Wittenburg (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)

Dedicated to the city’s 800th anniversary in 2026

Introduction

Wittenburg is a city of about 6,400 people in the District of Ludwigslust-Parchim in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern of northern Germany. Thanks to a constellation of circumstances, not the least of which was its location on an important trade route from the river Elbe to Lübeck, the settlement named after the castle around which it had been built allowed it to attain the status of city in the early 13th century. It is one of Mecklenburg’s oldest cities and notable that from then on forward, the ‘Law of Lübeck’ held sway. It was the legal code developed by that great Hanseatic city and powerhouse on the Baltic Sea for the facilitation of trade and to protect merchants. Commercial ties between Wittenburg and Lübeck must have been close enough during those times that the former even exported its very name as a family name to Lübeck, but about that later.

As circumstances changed, Wittenburg’s fortunes changed too, and in the centuries following, it became supplanted in importance by other towns. The division of Germany after World War II did not help either, but the city’s location on a main traffic artery, the Autobahn Hamburg-Berlin, changed everything again after 1989. This, in combination with the astuteness of Wittenburg’s burghers and city government, attracted and keeps attracting new businesses and people, thus enhancing this small city’s prosperity and importance anew. The history of Wittenburg as a city spans 800 years, but its history as a settlement is a lot longer, which those who have read the chapter ‘Etymology’ on this website already know.

If you came here to obtain a quick overview of what Wittenburg is all about, it is suggested you go to the German language Wikipedia page ‘Wittenburg’ https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenburg and have it translated directly by google or other. The automatic Wiki translation gets you only into an English language wiki ‘stub’ and consequently offers very little information in contrast to the original German language site. If, however, you wish to still learn a lot more details about the history of Wittenburg, the greater region within which it is located, and how the family name Wittenburg relates to it, read on.

Prehistory and Germanic Period

The land known as Mecklenburg shows traces of human habitation going back some 80 centuries following the retreat of the ice sheets of the last glacial period, but not much is known about these prehistoric people. Tribes of Germanic peoples eventually began to settle in the region and were first mentioned by Julius Caesar and then discussed more extensively by Roman historian Tacitus as the inhabitants of what he called ‘Germania’. They belonged likely to the tribes of the Warini and Langobards (Lombards) in that region. Some burial grounds and a bronze sword had been found nearby, but nothing is known to tie the people who lived there directly to any settlement which eventually became Wittenburg.

The Slavic Period

Another several centuries went by until the Migration Period, beginning in the 3rd century, caused Germanic tribes to move to new lands in the west and south. Slavic people followed – the West Slavic tribes of Polabians/Obotrites, also known as ‘Wends’, derived from the Roman term for them – ‘veneti’ -, settled in these now almost depopulated regions. It was they who built a fortified wall castle at the location of what is now Wittenburg, which may also have included a nearby settlement. Unfortunately, the name of that Wendish castle-settlement got lost in history, but as already discussed in the chapter ‘Etymology’, Otto Vitense, an important historian of Mecklenburg, and himself a native of Wittenburg, suggested, that the Slavs might have named it ‘Belgard’ or ‘Belgrad’ (‘Bel’ = ‘White’ or their color equivalent for ‘west’, so ‘White’ or ‘Western City/Castle’), and that the Saxons probably adopted and translated that name for the settlement and castle they built on its ruins following their conquest of these lands in the first half of the 12th century. His opinion on this is further supported by Prof. Friedrich Schlie’s works of the late 19th century on Mecklenburg’s Monuments of Arts and History. Vitense also tells us that the Wendish rulers had organized their lands into ‘castle districts’, whereby each of their settlement was protected by a wall castle, which also was the seat from where the surrounding lands, the ‘district’, was controlled, and that this administrative division suited the Saxons later just as well.

The relationship between the Saxons southwest of the river Elbe and the Slavic people to the east and northeast was one fraught with constant tension and often erupted into hostilities. Just as the Frankish kingdom of Charlemagne took the frequent Saxon raids and plundering of Frankish lands as justification for waging full scale war against them, and which ended in the conquest of Saxony towards the end of the 8th century, so the now Christianized Saxons attempted to control the Slavic lands of Wagria, (now Holstein), and Polabia, (now Mecklenburg), for similar reasons. They did so through the spreading of Christianity, or by forming alliances with Obotrite/Polabian princes against common enemies or by outright warfare against the Slavs.

Not that Charlemagne didn’t have an eye on these lands earlier too, and for essentially the same reasons: As allies against the then yet pagan and unconquered Saxons, but also to collect tribute from Wendish rulers. Helmold of Bosau, a priest and Saxon historian, had much to say about the period spanning four hundred years from the epoch of Charlemagne to his own times in the 12th century in his ‘Chronica Slavorum’. It was through his account that we know much about Saxon efforts to convert the Slavs to Christianity as well as about the fragile alliances of convenience among the various parties and the warfare during those times.

What is now the city of Wittenburg and its surrounding lands was at that time located in the border region between Saxons and Wends, the northeastern ‘Limes Saxonian’ (the Saxon border) being the river Elbe. It was also the first Slavic fortification north of an important crossing on that river and furthermore the most western in that specific area. Not surprisingly, the place witnessed much hostile action through all those centuries.

The Billungs, with whom visitors to this website may already be familiar from the article on Wittenburg (Elze) in Lower Saxony, began to imprint their mark on this region from the first half of the 10th century. They rose to prominence during the reign of Otto I, then King of East Francia and later becoming Holy Roman Emperor, when in 936 he made Hermann Billung his military governor in Saxony. He also granted him control over the border and the West Slavic tribes to the northeast, hence why this region was identified by later historians as the ‘Billung March’. The plan was to convert the Slavs to Christianity and make them into tribute paying subjects while at the same time advance Germanization of these lands. The Billungs’ effective control over that March was, however, rather tenuous through the seesaw of incursions and battles fought throughout the 10th century. The ‘Billung March’ was lost again after the great Wendish rebellion of 983 against their Saxon overlords. The rebellion did not end hostilities though, but instead only intensified them, and not just between Saxons and Wends. It was also on account of internal dynastic struggles among Slavic princes and the entry of yet another actor, Denmark: The latter’s aim was to profit from it all in her attempt to become a leading power in northern Europe.

The Billungs nevertheless helped to shape these lands for another century through various Wendish vassals, but not always wisely, especially during the reign of Duke Bernhard II of Saxony. Sometimes they were enemies of the Danes, then again, their allies against the Wends. It was also a time during which Christianity was heavily promoted among the Wends, but with uneven results. It experienced a surge after Gottschalk (also known as Saint Gottschalk and Godescalc,), who was a Wendish prince educated in monasteries – one of them at Lüneburg – became leader of the Obotrites in 1043 as the winner of the usual violent struggle for succession. He was eventually murdered in 1066 following a rebellion engineered by his still mostly pagan nobles. Much of what he achieved in Christian missionary work was violently undone again during the quarter century reign of his successor Kruto. This Obotrite leader did, however, not fare better than his predecessor: Having lured Gottschalk’s second son Henry back from exile through trickery with the intent of killing him at a feast, the tables were instead turned on him, and Kruto was murdered by Henry’s men in 1093. To add insult to injury, Kruto’s widow, who was part of both plots, then proceeded to marry Henry. His rule was anything from secure however, until he defeated Kruto’s son with the help from his cousin and ally, the last Billung Duke of Saxony, Magnus, at the battle of Schmilau near Ratzeburg in the same year Kruto was murdered.

Magnus’ help did not come free, of course, and the Saxons were able to assert control over Wendish lands once more, yet with a temporary reversal of fortunes on the death of Henry in 1127. Dynastic succession struggles flamed up again in all their accustomed viciousness and, following the bloodletting which eliminated all of Henry’s male heirs, even led to a short-lived interlude of the Danish king, Canute Lavard, as ‘King of the Obotrites’ after his appointment to that honour by former Duke of Saxony, now Holy Roman Emperor Lothair III. That ended when Canute himself fell victim to murder in 1131.

Turmoil still did not abate in either Wagria or Polabia, also loosely referred to as ‘Nordalbingia’, even after Lothair III’s nod to Denmark, and naturally flared up more so after Canute’s violent death. Turmoil of which the principal beneficiary turned out to be Niklot, a Wendish prince of unknown origin. He was an adept leader of his people, aware of his strength and weaknesses. He was also a shrewd diplomat in maintaining his position – first entering into an arrangement with another claimant to Wendish leadership to fight the common enemy, the Danes, then allied with the Saxons against his erstwhile ally and still later fighting both the Church and Saxons on his own. His promises of fealty were numerous and changed with changing circumstances.

The Wendish Crusade

As if that alone was not sufficient regional upheaval, an additional disrupting element introduced itself with the Wendish Crusade of 1147. This crusade came into its own in the wake of the start of the Second Crusade of 1144 to the Holy Land, and mainly through the insistence of the Burgundian abbot and great influencer, Bernard of Clairvaux who felt that this was also the time to move decidedly against Slavic paganism. His clarion call was ‘Convert or Perish’. It was, according to historian Vitense, ‘the most stupid enterprise ever undertaken’, fueled entirely by religious fanaticism and not at all aligned with the political goals of the most powerful secular leaders of the regions. They were the Duke of Saxony, at that time the Welf ‘Henry the Lion’, the other ‘Albert the Bear’, Margrave of Brandenburg, both grandsons of Magnus, the last of the male Billungs, through their mothers.

The Wendish Crusade was not as successful an undertaking as its proponents had hoped for, but it nevertheless set the stage for the final subjugation of the Polabian Slavs by the Saxons in causing Niklot to lose what remained of his previous independence and for him to become a vassal of the Saxon duke. It lasted, however, only a decade. Although only on its periphery, another succession struggle for the Danish throne found Henry the Lion’s interests clashing with those of Niklot’s and the former mounted a punitive expedition against his erstwhile vassal. Niklot was captured in a skirmish and imprisoned in Lüneburg in 1158. Vitense tells us that his sons Pribislaw and Wertislaw could obtain their father’s freedom neither through good words nor money, but what may have helped convince Henry the Lion to negotiate, was a raid in the same year by these sons during which they destroyed both Gadebusch and what is now Wittenburg.

So, we are finally back at Wittenburg after this, for some readers perhaps exhaustive, excursion into the regional dynastic and power politics, but the intent was to give context to the history of this former Wendish outpost and its surrounding lands.

What might have been the reason for Niklot’s sons choosing to torch specifically Gadebusch and Wittenburg to convince Henry the Lion to relent? Was it perhaps, because both places belonged to the newly established Saxon County of Ratzeburg – the formerly Wendish stronghold ‘Ratibor’? The County of Ratzeburg was enfoeffed by Henry the Lion in 1142 to his liegeman, Henry of Badewide, who set out to germanize it as quickly and as best he could. It would therefore not be unreasonable to assume that at least the garrison of the castles and likely even a good part of the population of the settlements around it consisted of Saxons when Niklot’s sons torched them. Surely, to make their point to The Lion, their first choice would have been to destroy Saxon outposts and settlements, not Slavic ones.

Henry did relent, and after having duly received a new oath of fealty from Niklot, released him, but peace between the two was of short duration since the chief cause of their conflict continued. Two years later Niklot was killed in an ambush while on reconnaissance near his castle Werle.

Saxons and Germanization

Niklot’s sons tried to reclaim their father’s lands for a while as rulers of the Obotrites through various military campaigns but succeeded only in part. Theirs was a lost cause, the momentum of the times not being in their favour. While the younger one, Wertislaw, was captured and executed by Henry the Lion after yet another of countless skirmishes, his older brother Pribislaw and The Lion – the latter in need of allies in his own right by now – made peace in 1167. As his vassal, Pribislaw became the ancestor of the dukes, later Grand-Dukes of Mecklenburg who ruled these lands until 1918. This was far from assured back then, because the second half of the 12th century saw a lot more upheaval in the region, firstly through the succession feud between Pribislaw’s and Wertislaw’s sons, but more importantly the spectacular falling out of Henry the Lion with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I ‘Barbarossa’, and the duke’s consequent fall from grace in 1180.

That was, however, still in the future, and prior to that, the Lion began to consolidate his hold over these Wendish lands by strategically placing Saxon liegemen like Henry of Badewide as Count of Ratzeburg (1143), then also known as ‘comes polaborum’ – Count of the Polabians, and Gunzelin of Hagen as Count of Schwerin (1161). Mecklenburg castle , once the seat of Gottschalk and since his time raided twice again, was rebuilt by the Saxons in 1161. It was sacked once more in 1164, this time by Pribislaw, its garrison and most of the new Flemish settlers around it killed during the fighting and in its aftermath.

Why these ‘Flemish’ settler? For one thing, they were not only associated with today’s Flanders at that time, but with what are now the entire Netherlands and part of today’s Belgium. We come across ‘the Flemish’ not just here in the land of Mecklenburg and in our focus on Wittenburg, but also further south, in the section discussing the history of Wittenberg. The Flemish may have been attracted by the same reasons for migration through the ages: A difficult life at home with better opportunities elsewhere, and perhaps even supported by incentives of regional lords with a desire to populate their lands with grateful and loyal subjects. Such could include several years of freedom from tithing plus secure tenancy in exchange for making the land suitable for agriculture – a deal similar to the one offered to ‘homesteaders’ several centuries later in North America.

After the catastrophic All Saints Flood of 1170, which inundated large areas of what are now the Netherlands and made a lot of it uninhabitable, a significant population there became homeless and destitute, or ecological refugees in contemporary parlance. It also just happened to coincide with the project of Saxon eastward expansion. Whether they were settlers originating from the Saxon heartlands or from the Lowlands – the regions of Flanders or Holland -, they were welcomed by both Lord and Bishop, even if for different reasons. Helmold’s account of Henry the Lion is not flattering in that regard. His accusation, that the Duke of Saxony ‘was more interested in money than souls’ only reflects entirely different objectives. According to Vitense, Henry was foremost motivated by extracting tribute and extending his power over those lands and less in the conversion of the Wends to Christianity. The latter was the domain of the Church.

The new settlers also brought with them agricultural technology superior to the one of the Slavs and they had a different mindset about woodlands and swamps. Vitense tells us that their iron plows could work the dense soils, the Slavs’ wooden plows could not. While the Wends managed with pastures for grazing, small scale agriculture and swampy forests in their lightly populated lands, the newcomers drained, logged and plowed.

