HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Wolfenbüttel (; nds, Wulfenbüddel) is a town in
Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...
,
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel District. It is best known as the location of the internationally renowned Herzog August Library and for having the largest concentration of timber-framed buildings in Germany. It is an episcopal see of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brunswick. It is also home to the Jägermeister distillery, houses a campus of the
Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences Ostfalia Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften (German for " Eastphalia University of Applied Sciences", known as Fachhochschule Braunschweig/Wolfenbüttel until 2009), is a Fachhochschule in eastern Lower Saxony, Germany. The predecessor o ...
, and the Landesmusikakademie of Lower Saxony.


Geography

The town center is located at an elevation of on the Oker river near the confluence with its
Altenau Altenau () is a town and a former municipality in the district of Goslar, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Since 1 January 2015 it is part of the town Clausthal-Zellerfeld. It is situated in the middle of the Harz mountains, between Clausthal-Zeller ...
tributary, about south of Brunswick and southeast of the state capital
Hannover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
. Wolfenbüttel is situated about half-way between the
Harz The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German ...
mountain range in the south and the
Lüneburg Heath Lüneburg Heath (german: Lüneburger Heide) is a large area of heath, geest, and woodland in the northeastern part of the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. It forms part of the hinterland for the cities of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen ...
in the north. The Elm-Lappwald Nature Park and the
Asse Asse () is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Flemish Brabant. It comprises the towns of Asse proper, Bekkerzeel, Kobbegem, Mollem, Relegem and Zellik. Asse is also situated in the Pajottenland. As of 2020, Asse had a total ...
hill range stretch east and southeast of the town. With a population of about 52,000 people, Wolfenbüttel is part of the Hannover–Braunschweig–Göttingen–Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region. It is the southernmost of the 172 towns in
Northern Germany Northern Germany (german: link=no, Norddeutschland) is a linguistic, geographic, socio-cultural and historic region in the northern part of Germany which includes the coastal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lower Saxony an ...
whose names end in ''büttel'', meaning "residence" or "settlement."


Mayor

From 2006 to 2014, the mayor of Wolfenbüttel was Thomas Pink. He was reelected in 2014 with 67.7% of the vote. In August 2018 he left the German Christian Democratic Union party. In September 2021, Ivica Lukanic (Independent) managed to become Wolfenbüttel's first politically independent mayor, beating Dennis Berger (SPD) in a run-off with 55.7% of the vote.


History

A first settlement, probably restricted to a tiny islet in the Oker river, was founded in the tenth century. It was mentioned in 1118 as ''Wulferisbuttle'', when the Saxon count Widekind of Wolfenbüttel had a water castle erected on the important trade route from Brunswick to
Halberstadt Halberstadt ( Eastphalian: ''Halverstidde'') is a town in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the capital of Harz district. Located north of the Harz mountain range, it is known for its old town center that was greatly destroyed by Allied bomb ...
and
Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
. Destroyed by
Henry the Lion Henry the Lion (german: Heinrich der Löwe; 1129/1131 – 6 August 1195) was a member of the Welf dynasty who ruled as the duke of Saxony and Bavaria from 1142 and 1156, respectively, until 1180. Henry was one of the most powerful German p ...
in 1191, and again by his great-grandson Duke Albert I of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1255, the fortress and town, as well as nearby Asseburg Castle, were seized in 1258 by Albert I from the House of Asseburg, the descendants of Widekind. The castle was rebuilt by the Welf duke Henry I of Brunswick from 1283 onwards. By 1432, the town became the permanent residence of the Brunswick Princes of Wolfenbüttel. Devastated in the 1542
Schmalkaldic War The Schmalkaldic War (german: link=no, Schmalkaldischer Krieg) was the short period of violence from 1546 until 1547 between the forces of Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (simultaneously King Charles I ...
, it was largely rebuilt in a
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
style under Duke Julius of Brunswick-Lüneburg, including several '' gracht'' waterways laid out by Hans Vredeman de Vries. The duke vested the citizens 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 1570 and founded the Ducal Library (''Herzogliche Bibliothek'', the later ''Bibliotheca Augusta'') two years later. During the
Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of batt ...
, Danish troops under King Christian IV occupied the fortified town in 1626. Upon the nearby Battle of Lutter, they were besieged by the Imperial forces of General Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim. Re-conquered in 1627, the Wolfenbüttel fortress remained under the command of
Gottfried Huyn von Geleen Gottfried, Count Huyn, Baron of Geleen or Godefridus Comes ab Huyn Baro de Geleen (died 27 August 1657), rose to the rank of Field Marshal in the service of the Holy Roman Emperor during the 30 Years War. Biography Gottfried was born in Flander ...
. In June 1641 the
Battle of Wolfenbüttel The Battle of Wolfenbüttel (29 June 1641) took place near the town of Wolfenbüttel, in what is now Lower Saxony, during the Thirty Years' War. Swedish forces led by Carl Gustaf Wrangel and Hans Christoff von Königsmarck and Bernardines led ...
was fought here, when the Swedish forces under Wrangel and the Count of Königsmark defeated the Austrians under Archduke Leopold of Habsburg, however, they failed to occupy the town. Over two centuries, especially under Duke Julius' successors Henry Julius and Augustus the Younger, Wolfenbüttel grew to be a center of the arts and science: Already in 1604, the composer Michael Praetorius (1571–1621) served as '' Kapellmeister'' of the Brunswick dukes. From 1682, the composer
Johann Rosenmüller Johann Rosenmüller (1619 – 10 September 1684) was a German Baroque composer, who played a part in transmitting Italian musical styles to the north. Career Rosenmüller was born in Oelsnitz, near Plauen in Saxony. He studied at the Universit ...
(1619–1684), who had to flee Germany due to allegations of homosexuality, spent his last years in Wolfenbüttel. Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) directed the Ducal Library, and established one of the first lending libraries in Enlightenment Europe. However, the ducal court eventually returned to Brunswick in 1753 and Wolfenbüttel subsequently lost in importance. During
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the city prison became a major execution site of prisoners of the
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
. Most of those executed were members of various Resistance groups. One such victim was a Dom Lambert, a
monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedic ...
of Ligugé Abbey in France, who was beheaded there on 3 December 1943.


