A settlement named
Steinedal in the Eastphalian
Balsamgau of
Saxony, then a possession of
Saint Michael’s Abbey in
Hildesheim, was mentioned in a deed allegedly issued by Emperor
Henry II in 1022. However, the entry has proven to be a 12th-century forgery, as the original document contained no such record. The fortified
town near the Elbe crossing at
Tangermünde was actually founded and granted
Magdeburg rights by the first
Brandenburg margrave
Albert the Bear about 1160. The parish church of St Mary's was first mentioned in 1283. Stendal quickly prospered as a centre of commerce and trade; it received city walls about 1300, the citizens joined the
Hanseatic League in 1358 and purchased the privilege of minting from the Brandenburg margraves in 1369. A
Latin school is documented from 1338. In 1456 the
Hohenzollern elector
Frederick II Irontooth founded a convent of
Augustinian nuns, which today is the site of a museum. In 1502 his descendant Elector
Joachim I Nestor married Princess
Elizabeth of Denmark at Stendal. Several churches, the town hall and the two remaining city gates show Stendal's wealth in the period. The Stendal citizens turned
Protestant in 1539, with the reformator
Konrad Cordatus serving as
superintendent. In the 1680s and 1690s,
Waldensian,
Palatine and
Swiss religious refugees settled in the town. For centuries part of the
Margraviate of Brandenburg, Stendal with the Altmark region passed to the
Prussian Province of Saxony after the
Napoleonic Wars. A
Prussian garrison town since the 17th century, it hosted the
10th (Magdeburg) Hussars regiment from 1884. Stendal was the site of a
Luftwaffe airfield in World War II, which had been the site of the first German
Fallschirmjäger training school from 1936; the boxer
Max Schmeling was trained as a paratrooper here in 1940/41. The town suffered from
strategic bombing. Stendal was hit by 10 air raids, and more than 300 civilians died when Röxe, a residential area in the southern part of the town, was devastated by bombs. The Cathedral and various historical buildings were heavily damaged by bombs. In April 1945, the aerodrome served as starting place of the
Sonderkommando Elbe unit, only a few days before the local authorities surrendered to the US Army. On May 4, the commander of the Wehrmacht
12th Army, General
Maximilian von Edelsheim, signed the capitulation document at the Stendal town hall. In July 1945, Stendal was handed over to Soviet occupation. From 1949 until
German reunification in 1990, the town belonged to
East Germany, part of
Bezirk Magdeburg from 1952. Until 1994, the Stendal barracks served as home base for a riflemen division of the Soviet
2nd Guards Tank Army. In 1974 the construction of the
Stendal Nuclear Power Plant was begun north of the town, but abandoned after reunification. In 2009 the Stendal citizens voted for the prefix
Hansestadt ("Hanseatic City"). On 1 January 2010, the town Stendal absorbed the former municipalities
Buchholz,
Groß Schwechten,
Heeren,
Möringen,
Nahrstedt,
Staats,
Uchtspringe,
Uenglingen,
Volgfelde, and
Wittenmoor. On 29 April 2010, it absorbed
Vinzelberg, and on 1 September 2010
Dahlen and
Insel. ==Education==