We can debate from today’s comfortable standpoint whether the Wends’ ways were ecologically more sustainable and therefore preferable, but this was the Middle Ages where such 21st century musings would not have entered anyone’s mind. A contributing factor for more intense farming methods may also have been a result of the medieval warming period during that time, which produced a longer growing season in northern Europe, and which in its turn led to a marked increase in population. It goes almost without saying, that a larger population base and increased agricultural efficiency eventually benefitted the feudal lords through higher tithes, but also the Church and thus worked further towards favouring new settlers.

From the standpoint of Henry the Lion, another consideration for ‘Germanizing’ these lands was to secure Saxon control permanently, as he was only too aware of the many previous rebellions and setbacks. The process stretched over a century, and as with any conquest and subsequent colonization, it was not pretty. Wends who converted to Christianity and adapted to the new reality in the fashion of their leader Pribislaw fared generally better, others were driven out or worse. Some of their villages on marginal lands became isolated enclaves. Vitense wrote in his ‘History of Mecklenburg’, page 78, that according to the Ratzeburg Register of Tithes from 1230 only 4 villages out of 93 in the ‘land Wittenburg’ remained Wendish. Even if we assume that this total number must also have included newly established settler villages, it clearly shows how the balance of power had shifted in a relatively short time. Nevertheless, a blending of Saxon/Flemish and remaining Wendish population would have taken place over time, and the Wendish period of Mecklenburg is therefore still lingering on in Germanized names and geographical description.

How did Wittenburg obtain its name?

As already mentioned, there were pockets of more concentrated efforts of Germanization early on, which for obvious reasons included the borderlands, comprising among other the ‘provincia’ Wittenburg, as this land or dependency was called in early documents. The first such mention of ‘provincia’ Wittenburg is in a purported document of 1154 about the founding of the Bishopric of Ratzeburg, which included among other Wittenburg and Gadebusch. ‘Purported’, because there is some evidence that this document, or at least part of it, could be a forgery from the 13th century to shore up someone’s claims . Notwithstanding the question of authenticity of that document, the facts are that Ratzeburg and its lands were enfeoffed to a Saxon vassal of Henry the Lion in 1142, soon to be followed by the Wendish Crusade in 1147. Later, Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa even ceded his right to investiture of new bishoprics north of the river Elbe to the ambitious Henry the Lion at the Imperial Diet held at Goslar in 1154. The establishment of the Bishopric of Ratzeburg in the same year was confirmed by Pope Hadrian IV in 1158. That same year saw the razing of Wittenburg and Gadebusch by Niklot’s sons for reasons already mentioned earlier.

The conclusion to be drawn from the above can only be that Germanization must have progressed quite rapidly in the regions of Ratzeburg, but also Schwerin, in the latter of which Henry had installed a particular zealous vassal in that regard with Gunzelin of Hagen

Vitense sees this early and rapid Germanization as the reason why Wittenburg’s Wendish name, which he speculates to have been Belgard or Belgrad, got lost to history as soon as it had a Saxon garrison, which made it into Wittenburg. Another idea once proposed in the 1970s by fellow researcher Walter Wittenburg from Heidenheim, Germany, was that one of the Billung Dukes of Saxony, likely Bernard II, simply named that outpost on a whim after the castle Wittenburg the Billungs are presumed to have owned – possibly already in the 11th century – in Lower Saxony. Another claim made along the same line is that it got its name through Adelheid von Wassel, Countess of Ratzeburg. She was the daughter of Konrad II, Count of Wassel and his spouse Adelheid of Loccum, whom we know already in connection with the castle Wittenburg in Lower Saxony. Name transfers did indeed happen, then and in much later times, but always with some clear connection. The trouble with both these hypotheses is that, without anything else to go by than the connection of the Billungs or Countess Adelheid to both places, they require a large leap of faith.

Another hypothesis is, that the German name for castle and settlement was an adaption of the name of the influential noble Saxon family of the Witte (also known in latinized form as ‘Albus’ and later by an erstwhile nickname as ‘Wackerbarth’), who helped rebuild the castle after its destruction in 1158. Otto Albus appeared even as one of the arbitrators in the settlement of a dispute of revenue sharing between Isfried, Bishop of Ratzeburg and the Cathedral Chapter in 1194 and – possibly his son – is occasionally documented as ‘Otto de Wittenburch’ in the early years of the 13th century. At that time this simply meant that ‘he was from the town of Wittenburch’.

There is, however, still the problem around the establishment of the bishopric of Ratzeburg before the destruction, which mentions among other the ‘provincia Wittenburg, suggesting that name to have existed earlier. At the core of this ‘provincia’, or land, stood castle and settlement, of course, and it seems therefore reasonable to assume that the ‘provincia’ derived its name from castle and settlement. As Siegfried Spantig wrote in his 1976 chronicle ‘750 Jahre Stadt Wittenburg’: ‘To imagine the province, the land Wittenburg without a German castle and an attendant settlement seems impossible and has so far never been claimed. It can therefore be taken for granted: From the village at the foot of the German castle rose the City of Wittenburg’.

Is the connection with the Witte then just another coincidence of association and leading us back to Vitense’s assumption again, of Wittenburg being the Germanization of the original Wendish name?

The oldest genuine document on which the name appears, but again only as ‘provincia’, is Isfried’s Partition Agreement of 1194 mentioned above. It lists the lands of the County of Ratzeburg and underneath their headings all the parishes subject to revenue sharing and thus becoming part of the agreement, but no others. Villages still subject to Wendish law, and therefore not tithing to the Church, are absent. Unless one entertains the outlandish notion that the very seat of the land Wittenburg, from where Saxon military power was wielded, still submitted to Wendish law at the time, there must have been another reason for its omission. It should be noted here that the same omission is also evident regarding Gadebusch – only the land Gadebusch is mentioned, nothing of the town. Could their nature of being chiefly garrison-towns have made all the revenues generated there go exclusively to the secular authorities? One comes inevitably back to Spantig’s quoted remark above about castle and settlement. While we will likely never know with certainty when the name Wittenburg began to be first used specifically for the settlement, it is not unreasonable to think that Wittenburg the castle and Wittenburg, the settlement, were known by that name already for a long time prior to surviving documents attesting that name. Documentation, whether it be for birth or foundation, presupposes prior existence. One must also be aware that while the descriptive meaning of the name would always remain the same, the written spelling of the name varied widely then – from ‘Wuitenburc’, ‘Wit(t)e(m)nborch, -burch, -borg, even – albeit rarely – ending on ‘berch’ and finally settling on Wittenburg.

The Downfall of Henry the Lion

In our time travel from the establishment of the County of Ratzeburg in 1142 to Isfried’s Partition Agreement of 1194, we left behind the fate of the county’s and consequently the ‘terra Wittenburg’s’ overlord, Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony. Since his spectacular fall during that time had direct repercussions on Wittenburg in its aftermath, we must return to him.

What caused his fall from grace with his cousin, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa? Chief cause was said to have been Henry’s lack of support for the emperor’s military campaign in Lombardy, Northern Italy, which did not end well for the Imperial forces. Another, likely just as potent a reason, might well have been the extraordinary power Henry wielded in his own right as both Duke of Saxony and Duke of Bavaria, and in Swabia through marriage, an accumulation of power envied and feared by many other princes and likely the emperor himself. A campaign against him was mounted, and a Court convened at an opportune moment. He was declared an outlaw and had to forfeit most of his fiefs. He even had to take up exile in England for a few years, the realm of his father-in-law, Henry II. After some years, while Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was away on the Third Crusade in 1189, and during which he perished, The Lion took the opportunity to return to Saxony where he reassembled his supporters to mete out terrible vengeance on those who had crossed him. Eventually though, he had to make peace again with the emperor’s son, Henry VI. He managed toH at least regain his allodial core lands, but never again his lost duchies and former status of power. Patronage of architecture and the arts was the chief pursuit for the remainder of his life.

Denmark in Holstein and Western Mecklenburg

Naturally, Denmark, which had occasionally exerted its power and influence over these lands earlier, tried to take full advantage again of the struggles south of its borders. It allied itself with the emperor Henry VI, and also with Wertislaw’s son Nicolas against Henry the Lion, and furthermore also gave support to Nicolas in his feud over succession with his cousin Henry Borwin, the son of Pribislaw.

The political situation became yet more complicated with the emperor’s death in 1197 and the subsequent election in 1198 of not just one but two candidates to the German throne, one of them of the Welf dynasty and thus also related to the King of Denmark, who at the time controlled what was once Polabian Wagria (Schleswig), and parts of Mecklenburg, the other candidate of the equally powerful Hohenstaufen dynasty. This ‘double election’, and with it the inevitable split of loyalties, resulted in a state of quasi civil war throughout the Empire and consequently also increased already existing regional instability.

Unfortunately, the just newly installed Count of Ratzeburg by way of marriage to the widowed countess, found himself in a political constellation to give him little choice but to ally himself with the enemies of the Welfs and thus also those of Denmark. He sometimes raided Danish borderlands to impress, but King Knut VI decided to put once and for all a stop to the frequent raids the pesky count and his allies mounted into his realm. He called for a punitive expedition. The Danes’ vassals, among them Borwin and Nicolas and the Counts of Schwerin, finally met Adolf of Dassel, Count of Ratzeburg, on the plains at Waschow, 6 km west of Wittenburg where they did battle on the 25th of May in either the year 1200 or 1201. After it was all over, the Count of Ratzeburg’s forces had been routed, and he fled the scene, never to return. Nicolas was among the dead and he, being without male heir, thereby assuring his cousin Borwin’s descendants to become heirs to the future Duchy of Mecklenburg.

The garrisons of the nearby castle Wittenburg as well as that of Gadebusch opened their gates and surrendered, since there was nothing to fight over anymore. Ratzeburg ceased to exist as a county and was now under direct control of Denmark until these lands were given to the Counts of Schwerin – Henry and Gunzelin – as Danish fiefs in 1204 for their support of Danish expansion.

Their understanding was, however, of short duration as Prof. Friedrich Schlie tells in his ‘Die Stadt Wittenburg’6 due to a feud between the Schwerin counts with a Johann Gans of Grabow in 1206. We will hear more about the ‘Gans’ when delving in the history of Wittenberge, but in the meantime, suffice is to say that Johann fled to the Court of the Danish king, who took his side. This resulted in the king sending a punitive expedition against the Count of Schwerin in 1207, occupying the city of Boizenburg as well as all of Wittenburg and ‘thoroughly laying to waste the entire county of Schwerin’. The Counts of Schwerin appealed to the Margrave of Brandenburg and the Emperor, but they were preoccupied with other pressing matters. A sort of peace was made 3 years later, but only partial restitution of lands was made to the counts, and both the Emperor and the Pope bowed to Denmark by recognizing its sovereignty over the Northalbingian lands in 1214. Count Henry seemed to have had enough, left his brother in charge, and went off crusading to Palestine a few years later.

Denmark’s expansion did not stop there, however, and by the time the first two decades were completed, the Danes controlled all of Holstein, Mecklenburg, the island of Rügen and Pomerania. Danish reach even included today’s Estonia. The King of Norway paid homage to Denmark.

At last, Count Henry of Schwerin returned from Palestine in 1222 to what he perceived to be his lands. What a surprise for him to discover that half of these lands had meanwhile, after the death of his brother Gunzelin and against the objections of Henry’s wife, been bequeathed to the king’s orphaned grandson and being administered by the very Count of Orlamünde who was the executor of King Waldemar II’s punitive expedition in 1207. Count Henry bade his time, and the opportunity came only a year later during a hunt and obvious carelessness by the Danish king for his personal safety. Count Henry of Schwerin, vassal of the King of Denmark, abducted his sovereign as well as his eldest son and kept them prisoners! An audacity which reverberated throughout Europe. Negotiations for their release lasted for 3 years, involving even the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope. Most of the German/Wendish lands made use of this time of uncertainty to throw off Danish overlordship. Count Albert of Orlamünde, in the meantime governing Denmark in the imprisoned king’s stead, made a last stand during January 1225 near Mölln, south of Ratzeburg against Henry and his allies, among them also Henry Borwin II of Mecklenburg. After a bloody battle during which Count Albert was captured, a treaty was signed at Bardowick.

The royal pair’s eventual freedom did note come cheap: The Danish treasury really did have to pay a ‘king’s ransom’, and Valdemar furthermore had to cede and renounce all Danish claims to German lands. No sooner free, he declared all his solemn oaths invalid, an act in which even the Pope supported the king on the not unreasonable grounds that they were obtained under duress. Nevertheless, Albert, Duke of Saxony was proclaimed as ‘Lord of Transalbingia’ (Land across the Elbe River) by the king’s enemies, and Count Henry I ‘The Black’ of Schwerin became his liegeman and formally received from him on February 16, 1227, the lands Schwerin, Wittenburg and Boizenburg as fiefs. Valdemar II immediately set out to regain his lost lands, but it was too late. Danish forces were decidedly defeated in summer 1227 near Bornhöved (southeast of today’s city of Kiel in Schleswig-Holstein). It was the end for Danish control of Holstein, Mecklenburg and Pomerania. Henry I, the Count of Schwerin gained immense prestige through the outrageous act of abducting and holding prisoner his king plus through other similar shrewd actions, which worked in his favour. He was a man to be reckoned with! This may likely have been one of the reasons for the long period of peace and prosperity following the uncertain and turbulent times before.

Wittenburg becomes a city

It was also at that time, in 1226, when the City of Lübeck was granted the rights of a ‘free imperial city’ by Emperor Frederick II from which derived numerous subsidiary privileges such as ‘that no prince, lord or noble of the adjoining provinces should dare to prevent goods, however sourced, from being transported to the City of Lübeck, whether it be from Hamburg (Hamenburc), from Ratzeburg, (Raceburc), from Wittenburg (Wuiteburc), from Schwerin, (Zwerin) or from all the lands of Borwin, (Buruwini) and his son, and that throughout those lands and within these lands every burgher of Lübeck, whether rich or poor may buy and sell without hindrance’. Whatever the reason might have been to specifically add these other places and lands to Hamburg, which was already a ‘free imperial city’ since 1189, be it to create a safer hinterland for the passage of goods or as a nod to Henry I, the powerful Count of Schwerin, it had a positive effect on the region. In 1226, Lübeck also granted the rights of citizens to burghers of the towns mentioned in the imperial decree.