Main sights

* The
baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...
castle '' Schloss Wolfenbüttel''. In 1866, the castle became the Anna-Vorwerk-School for girls. Today part of the building is used as a high school; it also houses a great example of Baroque state apartments, which are open to the public as a museum. * '' Herzog-August-Bibliothek'' (HAB), the ducal library, hosts one of the largest and best-known collections of ancient books in the world. It is especially rich in bibles, incunabula, and books of the Reformation period, with some 10,000 manuscripts. It was founded in 1572 and rehoused in an interpretation of the
Pantheon Pantheon may refer to: * Pantheon (religion), a set of gods belonging to a particular religion or tradition, and a temple or sacred building Arts and entertainment Comics *Pantheon (Marvel Comics), a fictional organization * ''Pantheon'' (Lone St ...
in 1723, built facing the castle; the present library building was constructed in 1886. Leibniz and Lessing worked in this library as librarians. The ''
Codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
Carolinus'' in the library is one of the few remaining texts in
Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
. The library also houses the bible of
Henry the Lion Henry the Lion (german: Heinrich der Löwe; 1129/1131 – 6 August 1195) was a member of the Welf dynasty who ruled as the duke of Saxony and Bavaria from 1142 and 1156, respectively, until 1180. Henry was one of the most powerful German p ...
, a book preserved in near mint condition from the year 1170. * ''Klein-Venedig''. A pittoresque waterside building ensemble ( Gracht) along the River Oker built in the eighteenth century. * The churches Marienkirche (Hauptkiche Beatae Mariae Virginis), built during the seventeenth century, and ''St.-Trinitatiskirche'' (Trinity Church), built during the early eighteenth century. The town is also the location of the former Northampton Barracks, which housed units of the British Army of the Rhine until 1993 (postcode: BFPO 101). Today, Wolfenbüttel is smaller than the neighbouring cities of
Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
(Brunswick), Salzgitter, and
Wolfsburg Wolfsburg (; Eastphalian: ''Wulfsborg'') is the fifth largest city in the German state of Lower Saxony, located on the river Aller. It lies about east of Hanover and west of Berlin. Wolfsburg is famous as the location of Volkswagen AG's he ...
, but, because it was largely undamaged by the war, its downtown is rich in half-timber buildings, many dating several centuries back, and it still retains its historical character. Wolfenbüttel is located on the German Timber-Frame Road. The portal above the entrance to the HAB., thumb Trinity Church., thumb


Culture

Wolfenbüttel is home of several departments of the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences and the , an organisation for the study of Lessing's works. It is also home to the ''Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv'', the state archives of Lower Saxony, as well as the renowned ''Biblioteca Augusta''. The herb liqueur Jägermeister's headquarters of Mast-Jägermeister are still located in Wolfenbüttel, as are some of its distillation sites. Wolfenbüttel hosted the three-day International German Bus Pulling Championships in May 2009, where five-person teams pull a 16-ton bus 30 meters. Every year starting in late November, Wolfenbüttel stages a Christmas market with food and drinks. Locals often come and enjoy the pre-Christmas atmosphere.


