In the Early Middle Ages (year 782) there was a massacre of allegedly 4,500
Saxons, by order of Charlemagne because of their involvement in a preceding uprising. Verden was then within the
Duchy of Saxony. After in 1180 a coalition of Emperor
Frederick I Barbarossa and his allies had defeated the then Saxo-Bavarian Duke
Henry the Lion. Henry was subsequently stripped of his duchies. Saxony was divided among the imperial coalitionaries and so the Catholic Bishop of Verden gained
imperial immediacy for parts of his diocesan territory, thus establishing the
Prince-Bishopric of Verden. On 12 March 1259 Prince-Bishop Gerhard of Verden granted the place
town privileges following the Bremian version of
German town law. In the 15th century Verden gained considerable independence as a
Free Imperial City, immediately under the emperors (imperial immediacy), circumventing its former overlords the prince-bishops, who still held the cathedral and pertaining premises in town as a
cathedral immunity district. By the
Peace of Westphalia the city of Verden was
mediatised as regular city again within the Prince-Bishopric of Verden, which was transformed by the same contract into the
Principality of Verden in May 1648. The northern city (with the town hall and St. John's church) and the southern town (with the
proto-cathedral) were then united to form one city. In 1675, during the
Swedish-Brandenburg War, Verden was conquered by several states of the Holy Roman Empire and Denmark following the
Bremen-Verden Campaign and remained in allied hands until the end of the war in 1679. In the wake of the
Treaty of Saint-Germain in 1679, Verden was returned to Sweden. The Principality of Verden was first ruled in
personal union by the Swedish Crown – interrupted by a Danish occupation (1712–1715) – and from 1715 on by the
Hanoverian Crown. The
Kingdom of Hanover incorporated the principality in a
real union and the princely territory, including Verden upon Aller, became part of the new
Stade Region, established in 1823. Until the
Second World War, Verden was renowned for its trade and crafts and also its mounted division. During the Nazi regime forced-labourers were used in a furniture factory in Verden. Between 1945 and 1949 Verden was part of the British zone of occupation. Refugees from the former
Prussian provinces of
East Prussia,
Pomerania and
Silesia, settled in and around the town. With the labour immigration from the East
German Democratic Republic inhibited by the
Berlin Wall foreign workers (
Gastarbeiter) started to arrive from southern Europe and
Anatolia in the 1960s. After the fall of
Communism more immigrants arrived from Eastern Europe. From 1945 until 1960, the
5th Division, of the
British Army of the Rhine, was stationed in Verden. In 1960, the division was renamed as the
1st Division (later 1st Armoured Division). One of the former British barracks is now used to house the
Kreisverwaltung (district administration) and a new sporting stadium has been erected opposite. The second barracks has been demolished to make way for a new residential estate. ==Geography==