All this gives credence to the assumption that Wittenburg was also granted city rights during, or even before that time and why the year 1226 figures so prominently in Wittenburg’s history as the date when it was elevated to a city with all the privileges this status offered. First mention of Wittenburg as ‘civitas’ – city, appears, however, only in the Ratzeburg Register of Tithes in 1230, but again, since that registry is just that, a registry and not a ‘foundation’ document, pre-existence of city status can safely be assumed. Maybe it became a city even during the short Danish period earlier in that century when the Count of Orlamünde was governing that region as vassal of Waldemar II. This could also explain the adoption of the ‘Law of Lübeck’ for the city and its naming in the Imperial decree on Lübeck in 1226. Karl Hoffmann thinks so in a footnote to his article ‘The founding of the City of Wittenburg’. The Danish period ended after the Battle of Börnhöved in 1227. Hoffmann raises also another interesting speculation: That the adoption of the ‘Law of Lübeck’ in Wittenburg could also be explained ‘by people from Lübeck settling in Wittenburg’. Maybe the opposite was the case too.

Lübeck should quickly rise to pre-eminence in the powerful Hanseatic League, the ‘Secret Superpower of the Middle Ages’, as described in some literature. There is evidence that some burghers and merchants of Wittenburg had trading relationships with Lübeck during those early days of the city, even moved there, since by the name ‘de Wittenborch/borg’ appears in that city soon. Another fellow researcher from way back, Hans-Joachim Wittenburg from Lübeck, noted in his essay ‘On the Tracks of the Wittenburgs’: “As early as in the forties of the 13th century, we find in Lübeck in the lost, but reconstrued first Lübeck Book of Records by Brehmer, Johanne and Wedego de Wittenborg as property owners in Lübeck. A Frederico de Wittenborg is mentioned as a witness in a Lübeck document, his son Friedrich owned a house in the platea hucorum (Hüxstrasse), whereas another son was priest in Plau”. Further we read “About 100 years after the foundation of the city [Lübeck], we meet Hinricus de Wittenburg as city councilor (consul cuitates Lubeke), 1259 as camerarius and 1261 as proconsul (Mayor).” Then, “A presumed second son is Hinricus de Wittenborgh, merchant in Lübeck and also city councillor from 1286 to 1324. A family relationship is assumed between him and the Lübeck merchant Hermann de Wittenborg who also owned property in Naz(sch)endorf (Mecklenburg). He was married to Margarethe Grope. His eventually well-known son was the later Mayor Johann (de) Wittenborg.”

This Johann Wittenborg was the mayor who led a disastrous military campaign against Danish King Waldemar Atterdag in 1362 and was beheaded on Lübeck’s marketplace in 1363, after which the Wittenborgs disappeared from the ruling families of that city. We are, however, onto another subject with this family name excursion to Lübeck, and that is not even the only place where the name Wittenburg/burch/borg/borch begins to appear in the early years of the 13th century. More about the development and proliferation of the Wittenburg name in its numerous forms will be the subject of the chapters ‘Surname Development’ and ‘Worldwide Distribution, and the fate of Johann Wittenborg in that of ‘Nobles and Patricians’. It is enough to know that most of the extant surnames Wittenburg were adopted during that time by people who came from the city of Wittenburg and its immediate surroundings to signify ‘the place they came from’. Let’s now return to Wittenburg.

Among the privileges of a medieval city was the one to hold a market, which attracted trades and merchants from near and far, which in turn created wealth and prosperity. Wittenburg was obviously not comparable to cities like Hamburg or Lübeck for reason of their geography and size, as well as their older history as trading centres. Prosperity naturally developed at a more modest rate in Wittenburg, a city serving chiefly as garrison town and as hub for the surrounding agriculture-based economy. Its population was no more than a few hundred souls in those days. Now, the term prosperity and the earlier imperial decree about ‘safe roads’ has to be put into the perspective of the times: The imperial chancellery was far away and well-organized bands of highway robbers, often operating from the strongholds of local nobles, were near. It was a problem which became acute following the 1198 election fiasco for a new king and emperor and following the Great Interregnum in the middle of the 13th century as central authority, never very strong to begin with, weakened further. Local rulers acted increasingly on their own. It was the time of the ‘Law of the Strong Arm’, and the Land of Wittenburg was no exception. A mutual assistance treaty was signed with Lübeck in 1328 by the counts and other rulers, including those of the city, to deal with this scourge in the countryside. It did not help that Duke Eric II of Saxe-Lauenburg is said to have worked with and protected robber barons in his youthful years. The agreement was renewed in 1338 and again in 1349. Some robbers’ lairs still existed and were razed in the County of Wittenburg in 1349. A further understanding was signed in 1353 and names among other signatories list one ‘Johann Wittenborg, council man of Lübeck’. It is likely the same who eventually became mayor of that city and mentioned here earlier. Unfortunately, intent without cooperation everywhere was not sufficient. The problem of ‘robber barons’, and for that matter, piracy in the Baltic Sea, lasted well into the 15th century.

Wittenburg becomes a County.

The formidable Henry I created conditions in his county of Schwerin as strong and stable as one could expect in that period, and following his death in 1228, his son Gunzelin III carried on wisely until his own death in 1274. His sons then decided to divide the county, with the oldest surviving son, Helmold III retaining Schwerin, Neustadt and Marnitz, the youngest, Nicholas I, obtaining Wittenburg, Boizenburg, Crivitz and the estate Sellesen. He styled himself alternately ‘Count of Schwerin-Wittenburg’ or ‘Count of Wittenburg’ to distinguish the ‘House of Wittenburg’ from his older brother Helmold III’s ‘House of Schwerin’, who continued to simply be ‘Count of Schwerin’. This division among the two brothers was to have important repercussions two generations later. Nicolas’ son, Gunzelin VI, became the second Count of Wittenburg in 1323, at which time his younger brother Nicholas – styled the Second – became Count of Boizenburg and Crivitz after a further division of the inheritance, and with him originated part of the events which determined the future ownership of the entire County of Schwerin.

Family Discord among the Counts

In his ‘The Ancestry Tables of the old Counts of Schwerin’ , 19th century Mecklenburg archivist Dr. F. Wigger entertains the idea that this Nicholas II, based on a strange contract he and his mother entered in 1326 and by further erratic actions of his, may at that time and even thereafter ‘never have been fully mature’, which appears to be a hint of him not having been of sound judgment. The contract was about his succession and was made, not with his half-brother Gunzelin VI, Count of Wittenburg, but with Cousin Henry III, Count of Schwerin. In exchange for essentially becoming Nicholas II’s trustee and heir, Henry promised in turn to care for and be the protector of his cousin and to also provide additional revenue for Nicholas’ mother, the Dowager Countess of Wittenburg. The contract had an initial term of 10 years and foresaw it to be effective only in case Nicholas would survive his mother, but the parties continued to honour its terms well beyond the initial time frame.

Reading G.C.F Lisch’s ‘Genealogy of the Counts of Schwerin and the Sale of the County of Schwerin’, one could conclude that Nicholas II’s mother, Merislava of Pomerania in her position as Nicholas I’s second wife and consequently Gunzelin VI’s stepmother, may have had something to do with this arrangement to protect her own interests as a widow. It would not have been the first time she looked for future protection outside the closest of her husband’s immediate family: She sought it already in 1317 from her uncle, Henry II, Lord of Mecklenburg, for herself and her children, in the event of the death of her husband, Count Nicholas I of Wittenburg. Was it simply family dynamics and caution, especially at that time, or were other factors cause for the contract of 1326? Indeed, there were, according to historian Dr. Hans Saring’s 1933 treatise ‘About the Tecklenburg-Schwerin Conflict’: He writes on page 103 ‘that the two brothers were not living at peace with each other, and that crushing debts forced Nicholas II to enter into that contract of trusteeship and succession with his cousin Henry III, Count of Schwerin’. In 1343, a year before Count Henry III’s death, Nicholas made another erratic move: He signed a new contract of succession and bequest of his possessions Boizenburg, Crivitz and Sellesen, should he die without a male heir, but this time with the Lords – to become a few years later the dukes – Albert and Johann of Mecklenburg, and thereby completely ignoring any rights Nicholas III of Schwerin may still have had. Nicholas II was still single at that time, and he may have concluded that his earlier contract with Count Henry III of Schwerin had lapsed anyway and that he owed nothing to his half-nephews. Perhaps Count Henry was already a sick man and Nicholas sought to protect his position by signing up with the Mecklenburgs, – cousins through his maternal grandmother. Count Henry died childless a year later, and the countship of Schwerin now went to Otto I, nicknamed ‘Otto Rose’ or ‘Rosa’ apparently for his exceptional handsomeness. He was the second son of Gunzelin VI who had previously inherited his father’s county of Wittenburg but now passed it on to the cadet line again represented by his half-uncle, as was the custom. This is how Nicholas II became also Count of Wittenburg in 1345, after having previously been given Boizenburg, Crivitz and Selesen following his father’s death. He renewed his succession contract with the dukes on June 2, 1345, now also including Wittenburg.

Gunzelin’s oldest son, Nicholas III, had inherited the County of Tecklenburg near Münster in Westphalia through his mother since the ‘old’ Tecklenburg’s had died out in the male line. It must have been a very valuable fief that he gave it preference over what would have been his natural claim on Wittenburg had events taken a different course.

Where did all this leave our allegedly immature and much challenged Count Nicholas II? Four years later he did marry at last but died in the same year, 1349, and without an heir. Nicholas IIs’ nephew, now Count of Schwerin as Otto I would naturally have been Nicholas’ legitimate heir, but for whatever reason, he too had become party to Nicholas II’s agreement with the dukes, in April of 1347. It was to take effect if he died without male heirs, thus weakening the succession rights of their closest relatives further, and in the end proving fatal to their interests. Albert II, Duke of Mecklenburg was known to pursue his own interests vigorously in all matters and made no exception here, especially considering the County of Schwerin’s strategic importance for the duchy.

Pressure was mounted soon after Count Nicholas II’s death. His widow Elisabeth, apparently persuaded by her father, was to sell the dukes the lands and the city of Crivitz as well as other personal bequests she received through her marriage, and to make them her trustees. She then became a nun and eventually abbess, which was one of the few options open to noble widows and heiresses in the Middle Ages.

Wars of Succession and over Inheritance

Duke Albert now lay claim to Wittenburg and Boizenburg, to which Count Nicholas III of Tecklenburg and Count Otto I of Schwerin vehemently objected. Perhaps Otto belatedly realized the calculating and predatory nature of Duke Albert’s ambitions. It came to war in 1350. The duke’s forces, augmented by those of Duke Eric II of Saxe-Lauenburg occupied Wittenburg and Boizenburg, during which Wittenburg suffered significant fire damage according to some sources. Siege was also laid to Schwerin during which Otto became the duke’s prisoner. He was released a year later when peace was made, but the conditions imposed by Duke Albert required Count Otto I’s only daughter Richardis to be betrothed to the duke’s second son, also named Albert. She was 5 years old at the time, the groom 12, so the marriage had to wait for another 13 years. Nevertheless, the contract stipulated a substantiable payment of dowry to be made into the duke’s coffers and to pledge the city and lands of Boizenburg as pawn until the sum was paid in full.

As an aside, but nevertheless relevant in assessing his ambitions and ruthlessness, Duke Albert II, who was married to a Swedish princess, later manoeuvred this son Albert to become King of Sweden, or perhaps more to the point, he usurped the Crown of Sweden through his son. This only foray of the House of Mecklenburg into Scandinavia was not marked by a happy reign however, and Albert was overthrown in 1389, then imprisoned for the next 6 years until peace was made. He was never more than a puppet king at the mercy of his father. Eventually he returned to his homeland, then renounced the Swedish Crown and ruled to the end of his life as Duke Albert III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. His first wife Richardis died as a young queen in Stockholm.

But back to Schwerin-Wittenburg: When Otto I, Count of Schwerin died in 1356 without a male heir, the relentless Albert II renewed his claim on the entire county of Schwerin under the terms of the succession contract, and just to give it additional legitimacy, he had the Mecklenburg’s right to this fief confirmed by its overlord, his maternal uncle, the Prince-Elector of Saxe-Wittenberg, the place we will discuss in the chapter on Lutherstadt Wittenberg. Otto’s older brother, Nicholas III, Count of Tecklenburg, but now also styling himself Count of Schwerin, and his son Otto II would have none of it. The result was war again and a lot of suffering by the local population through Duke Albert’s employ of ‘roaming and plundering mercenaries’ as described by Vitense. Resistance is said to have been fierce. The Tecklenburgs did not fight the Mecklenburgs alone, however. This time Eric II of Saxe-Lauenburg was on their side and so was Danish King Valdemar Atterdag, naturally to further their own geo-political ambitions. The county was nevertheless laid to waste again in many parts by marauding troops. Schwerin itself came under siege once more in April 1358. The defenders’ determined resistance was, however, not in vain. A totally devastated County of Schwerin was not in Duke Albert’s interest either. After Eric II and Valdemar Atterdag made peace with Albert II in autumn of 1358, the Tecklenburg counts joined on December 1st of the same year.

The End of the County

The peace terms accepted by both sides were that the Tecklenburgs should retain succession rights to Grevesmühlen, Boizenburg and Crivitz, the Mecklenburgs obtain those for Schwerin, Wittenburg and probably the rest of the county. The rituals of peace having hardly subsided, however, the Tecklenburg counts proposed the following week to renounce all their claims should the Duchy of Mecklenburg be willing to purchase the entire County of Schwerin. The contract of sale was sealed in Plüschow on December 7th, 1358, and stipulated a purchase price of 20,000 Mark silver including the assumption of all debts, and to be paid to the Counts of Tecklenburg in four equal instalments.

