Foundation and early history The date and circumstances of the town's foundation are unknown. Tradition maintains that Brunswick was created through the merger of two settlements, one founded by
Brun(o), a
Saxon count who died in 880, on one side of the River Oker – the legend gives the year 861 for the foundation – and the other the settlement of a legendary
Count Dankward, after whom
Dankwarderode Castle (the "Castle of Dankward's clearing"), which was reconstructed in the 19th century, is named. The town's original name of
Brunswik may be a combination of the name Bruno and
Low German wik (related to the Latin
vicus), a place where merchants rested and stored their goods. The town's name, therefore, may indicate a resting place, consistent with its location by a
ford across the Oker River. An alternative explanation of the city's name is that it comes from
Brand, or burning, indicating a place which developed after the landscape was cleared through burning. The city was first mentioned in documents from the St. Magni Church from 1031, which give the city's name as
Brunesguik. , St. Blasius, with lion statue Up to the 12th century, Brunswick was ruled by the Saxon noble family of the
Brunonids; then, through marriage, the town fell to the
House of Welf. In 1142,
Henry the Lion of the House of Welf became duke of
Saxony and made Braunschweig the capital of his state (which, from 1156 on, also included the
Duchy of Bavaria). He turned Dankwarderode Castle, the residence of the counts of
Brunswick, into his own
Pfalz and developed the city further to represent his authority. Under Henry's rule, the
Cathedral of St. Blasius was built and he also had the statue of a lion, his heraldic animal, erected in front of the castle. The
lion subsequently became the city's landmark. Henry the Lion became so powerful that he dared to refuse military aid to the Emperor
Frederick I Barbarossa, which led to his banishment in 1182. Henry went into exile in England. He had previously established ties to the English crown in 1168, through his marriage to King
Henry II of England's daughter
Matilda, sister of
Richard the Lionheart. However, Henry's son
Otto, who regained influence and was eventually crowned
Holy Roman Emperor, continued to foster the city's development. During the
Middle Ages, Brunswick was an important center of trade, one of the economic and political centers in Northern Europe and a member of the Hanseatic League from the 13th century to the middle of the 17th century. By the year 1600, Brunswick was the seventh largest city in Germany. Although formally one of the residences of the rulers of the
Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, a constituent state of the
Holy Roman Empire, Brunswick was
de facto ruled independently by a powerful class of
patricians and the
guilds throughout much of the
Late Middle Ages and the
Early modern period. Because of the growing power of Brunswick's
burghers, the
Princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who ruled over one of the subdivisions of Brunswick-Lüneburg, finally moved their
Residenz out of the city and to the nearby town of
Wolfenbüttel in 1432. The Princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel did not regain control over the city until the late 17th century, when
Rudolph Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, took the city by siege. In the 18th century Brunswick was not only a political, but also a cultural centre. Influenced by the
philosophy of the Enlightenment, dukes like
Anthony Ulrich and
Charles I became patrons of the arts and sciences. In 1745, Charles I founded the
Collegium Carolinum, predecessor of the
Brunswick University of Technology, and in 1753 he moved the ducal residence back to Brunswick. With this he attracted poets and thinkers such as
Lessing,
Leisewitz, and
Jakob Mauvillon to his court and the city.
Emilia Galotti by Lessing and
Goethe's
Faust were performed for the first time in Brunswick.
19th century '' building of the Duchy and the Free State of Brunswick In 1806, the city was captured by the
French during the
Napoleonic Wars and became part of the short-lived
Napoleonic
Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807. The exiled Duke
Frederick William raised a volunteer corps, the
Black Brunswickers, who fought the French in several battles. After the
Congress of Vienna in 1815, Brunswick was made capital of the re-established independent
Duchy of Brunswick, later a constituent state of the
German Empire from 1871. In the aftermath of the
July Revolution in 1830, in Brunswick duke
Charles II was forced to abdicate. His
absolutist governing style had previously alienated the nobility and
bourgeoisie, while the lower classes were disaffected by the bad economic situation. During the night of 7–8 September 1830, the
ducal palace in Brunswick was stormed by an angry mob, set on fire, and destroyed completely. Charles was succeeded by his brother
William VIII. During William's reign, liberal reforms were made and Brunswick's parliament was strengthened. During the 19th century,
industrialisation caused a rapid growth of population in the city, eventually causing Brunswick to be for the first time significantly enlarged beyond its medieval
fortifications and the River Oker. On 1 December 1838, the first section of the
Brunswick–Bad Harzburg railway line connecting Brunswick and Wolfenbüttel opened as the first railway line in Northern Germany, operated by the
Duchy of Brunswick State Railway.
