Founding
town in the district of Nordfriesland, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
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Friedrichstadt (German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪçˌʃtat] ⓘ; Low German: Frieestadt; Danish: Frederiksstad; North Frisian: Fräärstää; Dutch: Frederikstad aan de Eider) is a town in the district of Nordfriesland, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is situated on the river Eider approx. 12 km (7 miles) south of Husum.
The town was founded in 1621 by Dutch settlers. Duke Friedrich III of Holstein-Gottorp persuaded them to invest capital and knowledge in this region in turn for freedom of their Mennonite and Remonstrant religions (see: Arminianism) and opportunities to reclaim fen and marsh land in the vicinity of the town. One of them was Johannes Narssius. Dutch became an official language. The town was named after Duke Frederick.
By 1630, many Arminians had already returned to the Netherlands. Between 1633 and 1637 Frederick III sent an embassy to Tsar Michael I of Russia and to Shah Safi of Persia with a view to setting up Friedrichstadt as a European trade terminus. The delegation was led by the jurisconsult Philip Crusius and the merchant Otto Bruggemann or Brugman; their secretary, the scholar Adam Olearius, later wrote a book documenting the mission. The aim of creating a regular trading route that did not need to pass around Africa was not achieved, the delegation proved fruitless and the town did not become as successful as anticipated.
Beside the Remonstrants and Mennonites, other faith communities which settled in the town included Unitarians, Quakers, Catholics and Jews.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Friedrichstadt”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.