| Name | Bremen |
|---|---|
| Art | Stadt |
| Image photo | Bremen-rathaus-dom-buergerschaft.jpg |
| Wappen | Bremen Wappen(Mittel).svg |
| Lat deg | 53 | lat_min = 4 | lat_sec = 33 |
| Lon deg | 8 | lon_min = 48 | lon_sec = 27 |
| Bundesland | Bremen |
| Landkreis | urban |
| Höhe | 12 |
| Fläche | 326.73 |
| Area metro | 11627 |
| Einwohner | 548477 |
| Pop metro | 2,400,000 |
| Stand | 2006-11-01 |
| Plz | 28001–28779 |
| Vorwahl | 0421 |
| Kfz | HB |
| Gemeindeschlüssel | 04 0 11 000 |
| Locode | DE BRE |
| Gliederung | 5 boroughs (23 districts), including: |
| Website | Bremen online |
| Bürgermeister | Jens Böhrnsen |
| Bürgermeistertitel | First mayor |
| Partei | SPD |
| Ruling party1 | SPD |ruling_party2 = Green |ruling_party3 = |
Bremen is some south from the Weser mouth on the North Sea. With Bremerhaven right on the mouth the two comprise the state of Bremen (official name: Freie Hansestadt Bremen - Free Hanseatic City of Bremen).
Charlemagne, the King of the Franks, made a new law, the Lex Saxonum. This law stated that Saxons were not allowed to worship Odin (the god of the Saxons), but rather that they had to convert to Christianity on pain of death. This period was called the Christianisation. In 787 Willehad of Bremen was the first Bishop of Bremen. In 848 the diocese of Hamburg merged with the diocese of Bremen, and in the following centuries the bishops of Bremen were the driving force behind the Christianisation of north Germany. In 888 gained Archbishop Rimbert, Kaiser Arnulf of Carinthia, the Carolingian King of East Francia, and the market, coin and customs law.
The first stone city walls were built in 1032. Around this time trade with Norway, England and the northern Netherlands began to grow, increasing the importance of the city.
In 1186 the Bremian Prince-Archbishop Hartwig of Uthlede and his bailiff in Bremen confirmed - without generally waiving the prince-archiepiscopal overlordship over the city - the Gelnhausen Privilege, by which Frederick I Barbarossa granted the city considerable privileges. The city was recognised as a political entity of its own law. Property within the municipal boundaries could not be subjected to feudal overlordship, this was true also for serfs acquiring property, if they managed to live in the city for a year and a day, after which they were to be regarded as free persons. Property was to be freely inherited without feudal claims to reversion. This privilege laid the foundation for Bremen's later status of imperial immediacy (Free Imperial City).
In fact, however, Bremen did not have complete independence from the Prince-Archbishops, in that there was no freedom of religion, and burghers were still forced to pay taxes to the Prince-Archbishops. Bremen played a double role, it participated in the Diets of the neighboured Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen as part of the Bremian Estates and paid its share in the taxes, at least when it had consented to the levying before. Since the city was the major taxpayer, its consent was mostly searched for. Like this the city wielded fiscal and political power within the Prince-Archbishopric, while the city would rather not allow the Prince-Archbishopric to rule in the city against its consent. In 1260 Bremen joined the Hanseatic League.
In 1362 representatives of Bremen rendered homage to Albert II, Prince-Archbishop of Bremen in Langwedel. In return Albert confirmed the city's privileges and brokered a peace between the city and Count Gerard III of Hoya, who since 1358 held burghers of Bremen in captivity. The city had to bail them out. In 1365 an extra tax, levied to finance the ransom, incited an uprising amongst burghers and artisans which was bloodily suppressed by the city council.
In 1366 Albert II tried to take advantage of the dispute between Bremen's council and the guilds, whose members expelled some city councillors from the city. When these councillors appealed to Albert II for help, many artisans and burghers regarded this treason against the city. Appealing to princes would only provoke them to abolish city autonomy.
The fortified city maintained its own guards, not allowing prince-archiepiscopal soldiers to enter it. The city reserved an extra very narrow gate, the so-called Bishop's Needle (Latin: Acus episcopi, first mentioned in 1274), for all clergy including the Prince-Archbishop. The narrowness of the gate made it technically impossible to come accompanied by knights.
