hérouville-Saint-Clair, Normandy, France Worksop, England, United Kingdom Farmers Branch, Texas, USA Schönebeck, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany Września, Poland Volker Finke, - football player and football coach, 16 years for SC Freiburg Frank Pagelsdorf, - former football player and football coach Erdoğan Atalay, - actor in Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei Metropolitan region Hannover-Braunschweig-Göttingen-Wolfsburg Official website
Lehrte
Lehrte is a town in the district of Hanover, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated 17 km east of Hanover. In the 19th century Lehrte was the most important railway junction in the former Kingdom of Hanover; as of the 21st century, it has a population of 43,000. The first documented history of the area was in 1147 and shows that, what is now known as Lehrte, was a small farming village. Up to the year 1352, when the church, now known as Nikolauskirche, was built. At this time, Lehrte lay in the historical region known as the Großen Freien which translates to the big free and lay far from major transit and traffic routes. Lehrte lay dormant until 1843, when work began on the Hanover–Brunswick railway, linking Lehrte with both towns. In the following year, work began on building lines to Celle and Berlin; when work on the railway line commenced, Lehrte had 755 inhabitants, 60 years the population had increased ten times. In 1898 the area of Lehrte was formally recognised as a town. With the railway well and established, industry grew within Lehrte, including clay works, a mineral fertilizer works, a cement factory, canned goods and a sugar factory in 1883 which, until 2002, dominated the centre of the town.
The cement factory was created in 1881 by Hermann Manske with other limited partners and was the second factory of the cement industry in the Hannover region. In 1910 the cement factory was shut down. In 1911 a cattle market was established and Lehrte became one of the most important places for cattle trade and shipment in Northern Germany. In 1912, mining began on the potash reserves in the area; the Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin is named after Lehrte. It was opened in 1871 as the terminus of the line linking Berlin with Lehrte and Hannover, which became Germany's most important east-west main line. Since the 1920s, a large substation has existed in Ahlten, which in 1944 was the end of the experimental Lehrte-Misburg HVDC line. Heinrich Bokemeyer, musicologist and composer, born in Immensen Kurt Hirschfeld, theatre director and dramaturge at the Schauspielhaus Zürich Werner Lampe, German swimmer and Olympic medalist Ursula von der Leyen and current Federal Minister of Defence Reinhard Mey, singer-songwriter Gerhard Schröder and former Chancellor of Germany Metropolitan region Hannover-Braunschweig-Göttingen-Wolfsburg
Wennigsen
Wennigsen is a municipality in the district of Hanover, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated near approx. 15 km southwest of Hanover. Wennigsen borders on Gehrden, Ronnenberg and Barsinghausen; the highest elevation is the highests hill of the Deister with 405 meters. The founding date of Wennigsen is unknown, it dates back to 5th to 8th century. The first dated occurrence is a copy of a certificate from bishop Hartbert of Hildesheim. At this time there was a settlement of earl of Poppenburg, in Wennigsen, he had three roses each with five leaves in his coat of arms. Today Wennigsen bears one of them in its coat of arms. During the Thirty Years' War Wennigsen was near to be destroyed. Duke George William of Hanover split the Großvogtei Calenberg and founded a new Amt Calenberg in which Wennigsen became court place; the Magistrates' Court of Wennigsen still exists. Adolph Freiherr Knigge, born in Bredenbeck, writer of the Enlightenment Heinz Erhardt, German comedian and actor, lived at the Wennigser Mark Gesine Meissner, politician, a member of the European Parliament Hans-Georg Wenzel, geodesist and university lecturer
