Bezirk Altona

Altona (), also called Hamburg-Altona, is the westernmost urban borough (''Bezirk'') of the German city state of Hamburg. Located on the right bank of the Elbe river, Altona had a population of 270,263 in 2016.

From 1640 to 1864, Altona was under the administration of the Danish monarchy. Altona was an independent borough until 1937.

History

Danish period

Altona was founded in 1535 as a village of fishermen in what was then Holstein-Pinneberg. In 1640, Altona came under Danish rule as part of Holstein-Glückstadt, and in 1664 was granted municipal rights by the Danish King Frederik III, who then ruled in personal union as Duke of Holstein. Altona was one of the Danish monarchy's most important harbor towns. The railway from Altona to Kiel, the Hamburg-Altona–Kiel railway (), was opened in 1844.

Imperial period

The wars between Denmark and the German Confederation – the First Schleswig War (1848–1851) and the Second Schleswig War (February–October 1864) led to Denmark's cession of the Duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg; they were initially jointly administered as a condominium by Prussian and Austrian administration. With the Gastein Convention of 14 August 1865, Holstein came under solely Austrian administration, while Schleswig and Lauenburg came under Prussian authority. After the Austro-Prussian War, Schleswig-Holstein as a whole became the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein in 1867 and as such Altona became part of the German Empire in 1871. In the same year, the town was hit by cholera, with a minimum of 16 casualties in Altona.

Because of severe restrictions on the number of Jews allowed to live in Hamburg until 1864 (with the exception of 1811–1815), a major Jewish community developed in Altona starting in 1611, when Count Ernest of Schaumburg and Holstein-Pinneberg granted the first permanent residence permits to Ashkenazic Jews. Members did business both in Hamburg and in Altona itself. All that remains after the Nazi Holocaust during World War II are the Jewish cemeteries, but in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, the community was a major center of Jewish life and scholarship. Holstein-Pinneberg and later Danish Holstein had lower taxes and placed fewer civil impositions on their Jewish community than did the government of Hamburg.

History from 1918 to 1945

During the Weimar era following World War I, the town of Altona was disturbed by major labor strikes and street disorders. Inflation in Germany was a major problem. In 1923, Max Brauer, the mayor of Altona, directed that town personnel should be paid in part with gas meter tokens, as the tokens did not lose value from inflation.

The most notable event at that time was the Altona Bloody Sunday (German: ) on 17 July 1932, when 18 people were killed, all but two by police, during a violent clash between Nazi marchers and members or supporters of the Communist Party. After police raids and a special court, on 1 August 1933, Bruno Tesch and others were found guilty and put to death by beheading with a hand-held axe. In 1938, the Greater Hamburg Act removed Altona from the Free State of Prussia in 1937 and merged it (and several surrounding towns) with the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

Modern history

In the 1990s, the Federal Republic of Germany reversed the convictions of Tesch and the other men who were put to death, clearing their names.

On 1 February 2007, the ''Ortsämter'' (district offices) in Hamburg were done away with. In Altona, the districts of Blankenese, Lurup and Osdorf had existed and had local offices. On 1 March 2008, the Schanzenviertel neighborhood, which had spanned parts of the boroughs of Altona, Eimsbüttel and Hamburg-Mitte, became the Sternschanze