Before the city fire (until 1787) The prehistoric settlement of the country ranges from the Middle
Stone Age through the younger
Bronze Age with first Germanic, later Slavic settlements (in the old town area - including "Neuer Markt" - and in the surrounding countryside) on the shores of Lake Ruppin. In late Slavic times, this area was settled by the
Zamzizi tribe, whose center was probably the
Slawenburg Ruppin on the island of Poggenwerder near Alt Ruppin. After the
Wendish Crusade in 1147 and the conquest of the land by the German
nobility, around 1200 on the Amtswerder, a peninsula next to the island of Poggenwerder, the
Ruppin Castle (also
Planenburg) was built as a large
lowland castle and political center of the
Lordship of Ruppin. In the northern foreland a market settlement with Nikolai church developed, east of it and beyond the Rhin the Kietz: the town (
Olden Ruppyn)
Alt Ruppin had arisen. Southwest of the castle town, the settlement of today's Neuruppin with Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas' Church) and a street market was established at the beginning of the 13th century, keeping the name
Ruppin. The then (Neu-)Ruppin was a planned town foundation of the counts of
Lindow-Ruppin, a collateral line of the Arnsteins, who resided in Alt Ruppin. The first documentary mention dates back to 1238. An expansion of the original
Marktsiedlung Alt Ruppin, towards the present-day city of Neuruppin, probably took place before the foundation of the
Dominican monastery in 1246 as the first settlement of the order between the Elbe and Oder rivers by the first prior
Wichmann von Arnstein. The granting of the Stendal town charter took place on March 9, 1256, by Günther von Arnstein. The city was fortified in the 13th century by palisades and a rampart-ditch system, later it was fortified by walls and rampart-ditches; 24 "Wiekhäuser" and two high towers reinforced the
city wall. In addition, there were three gates, the Altruppiner/Rheinsberger Tor in the north, the Berliner/Bechliner Tor in the south and the Seetor in the east. The complete walled enclosure occurred at the latest towards the end of the 15th century. Neuruppin's oldest part was an elongated Anger, accompanied by two parallel streets between the southern and northern city gates, in the south on it the oldest church of Neuruppin (St. Nikolai). The main street of Neuruppin was
pavement since the middle of the 16th century. Across Neuruppin, from the northwest toward the lake, ran the Klappgraben, coming from the Ruppiner Mesche, to supply the city with service water and for drainage, which was partially filled in 1537 and renewed as an open canal in Schinkelstraße after the city fire of 1787. In the
Middle Ages, Neuruppin was one of the larger northeastern German cities. Preserved from this period are, among other things, parts of the
city wall, parts of the monastery church of St. Trinitatis (1246), St. George's Chapel (1362), the
leprosorium (1490) with the St. Lazarus Chapel consecrated in 1491, as well as remains of the lake district. The medieval city had a nearly square ground plan of about 700 m × 700 m, which blunts conspicuously at the eastern corner. The east-southeast side borders on the Ruppiner Lake. In 1512, to celebrate a peace treaty,
Elector Joachim I organized a three-day jousting tournament in Neuruppin. After the extinction of the Counts of Lindow-Ruppin in 1524, Neuruppin came to the Elector
Joachim I as a settled
fief. The
Thirty Years' War also devastated Neuruppin. In the course of the
Reformation, the monastery property fell to the elector around 1540. In 1564, he donated the monastery to the city. During this time, a legend depicted in the monastery church about a mouse chasing a rat, which is interpreted as a sign that the church would remain
Lutheran in the future. A
Latin school was first documented in Neuruppin in 1365, which at times had supra-regional importance. Its history is well documented since 1477. In 1777
Philipp Julius Lieberkühn and
Johann Stuve took over the school administration and reformed the school in the
Basedowsche Sense, which received general attention. In 1688 Neuruppin became one of the first
garrison towns in Brandenburg. It was here that
Crown Prince Frederick was imprisoned from 1732 to 1740 after his unsuccessful escape attempt and subsequent imprisonment in
Küstrin. Holder of the
Regiment on Foot Crown Prince. During this time,
Bernhard Feldmann city physicist. His transcripts of historically interesting council records are considered the most important collection of sources on early town history, as the original records were destroyed in the town fire of 1787. At times the number of soldiers and civilian troop members was 1500 out of 3500 inhabitants. Neuruppin only lost this status with the withdrawal of the
Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. After 1685, French
Huguenots settled there. From 1740 the organ builder
Gottlieb Scholtze had his workshop in Neuruppin, who among other things built the organ in
Rheinsberg.