Nevertheless, in the night of May 29, 1366 Albert's troops invaded the city helped by some burghers. After this the city had to render him homage again, the Bremen Roland, symbol of the city's autonomy, was demolished and a new city council was appointed. In return the new council granted Albert a credit amounting to the enormous sum of 20,000 Bremian Marks.
But city councillors of the prior council, who had fled to the County of Oldenburg gained support of the Counts and recaptured the city on June 27, 1366. The members of the intermittent council were regarded traitors and beheaded and the city de facto regained its autonomy. Thereupon, the city of Bremen, since long rather holding an autonomous status, acted almost in complete independence from the Prince-Archbishop. Albert failed to subject the city of Bremen a second time, since he was always short in money and without support by his family, the Welfs, who fought the War on Luneburgian Succession (1370–1388).
By the end of the 1360s Bremen granted credits to Albert II, to finance his spendthrift lifestyle, and gained in return the fortress in Vörde and the dues levied in the pertaining bailiwick as a pawn for the credits. In 1369 Bremen again lent to Albert II against the collateral of his mint and his privilege of coinage, from then on run by the city council. In 1377 Bremen bought - from Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg - many of the prince-archiepiscopal castles, which Albert had pledged as security for a credit to Frederick's predecessor, thus Bremen gained a powerful position in the Prince-Archbishopric, pushing its actual ruler aside.
In 1380 knights of the family von Mandelsloh and other Verdian and Bremian robber barons ravaged burghers of Bremen and people in the entire Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. In 1381 the city's troops successfully ended the brigandage and captured the castle of Bederkesa and the pertaining bailiwick, which it could hold until November 1654, when after the Second Bremian War Bremen had to cede Bederkesa and Lehe (a part of today's Bremerhaven) to Bremen-Verden. In 1386 the city of Bremen made the noble families, holding the estates of Altluneburg (a part of today's Schiffdorf) and Elmlohe, its vassals.
Roman Catholic Church was condemned as a symbol of the abuses of a long Catholic past by most local burghers. In 1547 the chapter, meanwhile prevailingly Lutheran, appointed the Dutch Albert Rizaeus, called Hardenberg, as the first Cathedral pastor of Protestant affiliation. Rizaeus turned out to be a partisan of the rather Zwinglian understanding of the Lord's Supper, which was rejected by the then Lutheran majority of burghers, city council, and chapter. So in 1561 - after tremendous quarrels - Rizaeus was dismissed and banned from the city and the cathedral shut again its doors.
However, as a consequence of that controversy the majority of Bremen's burghers and city council adopted Calvinism by the 1590s, while the chapter, being simultaneously the body of secular government in the neighbouring Prince-Archbishopric, clung to Lutheranism. This antagonism between a Calvinistic majority and a Lutheran minority, though of a powerful position in its immunity district (mediatised as part of the city in 1803), remained determinant until in 1873 the Calvinist and Lutheran congregations in Bremen reconciled and founded a united administrative umbrella, the still existing Bremian Evangelical Church, comprising the bulk of Bremen's burghers.
At the beginning of the 17th c. Bremen continued to play its double role, wielding fiscal and political power within the Prince-Archbishopric, but not allowing Prince-Archbishopric to rule in the city against its consent.
Soon after the beginning of the Thirty Years' War Bremen declared its neutrality, as did most of the territories in the Lower Saxon Circle. John Frederick, Lutheran Administrator of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, tried desperately to keep his Prince-Archbishopric out of the war, being in complete agreement with the Estates and the city of Bremen. When in 1623 the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, fighting in the Eighty Years' War for its independence against Habsburg's Spanish and imperial forces, requested its Calvinist co-religionist Bremen to join, the city refused, but started to reinforce its fortifications.
In 1623 the territories comprising the Lower Saxon Circle decided to recruit an army in order to maintain an armed neutrality, with troops of the Catholic League already operating in the neighbouring Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle and dangerously approaching their region. The concomitant effects of the war, debasements and dearness, had already caused an inflation also felt in Bremen.
