(nicknamed ''Kaki''; nds, Koldenkarken or ''Kolenkarken'') is a town located 35 km north of

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

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 ...

. It is part of the Segeberg district, in

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sc ...

. It has about 20,000 inhabitants.

History

First mentioned in the 14th century, it flourished during the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

to accommodate the large number of

workers The workforce or labour force is a concept referring to the pool of human beings either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic reg ...

in Hamburg. 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 ...

, a temporary airfield protected the northern towns from bombing raids, but during the raids on Hamburg the airfield was destroyed and never rebuilt. Only open fields now remain where it was. A concentration camp was established here from August 1944 to April 1945 as a subcamp to the

Neuengamme concentration camp Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, th ...

. About 700 prisoners died here. There was talk of moving the

Hamburg Airport Hamburg Airport , known in German as ''Flughafen Hamburg'', is a major international airport in Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany. Since November 2016 the airport has been christened after the former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt. ...

to Kaltenkirchen in the 1970s, but this did not materialise.

Attractions

Kaltenkirchen station is well known in northern Germany as being the central node of the AKN railway company ( Altona - Kaltenkirchen - Neumünster) trains which link many of the smaller south

towns with the Hamburg underground network. This makes Kaltenkirchen an attractive home for current or potential commuters. Like many towns in Germany, Kaltenkirchen is constantly being rebuilt by creating new living areas in and around the town. The new railway station has been built to accommodate Kaltenkirchen's ever growing community of workers and tourists. Kaltenkirchen is largely a bedroom community for commuters to Hamburg. The southern parts of Kaltenkirchen include an industrial area where boiled sweets are produced. Kaltenkirchen has ten schools and is planning a shopping centre around the new railway station.

Twin towns – sister cities

Kaltenkirchen is twinned with: *

Aabenraa Aabenraa (; , ; Sønderjysk: ''Affenråe'') is a town in Southern Denmark, at the head of the Aabenraa Fjord, an arm of the Little Belt, north of the Denmark–Germany border and north of German town of Flensburg. It was the seat of Sønderjyl ...

, Denmark *

Kalisz Pomorski Kalisz Pomorski ( la, Nova Calisia; formerly german: Kallies) is a small town in Drawsko County in West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland with about 4,500 inhabitants. History In the 8th century a Slavic gród existed in present-day ...

, Poland * Putlitz, Germany

Notable people

*Bernd Kortmann (born 1960), linguist and director of the FRIAS *Aaron Ziercke (born 1972), handball player and handball coach *Jan Hartmann (born 1980), actor

References

External links

Memorial concentration camp
Neuengamme concentration camp Segeberg {{Segeberg-geo-stub