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Founding
Founding of Rostock
city in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
- 13th century – 13th century
- Europe
Founding
city in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Rostock (; German: [ˈʁɔstɔk] ⓘ), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (German: Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, close to the border with Pomerania. With around 210,000 inhabitants, it is the third-largest city on the German Baltic coast after Kiel and Lübeck, the eighth-largest city in the area of former East Germany, as well as the 39th-largest city of Germany. Rostock was the largest coastal and most important port city in East Germany.
Rostock stands on the estuary of the River Warnow into the Bay of Mecklenburg of the Baltic Sea. The city stretches for about 16 km (10 mi) along the river. The river flows into the sea in the very north of the city, between the boroughs of Warnemünde and Hohe Düne. The city center lies further upstream, in the very south of the city. Most of Rostock's inhabitants live on the western side of the Warnow; the area east of the river is dominated by the port, industrial estates, and the forested Rostock Heath. The city's coastline east and west of the river mouth is relatively undeveloped, with long sandy beaches prevailing. The name of the city is of Slavic origin.
Rostock is the economic center of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the state's only regiopolis (a city outside the core of a metropolitan area). The port of Rostock is the fourth largest port in Germany after the North Sea ports of Hamburg, Bremen/Bremerhaven, and Wilhelmshaven, and the largest port on the German Baltic coast. The ferry routes linking Rostock to Gedser in Denmark and to Trelleborg in Southern Sweden are among the busiest between Germany and Scandinavia. Rostock–Laage Airport lies in a rural region southeast of the city.
The city is home to the oldest university in the Baltic region and one of the oldest universities in the world, the University of Rostock, founded in 1419. The university's hospital, Universitätsmedizin Rostock, is one of two university hospitals in the state, along with Universitätsmedizin Greifswald of the University of Greifswald in Western Pomerania.
In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc (*ras-tokŭ, Slavic for "fork of a river", it was also preserved in the name of the Moscow district Rostokino); the name Rostock is derived from that designation.
The Danish king Valdemar I set the town on fire in 1161. Afterwards the place was settled by German traders. Initially there were three separate cities:
In 1218, Rostock was granted Lübeck law city rights by Heinrich Borwin, prince of Mecklenburg.
During the first partition of Mecklenburg following the death of Henry Borwin II of Mecklenburg in 1226, Rostock became the seat of the Lordship of Rostock, which survived for almost a century. In 1251, the city became a member of the Hanseatic League. In the 14th century it was a powerful seaport town with 12,000 inhabitants and the largest city in Mecklenburg. Ships for cruising the Baltic Sea were constructed in Rostock. The formerly independent fishing village of Warnemünde at the Baltic Sea became a part of Rostock in 1323, to secure the city's access to the sea.
In 1419, the University of Rostock was founded, the oldest university in continental northern Europe and the Baltic Sea area.
At the end of the 15th century, the dukes of Mecklenburg succeeded in enforcing their rule over the town of Rostock, which had until then been only nominally subject to their rule and essentially independent. They took advantage of a riot known as Domfehde, a failed uprising of the impoverished population. Subsequent quarrels with the dukes and persistent plundering led ultimately to a loss of the city's economic and political power.
In 1565 there were further clashes with Schwerin that had far-reaching consequences. Among other things, the nobility introduced a beer excise that favoured the dukes. John Albert I advanced on the city with 500 horsemen, after Rostock had refused to take the formal oath of allegiance, and had the city wall razed (slighted) to have a fortress built. The conflict did not end until the first Rostock Inheritance Agreement of 21 September 1573, in which the state princes were guaranteed hereditary rule over the city for centuries and recognizing them as the supreme judicial authority; this bound Rostock for a long time. The citizens razed (or slighted) the fortress the following spring.
From 1575 to 1577 the city walls were rebuilt, as was the Lagebusch tower and the Stein Gate, in the Dutch Renaissance style. The inscription sit intra te concordia et publica felicitas ("Let there be harmony and public happiness within you"), can still be read on the gate, and refers directly to the conflict with the Duke. In 1584 the Second Rostock Inheritance Agreement was enforced, which resulted in a further loss of former city tax privileges. At the same time, these inheritance contracts put paid to Rostock's ambition of achieving imperial immediacy, as Lübeck had done in 1226.
The strategic location of Rostock provoked the envy of its rivals. Danes and Swedes occupied the city twice, first during the Thirty Years' War (1618–48) and again from 1700 to 1721. A few years after the Thirty Years' War, which had taken a heavy toll on the city, a major fire broke out in 1677, destroying more than a third of Rostock. For a long time, the city was unable to recover economically from these setbacks. The university, too, fell into crisis and lost its transregional significance. Later in the early 19th century, the French, under Napoleon, occupied the town for about a decade until 1813. In nearby Lübeck-Ratekau, Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, who was born in Rostock and who was one of few generals to fight on after defeat at the Battle of Jena, surrendered to the French in 1806.
In the first half of the 19th century, Rostock regained much of its economic importance, due at first to the wheat trade, then, from the 1850s, to industry, especially its shipyards. The first propeller-driven steamers in Germany were constructed here.