Was this deal the result of additional pressure or following a sober reassessment by the Tecklenburgs of their debts and financial abilities? No one will likely ever know, but there is certainty about one thing: The old family fief which began with the enfeoffment by Duke Henry ‘The Lion’ of Saxony in 1161 to their direct ancestor in the male line, Gunzelin of Hagen, was in possession of the House of Hagen no longer. The Hagen family was in essence back where it started out 200 years earlier, in Westphalia of Old Saxony. The House of Mecklenburg got back what was once their ancestor’s domain, Niklot I, prince of the Obotrite/Polabians’. Wittenburg, which had in a sense always been subsidiary to Schwerin, ceased to exist as a county of its own, and together with Schwerin, it was added to the ducal estates on March 31, 1359, where it remained until the end of the monarchy in 1918. The dukes moved their residence soon after the purchase from Wismar to Schwerin and were known thereafter as Dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

Professor Schlie, Director of the Mecklenburg Museum Cultural Heritage at the turn of the 19th century suggested that the ‘Age of the Counts’, when Wittenburg was comital residence, could be seen as its ‘Golden Age’ in the Middle Ages. He mentions the impressive remains of city walls and other architectonical witnesses of that time, the late Romanesque church, the fact it had its own money and all that might have flowed from such. Perhaps we should take that time period back a bit further, to the time when it attained the status of free city and was protected through the strong arm of the first Count Henry of Schwerin. It was he and his wife, Audacia of Zlawin, daughter of a Slavic prince in eastern Pomerania, who brought stability and prosperity to the county. Countess Audacia is recorded as having been a remarkable and influential personality in her own right by first trying to safeguard her husband’s interests while he was crusading, and later through numerous other projects when already widowed, such as the founding of the Zarrentin Abbey on the shores of nearby Lake Schaal in 1246. Their son Gunzelin III continued in his parents’ footsteps and so did the fondness for the abbey and nunnery of Zarrentin. Elisabeth, first wife of Count Nicholas I of Wittenburg is buried there and three of his daughters entered as nuns there, the oldest of them eventually becoming its abbess. Unfortunately, the stability and peace achieved by Henry I and his son Gunzelin III did not last. It was the 1282 division of the county and the subsequent family discord which ultimately led to war and the House of Hagen’s loss of the county.

It is worth recalling, however, that the supposedly golden ‘Age of the Counts’ also included the ‘Great Famine’, the period from 1311-17, with its aftermath felt well into the late twenties of the 14th century. It signalled not only the end of the relatively prosperous Medieval Warming Period, but the start of the Little Ice Age – Climate Change in modern terminology. The Great Famine took a vast toll on Europe’s population north of the Alps from the British Isles into Russia during these years. Following that came a plague of locusts in 1338 and a ‘once-in-a-century flood’ in 1342. As if all that was not challenge enough to recover from, 1346 was the year when the plague, the ‘Black Death’ engulfed and devastated the people of Europe. It reached Mecklenburg around 1350 and is reported to have killed in Wismar alone 2000 of its inhabitants out of a population of not much more than 5000. If Wismar suffered such devastating loss, we must assume that the counties Schwerin and Wittenburg did not fare much better. In addition to this cataclysm, there were the wars of 1351 and 1358 fought by the local feudal lords for control of these lands. Through it all, the people in towns and villages had to endure it quietly and as best they could. The land and animals had to be tended, the harvest brought in, merchants bought and sold, bread had to be baked, tailors had to cut and sew cloth, family life continued. Likely some, whether individuals or families may have become uprooted enough during these unsettled times to leave what was once their home for good. On their journey to a new place some may have added ‘van Wittenburch, -borg, -borch, burg’ or similar to their first name to designate where they came from. It was the beginning of their family’s enduring surname.

The Legal Feud

Did the conclusion of succession wars and the county’s sale in 1358 finally end the feud between the two warring parties? No – not for another 350 years! Fortunately, the fight was not carried out with lethal weapons from then on, but instead with armies of lawyers making presentations to various chancelleries and courts, finally occupying even the mind of the first King of Prussia, Frederick I.

The reason for it all was the Duke of Mecklenburg’s defaulting on the last 2 instalment payments of their purchase of the County of Schwerin. The Counts of Tecklenburg understandably sued for breach of contract and attempted to retain and monetize their security, Boizenburg. The duke saw this in turn as a breach of good faith and seized the city and its lands, the counts being in no position to do anything about it. From then on, the legal arguments went back and forth for years, then decades and finally centuries, the case now about the whole of the county. It finally became a generational obsession and dragged on despite the male line of the Tecklenburg’s having died out in the meantime and disputes about other rights of inheritances increasingly dividing their descendants. After its long and tortuous journey, full of intrigue and betrayal, ownership of the case against the Dukes of Mecklenburg finally fell to the King of Prussia in 1705. He naturally reminded the reigning duke about this issue, but after just as naturally running into resistance and following an exhaustive legal reassessment, he left it alone. Prussia had bigger fish to fry. Nevertheless, according to H. Saring even the king’s grandson, Frederick the Great, still used Prussia’s waiver of its rights to the county as leverage in a contract with the duchy in 1752 – a full 400 years after the first war of the County of Schwerin-Wittenburg’s succession. This must undoubtedly stand as one of the world’s longest legal battles and most persistent claims!

A Place for widowed Duchesses.

Following the acquisition of Wittenburg by the Dukes of Mecklenburg, its status decreased, since it was no longer a residential city of the ruler. It became a vassalage. The city was briefly pawned to Lübeck from 1368-1370, likely to finance Albrecht II’s adventures in Scandinavia in which the City of Lübeck, as Queen of the Hanseatic League, shared an important interest. Following that, ducal vassals were installed, among them the Plessen’s and the Bülow’s, then the Lützow’s. Schlie describes the latter in his ‘History of the City of Wittenburg’ as ‘the most belligerent and predatory in Mecklenburg, which naturally invited reprisals from the neighbouring territory of Lauenburg’ He further mentions that one of the Lützow’s became a prisoner of the City of Lübeck following a raid in 1483 and only managed to save his neck through the good offices of his ducal overlords.

Schlie tells us further that from the time Wittenburg became part of the Duchy of Mecklenburg, it also began increasingly to be associated with its duchesses. City and land became their life estate and the castle their widow seat. This did not mean that they necessarily had to live in the castle and hold court there after being widowed, but that they received its revenue and also had the right to pawn it. Several of them took a particular interest in the affairs of their estate. It may seem strange from our contemporary perspective that ‘widow seat’ and ‘rapacious vassals’ could go hand in hand but just like in the chapter about the other Wittenburg castle, the one near Elze in Lower Saxony, feudal vassals and reeves were only managing rather than owning such estates. The overlord, whether a hierarchically higher placed lord or the Church, was paid a fixed amount or a share of revenues and largely absent from the more mundane day to day business. The Lützow’s lived in the castle only for a short while before it became the Mecklenburg’s’ widow seat, but they retained their vassalage of the land of Wittenburg and remained, according to Schlie’s account, the region’s most powerful vassals.

The first duchess whose life estate Wittenburg became, was the former Duchess Elisabeth of Saxe-Lüneburg the widow of Duke Albrecht II’s’ grandson. It also became part of the estate of a queen – at least by title – Agnes, second wife and widow of former King of Sweden, and until his death in 1410 reigning in Mecklenburg as Duke Albrecht III. She was followed by the duchesses Margarethe of Brandenburg, who was only 13 when she became Duchess of Mecklenburg by marriage to Albert V, then by Catherine of Saxe-Lauenburg, widow of Duke John IV who was co-regent with his cousin Albert V until the latter’s death in 1422. Both dukes died within one year of each other. Their major legacy is to have been co-founders of the University of Rostock in 1419. Widowed Duchess Catherine then reigned as regent for the heir, six-year-old Duke Henry IV until he was of age in 1436. In anticipation of Henry’s marriage, she signed over city and land Wittenburg, including numerous villages, to be the life estate of her future daughter-in-law, Dorothea of Brandenburg. Following Henry’s death in 1477 and 8 years of widowhood, perhaps in Wittenburg, Duchess Dorothea spent the rest of her life in the nunnery of Rehna where she died in 1491.

Duke Henry IV is said to have made the castle his temporary residence quite often and to have conducted all kinds of official business in the castle, likely also when the two important estates Wolde and Putzelin were added to the city of Wittenburg in the middle of the 15th century. Henry’s nickname was ‘The Fat’ and it is a description he gained through his later corpulence, which itself is attributed to the ever more lavish lifestyle he is said to have engaged in.

The next duchess which likely also has had a connection to Wittenburg was Sophie of Pomerania. She became the wife of Duke Magnus II in 1478 following the death of her fiancée John, who was Magnus’ brother, and who contracted the plague during a journey abroad four years earlier. Magnus had a big task ahead of him, once he became the ruler of the dukedom: His father’s legacy of profligate spending and living left the ducal finances in disarray, the accumulated debts of frightening dimensions and corruption among officials was rampant. Magnus is said to have been ambitious and energetic. There was even a plan during his reign to connect the Baltic and North Seas through a canal via Lake Schwerin and the river Elbe. It had to be abandoned for lack of financial resources. Duke Magnus II died in 1503 and Duchess Sophie a year after him. Anna of Brandenburg took her place as consort of Albert VII, The Handsome. She received Crivitz and Lübz as her dower and made the latter her seat in following her husband’s death in 1547. It set a precedent for future duchesses. We know from Lisch that Wittenburg was watched over by another Duchess of Mecklenburg after she had become widowed. This was Anna Sophia of Prussia, consort of Duke John Albert I. He was what a later age would have described as an enlightened ruler who led the duchy cautiously but decidedly through the aftermath of the Reformation. His widow was not any less decisive when, in one example, she put the interest of her city, Wittenburg energetically ahead of that of a vassal’s family, when the mayor and council complained to her about their dereliction of care for not undertaking necessary repairs of the church for which they were responsible. We are told that it produced the desired results quickly.

Sophie, the Duchess who excelled despite Adversity.

Following Anna Sophia’s death in 1591, her protective mantle was taken over by yet another Duchess Sophie, of Holstein-Gottorp. Her husband, Duke John VII whom she was married to at age 19 in 1588, was well meaning but weak. The duchy he was now responsible for after he became of age in 1585 was highly indebted, run by corrupt officials, and his uncle Duke Christopher constantly harassing him with various claims. Duchess Sophie was the consort of an impoverished and mentally unstable duke and sometimes was even compelled to ask for financial help from her mother for the normal things befitting a duchess. Likely suffering from severe depression, the burden of leadership and the machination of the corrupt court finally became too much for poor Duke John, and he committed suicide at the age of 34 in spring of 1592. He left behind his very young wife with three small children and a virtually bankrupt duchy.

The fact that Duke John died by his own hand also caused a very ugly aftermath: Suicide at that time being considered a sin and making the departed unfit for a Christian burial, it had to be concealed. That was done by accusing several Schwerin women who may likely have been easy targets for the authorities anyway, of having killed the duke by witchcraft, and one of them was burnt at the stake following a precursory trial. Witch trials were not a rarity in Holy Roman Empire during the 16th and 17th century, but for various reasons particularly extensive in Mecklenburg. Wittenburg was no exception: During the two-hundred-year period from 1573 to 1773, 44 witchcraft trials took place on territory now encompassing the city, which after usual torturing to obtain a ‘confession’, and which in some cases already resulted in death, led to 19 executions, mostly by burning at the stake of which the last one took place in 1693. To say that all accusations were based on superstition combined with often personal rancor, is only stating the obvious, but even at that time there appear to have been limits. One of the accused women only named as the ‘wife of Heiner Prallstorf’ was lucky enough to be released on caution in 1604 through the personal intervention of Duchess Sophie. The irregularities and machinations in her trial were just too blatant to ignore!

Duchess Sophie required all her wit and resourcefulness to manage her long years of widowhood. In the meantime, regency was exercised by Duke Ulrich of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, another of her children’s uncle. He reigned in another part of Mecklenburg, which was the result of a division, similar to the one discussed in a previous chapter about the divisions among the old Counts of Schwerin. Further informal divisions then took place within each duchy itself by assigning specific appanages and interests. Primogeniture had not established itself yet. This naturally harboured lots of material for family strife to produce the conflict between Duke John VII and another of his uncles, Duke Christopher.

They were both gone when Duchess Sophie had to take on her difficult burden. Duke Ulrich, her able and benevolent mentor, was occupied with his own affairs to the extent that he could spare little time for his nephews’ lands. This unfortunately led him to cause management of his nephews’ lands falling into the hands of two particularly unscrupulous and self enriching administrators. Duchess Sophie, virtually exiled from the capital Schwerin by them, left for Lübz, from where she concentrated on looking after her personal fiefs, Lübz, Rehna, and Wittenburg. She was, however, not even safe there from constant harassment by the two, at some point even questioning the right to her dower. The corruption and embezzlement got even worse for a while after Duke Ulrich’s death in 1603, since his successor – old already himself and outliving him only 7 years – continued the policy of focusing attention foremost on Mecklenburg-Güstrow. He politely asked Duchess Sophie to move to Schwerin, look after her own affairs, at least to the extent possible and allowed a woman, and so began her regency, which lasted until her eldest son, Adolf Friedrich was declared of age in 1608.

She proved up to the task and firstly showed a stern hand in stopping the worst abuses by officials and then gradually improved the duchy’s affairs similar to what she had already accomplished in Wittenburg, Rehna and Lübz. She improved not only agricultural practices, but also had ironworks built for smelting the area’s extensive bog iron deposits. According to Prof. Schlie’s comment in 1899, she did so ‘with an energy and zeal for action highly unusual for a woman’. Perhaps even more unusual nearly three hundred years earlier and showing the duchess’ determination to turn things around! She stayed in Wittenburg many times between 1614 to 1624 to oversee the progress of work, and no doubt both townspeople and those on the land benefited from her industriousness. It is unfortunate that this wise husbandry of resources to bring the duchy back on a sounder financial footing was turned against her almost as soon as young Duke Adolf Friedrich took over the reigns. Duchess Sophie’s sons were eager believers of court calumnies, accusing her of mismanagement and even of using the duchy’s resources to benefit her dower estates, and that consequently no funds were available for anything else. Adolf Friedrich began to borrow again as soon as the duchy’s credit had been restored and with it jeopardized much of what had been accomplished. In any case, mother and sons remained estranged for years, and it must have been hard on her considering that she did everything in her power to not only hold her sons’ inheritance together but even to enhance it. It is worth repeating that her power as regent had significant limitations, which should make her achievement stand out even more.