Twin towns – sister cities

Wolfenbüttel is twinned with: * Sèvres, France (1958) * Kenosha, United States (1969) * Satu Mare, Romania (1976) * Kamienna Góra, Poland (2001) *
Blankenburg Blankenburg may refer to: Places * Blankenburg am Harz, a German town in the district of Harz, Saxony-Anhalt * Blankenburg Castle (Harz), the castle in Blankenburg am Harz (see above) * Bad Blankenburg, a German town in the Saalfeld-Rudolstadt dis ...
, Germany (2015) A bridge in Wolfenbüttel is named after each of these cities. In Kenosha, there is a park located on the coast of Lake Michigan named after Wolfenbüttel.


People

* Henry V, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1489–1568), Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel * Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1528–1589), Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel * Philipp Sömmering (c. 1535–1575), alchemist and fraudster * Augustus William, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1662–1731), Prince of Wolfenbüttel * August Querfurt (1696–1761), Austrian painter * Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern (1715–1797), Queen of Prussia * Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1721-1792), Prussian field marshal *
Johann Julius Walbaum Johann Julius Walbaum (30 June 1724 – 21 August 1799) was a German physician, naturalist and fauna taxonomist. Works As an ichthyologist, he was the first to describe many previously unknown fish species from remote parts of the globe, suc ...
(1724–1799), physician, natural scientist * Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick (1735-1806), Prussian field marshal * Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1739–1807), Duchess and composer *
Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (28 August 1691 – 21 December 1750) was Princess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Holy Roman Empress, German Queen, Queen of Bohemia and Hungary; and Archduchess of Austria by her marriage to Emp ...
(1746–1840), Crown Princess of Prussia *
Friederike von Reden Friederike von Reden (1774-1854), was a German noblewoman, philanthropist and salon-holder. She is known as the ''Mutter des Hirschberger Tales''. Early life She was born as the daughter of Baron Friedrich Adolf Richard Riedesel zu Eisenbach ( ...
(1774–1854), philanthropist and salon-holder * August Ludwig von Rochau (1810–1873), publicist and politician * Theodor Engelbrecht (1813–1892), physician, professor and pomologist *
Theodore Eisfeld Theodore Eisfeld (April 11, 1816, Wolfenbüttel, Duchy of Brunswick – 16 September 1882, Wiesbaden) was a conductor, most notably of the New York Philharmonic Society, which became the New York Philharmonic. Biography Eisfeld's chief instructor ...
(1816–1882), composer, chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic * Victor Ehrenberg (1851–1929), legal scientist *
Richard Ehrenberg Richard Ehrenberg (5 February 1857 – 17 December 1921) was a German economist. He taught at Rostock University from 1899 to 1921. Literary works * ''Hamburg und Antwerpen seit 300 Jahren'', 1889 * ''Hamburg und England im Zeitalter der Kön ...
(1857–1921), economist *
Georg Scholz Georg Scholz (October 10, 1890 – November 27, 1945) was a German painter, member of the New Objectivity movement. Scholz was born in Wolfenbüttel and had his artistic training at the Karlsruhe Academy, where his teachers included Hans ...
(1890–1945), realist painter * Barbara Simons (born 1929), politician * Hans-Jörg Meyer (born 1964), sports shooter *
Arnd Peiffer Arnd Peiffer (born 18 March 1987) is a German former biathlete. His greatest achievements were sprint victories in the 2018 Winter Olympics and the Biathlon World Championships 2011. During his career, he also won three World Championship relay g ...
(born 1987), biathlete


Sources

* Bepler, Jochen: ''Kleine Wolfenbütteler Stadtgeschichte''. Pustet, Regensburg 2011. . * Fimpel, Martin: ''Erst Großbaustelle und dann eine andere Stadt. Der lange Abschied von der Festung Wolfenbüttel'', in: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte Bd. 94, 2013, S. 161–192. * Grote, Hans Henning: ''Schloss Wolfenbüttel, Residenz der Herzöge zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg.'' Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2005 * Schwarz, Ulrich (Hrsg.): ''Auf dem Weg zur herzoglichen Residenz. Wolfenbüttel im Mittelalter.'' Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2003 * Stadt Wolfenbüttel (Hrsg.): ''Wolfenbüttel unter dem Hakenkreuz.'' Fünf Vorträge von Reinhard Försterling,[Dietrich Kuessner, Hans-Ulrich Ludewig, Wilfried Knauer, Dieter Lent; Heckner-Print-Service-GmbH, Wolfenbüttel 200
GBV
* ''Residenzstadt Wolfenbüttel – Ein Streifzug durch die Geschichte''; Nr. 9 (2004) * ''Junges Leben in alten Häusern – 25 Jahre Stadtsanierung in Wolfenbüttel''; Nr. 9 (2005)


See also

*Metropolitan region Hannover-Braunschweig-Göttingen-Wolfsburg


References

* Heinz Grunow, Grunow, Heinz and Wolfgang Wessel, Wessel, Wolfgang. ''Wolfenbüttel: ein Bildband''. Grenzland-Verlag Rock & Co., Wolfenbüttel. 1977


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfenbuettel Historic Jewish communities Duchy of Brunswick