In 1623 the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, diplomatically supported by King James I of England, the brother-in-law of Christian IV of Denmark, started a new anti-Habsburg campaign. Thus the troops of the Catholic League were bound and Bremen seemed relieved. But soon after the imperial troops under Albrecht von Wallenstein headed for the North in an attempt to destroy the fading Hanseatic League, in order to subject the Hanseatic cities of Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck and to establish a Baltic trade monopoly, to be run by some imperial favourites including Spaniards and Poles. The idea was to win Sweden's and Denmark's support, both of which since long were after the destruction of the Hanseatic League.
In May 1625 Christian IV of Denmark, Duke of Holstein was elected – in the latter of his functions – by the Lower Saxon Circle's member territories commander-in-chief of the Lower Saxon troops. In the same year Christian IV joined the Anglo-Dutch war coalition. Christian IV ordered his troops to capture all the important traffic hubs in the Prince-Archbishopric and entered into the Battle of Lutter am Barenberge, on 27 August 1626, where he was defeated by the Leaguist troops under Johan 't Serclaes, Count of Tilly. Christian IV and his surviving troops fled to the Prince-Archbishopric and took their headquarters in Stade.
In 1627 Christian IV withdrew from the Prince-Archbishopric, in order to fight Wallenstein's invasion of his Duchy of Holstein. Tilly then invaded the Prince-Archbishopric and captured its southern parts. Bremen shut its city gates and entrenched behind its improved fortifications. In 1628 Tilly turned to the city, and Bremen paid him a ransom of 10,000 rixdollars in order to spare its siege. The city remained unoccupied.
The Leaguist takeover enabled Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, to implement the Edict of Restitution, decreed March 6, 1629, within the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen including the city of Bremen. In September 1629 Francis William, Count of Wartenberg, appointed by Ferdinand II as chairman of the imperial restitution commission for the Lower Saxon Circle, carrying out the provisions of the Edict of Restitution, ordered the Bremian Chapter, seated in Bremen, to render an account of all the capitular and prince-archiepiscopal estates (not to be confused with the Estates). The Chapter refused, arguing first that the order was not authenticised and later that due to disputes with Bremen's city council, they couldn't freely travel to render an account, let alone do the necessary research on the estates. The anti-Catholic attitudes of Bremen's burghers and council would make it completely impossible to prepare the restitution of estates from the Lutheran Chapter to the Roman Catholic Church. Even Lutheran capitulars were uneasy in Calvinistic Bremen.
Bremen's city council ordered that the capitular and prince-archiepiscopal estates within the boundaries of the unoccupied city weren't to be restituted to the Roman Catholic Church. The council argued, that the city had long been Protestant, but the restitution commission replied that the city was de jure a part of the Prince-Archbishopric, so Protestantism had illegitimately alienated Catholic-owned estates. The city council answered under these circumstances it would rather separate from the Holy Roman Empire and join the quasi-independent Republic of the Seven Netherlands. The city was neither to be conquered nor to be successfully beleaguered due to its new fortifications and its access to the North Sea.
In October 1631 an army, newly recruited by John Frederick, started to reconquer the Prince-Archbishopric - helped by forces from Sweden and the city of Bremen. John Frederick was back in his office, only to realise the supremacy of Sweden, insisting on its supreme command until the end of the war. With the impending enfeoffment of the military Great Power of Sweden with the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, as under negotiation for the Treaty of Westphalia, the city of Bremen feared to fall as well under Swedish rule. Therefore the city beseeched an imperial confirmation of its status of imperial immediacy from 1186 (Gelnhausen Privilege). In 1646 Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, granted the requested confirmation (Diploma of Linz) to the Free Imperial City.
Ferdinand III demanded from Christina of Sweden, Duchess regnant of Bremen-Verden to compensate the city of Bremen for the damages caused and to restitute Bremerlehe. When in March 1654 the city of Bremen started to recruit soldiers in the area of Bederkesa, in order to prepare for further arbitrary acts, Swedish Bremen-Verden enacted the First Bremian War (March to July 1654), arguing to act in self-defence. The Free Imperial City of Bremen had meanwhile urged Ferdinand III for support, who in July 1654 asked Charles X Gustav of Sweden, Christina's successor as Duke of Bremen-Verden, to cease the conflict, which resulted in the Recess of Stade (November 1654). This treaty left the main issue, accepting the city of Bremen's imperial immediacy, unresolved. But the city agreed to pay tribute and levy taxes in favour of Swedish Bremen-Verden and to cede its possessions around Bederkesa and Bremerlehe, therefore later called Lehe.