Duchess Sophie’s had one more role to fulfill, that of protector of Wittenburg in the early years of the Thirty-Year War in the sixteen-twenties. Her sons had fled, and being accused of High Treason by the Emperor, were disowned. The appointed new ruler of Mecklenburg, military commander Albrecht von Wallenstein , must have respected the duchess, because he left her alone and largely abided by the Letters of Protections she had issued. She died 1634 in Schwerin and with it disappeared her protective shield. Events should take a dreadful turn for Wittenburg only seven years later, but before going there, we must backtrack to the event which took place a bit more than a hundred years earlier 260 km to the south, in Wittenberg.

The Reformation

1517 was one of those watershed years in history, when Martin Luther is said to have nailed his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg church, only at that time nobody could have known the far-reaching consequences of his outline.

In contrast to other parts of Europe, the Reformation in Mecklenburg was a relatively peaceful affair. The two reigning dukes, Henry V ‘The Peaceful’ in Schwerin and Albrecht VII, ‘The Handsome’ in Güstrow displayed a degree of tolerance for the new teachings despite the fact that they themselves did not embrace them wholeheartedly, especially Albrecht, who remained Catholic all his life. Several reasons facilitated that relatively calm approach to this new teaching It quickly found acceptance at the University of Rostock, which was already exploring humanistic ideas earlier through Konrad Pegel, tutor of Duke Henry’s son Magnus. The duke even allowed Pegel to travel to Wittenberg to learn more about Luther’s teachings. Another important individual for the reformation in Mecklenburg was Joachim Slüter, a priest located in Rostock and with close ties to the university. Duke Henry earned the addition ‘The Peaceful’ to his name by wisely steering clear of alliances which could embroil him in religious wars.

Duke Albrecht’s motivation for tolerance was grounded more in geopolitics and finances. The times seemed to him propitious to reassert, together with the Hanseatic League control over Denmark and Sweden, the dream which eluded his ancestor Albrecht III. In the face of such ambition and the reality of a bare treasury, pursuit or concern with ecclesiastical matters would not have rated high on his list of priorities. Unfortunately for him, these lofty aims came once again to naught and left his treasury even worse off.

Another factor for the relative smooth introduction of the Reformation into these lands might also have been their geographic location on the northern periphery of the Holy Roman Empire. Western and Central Europe were the primary focus of attention then. This was also the beginning of the somewhat unique ‘state churches’, with their mixture of Lutheranism with Calvinist Pietism in the duchies, particularly during the reign of Duke Johann Albrecht I under whom the duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and -Güstrow were united again.

As far as the Reformation coming to Wittenburg is concerned, Schlie39 lists Heinrich Horstmann as the priest during the monumental events which happened during the period from 1498 and 1536, followed by a Johann Stampe between 1554 and 1560. Since there is no evidence to the contrary, we can assume that what was practiced throughout the duchy was also the case for Wittenburg.

The period of the Reformation was one of not just evaluating religious teachings and structures of ecclesiastical governance, but also those of the duchies themselves. While the landed nobility had been loosely associated through their ‘Union of Knights’ for a long time already, out of that emerged in the year 1523 the first ever ‘Union’ or ‘Council’ of the Estates, which now included in addition to the nobles also prelates and officials of the cities. They contracted to forever counsel, support and indemnify each other and to uphold peace, justice and unity amongst themselves. Clearly, this was not something the dukes looked upon with favour since it was a check on their absolutist power and would manifest itself spectacularly about two hundred years later. That powershift was later said to have been a major reason for the duchy to have remained backward and trailing other German regions.

The Thirty-Years War and other Catastrophes

Although by no means a peaceful period, if things only had stayed as they were in the 16th and the early 17th century, they would not have been too different from times before, but it was not to be: The spirit of the Reformation and with it the Counter-Reformation continued to occupy the affairs of the Empire. Ominous clouds gathered on the horizon in 1618 with the defenestration of imperial representatives in far away Prague, and rumours of war in Bohemia. The conflict’s cause being on account of religion, and taking place within the Holy Roman Empire, which included Mecklenburg too, could not be inconsequential to the duchy. Mecklenburg and others in Northern Germany professed armed neutrality, but hostilities crept northwards following a series of disastrous defeats by Protestant armies at the hands of Catholic Imperial forces. In 1625, Mecklenburg joined a Northern Defense League under the leadership of ambitious Danish King Christian IV, an avowed enemy of Catholic Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. The latter saw it as High Treason by his vassals, the Dukes of Mecklenburg. The duchy soon became a theatre of war and much suffering too, as it was overrun by retreating and undisciplined, plundering Danish forces in 1626.

The fact that the dukes had tried to extricate themselves from the Defense League after witnessing the Danes continuous misfortunes, had much to do with the marauding which southwestern Mecklenburg, including Wittenburg, had to endure. The switch was meant to curry favour with the emperor again, but it was too no avail. Following the expulsion of the Danes by imperial forces, the dukes were disowned by the emperor and his formidable imperial military commander Albrecht von Wallenstein installed as Duke of Mecklenburg in 1628. His short tenure was on balance beneficial since he was a reformer and, as mentioned in the previous chapter, recognizing in Dowager Duchess Sophie a woman of considerable ability end energy, left her to govern her estates Wittenburg, Lübz and Rehna. Wallenstein’s reign was of short duration because his success, both as general and administrator, not to mention the power he wielded through his army of mercenaries, caused anxieties to the empire’s elector-princes. They saw in Wallenstein a dangerous arriviste and managed to get him dismissed at the Imperial Diet held at Regensburg in the summer of 1630.

The ensuing power vacuum was soon filled again in Mecklenburg, this time the pendulum swung back to the Lutheran/Protestant side with the arrival of Swedish troops. King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden’s intervention in this war was on the surface to protect the Protestant cause in the North after the defeat of Denmark and the North German duchies, but his dream was, just like the Danish king’s before him, to establish a powerful Northern Empire extending also over Northern Germany. Once again, the people of Mecklenburg experienced the invasion of a foreign army and with it also came the reinstallation of former dukes Johann Friedrich I of Schwerin and Johann Albrecht II of Güstrow in 1631 through the good offices of their cousin, the King of Sweden. Collaborators with Wallenstein, whether voluntarily or forced by circumstances, were treated harshly, the already bled out population burdened with more heavy taxation. The war between Imperial Catholic and opposing Protestant forces continued also on the territory of Mecklenburg.

Wittenburg is said to have weathered the early sixteen thirties reasonably well through Duchess Sophie’s prestige, but others suffered horrendously at the hands of warring and out-of-control mercenaries on either side, and the same fate should befall Wittenburg only a few years after the duchess’ death. First, it happened following the furtive peace of Prague in 1635, which the Mecklenburgs and the other imperial realms were parties of, but not Sweden, which, assisted by France to satisfy its prime minister Cardinal Richelieu’s aim to check the power of the Habsburgs, continued to pursue its own imperial phantasies. The Swedish Lord Chancellor, Axel Oxenstjerna, made it unmistakably clear to the dukes that they would forthwith be considered as enemies, and Swedish forces acted accordingly as they chased the equally plundering and murdering imperial forces before them as they marched northwards on their retreat from Bavaria. Schlie tells us about the dreadful suffering the city and region Wittenburg experienced in 1637 when imperial troops came through it on their march to Wismar, and of another crossing full of devastation by the pursuing Swedes only a year later.65 Alas, the worst was still lying ahead!

The full horror of war was to overcome the city of Wittenburg on February 2 and 3rd 1642 following an order by Matthias Gallas, commander of the imperial army to Hartmann Goldacker, colonel of a regiment of ‘Croats’, to clear the city of Swedish forces. The term ‘Croats’ then referred to light cavalry units made up mostly of mercenaries from the empire’s southeastern border regions. According to eyewitness accounts: ‘No Turks or Heathens could have done worse, wrote the city’s reeve to the duke, ‘burghers and councillors being disrobed, naked, mutilated and dreadfully mistreated’. ‘The crying and wailing heard from babes and women with child would have moved a stone to pity’. ‘Women and girls fled into the church to escape the marauding troops, but to no avail. From today’s vantage point it appears strange and out of place that the reeve referred to ‘Turks and heathens’ to describe the scale of the carnage, when it was Christians slaughtering other Christians.

The orgy of raping, pillaging, burning, and killing continued until attention was diverted to nearby Boizenburg, which the Swedish garrison, perhaps alerted by what had just happened in Wittenburg, mounted a fierce and successfully defense. It was only to be a retrieve. Gallas came back two years later and blew up the fortress with the entire Swedish garrison inside.

The war went on for several more dreadful years until finally, all parties exhausted by now, the Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648. A lot has been written about the Thirty Years War, the death toll, its effect on society, on governance and so forth, but it is generally acknowledged that the toll on northern Germany was particularly severe. The sack of the cities of Magdeburg and Neubrandenburg in the Electorate of Brandenburg in 1631, both significant cities at the time, stand out, the tiny Wittenburg and many others barely registering a footnote in this drama of horrors. Wittenburg’s population was reduced from already a remnant of only about 500 to a mere 100 traumatized souls after it was all over. How much of that can be attributed directly to hostilities and indirectly to diseases such as the resurging plague and a host of other factors facilitated by the war, like famine and general lawlessness, can never been known, but Wittenburg’s statistics fit those of Mecklenburg in general: Historian Vitense writes in the chapter on the Thirty Years War in his History of Mecklenburg that ‘not even a quarter of the roughly 300,000 Mecklenburgers alive before the war survived the suffering it caused’. The written comment of Swedish General Banèr in 1638 to the Lord Chancellor of Sweden summed it up this way: ‘There is nothing but sand and air in Mecklenburg, everything is levelled to the ground.’ All this had a profound effect on those who survived: They were not just traumatized, but society also became more brutalized and prone to superstitions, believing in ‘conspiracy theories’ we would perhaps call it today. Witch hunts and trials, already more common in Mecklenburg than elsewhere, experienced an uptick. Further, as Vitense states, the utter destruction of farmsteads robbed many tenant farmers of the little they had by having to accept serfdom for themselves and their descendants in exchange for their local lord, decimated too, but still in a position of economic power, to look after their basic needs. It was a step backwards and led to further strengthening of the landed estates at the expense of the reigning duke.

The carnage of war was only slightly less so in the neighbouring Electorate of Brandenburg, where half the population is said to have perished. Historian Christopher Clark suggests in his book ‘The Iron Kingdom’ on the history of Prussia, that the trials and destruction experienced in Brandenburg because of the Thirty Years War had a profound influence on Frederick William for him to gain the honorific title ‘The Great’ as Elector of Brandenburg. The experience convinced him of the need of a strong state and equally strong defense capabilities to never become the victim of others again. These phobias and the military culture that went with them later also transferred to Brandenburg-Prussia, and all they harboured for the future. Mecklenburg would from now on have to look with the same trepidation to Brandenburg-Prussia as it had for centuries been looking out for threats originating from the North.

Misfortune was not done yet with Wittenburg following the Peace Treaty and the end of the Thirty-Year War since Sweden’s ambition to make the Baltic Sea a ‘Swedish Lake had not subsided at all. The terms of the Peace of Westphalia assigned a large chunk of northern Germany to Sweden, but that only encouraged the continuation of the war in that theatre, this time known as ‘The Second Northern War’. The reigning duke was powerless for Sweden to draft large number of young men into its army, and neither could he prevent Imperial and Polish- Lithuanian troops as well as those of the Great Elector of Brandenburg to march through his realm to chase the Swedes from the coast. According to Vitense, about a quarter of the total contingent of 32,000 men making up those allied armies occupied Wittenburg and Hagenow in September of 1658. The Great Elector of Brandenburg came himself and made Wittenburg his headquarters for the two days of his stay. He was followed by his Imperial allies and the Polish generals Czarnecki and Opalinski. These troops all had to be supported by an already pauperized populace of the occupied cities and countryside. What was not turned over voluntarily was plundered, and all the pious condemnations by troop leaders of such acts went unheard.

Matters were even worse for Wittenburg, because the occupation was followed by the Great Fire of October 22, 1657, which consumed much of the city and destroyed the steeple of the church, which was only at least rebuilt in 1907 – after a wait of 250 years. Then came the recurrence of the plague in 1659 and yet another great fire twenty years later. It is fair to ask what made the city survive after these multiple catastrophes, and why it did not disappear from history like others during that time, the survivors dispersed in every direction of the compass rose. Perhaps it was simply that no other prospects were available to them, they had to make do with what little they still had.

Reconstruction was slow, and not helped by Christian Louis I, who inherited the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1658. He became essentially an ‘absentee landlord’ by living from 1658 for the rest of his life in Versailles, at the court of the King of France, Louis XIV. Money was tight, but there was apparently enough for the duke to have a splendid palace built in Ratzeburg in which he rarely ever resided. Recovery was likely also hampered by the start of yet another war in the neighbourhood, the ‘Scanian War’ from 1675-79 which included most of the belligerents of the previous wars, making Mecklenburg and its people again a land were foreign armies marched through with near impunity. Duke Christian Louis connection with France made matters worse. As to Wittenburg, there was yet another great fire in 1679 levelling much of what had been rebuilt in the twenty years following he previous one.

It was, however, not just the strategic location on the Baltic Sea and being in the vicinity of powers vying for regional hegemony which caused Mecklenburg to be a frequent theatre of war. The final years of the 17th century were also a period of great internal instability through the extinction of the ducal dynasty’s’ Güstrow line. It resulted in a succession struggle almost leading to Civil War, which was only averted when the reigning Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin agreed to support the King of Denmark and Norway in the emerging ‘Great Northern War’ in exchange for the latter giving up claims of succession rights to Güstrow. This arrangement in 1701 also created Mecklenburg-Strelitz, ancestral home of the future Queen Charlotte, queen consort of the King of England and Prince-Elector of Hannover, George III. It was the final division of the duchy.