City fire and reconstruction (1787-1803) A break in the development of the town was the wildfire of Sunday, August 26, 1787. The fire broke out in a barn filled with grain at the Bechliner Tor in the afternoon and spread rapidly. Only two narrow areas on the eastern and western edges of the city remained. A total of 401 bourgeois houses, 159 outbuildings and outhouses, 228 stables and 38 barns, the parish church of St. Mary, the town hall, the Reformed church, and the Prince's Palace were destroyed. Property damage was estimated at nearly 600,000
talers. The
Fire Fund replaced about 220,000 thalers, a special church collection yielded 60,000 thalers, and the
Prussian Government provided 130,000 thalers of funding for the reconstruction of the city. In total, the state spent over one million thalers in the following years. The city planning director
Bernhard Matthias Brasch (1741-1821), who had been active in the city since 1783, implemented the specifications of the reconstruction commission and supervised the corresponding works. These took place from 1788 to 1803, following a uniformly planned ground plan. Brasch's plan envisaged the expansion of the city from 46 to almost 61
hectares with the removal of the ramparts between the Tempelgarten and the lake. The two north–south streets, which were close together, were united into one axis, later Karl-Marx-Strasse. A rectangular network of streets with continuous two-story
troughshouses was created. Long wide streets interrupted by stately
plazas, and houses in a transformation architecture mixing Baroque, Mannerist and Gothic design elements with Neoclassical trends, have shaped the townscape since that time. These urban reform principles are well recognizable. Thus, with the reconstruction, a classicist city layout unique in this originality was created. The reconstruction was already completed in 1803. Only the completion of the parish church of St. Mary (built 1801-1806 by
Philipp Bernard François Berson with the collaboration of
Carl Ludwig Engel) dragged on until 1806 due to structural problems. After the disastrous fire in 1787, the neo-classicism of the rebuilt town's buildings have characterised its townscape to the present day. It remained a garrison town until the late 20th century, since Soviet troops were stationed here until 1993; during this time, there were as many Soviet soldiers as inhabitants in Neuruppin.
Reconstruction in the 19th century (1804-1900) Johann Bernhard Kühn (1750-1826) began producing picture sheets in Neuruppin, thematically designed and for a long time as hand-colored broadsides. His son
Gustav Kühn (1794-1868) achieved print runs of sometimes over three million copies per year (e.g., the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71). The prints became known worldwide with the inscription
Neu-Ruppin, zu haben bei Gustav Kühn. Three other companies produced the popular picture sheets:
Philipp Oehmigke,
Hermann Riemschneider, and
Friedrich Wilhelm Bergemann. All three picture sheet producers managed to hold their own in the German picture sheet manufacturer competition (more than 60 companies throughout Germany) and to occupy the leading positions for a long time. From 1815 to 1945, Neuruppin was part of the
Prussian Province of Brandenburg. In September 1820, the
Infantry Regiment 24 came to Neuruppin with its staff and two battalions, while the
Fusilier Battalion took up garrison in Prenzlau. The regiment had been raised elsewhere in 1813, and had participated in the wars of liberation and the occupation of France. Initially, the regiment was housed in Neuruppin burghers' quarters. In 1877, the organ builder
Albert Hollenbach set up his workshop in Neuruppin. His works include organs in the churches of the districts of Bechlin, Buskow, Karwe, Nietwerder and Storbeck as well as the Siechenhauskapelle in the old town of Neuruppin. After 1880, Neuruppin became the center of a branch line network, which was operated by the
Ruppiner Eisenbahn AG until 1945. This radiated to Fehrbellin-Paulinenaue (1880), Kremmen-Berlin and Wittstock-Meyenburg (1899), and Neustadt and Herzberg respectively (1905). For this purpose, a railroad embankment was built across the Ruppiner See, cutting across the lake 2.5 kilometers from the north shore in an east–west direction. In 1893, the Neuruppin State Lunatic Asylum was built on the southern edge of the central city.
