Nauen is a small town in the

Havelland Geographically, the Havelland is the region around which the River Havel flows in a U-shape between Oranienburg to the northeast and Rhinow to the northwest. The northern boundary of the Havelland is formed by the River Rhin and the Rhin Canal. ...

district, in

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an area of 29,480 squar ...

, Germany. It is chiefly known for

Nauen Transmitter Station Nauen Transmitter Station (German: ''Grossfunkstelle Nauen'' or ''Sender Nauen'') in Nauen, Havelland district, Brandenburg, Germany, is the oldest continuously operating radio transmitting installation in the world. Germany's first high power ra ...

, the world's oldest preserved radio transmitting installation.

Geography

Nauen is situated within the

Havelland Luch The Havelland Luch (german: Havelländisches Luch) is a lowland area inside a bend of the River Havel west of Berlin, and forms the heart of the Havelland region. Location The '' luch'', a former marshland, lies in a basin that is part of t ...

glacial lowland, the heart of the

region north of the

Nauen Plateau The Nauen Plateau (german: Nauener Platte) is a low plateau in the German states of Brandenburg and Berlin. It rises above the surrounding countryside by an average of and is a largely contiguous upland area that was formed during the Saale and W ...

, about west of the Berlin's

city center A city centre is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms exist in other languages, such as "" in Fren ...

( from the Berlin city limits) and northwest of

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of ...

. It is one of Germany's largest municipalities by area, comprising Nauen proper and fourteen surrounding villages, including Ribbeck whose landowners were perpetuated in

Theodor Fontane Theodor Fontane (; 30 December 1819 – 20 September 1898) was a German novelist and poet, regarded by many as the most important 19th-century German-language realist author. He published the first of his novels, for which he is best known to ...

's poem ''

Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland is a popular literary ballad written by the German poet and novelist Theodor Fontane in 1889. Up to today, the poem is published in German anthologies and learned in schools. Content The poem tells of a ...

''.

History

The settlement of ''Nowen'' was first mentioned in an 1186 deed issued by the

Bishop of Brandenburg The Prince-Bishopric of Brandenburg (german: Hochstift Brandenburg) was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire from the 12th century until it was secularized during the second half of the 16th century. It should not be confused w ...

. The citizens received

town privileges Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the traditio ...

by the

margraves in 1292; a first town hall was built in 1302. The Ascanian margrave

Waldemar Waldemar, Valdemar or Woldemar is an Old High German given name. It consists of the elements ''wald-'' "power", "brightness" and ''-mar'' "fame". The name is considered the equivalent of the Slavic name Vladimir, Volodymyr, Uladzimir or Wł ...

vested Nauen with

market rights A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small r ...

in 1317. A Jewish community already existed in medieval times. During the Thirty Years' War, in 1631, Nauen was devastated by Imperial troops led by Field Marshal Count Johann Tserclaes of Tilly. On 27 June 1675, Swedish and Brandenburg troops met at the

Battle of Nauen The Skirmish at Nauen (german: Gefecht bei Nauen or ''Duell vor Nauen''), took place on near the town of Nauen between the vanguard of the Brandenburg-Prussian army and Swedish rearguard units during the Swedish-Brandenburg War. The engagement ...

during the

Scanian War The Scanian War ( da, Skånske Krig, , sv, Skånska kriget, german: Schonischer Krieg) was a part of the Northern Wars involving the union of Denmark–Norway, Brandenburg and Sweden. It was fought from 1675 to 1679 mainly on Scanian soil, i ...

. Under

Prussian Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...

rule, Nauen became a garrison town. In 1846 it received access to the

Berlin–Hamburg Railway The Berlin–Hamburg Railway (german: Berlin-Hamburger Bahn) is a roughly long railway line for passenger, long-distance and goods trains. It was the first high-speed line upgraded in Germany to be capable of handling train speeds of over ...

. Nauen is well known for the location of a

transmission site In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...

. It was used from 1906 to 1945 for

VLF Very low frequency or VLF is the ITU designation for radio frequencies (RF) in the range of 3–30 kHz, corresponding to wavelengths from 100 to 10 km, respectively. The band is also known as the myriameter band or myriameter wave a ...

and

shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 me ...

. After 1945 the installations were dismantled, but after 1955 the GDR started building up a shortwave transmission center at Nauen. Since 1997 four turnable shortwave transmission aerials have been sited there.

Demography

File:Bevölkerungsentwicklung Nauen.pdf, Population trends since 1875 within the current boundaries (blue line: population; dotted line: comparison to population trends in the state of Brandenburg; grey background: time of Nazi rule; red background: time of Communist rule) File:Bevölkerungsprognosen Nauen.pdf, Recent Population Development and Projections (Population Development before Census 2011 (blue line); Recent Population Development according to the

Census in Germany A national census in Germany (german: Volkszählung) was held every five years from 1875 to 1910. After the World Wars, only a few full population censuses have been held, the last in 1987. The most recent census, though not a national census, w ...

in 2011 (blue bordered line); Official projections for 2005-2030 (yellow line); for 2017-2030 (scarlet line); for 2020-2030 (green line)

Twin towns - sister cities

Nauen is twinned with: *

Kreuztal Kreuztal is a town in the Siegen-Wittgenstein district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Geography Location Kreuztal is a town in the low mountains of the northern Siegerland and lies at the western edge of the Rothaargebirge about 10 ...

, Germany * Spandau (Berlin), Germany

Notable people

* Michael Werner (born 1939), art dealer *

Jürgen Drews Jürgen Ludwig Drews (born 2 April 1945) is a German Schlager singer, musician, songwriter and actor. Life Drews was born in Nauen near Berlin, and brought up in Schleswig. After finishing school, he went on to study medicine at the Univ ...

(born 1945),

pop singer Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

Udo Schnelle Udo Schnelle (born 8 September 1952) is a German biblical scholar and Lutheran theologian, who serves as Professor of New Testament at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, and is the author of a number of theological works. Schnelle s ...

(born 1952), theologian, professor at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg *

Jochen Kowalski Jochen Kowalski (born 30 January 1954) is a German alto or mezzo countertenor, noted for his very rich timbre. Early life Jochen Kowalski was born in Wachow, Nauen District, Bezirk Potsdam, in East Germany (now a small village belonging to t ...

(born 1954), born in Wachow, an opera singer,

countertenor A countertenor (also contra tenor) is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of the female contralto or mezzo-soprano voice types, generally extending from around G3 to D5 or E5, although a sopranist (a sp ...

* Klaus-Dieter Kurrat (born 1955), athlete, medalist of 1976 Olympic Games * Claudia Hoffmann (born 1982), hurdler

References

External links

{{Authority control Localities in Havelland