Hamburg [antikvár]

Hans-Dieter LooseHAMBURG: AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVESystemalic excavation woA underlalien al tlie sile of tlie Hamburg catiiedral deraol-islied in 1804-1807 broiiglit to liglit tlie remains of Hamburg's germ cell, llie so-called Hanimaburg, along wllh Saxon predecessors. The Hanimabiirg was constructed around 825 as a border citadel on the outskirts of the Carolinglan dynasty's erapire. Once It had obtained a baptistery in 834. emperor Louis the Pious made it the seal of an archbislioprlt The site was extremely vulnerable, however, and was destroyed nltie limes between 845 and 1139 by .Normans and Slavs as a result, the archbishopric was moved to Bremen.When the Slavs Invaded Hamburg for the last time in 1139, Holstein had already come under the rule of the Counts of Schauenburg, and Hamburg was situated on Holstein territory The new feudal overlords ushered in a new epoch, stressing the city's economic iiinctions. In 1188 they approved the construction of a free merchants' settlement with a harbor across from the old archbishopric. On May 7, 1189, emperor Frederick I Barbarossa granted the new port city trading and navigation privileges. Today this date is celebrated as the "birthday" of the harbor The new city grew as Liibeck's North Sea port, and the old and new cities merged in the early 13th century under one city council and one court Within the Hanseatlc League, Hamburg evolved to become the main port for East-West trade in the 14th century. Tile city's economic power enabled its council to acquire almost complete undependence from the feudal overlord. Naturjilly, this did not go uncontested. When the royal house of Denmark acquired the princely rights of the last Schauenburg count of Holstein in the mld-15th century, Denmark claimed suzerainty over Hamburg. But the German emperor also claimed rights to the city and this resulted in a battle - lasting until the 18lh century - over Hamburg's "immediate" imperial-city status under German nile.The 17th century saw Hamburg experience incomparable economic growth and an impressive increase in population. In protecting its new fortifications - built from 1618 to 1625 and reputed to be impenetrable - the city was able to maintain its neutrality throughout the major European conflicts of the age and profit from trade with all the factions waging war However, the city's outward success was constantly threatened by crises within. These were largely disputes over the constitution and the division of powers between city council and parliament, which naturally also entailed social aspects. Inner unrest clima.xed in about 1700 with the city council being almost completely deprived of power, and anarchy obtaining at Umes, The head of the empire could not stand idly by and tolerate this slate of affairs indefinitely, and in 1708 a commission was appointed to review and lesolve the situation. Finally, in 1712, a new order was established regulating the powers of the city council and parliament based on a new constitution which was to last for 150 years. The basic principle: supreme power in the state was to be exercised jointly by the city council and the parliament.Once peace had been restored at home. Hamburg experienced a period of stability throughout the remaining 18th century. Intellectual and cuhural life blossomed; the city became an Imponam center of the Gennan Enlightenment and music. The most outstanding political event of the age was the signing of the Treaty of Gottorp in 1768, which was dually beneficial for the city. On the one hand, it accorded Hamburg full recognition - by Denmark-Holstein as well - of its status as an imperial city subordinate only to the emperor; on the other, it made territorial acquisifions possible which, a century later enabled the city to expand its port to become a modern center for world trade.Hamburg's attempts to persist as a free hanseatlc city after the end of the Holy Roman Reich of German Nations in 1803 were stopped short with its annexation to Napoleon's Empire, The French ruled from 1811 to 1814. Afterwards, for five decades the city increasingly presented itself as a sovereign state on an international scale. Bellnqulshing these sovereign rights, in 1871 it became part of the newly-founded German Empire, into which it only became hilly integrated after completion of the construction of the free port, with the warehouse complex - the Speichmtadt - as its core.In addition to the developments sketched above, the 19th century saw three other decisive events change the city These were 1) the Great Fire of 1842 that turned one third of the city to ashes, yet also provided a - well-used - opportunity for urban renewal; 2) the consUtution of I860 which finally succeeded in doing jusUce to modern principles such as the formation of a parliament and replaced the constitution of 1712; and 3) the rise of industrialization: from the middle of the last century, industry came to constitute a third major pillar of Hamburg's prosperity, joining trade and port activity Yet industrialization brought with it new social problems. The rapid growth of the urban populaUon led to housing shortages and untenable sanitary conditions - which became visible for all the world to see during the cholera epidemic of 1892 that cost 8,000 lives. Workers resorted to strikes and self-help organizations in an attempt to improve their lot The middle classes strove to exclude the workers' movement from exerting any influence in the polhical and economic sectors, and the majority did not shrink from proposing a stricter system of class voting rights. It was not until the constitutional amendments following the revolution of 1918 that all the city's inhabitants were granted the right to vote and other key concepts of modem parliamentary democracy were put into practice. In Hamburg, this was essentially not as much a breach with tradition as a manifestation of the city's legacy of republican self-government.