In December 1660 the city council of Bremen rendered homage as Free Imperial City of Bremen to Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. In 1663 the city gained seat and vote in the Imperial Diet, sharply protested by Swedish Bremen-Verden. In March 1664 the Swedish Diet came out in favour of waging war on the Free Imperial City of Bremen. Right after Leopold I, busy with wars against the Ottoman Empire, had enfeoffed the minor King Charles XI of Sweden with Bremen-Verden, and with the neighboured Brunswick and Lunenburg-Celle being paralysed by succession quarrels and France being not opposed, Sweden started from its Bremen-Verden the Second Bremian War (1665–1666).
Swedes under Carl Gustaf Wrangel beleaguered the city of Bremen. The siege brought Brandenburg-Prussia, Brunswick and Lunenburg-Celle, Denmark, Leopold I and the Netherlands to the scene, all in favour of the city, with Brandenburgian, Cellean, Danish, and Dutch troops at Bremen-Verden's borders ready to invade. So on 15 November 1666 Sweden had to sign the Treaty of Habenhausen, obliging it to destroy the fortresses built close to Bremen and banning Bremen from sending its representative to the Diet of the Lower Saxon Circle. From then on no further Swedish attempts to capture the city sprang out.
In 1700 Bremen introduced - like all Protestant territories of imperial immediacy - the Improved Calendar, as it was called by Protestants, in order not to mention the name of Pope Gregory XIII. So Sunday, the 18 February of Old Style was followed by Monday, the 1 March New Style.
The first German steamship was manufactured in 1817 at the yard of Johann Lange.
In 1827, Bremen, under Johann Smidt, its Burgomaster at that time, purchased land from the Kingdom of Hanover, to establish the city of Bremerhaven (Port of Bremen) as an outpost of Bremen because of the increased silt buildup in the Weser river.
Brauerei Beck & Co KG, a brewery, was founded in 1837 and remains in operation today. The shipping company The North German Lloyd (NDL) was founded in 1857. The Lloyd was a byword for commercial shipping and is now a part of Hapag-Lloyd. In 1872, the Bremer Cotton Exchange was created.
Henrich Focke, Georg Wulf and Werner Naumann founded Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG in Bremen in 1923; the company forms part of Airbus, a manufacturer of civil and military aircraft. Borgward, an automobile manufacturer, was founded in 1929, and is today part of Daimler AG.
The town of Vegesack became part of the city of Bremen in 1939: the Bremen-Vegesack concentration camp operated during World War II.
Following the bombing of Bremen in World War II, the British 3rd Infantry Division under General Whistler captured Bremen in late April 1945. After World War II, the city became an enclave, part of the American occupation zone. Bremen's mayor traveled to the U.S. to seek Bremen's independence from Lower Saxony, as Bremen had traditionally been a city-state.
In 1947, Martin Mende founded Nordmende, a manufacturer of entertainment electronics. In 1958, OHB-System, a manufacturer of medium-sized spaceflight satellites, was founded.
One of the two mayors (Bürgermeister) is elected President of the Senate (Präsident des Senats) and serves as head of the city and the state. The current President is Jens Böhrnsen.
* Many of the sights in Bremen are found in the Altstadt (Old Town), an oval area surrounded by the Weser River, on the southwest, and the Wallgraben, the former moats of the medieval city walls, on the northeast. The oldest part of the Altstadt is the southeast half, starting with the Marktplatz and ending at the Schnoor quarter.
More contemporary tourist attractions include:
The Freie Waldorfschule in Bremen-Sebaldsbrück was Germany's first school built to the Passivhaus low-energy building standard.
(Drop Tower) of the University of Bremen]]
Bremen has an international airport situated in the south of the city.
Bremer Straßenbahn AG (translates from German as Bremen Tramways Corporation), often abbreviated BSAG, is the public transport provider for Bremen, offering tramway and bus services.
More than 3,100 persons are employed at Bremen, the second largest Airbus site in Germany. As part of the Centre of Excellence - Wing/Pylon, Bremen is responsible for the design and manufacture of high-lift systems for the wings of Airbus aircraft. The entire process chain for the high-lift elements is established here, including the project office, technology engineering, flight physics, system engineering, structure development, verification tests, structural assembly, wing equipping and ultimate delivery to the final assembly line. In addition, Bremen manufactures sheet metal parts like clips and thrust crests for all Airbus aircraft as part of the Centre of Excellence - Fuselage and Cabin.