The city in the 20th century Fire extinguishers have been manufactured in Neuruppin since 1905. Minimax fire extinguishers in particular quickly became widespread due to their ease of use. During
World War I, an aviation squadron was stationed in Neuruppin and an airfield was established. The hospital was also partly used as a reserve hospital during
World War II. After 1945, parts of the facility served as a district hospital. On September 20, 2004, six Stolpersteine were laid on the grounds of the Ruppiner Kliniken in memory of the euthanasia victims of the former state lunatic asylum. On May 1, 1945,
Soviet forces reached Neuruppin and prepared to shell the city from the opposite shore of the lake. However, an unknown person managed to raise a white flag on the tower of the monastery church, and the same happened at the parish church. This prevented any destruction. A Soviet cemetery of honor was established north of the Rheinsberger Tor train station, where more than 220 Soviet soldiers were buried. Neuruppin became one of the largest garrisons of the
Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSSD). In 1951, the Elektro-Physikalische Werkstätten was founded in Neuruppin as a producer of electronic components. From 1970, they were expanded as Elektro-Physikalische Werke (EPW) to become the largest
printed circuit board manufacturer in the
GDR, employing up to 3,500 workers. - was opposed by financial constraints in the GDR. The relocation of the VEB Feuerlöschgerätewerk Neuruppin and the compensation for the areas and buildings between Bollwerk and the VEB Feuerlöschgerätewerk which had been taken up by the Soviet Army, did not help the economic power of the GDR in the mid-1970s.
The 1970s Neuruppin grew from a small town with about 18,000 inhabitants to 33,000 inhabitants between 1970 and 1989 through the settlement and expansion of technology and industry, which was economically significant for the GDR and the RGW states and as exports to the NSW (non-socialist economic area) in exchange for foreign currency, due to an influx of differently educated people from all parts of the GDR. Added to this were the many foreign workers and apprentices from the allied socialist states of Vietnam, Angola, Cuba, and the Soviet armed forces stationed there with around 12,000 men (including their families). Thus, a diverse population developed in the new
housing complex developments I to III.
The Old Town of Neuruppin 1980-1990 For reasons of cost, the old town of Neuruppin was spared the planned modern redesigns, but it deteriorated noticeably by the end of the 1970s. Beginning in the 1980s, the SED of the GDR began to reflect on the cities' historical past. Thus, from 1980 to 1986, the old town of Neuruppin was redeveloped according to the classicist model with the cooperation of then-mayor Harald Lemke.
Future Residential Complex I to III Contrary to the trend after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 in the state of Brandenburg, no residential buildings were demolished in residential complexes I to III. All apartments in residential complexes I to III Neuruppin are 100% in municipal or cooperative management (statistics as of 2015) and 99% are rented.
Neuruppin after the incorporation in 1993 When the new districts were formed, which came into effect on December 6, 1993, the district of Neuruppin was absorbed into the district of
Ostprignitz-Ruppin. On the same day, Neuruppin was significantly enlarged by incorporating the town of Alt Ruppin as well as the communities of Buskow, Gnewikow, Gühlen-Glienicke, Karwe, Krangen, Lichtenberg, Molchow, Nietwerder, Radensleben, Stöffin, Wulkow and Wuthenow. Until 1991, Neuruppin was still the location of the 12th Soviet Armored Division. The barracks were later converted into residential buildings as part of the
Expo 2000 outdoor project. Parts of the airfield are now still used for
gliding. In 1996, the then Neuruppin Regional Clinic and the District Hospital passed into the ownership of the Ostprignitz-Ruppin district as parts of the Ruppiner Kliniken GmbH. The Ruppiner Kliniken are thus one of the largest regional employers. The
Protestant church districts of Ruppin and
Wittstock/Dosse merged in 1998, and Neuruppin lost the seat of the
superintendent to Wittstock as a result. On March 11, 1998, the city was awarded the additional designation of Fontanestadt. On January 1, 2001, the focal public prosecutor's office for
corruption was established in Neuruppin as the successor to the department for GDR injustices and district crime. It is responsible for corruption offenses throughout the state of Brandenburg. On September 7, 2002, the 7th Brandenburg Day was held in Neuruppin with approximately 230,000 visitors. In response to the
Elbe flood in July 2002 in Saxony, numerous artists such as
Udo Lindenberg and
Gerhard Schöne donated their fees in support of the flood victims. In May 2009, it became public knowledge for the first time that the groundwater under a new development area at Ruppiner See was contaminated with
halogenated hydrocarbons. The district of Ostprignitz-Ruppin, as the responsible environmental authority, admitted to having known about the environmental contamination since 1999 through measurements taken during earlier construction projects. On May 12, 2011, the iodine-containing thermal brine pool in Neuruppin received the first state recognition of a
medicinal spring in the state of Brandenburg. The thermal brine pool is used by the Fontane-Therme on the edge of the old town for wellness operations and heating purposes. ==Demography==