Early to mid-20th century On 8 November 1918, at the end of
World War I, a
socialist workers' council forced Duke
Ernest Augustus to abdicate. On 10 November, the council proclaimed the Socialist Republic of Brunswick under one-party government by the
Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD); however, the subsequent
Landtag election on 22 December 1918 was won by the
Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), and the USPD and MSPD formed a
coalition government. An uprising in Braunschweig in 1919, led by the
communist Spartacus League, was defeated when
Freikorps troops under
Georg Ludwig Rudolf Maercker took over the city on order of the German Minister of Defence,
Gustav Noske. An MSPD-led government was subsequently established; in December 1921, a new
constitution was approved for the
Free State of Brunswick, now a
parliamentary republic within the
Weimar Republic, again with Braunschweig as its capital. After the
Landtag election of 1930, Brunswick became the second state in Germany where the
Nazis participated in government, when the
National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) formed a coalition government with several conservative and right-wing parties. With the support of
Dietrich Klagges, Brunswick's minister of the interior, the NSDAP organized a large
SA rally in Braunschweig. On 17–18 October 1931, 100,000 SA stormtroopers marched through the city; street fights between Nazis, socialists, and communists left several dead or injured. On 25 February 1932, the state of Brunswick granted
Adolf Hitler German citizenship to allow him to run in the
1932 German presidential election. In Braunschweig, Nazis carried out several attacks on political enemies, with the acquiescence of the state government. After the
Nazi seizure of power in 1933, several state institutions were placed in Braunschweig, including the
Luftfahrtforschungsanstalt in
Völkenrode, the
Hitler Youth Academy for Youth Leadership, and the
SS-
Junkerschule Braunschweig. With the
Reichswerke Hermann Göring in
Salzgitter and the
Stadt des KdF-Wagens, as well as several factories in the city itself (including
Büssing and the
Volkswagenwerk Braunschweig), the Braunschweig region became one of the centres of the German
arms industry. During the
Second World War, Braunschweig was a sub-area headquarters of
Wehrkreis XI (one of Germany's military districts), and was the garrison city of the
31st Infantry Division that took part in the invasions of Poland, Belgium, and France, largely being destroyed during its retreat following the invasion of Russia. In this period, thousands of
Eastern workers were brought to the city as
forced labor, and in the 1943–1945 period at least 360 children taken away from such workers died in the
Entbindungsheim für Ostarbeiterinnen ("Maternity Ward for Eastern Workers"). In 1944, two
subcamps of the
Neuengamme concentration camp were established in Braunschweig. The subcamp
Schillstraße or
Büssing-NAG/Schillstraße, located where the BraWo Park's parking lot is today, held about 800 male prisoners, who were forced to work in the arms production at
Büssing-NAG. After about 300 had died due to disease, hunger, and maltreatment over the course of just a few months, a further 200 were transferred to the infirmary of a nearby subcamp in early January 1945 in order to reduce the number of deaths. However, this was only effective to some degree, as another 80 bodies landed in the city's crematory until the subcamp's closing in March 1945, when Büssing-NAG had to halt production due to severe bombing damages. Today the
Gedenkstätte Schillstraße, located very close to the former premises of the subcamp, documents Braunschweig's history during the
Third Reich. Büssing-NAG also had another subcamp in the nearby
Vechelde, which held a further 400 male prisoners. The subcamp
SS-Reitschule, named so as it was located on the former premises of the
SS-Junker School's riding school, held approximately 800 prisoners, all female, who were tasked with clearing away rubble. This subcamp was commissioned by the city of Braunschweig. Although it was only open for two months - from December 1944 until February 1945, there were at least 17 deaths and a transfer of about 50 prisoners to a nearby subcamp's infirmary. The number of survivors is unknown. Piera Sonnino (1922–1999), an Italian author, writes of her imprisonment in Braunschweig in her book,
This Has Happened, published in English in 2006 by MacMillan Palgrave. The
Allied air raid on October 15, 1944, destroyed most of the city's churches, and the
Altstadt (old town), the largest homogeneous ensemble of half-timbered houses in Germany. 100 out of 800 half-timbered houses survived as well as the most important places and streets, preserved in 5 areas of the old town. The city's cathedral, which had been converted to a
Nationale Weihestätte (national shrine) by the Nazi government, still stood.
Postwar period to the 21st century About 10% of the inner city survived Allied bombing and remain to represent its distinctive architecture. The cathedral was restored to its function as a
Protestant church. Outside the old town city centre large historic quarters remain like
Östliches Ringgebiet with its
Gründerzeit architecture. Politically, after the war, the Free State of Brunswick was dissolved by the
Allied occupying authorities, Braunschweig ceased to be a capital, and most of its lands were incorporated in the newly formed state of
Lower Saxony. During the
Cold War, Braunschweig, then part of
West Germany, suffered economically due to its proximity to the
Iron Curtain. The city lost its historically strong economic ties to what was then
East Germany; for decades, economic growth remained, on average, below the rest of the country while unemployment was above-average for West Germany. On 28 February 1974, as part of a district reform in Lower Saxony, the
rural district of
Braunschweig, which had surrounded the city, was disestablished. The major part of the former district was incorporated into the city of Braunschweig, increasing its population by roughly 52,000 people. In the 1990s, efforts increased to reconstruct historic buildings that had been destroyed in the air raid. The façade of the
Braunschweiger Schloss was rebuilt, and buildings such as the
Alte Waage (originally built in 1534) now stand again. ==Population==