The Great Northern War

Its belligerents were mostly the same as in the Scanian War some thirty years earlier, but now with the addition of a self-confident Russia under Peter the Great. It was a war which Sweden finally lost and ended its ambitions of hegemony in the Baltics. Mecklenburg was again the hapless victim on the territory of which foreign armies sometimes fought their battles. Wittenburg came uncomfortably close to experience the shooting war when an allied army of Saxons and Danes was defeated by the Swedes in a battle late in December 1712 on the fields of nearby Gadebusch. It was possible only through the shrewd exploit of his enemies’ weaknesses by the Swedish commander Magnus Stenbock, as well as the daring of his troops. It was Sweden’s last victory and hurrah in this war and a year later Stenbock was defeated by overwhelming allied forces, including the czar’s troops, in what is now Schleswig-Holstein, after which they flooded back into Mecklenburg, and with yet more ransacking again. It is not hard to imagine that the constant demands to supply armed forces, and the marauding and plundering of undisciplined soldiers, whether friend or foe, left little room for engaging in rebuilding, and that would also have been the case for Wittenburg, still fledgling from its trials over the previous decades.

While Mecklenburg’s main threat had hitherto always been mainly from the North – Denmark and Sweden -, a new one developed in the South and East: Prussia, and it began with an agreement between Duke Frederick Wilhelm of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Prussian king Frederick I where they pledged each other’s support and also reaffirmed a 1442 agreement that Brandenburg-Prussia would inherit the duchy’s succession in the event it lacked a male heir. The duke did it chiefly to bolster his authority and strengthen his hand over his noble large estate holders., but in doing so also set the stage for a creeping loss of sovereignty and meddling by Prussia. Frederick Wilhem’s cousin, the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was not pleased. It should therefore not surprise that Prussia regarded the two duchies increasingly as ‘appendages’ and this showed itself in the most brutal way how Prussia regarded both Mecklenburgs as convenient reservoirs from which ‘recruit’ – to press-gang – young men against their will for soldiering in the Prussian army.

Mecklenburg – in trouble with the Holy Roman Emperor.

All these wars and upheavals had a price tag which simply added to the burden still carried from the Thirty-Years war. Duke Frederick William I introduced special taxes in 1708 on the ‘Estates’ and attempted numerous reforms, among them the abolishment of serfdom. All sensible under the circumstances, but they were highly resented by the ‘Council of the Estates’, that is the union of landed nobles, prelates and cities discussed earlier. What emerged from it was an increasing estrangement between the estates and the duke. He died five years later, and with the duchy in a state which required wisdom and a steady hand from the successor. The accession of his younger brother, Carl Leopold, to the throne added unfortunately yet another ruler to the already long list of previous ones unsuited for that post.

Duke Carl Leopold’s quarrelsome and narcissistic nature combined with reckless ambition not only sealed eventually his downfall but plunged the long-suffering duchy and its people into yet more wars and distress. As a practitioner of absolutism, he would do anything to further his own interests, even if on the surface some of his actions looked like very liberal policies for the times. This included rallying the peasant-serfs by continuing his predecessors earlier attempts to change their status of serfdom into one of tenancy, but he went about it in a manner that he eventually lost their initial enthusiasm too, and in the end only strengthened the landed nobles whom he disdained. He lurched from crisis to crisis, whether in politics with endless quarrels with his younger brother Duke Christian Ludwig who ruled the smaller duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, or in his domestic life. He went through three unsuccessful marriages, the third with a niece of Czar Peter the Great, again with the aim to increase his power, wealth, and influence. A part of the marriage contract included a treaty with the czar, allowing the czar to station 40,000 Russian troops in the duchy. This was for Peter the Great a welcome extension of Russian military power westwards, but from the duke’s vantage point a calculated move to keep his landed nobles in check. To say that the provisioning of these troops through the resources and the labour of a population barely three times that number was a burden, is only stating the obvious, and the czar himself was very demanding in this respect when travelling through Mecklenburg after attending the wedding in then Danzig (Gdanks). He had found a useful fool in Carl Leopold.

The Reichsexekution against Mecklenburg

Carl Leopold’s capriciousness and downright treachery was finally reaching a level to make the cup overflow: From their exile, his brother and many nobles petitioned the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI, in 1717 to order a ‘Reichsexekution’ against the duke, that is to intervene, if necessary, with imperial troops. The Prince-Elector of Hanover and Brunswick who also happened to be the King of England as George I, was put in charge of it. Naturally, Carl Leopold resisted as much he could, – he still had some of the peasantry on his side plus the smaller cities. We don’t know whether it included Wittenburg, but it may very well have – and there was also the matter of the Russian troops. The appearance of a British fleet in the Baltic Sea, combined with other pressure, convinced Peter the Great, however, to vacate Mecklenburg in the same year, but not without his troops causing further devastation, particularly in the more easterly part of Strelitz to ostensibly take revenge on Carl Leopold’s brother, but in fact on his subjects.

Unfortunately, it did not end here. Duke Carl Leopold was not finished with scheming, threatening, and meting out revenge and arbitrary justice wherever he saw fit. His last outlandish scheme, trying to convince Sweden, Russia and France to join him in a war against England, collapsed through the death of the King of Sweden, one of his oldest supporters. He had played all his cards, and now even the czar had had enough. Desperate in his situation, Carl Leopold now tried to make peace with the emperor and return confiscated estates to the nobles, but it was too late. His credibility was in tatters. In February 1719, Hanoverian-Brunswick troops entered the duchy at Boizenburg and forthwith brought the collection of the lucrative Elbe river-toll under imperial control, and with it, the duke lost a major source of income. Imperial troops were, however, a bit too dismissive about ‘the rabble’ which was still fighting for Carl Leopold and suffered a decisive defeat in early March of 1719 near Walsmühlen. Only a small contingent of survivors made it to safety in nearby southwesterly Wittenburg. Nevertheless Carl Leopold was on the retreat, first into his refuge and fortress city of Dömitz, which he terrorized in gruesome fashion and eventually fleeing for Danzig (now Gdansk) outside of the realm of the Empire, and were even the Russian princess he married with great fanfare 6 years earlier decided she was through with him and left to return to Russia with their only daughter.

Imperial troops from Hannover-Brunswick had meanwhile also been joined by those sent by Prussia. As mentioned earlier here, The King of Prussia had a keen interest not to leave affairs in Mecklenburg entirely to his Hanoverian cousins, since his house had a succession claim on Mecklenburg in case the ducal house died out in the male line. Naturally, a reminder of the even earlier claim Prussia inherited from the legal feud which ensued following the purchase of the County of Schwerin-Wittenburg by Carl Leopold’s ancestors served its purpose too. Nevertheless, none of these political machinations were of immediate concern to Mecklenburgers, whatever their social position and whether living on the land or in the cities. These armies had to be provisioned for, and since some troops even brought their families with them to install themselves for the longer term, it only increased the burden and with it also the resentment of the local population. While the Reich – Execution and the Imperial troops in themselves were initially only meant to restore order and uphold Imperial Law, Duke Carl Leopold’s continued intransigence and increasing brutality finally resulted in the 1728 Decree of the Imperial Council in Vienna to suspend him as the reigning Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and replace him with his younger brother Christian Ludwig of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Did the deposed duke give up? Of course not, he still had supporters among the clergy, city burghers and among the peasantry – enough to return from Danzig, first to the castle at Schwerin, later retreating to the fortress at Dömitz again, to engage from there for several years with his remaining supporters in many more skirmishes with his brother and Imperial troops. He tried to enlist almost every court of Europe, even the Pope to help him regain his ducal crown, and as Vitense writes, also attempted yet another marriage, this time with a French princess, for which he sent diplomat and writer Christian Ludwig Liscow, son of the pastor of Wittenburg, to the French court to woo Louis XV for that but also for his cause. Unfortunately for Liscow, the mission was unsuccessful, and the disgraced duke, in his typical fashion, did not even reimburse him for his expenses, let alone pay him for his troubles. Carl Leopold’s last throw of the dice, trying to gain an advantage from the war of the Austrian succession in 1741, ended in failure too. It was over – he died a much diminished and bitter man a few years later. Vitense writes about that period: ‘The second time, roughly about 100 years after the first, a kind of Thirty Years War had been inflicted on Mecklenburg, even if not with the same atrocity and destruction’. Adding to the trials of unsafe roads, wanton abductions, and murder during that time, we must also add the numerous devastating city fires during that time, among them also that of Wittenburg in 1726.

Wittenburg and other lands pawned as security to defray the cost of Reichsexekution troops.

The newly installed Duke Christian Ludwig’s problem was how to pay and maintain the Imperial troops, and more importantly, and related to that, how to make them leave Mecklenburg again. Well, he did not have the money to pay, and so he pledged some of the duchies’ cities and lands, among them Wittenburg, Boizenburg, Bakendorf, Zarrentin, Rehna, Gadebusch, Grevesmühlen and the village Mecklenburg in 1735 as security to his allies from Hanover-Brunswick. Four other places were pledged to Prussia. Naturally, the erstwhile allied troops stayed until enough money could come together, mostly through new borrowings, to make payment for their services during those troubled thirties. It was left to Duke Christian Ludwig’s successor to finally redeem the pledged lands. For Wittenburg and the 7 other towns and lands occupied by Hanover-Brunswick, that was not until 1768, and even later, 1787, for the lands under Prussian control, Plau, Wredenhagen, Marnitz and Eldena. The reason for these 4 lands’ delayed redemption was not so much a question of money, the redemption was not as costly because of counterclaims. The real reason was that the Prussian king, Frederick II the Great, busy with making his kingdom into a European power to be reckoned with, and with the Duchy of Mecklenburg in any case an enemy of Prussia during the Seven-Years War, he saw no urgency to settle and to remove Prussian troops from lands in Mecklenburg then and after the war. The redemption of these Prussian controlled lands therefore had to wait until after Frederick the Great’s death.

Mecklenburg and the Seven Years War

That war lasted from 1756 until 1763 and involved all great European powers both at home and overseas. It resulted in large swathes of land changing hands, particularly in North America, and some powers, among them England and Prussia, emerging stronger. Mecklenburg, finally sensing the danger from its ambitious and assertive neighbour Prussia, allied itself with her enemies when the prevailing attitude in European capitals still felt Prussia could be quickly put in its place through a Reichsexekution after its unprovoked invasion of Saxony. In addition, the duchy overestimated the commitment of its allies, Sweden and France, not to mention its own military and financial capabilities. The Swedish and French armies never met; no concentrated campaign would ever emerge from Mecklenburg against Prussia. Neither was the duchy ever a big battle ground, but it suffered enough from Swedish and especially Prussian incursions and occupation, the wanton confiscation of harvests, livestock, horses, and other materiel useful to the Prussian war effort. The worst of it were recruiters for the Prussian army marauding the landscape of Mecklenburg. No able-bodied man was safe from them and woe to those who tried to resist these gangs of abductors! The duke’s chancellery is recorded as having complained to the Prussian king’s chancellery about such abuse, but all it received was polite replies that the matter had been elevated. Vitense informs us in his ‘History of Mecklenburg’ about the worst war year in 1761, where every district, city and noble estate was commandeered to each deliver several 4-horse carts filled with materiel and foodstuff to Rostock and other destinations. It was naturally feared, he writes, that this was also a ruse for Prussian recruiters to catch yet more young men for their army. Consequently, the duke forbade these wagon trains to be manned by young people, ‘to prevent Prussian officers in Mecklenburg’s lands to show the remaining small contingent of young people of military usefulness’. As a result, only older married men accompanied the trains, but it was in vain: No sooner had they arrived at their destinations, they were literally kidnapped, bound together with ropes and dragged to Prussian recruitment camps.

That war finally ended for Mecklenburg in May 1762, 4 ½ years after it had a part in it. Land, cities and villages were exhausted, and yet, another war loomed already on the horizon but only came to naught through the overthrow of faraway Czar Peter III of Russia. Based on his ancestry, he intended to wrest the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein (the medieval Wagria) from Denmark. Danish troops had already come into Mecklenburg and set up camp at Gadebusch, not far from Wittenburg. A large Russian army was already marching westward from Pomerania towards Mecklenburg, when Empress Catherine II the Great who succeeded her husband, put an end to these war aims. The people of Mecklenburg could breathe easier again.

Redemption of Wittenburg and 7 other territories

Attention focussed again on the redemption of the pledged lands following the end of the Seven-Years War, and in 1766 a first instalment of half a million Reichsthalers (imperial dollars) was made on account of the 8 territories including Wittenburg. The final instalment of one million Reichsthalers, which also included accumulated interest, was on hand 2 years later and the money left Schwerin on the 23rd of June 1768 to be paid and counted in Boizenburg. Here we have an account how payment of such an enormous sum of money was made 250 years ago:

“Ahead of the transport a cavalry master with his detachment, followed by a carriage pulled by six horses with the commander, behind him the 10 freight carts loaded with barrels full of coins, each cart pulled by four horses and escorted on both sides by more cavalry and infantry. Behind them followed another four-horse carriage with the official entrusted with the details of payment, which in turn was followed by cavalry. They arrived in Wittenburg at the end of the first day where the officer of the infantry detachment was put in charge to guard the transport during the night.” The money train arrived safely in Boizenburg the following day, but now preparation for the work of counting, weighing, and sorting out the gold and silver pieces began, among which were naturally also found a fair number of counterfeit pieces. This exacting work took six weeks to accomplish, from the 9th of July to August 12th of 1768, but according to contemporary accounts, it was not all hardship, since the small group of no more than ten gentlemen overseeing this task, were dining each day at the table of the Duke’s representative and also consumed several hundred bottles of various wines during that period.53 The eight lands mortgaged to Hanover-Brunswick were redeemed on the 19th of August, and with it finally saw the departure of the occupation troops also from Wittenburg.