The Grand Duchy also invested heavily in the University of Rostock, which, after a long period of neglect, experienced a resurgence thanks to internal reforms, the establishment of new institutes, and the recruitment of prominent scholars. The city grew in area and population, with new quarters developing in the south and west of the ancient borders of the city. Two notable developments were added to house the increasing population at around 1900:
In the 20th century, important aircraft manufacturing facilities were situated in the city, such as the Arado Flugzeugwerke in Warnemünde and the Heinkel Works with facilities at various places, including their secondary Heinkel-Süd facility in Schwechat, Austria, as the original Heinkel firm's Rostock facilities had been renamed Heinkel-Nord. The world's first airworthy jet plane prototype made its test flights at their facilities in what used to be named the Rostock-Marienehe neighborhood (today's Rostock-Schmarl community, along the west bank of the Unterwarnow estuary).
In the early 1930s, the Nazi Party gained in popularity among Rostock's voters, many of whom had suffered economic hardship during the 1920s. In elections in the summer of 1932, when the Nazis achieved 37.3 percent, their greatest national showing in a free election, they polled 40.3 percent in Rostock. A year later, after the Nazi seizure of power and the suppression of other political parties, the Rostock city council (Stadtrat) was composed entirely of Nazis. During Kristallnacht on 10 November 1938, the synagogue in Rostock's Augustenstrasse was destroyed by arson and dozens of Jews were beaten and imprisoned.
Feverish rearmament by the Nazi regime boosted Rostock's industrial importance in the late 1930s, and employment soared at the Heinkel and Arado factories, and at the Neptunwerft shipyard. The city's population grew from 100,000 in 1935 to 121,192 in 1939.
During World War II, Rostock was subjected to repeated and increasingly heavy bombing attacks, especially by the British Royal Air Force. Targets included the Heinkel and Arado plants and the shipyard, but churches and other historic structures in the city centre were also heavily damaged, among them the 14th-century Nikolaikirche (St Nicholas Church) and Jakobikirche (St Jacob's Church). The ruins of the latter were pulled down in 1960.
The city was eventually captured by the Soviet 2nd Belorussian Front on 2 May 1945 during the Stettin-Rostock offensive operation.
After the war, Rostock – now in the German Democratic Republic – became East Germany's largest seaport. The state expanded the national shipyards in the district of Warnemünde. The city's population, boosted in part by resettled ethnic German refugees who had been expelled from territories in the east, increased in the GDR years to a peak of 260,000. Following the reunification of Germany in 1990, Rostock lost its privileged position as the No. 1 port of the GDR, and the city's population declined to about 200,000. However, after 2006, the population increased again. Today, Rostock and Warnemünde are significant tourist destinations on the Baltic Sea.
In August 1992, Rostock was the site of the xenophobic Rostock-Lichtenhagen riots, during which asylum seekers were attacked by right-wing extremists.
Rostock has a population of about 210,000 people and is the largest city in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state. Rostock became a member of Hanseatic League in 15th century, which made Rostock a prominent city. Rostock reached its peak of over 100,000 in 1935. In the East German era, Rostock was the largest and most important port of East Germany when many sailors and boatmen moved to the city. It also brought many marine and other industries to Rostock. Rostock reached its historical peak of population in 1988 with population of about 254,000. After the German Reunification, the population of Rostock declined due to many people moving to former West Germany. Since 2003, Rostock's population has started to grow again due to students and new companies.
Rostock has had three different coats of arms, known as the Signum, the Secretum and the Sigillum. The Signum, which can be traced back to 1367, was developed last and is to this day the coat of arms of the city.
The Signum depicts a golden griffin on a blue background, with bars of silver and red, the colours of the Hanseatic League, below. It can be seen not only on flags and houses, and at bus stops, but also on bridges, gullies, fences, ships and restaurants.
Since the 13th century, the governing body of the city has been the city council (Rat), first consisting of ten, later of 24 elected aldermen (Ratsherren). The chairman of the city council was the city mayor. In the 19th century there were three mayors. Since 1925, the head of the city has borne the title of Mayor. Having been elected by the city council for centuries, since 2002 this position is now elected directly by the citizens of Rostock, following a reform. If a candidate does not achieve an absolute majority in the first round, the two candidates with the most votes stand in a second round.
The current mayor of Rostock is Eva-Maria Kröger of The Left, who was elected mayor in 2022 and took office on 1 February 2023. She won in the second round with 58.4% of votes against senior police officer Michael Ebert, an independent backed by the Christian Democratic Union, Independent Citizens for Rostock, and Free Democratic Party.
The most recent mayoral election was held on 13 November 2022, with a runoff held on 27 November, and the results were as follows:
The city parliament (Bürgerschaft) represents the citizens. Representative are elected for five years. The number of representatives is currently 53. The city parliament is presided by the Präsident der Bürgerschaft, who heads and prepares the sessions and, together with the mayor, represents the city. The most recent city council election was held on 26 May 2019, and the results were as follows:
Rostock is the first city region that defines itself not only as a city in its boundaries, but as a regiopolis, with a supra-regional sphere of influence. A regiopolis can be compared to a metropolis, but on a smaller scale. This is a sign for the inter-regional cooperation and economic dynamics that can be found in the Rostock area. A taskforce with different actors such as the hanseatic city of Rostock, the administrative district of Rostock, the Regional Planning Association Middle Mecklenburg/Rostock and the local business organisations are working on the promotion and advancement of the concept.
Rostock is located nearly centrally on Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's Baltic Sea coast. The city is crossed by the Warnow.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Rostock”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.