In Bremen there is a plant of EADS Astrium and the headquarter of OHB-System, respectively the first and the third space companies of European Union.
There is also a Mercedes-Benz factory in Bremen, building the C, CLK, SL, SLK, and GLK series of cars.
Beck & Co's headlining brew Beck's and St Pauli Girl beers are brewed in Bremen. In past centuries when Bremen's port was the "key to Europe", the city also had a large number of wine importers, but the number is down to a precious few. Apart from that there is another link between Bremen and wine: about 800 years ago, quality wines were produced here. The largest wine cellar in the world is located in Bremen (below the city's main square), which was once said to hold over 1 million bottles, but during WWII was raided by occupying forces.
A large number of food producing or trading companies are located in Bremen with their German or European headquarters: Anheuser-Busch InBev (Beck's Brewery), Kellogg's, Kraft Foods (Kraft, Jacobs Coffee, Milka Chocolate, Milram, Miràcoli), Frosta (frosted food), Nordsee (chain of sea fast food), Melitta Kaffee, Eduscho Kaffee, Azul Kaffee, Vitakraft (pet food for birds), Atlanta AG (Chiquita banana), chocolatier Hachez (fine chocolate and confiserie), feodora chocolatier.
*Bremen is host to one of the four big annual Techno parades, the Vision Parade.
*Bremen is also host for the "Bremer 6 Tage Rennen" a bicycle race at the AWD-Dome.
*Every year the city plays host to young musicians from across the world, playing in the International Youth Symphony Orchestra of Bremen (IYSOB).
*Bremen was host to the 2006 RoboCup competition.
*Bremen was host to the 32nd Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag from 20 to 24 May 2009.
*Bremen hosted the 50th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) from 10 to 22 July 2009.
Bremen is home to the football team SV Werder Bremen which won the German Football Championship for the fourth time and the German Football Cup for the fifth time in 2004, making SV Werder Bremen just the fourth team in German football history to win the double; the club has most recently won the German Football Cup for the sixth time in 2009. Only Bayern Munich has won more titles. In the final match of the 2009-10 season Bremen will compete Bayern Munich for the DFB-Pokal. The Weserstadion, the home stadium of the SV Werder Bremen, is currently under Construction. After being finished, the stadium will be a pure football stadium, almost completely surrounded by solar cells. It will be one of the biggest buildings in Europe delivering alternative energies.
*In December 1949, Bremen hosted the lecture cycle "Einblick in das, was ist" by the philosopher Martin Heidegger, in which Heidegger introduced his concept of a "fourfold" of earth and sky, gods and mortals. This was also Heidegger's first public speaking engagement following his removal from his Freiburg professorship by the Denazification authorities.
*Bremen is connected with a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, the Town Musicians of Bremen, although they never actually reach Bremen in the tale.
*The 1922 film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens was set mostly in Bremen.
*A fictional mask in the Nintendo-made video game , is named the Bremen's Mask.
*In 24 (season 8), Jack Bauer is disguised as a German arms dealer named Ernst Meier who grew up in Bremen but traveled with his father.
*The movie The Big Lebowski features a group of nihilists who lived in Bremen.
*The Japanese band MABOROSHI have a song named Bremen on their album Warudakumi
{| class="wikitable" border="1" style="font-size:100%; background:#FFFefF; float:center;" |- ! style="background:#811541" | Sister City ! style="background:#811541" | Since ! style="background:#811541" | Country |- | Gdańsk ||1976|| Poland |- | Riga ||1985|| Latvia |- | Dalian ||1985|| China |- | Rostock||1987|| Germany (then German Democratic Republic) |- | Haifa||1988|| Israel |- | Bratislava||1989|| Slovakia |- | Corinto||1989|| Nicaragua |- | Lukavac||1994|| Bosnia and Herzegovina |- | İzmir||1995|| Turkey |- | Durban|| || South Africa |- | Pune|| || India |- | Maracaibo|| || Venezuela |}
Category:German state capitals Category:Imperial free cities Category:Landmarks in Germany Category:Members of the Hanseatic League Category:Port cities and towns in Germany Category:Port cities and towns of the North Sea
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