How many Euros do one million Reichsthalers in 1768 represent today? That is difficult to judge since neither the German Bundesbank nor the German Office of Statistics has the data to make comprehensive purchasing power comparisons between the present and the 18th century. There are, however, some inferences which can be made when comparing wages and the cost of certain goods at that time: In the year 1764, a carpenter working in Dresden, Saxony, earned six ‘Groschen’ or 1/6 of a Reichsthaler a day. 1 pound of ground beef – likely not the usual diet of common folks then – was roughly 1/12 of a Reichsthaler. A carpenter’s average daily earnings in Saxony are about 150 Euros today. So, if we consider that this would represent 1/6 of a Reichstaler in 1764, the 150 Euros must be multiplied by six, and one Reichsthaler would therefore represent 900 Euros today. The same with the pound of beef: Its average cost is 9.69 Euros today, but only represented roughly 2 Groschen, or 1/12 of a Reichsthaler then. So, on that basis, to arrive in Reichsthaler equivalent, we multiply the 9.69 by 12 and arrive at 116.28. Now next: Does the 1764 relationship between the two amounts hold. 3 to 1? No, it does not: 900/116 results in just under 8 to 1, or over such a great time span not such a significant change. The trouble is that it is essentially a projection of that historical wage and meat price into the present. The relationship looks totally different when present daily earnings of our imaginary carpenter are held up against today’s price for ground beef: 150 Euros to 9.69: 15.47:1. That can only mean that either the wage we are comparing has significantly increased in real terms or the meat price has become cheaper through modern agricultural practice/imports and/or processing. To illustrate this with one more example, good boots cost 15 Reichsthalers in 1764, or 60 times (!) the daily wage of our carpenter. Boots, handmade then, were a luxury item at that time, but cheap now, not only through mass production, but also made in regions with lower production costs. It shows how difficult it is to make comparisons of purchasing power over a long period of time, not to mention between totally different economic systems, one pre- and the other post-industrial. It would require careful analysis of a representative ‘basket of goods’ if such was even possible. At best, these rough comparisons help to provide an idea, but even so, is one Reichsthaler 900 Euros or 116? I would opt closer to the higher amount since wages over a long time are less distorted than the retail price of agricultural products and for reasons already mentioned. Of course, the foregoing comparisons and calculations leave out completely increases and inflation in property values. This may make even assigning a value 900 million Euros for one million Reichsthalers look too modest. Whatever today’s value, the redemption of the 8 Mecklenburg lands, including Wittenburg, for 1.5 million Reichsthalers cost the ducal treasury a fortune. As enormous as this payment was, even that was dwarfed by Mecklenburg’s cost of the Seven-Years War, estimated by Vitense to have amounted to around 16 million Reichsthalers, or based on the above comparative parameters, many billions in present Euros, and that for a land already impoverished and struggling for a long time through numerous previous catastrophes.

This long period of weak central authority, combined with both internal and external turmoil strengthened local potentates, that is the landed nobility, despite the challenges its representatives had to weather themselves during these times. These were not only the physical challenges through occupation, plundering and confiscation caused through internal strive or war, but also by the rampant inflation which followed. Many estates went bankrupt during that time. The plight was not any easier for city folks, for their prosperity too was tied to a healthy and productive countryside around them.

The reforms Duke Carl Friedrich embarked on early in the century, and some of which Duke Carl Leopold pursued to serve his own narrow interests, such as the abolishment of serfdom, had to wait after him for another hundred years until finally enacted in 1820. Mecklenburg closed in on itself and remained backwards and poor relative to most other German lands. Many of its young left – or rather fled – to more hospitable places such as Hamburg, Lübeck or to seek opportunities further east among the German populations already established long ago in the Baltics. Among them may also have been the author’s first recorded Wittenburg ancestor, who tied the knot in 1772 at Tuckum, Duchy of Courland, (now Tukums, Latvia), but whose origins are unknown. For many others, especially in the mass-emigration of the 19th century, Hamburg or Bremen may have been the port of embarkation for a new life in America, among them also a fair number whose family name was Wittenburg.

There were still more trials to come for Mecklenburg, and the originator of these was born on a Mediterranean island almost exactly one year after the redemption of the Mecklenburg lands in Boizenburg. His name was Napoleone Buonaparte.

The Napoleonic Wars

The earlier phases of these wars, before General Bonaparte became Emperor of the French, did not touch Mecklenburg but thereafter the shadow of the rapidly expanding French Empire began to loom ever more threateningly over it and eventually engulfed it entirely. Although the two duchies, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz, professed their neutrality to France, as so often in history, subsequent events dictated policy.

After Napoleon’s decisive victory against the combined forces of Austria and Russia at the Battle of Austerlitz of December of 1805, and with Prussia’s erstwhile neutrality in this gargantuan conflict rapidly waning, Mecklenburg’s days of relative peace were numbered. Its fate was sealed after Napoleon’s decisive victory over Prussia in October of 1806 at Jena. The militarily weak duchies’ acquiescence of allowing Swedish and Russian troops to cross their territories, first to assist Hanover-Brunswick, at that time on their retreat from French troops, made them to enemies in they eye of the French Empire.

French troops began flooding into Mecklenburg during the remainder of 1806. It was the beginning of what Mecklenburgers remember as ‘die Franzosenzeit’, ‘The Time of the French’, a time of extreme hardship which lasted for seven long years until 1813. Ahead of the French were the retreating Swedish, Russian and Prussian forces, and since some of them are reported to have come through Crivitz on their way to Schwerin and eventually to the coast, they likely passed through Wittenburg too. Naturally, these troops had to be quartered and provisioned as well, but that was only the start of what was the French occupation. The blockade of ports and strict controls to thwart any trade with England inflicted additional hardships on the population, among them disruption of commerce with soaring inflation for some goods and foodstuffs on one hand and price collapse for others as exports dried up or were prohibited. While the peace of Tilsit between France and Prussia allowed the ducal family to return from exile on the 11th of July 1807, it was more what we would call today a public relations exercise to feign giving back sovereignty but changed nothing of the hardship endured by the population.(page 35)

Less than a year later, both duchies of Mecklenburg were forced to join the ‘Federation of the Rhine’ and thus became reluctant allies of the French Empire. By no means did this change things for the better for the people of the two duchies. The difference now was that complaints about abuses by French troops, although noted, were duly ignored by local officialdom for fear of upsetting the allies. Should it surprise that all this had a negative effect on the fabric of society? As Vitense writes “Public insecurity increased in a horrific manner”, “all kinds of rabble, robbers and thieves roamed the land by night, often in cahoots with the worst of French soldiery, to take and steal whatever they could”, and, according to officials of Boizenburg “The crowds of beggars vagabonds are such, that country dwellers aren’t safe, neither as to their property nor their life.” Yet another serious burden was, that as a members of the Confederation, Mecklenburg was required to supply a contingent of several thousand men for ‘La Grande Armée’ in preparation of the invasion of Russia. Few returned when Marshal Davout came back through Mecklenburg with remnants of the defeated French army in 1813, and an account of their ordeal is told in 1835 by Dr. Heinrich Francke in ‘Mecklenburg’s Distress before and during its War of Liberation’ in the chapter ‘The Russian Campaign’ from diaries of officers.91(page 86)

As much as ‘La Grande Armée’, numbering close to 700,000 men, to subdue Russia was at the time the biggest army ever put together, so was the ensuing military disaster with less than a tenth of shattered survivors making it back. Napoleon’s aura of invincibility was gone, doubts within his own ranks took hold and hope began to rise among the people under French rule. Coalitions were formed against Napoleon, volunteer corps being established, so also in Mecklenburg. Wittenburg became a place of assembly of the voluntary ‘Jäger’ (light infantry) in May 1813, and the town saw action on August 21 of the same year when Marshal Davout and his army met Mecklenburg forces between Camin and Vellahn and in the course also occupied Wittenburg briefly. Davout eventually retreated to Hamburg, where his army remained under siege and isolated. Meanwhile, the Mecklenburg brigade under the command of hereditary prince Friedrich Ludwig, together with Prussian and Russian troops, pursued the French over the Rhine and laid siege to the fortress of Jülich near the Dutch border until Napoleon’s abdication as Emperor of the French.

Following the Peace of Paris of May 30, 1814, the brigade returned triumphantly to Mecklenburg, and on July 10th of that year, Wittenburg was the headquarters on their way to Schwerin and ultimately Rostock. The days were full of celebration for the victors and the return of the troops, and the city illuminated at night.91(page 423) Another year, new anxiety, but then the Battle of Waterloo put a definite end to Napoleon’s reign, but not to his legacy of upsetting age old certainties and conventions everywhere his armies went.

Much as previously quoted historian Dr. H. Francke91 and the old ruling elite saw the French Emperor only in the light of an usurper and tyrant, he also was a catalyst for change, witness the formation of the volunteer light infantry in Mecklenburg and other, albeit still hesitant, recognition of ‘the Third Estate’ as being more than just hapless subjects. What Duke Friedrich Wilhelm I first attempted a hundred years earlier – to deal with serfdom and its abolishment -, was on the agenda again, but it still took until 1820 before serfdom was abolished in the two duchies. Another, direct, result of the Napoleonic administration was the requirement for adopting hereditary last names, which was aimed directly at the Jewish population, which hitherto had none, and brought in the Emancipation Act of 1813. It also gave Jews the same rights as Christians, although in that case these rights were revoked again 4 years later. Nevertheless, change was in the air…

Post-Napoleonic Ferment

While the power of the dukes, as mentioned earlier, had already declined in the century before in relation to the landed estates, the Napoleonic interlude did not make that any better. The ducal governments sensed that a complete return to the ‘old order’ was not possible, and tried to adapt with various reforms, but implementation was easier in the cities than in the countryside. The owners of large estates, with notable exceptions, resisted change as much as they could. Unfortunately, lacking other opportunities, freedom for serfs often meant literally ‘landing on the street’, because it also meant landowners being freed to at least look after a minimum of their wellbeing. Consequently, hordes of poverty-stricken day-labourer began to roam Mecklenburg’s roads. Let historian Otto Vitense come to word in his epic work ‘History of Mecklenburg’, and his account of this describes the situation even well before serfdom was abolished: ‘The peasants were not more than farmhands and the state of many of them was even that of slaves.’ (page 426). To make matters worse for those who were now, on the road, their status was now one of ‘homeless’ – without right of domicile -, because their previous existence as serfs was tied to the estate where they lived. Many, with their families, ended up in the workhouse for land labourers. The ducal government recognized the problem and created new regulations about how to deal with poverty and the right of domicile, but it caused its own unforeseen complexities (page 428/29). Vitense concludes further, that “the great economic reform of the liberation of the peasantry, which started with the abolishment of hereditary peasant serfdom, was not finished yet. The creation of free small agricultural stakeholders, which had to be the avowed purpose of the liberation of the peasantry, met with great difficulties from its very beginning. Regardless that the Council of Estates opposed it, it also worked against the interest of the ducal crown properties.” (page 430). Meanwhile, “soon the workhouse for land labours filled in a frightening way. Already in 1824, the number of inmates was so large, that many of them were sent across the ocean to Brazil (page 432). It was only the first wave of much more emigration in future years.

The reforms were also responding to the requirements of the ongoing Industrial Revolution, which was felt less so in the two duchies than elsewhere, but still of concern to their cities. It encompassed the establishment of savings and loan institutions, insurance providers, credit systems and the first embryonic institutions concerning themselves with the health and welfare of the population at large. This also included reforms of the school system, the establishment of vocational schools, standards of examination and so forth. Unfortunately, a further quote from Vitense indicates what the situation generally still was on the land, even by the mid 19th century: “On most of the noble estates, the schools are in the most deplorable state, and widespread the complaints about it by the preachers” (page 441). There was undoubtedly a significant advantage to live, and have the right of domicile, of a city, even a small city like Wittenburg, rather than being forced to live in some bondage on the land.

With so much happening in the first half of 19th century, and with people being better educated to also being aware of events beyond there immediate surroundings, more change and upheavals were bound to happen. It all started in France again in February 1848 with the revolution which deposed King Louis-Philippe and encouraged turmoil in other parts of Europe, including Mecklenburg. There was the beginning of a workers’ riot in Schwerin and disruptions in Wismar and elsewhere including Wittenburg, which were, however, soon subdued again by a quickly formed citizen militia. Still, the discontent was palpable and so was the presence of revolutionary ideas. This did not get lost on the ducal government, and if maybe only for self preservation. Further reforms were considered and discussed in council chambers and assemblies, such as attempting to give monarchical rule and that exercised by the large estates more of a constitutional framework. Along with this would also go reform of the cities’ constitutions to pacify the citizenry. As could be expected, it was not easy to prevail against vested interests, and a lot of the erstwhile rather radical proposals, such as the abolishment of the privileges of the nobility, were either abandoned completely or watered down significantly.

Decades of Mass Emigration through the 19th century

To be sure, large-scale emigration was a phenomenon observed throughout Europe in the 19th century, but nowhere was it as notable as in Ireland and Mecklenburg. In Ireland it was caused by the potato plight and famine, in Mecklenburg due to the still very feudal structures on the land combined with reforms which instead of improving the lot of serfs, resulted in masses of uprooted land labourers. Adding to this was, the late and hesitant industrialization of the duchies, which offered alternatives to those living in more dynamic German regions, but not in Mecklenburg, plus at the same time the increased mechanization of the large agricultural estates and therefore a lesser need for farm labour.

An even precursory internet search about emigration from Mecklenburg will bring up numerous sites, both in German and English to offer information, and the numbers are staggering: ‘200,000 men, women and children emigrated overseas in the second half of the 19th century, of which 90% to North America.’ This was a third of the population of the both duchies, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz., The government realized that it had to exert some control as emigration took on the character of a mass exodus, and so, in 1853 it introduced a permission system for emigration, where would be emigrants had to meet certain criteria to obtain a passport and permission to leave the realm. It was also meant to be a safeguard against unscrupulous and dishonest emigration agents. In some cases, there were even incentives provided by feudal lords, in others permission was withheld to prevent local labour shortages.

No doubt, one could likely find the odd Wittenburger having tried his luck abroad too, but such would probably have been more out of a personal decision than outright penury, as those domiciled in a cities had less economic incentive to leave and could not be made to do so like those living in dependence on the land. As every account of this emigration period indicates, not just the emigrants had to deal with new and unfamiliar circumstances, it also affected, and to some effect traumatized, those left behind.

Industrialization, Prussia and the North-German Federation

Attention was being paid to infrastructure in the second quarter of the 19th century through the improvement of road networks, the establishment of canal systems for water transport and, lastly, the railway from Hamburg over Boizenburg to Berlin in 1846 and subsequently further rail connections to Hagenow, Schwerin and to Wismar on the Baltic Sea. Hagenow had the better connections and that was an important reason for it to take on the mantle of regional hub. Wittenburg had to wait another half century until it finally got rail service in 1894, which, a bit more than a century later was decommissioned again for passenger service in 2000. The small city benefitted from the moving of a Dutch Windmill from Schwerin to Wittenburg in 1890, in becoming a regional centre for processing grain and otherwise improving its position as the centre of the old ‘Wittenburger Land’. A new City Hall, reflecting the town’s name with its white color and castle-like look, was built in 1852 and is still a landmark today. Wittenburg was prosperous, its burghers mostly of a conservative outlook, which suited a small city in the Mecklenburg of that time well.

Industrialization advanced slowly in the duchies, and if so, it took place chiefly in the port cities, the inland lagging behind for reasons already described above. Other regions of the ‘German Federation’ as the loose association of German states was called, which was formed at the Congress of Vienna after the fall of Napoleon, made much quicker advances in industrializing their states, with Prussia being at the forefront.

As we have seen here before, Prussia had coveted the duchies of Mecklenburg already a long time ago as a natural extension of its Baltic Coast, and the duchies’ backwardness and proximity increasingly brought them under the influence of Berlin. The Danish-Prussian conflict, which began in 1848 over the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein and eventually culminated in the Prussian-Danish war of 1864 brought this home once again. Mecklenburg tried to stay out of it but, as so many times before, could not prevent troops crossing its territory, this time Prussian troops. Vitense tells us they came shortly before Christmas 1863 on their march to Holstein through Wittenburg, Gadebusch and Ratzeburg. Prussia won that war, and it was almost immediately followed by the ‘German War’ in 1866, the result of which ousted the Austrian Empire definitely from its assumed role of being the German hegemon. Mecklenburg had by that time become a Prussian ally.

The formation of the Prussian dominated North German Federation and customs union brought the duchies even closer into Prussia’s orbit. So much so, that when the Franco-Prussian war broke out in 1870, Mecklenburg had no other option but to join in with troops of its own. They saw action as far away as Orléans, Chartres and Rouen and returned in June of 1871 to a tumultuous and joyous reception in Schwerin. It was yet one more sign how far the duchies’ loss of sovereignty had gone. The French Empire lost that war, but north of the Rhine a new empire was born in 1871: The German Empire, of which both Mecklenburgs became a part of, guided by Iron Chancellor Bismarck.

The German Empire, World War I and the Republic

Vitense dedicated a whole chapter about ‘Mecklenburg since 1871’ in his defining book about the history of Mecklenburg, and it is not a flattering account about the elite ruling the duchies then, particularly the ‘Ritterschaften’ and ‘Landräte’, loosely translated as the ‘Council of knights/Estates’.

While the Frederick Francis II, the grand duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, could see that the laboriously begun reforms around 1848 had to continue, that a new, reformed Constitution was long overdue, the Council of Knights continuously blocked any initiative for fear of loosing their privileges, and if only in part. Matters were not helped by those who pushed for radical reforms on the opposite side, and it predictably led to what we now call ‘polarization’. It was no different in the smaller, neighbouring Mecklenburg-Strelitz, which because of its geography, became even more closely integrated with the economy of the largest and most powerful state of the empire, Prussia. Other regions of the German Empire, especially west of the river Elbe rapidly industrialized and opened themselves to trade while Mecklenburg remained in many ways a backwater for which its structural rigidity and aversion to change was mostly to blame.

This all came eventually to an end in the aftermath of World War I, when revolution broke out, the ‘old order’ ceased to exist, and Grand Duke Frederick Francis III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who at that time also represented the temporarily empty throne of Mecklenburg-Strelitz – together with Kaiser Wilhelm II and any other king or prince of the empire – had to abdicate in November 1918. Germany became a republic.

While Wittenburg was far away from either front, its losses in that war were significant: 166 men dead and missing from that small city of then roughly 3,000 souls, over 200 when immediately neighbouring villages are included! Every family must have been grieving. The memorial plaque in Wittenburg’s St. Bartholomew Church lists all their names, and those who participated in the Napoleonic wars of 1808-1815 and the French war of 1870-71. Life for those at home was not easy either through the war years. Like elsewhere, enemy blockades and internal marshalling of resources for the war effort made themselves painfully felt to civil populations and contributed equally to the collapse of the old society.

The announcement of the end of the war, followed by the confusion and initial chaos of the revolution presented according to Vitense a picture which had similarities with 1848: ‘Everywhere demands for the new and time relevant, everywhere the emphasis on the individual rather than the community as a whole, everyone’s haste for his own gain before consideration for the community, and instead of the ‘reform associations’ then, now the even more numerous ‘councils’. Mecklenburg was for a while ruled by so called ‘Workers and Soldiers Councils’. Among other calls for complete breaks with the past were also those to amalgamate the two former duchies into one state of the new republic, but that was something still reserved for the future.

The revolutionary fervour and initial chaos were eventually followed by some long-sought relative stability again. Factions were still fighting each other, but government continued to function, albeit under new management. Significant reforms led for both men and women to elect their representatives and therefore the affairs of state, all privileges of the old ‘estates’ were abolished. Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg Strelitz became two ‘Free States and there was hope for the new democratic order.

The Weimar Republic, National Socialism and Word War II

A lot has been written about why the Weimar Republic failed, and more will no doubt follow. This is not the place to delve into that, other than to state expectations were not fulfilled. The trauma of the lost war, loss of the relative comfort of the ‘world of yesteryear’, the weight of war reparations plus international pariah status, political inexperience with the new, vicious fights of factions on either extreme of the political spectrum and a serious economic problems and hyperinflation all led successively to the demise of the fledgling democratic order. Since already in 1922 there was a shortage of currency, some cities, including Wittenburg, issued ‘Notgeld’ – emergency money – in small denomination to at least keep local commerce going. It was no more than a temporary measure, since the hyperinflation of 1923 and ensuing currency reform essentially ‘cancelled’ the old currency and replaced with a new one.

Some call the years from then to the Great Crash of 1929 ‘the golden period’, during which things started to improve measurably again, there was gaiety again, but it did not return life savings wiped out earlier and still left many behind and bitter. Then came the Great Depression and trust in the republic faded.

The Communist Party on one side and the National Socialist Party on the other began to dominate political discourse increasingly, and with attendant violence. The two Mecklenburgs, through economic structure and mindset not a fertile field for the former, was soon leaning towards the latter. The NSDAP (Hitler’s National Socialist Party) garnered a significant majority of votes during the June 1932 elections in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Wittenburg elected an NSDAP mayor already in September 1931, and with a significant margin in his favour. Elections to the city council of a total of 15 produced 6 members of the NSDAP in November of the same year while the ‘bourgeois’ side was reduced to 2 seats, the Left still retaining the same number of seats, also 6, albeit including one Communist now. This must be contrasted with the elections in 1930 where the right-of-center bourgeois coalition’s 8 representatives formed the majority.

It does not take much to imagine that Hitler and the Nazi-party could very quickly consolidate their grip on every aspect of life after coming to power in January of 1933. Yes, the armies of unemployed disappeared, things improved economically with big infrastructure projects and support for industry, people were given hope, ‘order’ was reestablished, some reforms undertaken, but at what then still unimaginable cost of suffering yet to come?

One of the reforms was the amalgamation of the two free states of Mecklenburg – Schwerin and Strelitz – into one and have it governed by a ‘Reichstatthalter’ responsible directly to Berlin. As public life was synchronized and private life brought in line quickly too, minorities not fitting into the Nazi ideology, particularly Jews, were first ostracised, then hounded and finally murdered. There was at least one concentration camp and other notorious transit and detention centres established in Mecklenburg.

Jews were never numerous in Wittenburg, but that does not make the tragedy of the few less so. There was only one family of three still living in town in the thirties, others of the small community never exceeding fifty by the mid nineteen hundreds, must have migrated elsewhere earlier. The only male member, Max Lazarus, was arrested after the ‘Reichskristallnacht’ or ‘Crystal Night’, allegedly for his own protection. A year later his sister remaining in Wittenburg died of her own hand. Max was released, but it was only temporary. His move to big Hamburg did not save him. He was eventually arrested again, then deported and murdered in Minsk during August 1941. Another victim was Anna Stiel, born in Wittenburg as Anna Jacobson. All of them are remembered in Wittenburg by so called ‘Stolpersteine’ – plaques on the street in front of the homes where they once lived.

This dark period eventually came to an end too, but not before many more years of the same plus the horrors of World War II with, once more, millions of dead and maimed. Wittenburg itself saw limited action only in April 1945. Some bombs did fall, artillery barrages were fired and the region was full of uproar and confusion through advancing American troops from the west and fleeing German troops from the east. They hoped to cross the demarcation line between the Western Allies and Soviets, which ran roughly from east of Wismar and Schwerin to the Elbe River, and surrendering to Americans before falling into the hands of pursuing units of the Soviet Army. The US 82nd Airborne Division took possession of Wittenburg at the end of April 1945, and a few weeks later handed the territory it occupied over to the British Army. An interesting note is contained on a website by a then 12-year-old from neighbouring Gadebusch. He remembers favourably the stay of the Americans, the rather relaxed atmosphere then, which became a lot more aloof and formal with the British and again when the Soviets took over. The effect of the ensuing Soviet occupation following the retreat of the Western Allies to the newly agreed border of Western and Soviet occupation and administrative zones, is more vividly described in the German language Wikipedia entry about Wittenburg.

The war and the horrors of the NS period were finally over, but new ideological divides followed. Maybe that is the reason why no war memorial can readily be found, if one even exists, of those Wittenburgers who were called up, had no other choice but to go and perished somewhere far from home in World War II.

Post-war and DDR (German Democratic Republic)

The war was followed by reckoning, the redrawing of borders, the expulsion in the East of millions of ethnic Poles and Germans from their homes, the Nuremberg Tribunal and other, lesser tribunals, in one of which the former NS Reichstatthalter of Mecklenburg was condemned to death as a war criminal and then executed. Once powerful Prussia was abolished as a state by decree of the victors.

On the street, coming to grips with the trauma, dealing with shortages of almost everything, removing the rubble and a slow rebuilding of what was once life and normalcy were the order. May 1949 witnessed the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland, short BRD) west of the final demarcation line, and in October 1949 that of the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, short DDR) east of that line. Mecklenburg and with it Wittenburg were in the DDR. The burghers of the city did what everyone else did: Accommodate themselves to the new reality. In the first postwar years they also had to deal with a significant influx of those expelled from former German territories, and the city’s population almost doubled for a while. Remarkably, Wittenburg began soon to moderately prosper again as a location for the processing of various agricultural products. The production of condensed milk and marmalade took a particularly important place, but there was also the continuation of processing grains plus some agrochemicals. Furthermore, town infrastructure was improved, new homes, apartment blocks and schools being built during that time, about which Siegfried Spantig also writes as the author of ‘750 years of City of Wittenburg 1226-1976’, a book published for the occasion by the City Council of Wittenburg. All good, but there was another ‘Siegfried’ and fellow Mecklenburger documenting life there, but through photography, Siegfried Wittenburg. His photographic imagery brutally puts a question to the final sentence in Spantig’s jubilee book, ‘that only in the DDR did the beauty of the cities and villages, of the fields, forests and meadows, lakes, rivers and creeks, valleys and heights, become truly enjoyable, because everything now belongs to the people!’

It must have been difficult for the people of Wittenburg to be so close to another world only about 20 kilometres to the west as the crow flies, to clandestinely watch on their TV what life looks like in the other Germany, but knowing that a deadly border of watchtowers, armed guards, barbed wire and minefields was between them and that world.

Change was long desired, but it required change outside of Germany first, before it could happen, and it did so unexpectedly and rather rapidly in one of the hegemons emerging from WW2, the Soviet Union. That wind of change reached the rest of Eastern Europe in 1989 too. Initial stirrings in the DDR grew more perceptible, including in Wittenburg. The illusion and official pretense could no longer be maintained, Churchill’s aptly named ‘Iron Curtain’ dividing Europe and Germany, was no more. The gates finally opened, and it must have been an exhilarating experience for those Wittenburgers then who used the old prewar ‘Autobahn’ (freeway) to visit relatively close Hamburg for the first time, see the sights, do some shopping and feel happy. It was the famous ‘Wende’, the ‘turning point’.

From the ‘Turning Point’ to the present

Another year, and the two Germanies were united again. The DDR was absorbed into the geographically larger and much more populous Federal Republic of Germany. New federal states were created, among them Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

As with any merger, mistakes were made, advantage taken by some and initial euphoria eventually gave way to more sober assessment what unification would entail and demand. It was not always easy.

The burghers of Wittenburg and their city’s government once again rose to the occasion: There was the Autobahn, which was of not much use as a connector between major metropolitan areas during the DDR-period, because it finished on its Western end at the Iron Curtain and in the East on drab East-Berlin, and with not much in between. Now it had Hamburg and its world-renowned harbour in the West, close enough to almost be in the metropolitan area of that great city, and to the East it had all of thriving Berlin, which also became the new capital of the unified Germany again.

Wittenburg capitalized on its location on this major artery and moreover created a business-friendly environment. It did not take too long before its efforts paid off: Dr. Oetker’s is one major company which found the city suitable to build a production facility for its deep-freeze products, others in the food processing business, with which Wittenburg was already familiar, followed and so did firms in other fields, and the city entered a rapid path to prosperity. Not every entrepreneurial idea is a success, of course, and neither was the original idea of the indoor-snow park with all year ski- and snowboarding slopes, but it recovered with new investors and a new concept and is now marketed as the Hamburg-Wittenburg Alpin-Center, which gives Wittenburg almost the air of being a suburb of the city of Hamburg. Even more appears to be planned to develop Wittenburg’s tourist potential.

It is only natural that there are also many who deplore the rapid changes, their accustomed town in too quick a timespan not feeling to be like ‘theirs’ anymore, and if one compares an aerial photo of 1930, where Wittenburg looks like it is still contained within its medieval walls to such a photo of today, the change is indeed dramatic. The alternative of stagnation and then decline can, however, be no less dramatic as many other small towns can witness only to well.

Wittenburg has found its confidence and place of importance again which it claimed at the time of becoming a city of the Holy Roman Empire and that is a good reason to celebrate its 800 years anniversary!

In this last paragraph I wish to acknowledge my debt especially to those whom I have referenced and quoted often in this essay, and without their work this account would not have been possible, Otto Vitense, Drs. Schlie and Wigger, F.W. Lisch, Dr. H.Saring and numerous others who have written about Mecklenburg and specifically Wittenburg. What will be written about Wittenburg over the next 800 years, what in 2826?

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Copyright 2026

Wolfgang Wittenburg

54-14909, 32nd Ave,

Surrey, BC, V4P 1A4

Canada