: Stadt Wernigerode vom Eisenberg, Wernigerode around 1820, Wernigerode was the capital of the medieval
County of Wernigerode and
Stolberg-Wernigerode. In 1815, after the
Napoleonic Wars, it became part of the
Prussian
Province of Saxony. The
Hasseröder brewery was founded in Wernigerode in 1872. After
World War II, Wernigerode was included in the new state
Saxony-Anhalt within the
Soviet occupation zone (relaunched in October 1949 as the
German Democratic Republic/East Germany). During the Communist years, the town was very close to the
inner German border. Wernigerode became part of the restored state of Saxony-Anhalt in 1990 after
German reunification.
Emergence of the town There are no written sources confirming exactly when the town was established. According to the latest researchfor example, by Eduard Jacobs and Walther Grossethere were no early relations with the Abbey at
Corvey (
Weser) and the abbot there,
Warin, instead the town name suggests it was a protected clearance settlement. The first area to be settle was the , where there was a
lowland castle, the so-called . In 1805 the ruins of this castle site were demolished. The only part remaining is at 12 which dates to the year 1582. At the time of the first settlelement there was still ancient forest, typical of the Harz, on the heights of the , which had first to be cleared, hence the suffix in the town name which means 'clearing'. The town was first mentioned in the records in 1121 in connection with Count Adalbert of
Haimar who had moved here from the region near
Hildesheim and henceforth was titled the Count of Wernigerode. On 17 April 1229 the settlement was granted
town rights along the lines of that for
Goslar. In 2004 Wernigerode celebrated the 775th anniversary of that occasion. As a result of the immigration of new townsfolk from the surrounding villages a new settlement, later called , grew up on the northeastern edge of the old town. It was a farming settlement that lay outside the walls of the old town.
St. John's Church was built as the parish church of Wernigerode's in the last third of the 13th century in the
Romanesque style.
Early rulers The
counts of Wernigerode, who can be traced back to the early 12th century, were successively
vassals of the
margraves of Brandenburg (1268), and the
archbishops of Magdeburg (1381). On the extinction of the family in 1429 the county fell to the
counts of Stolberg, who founded the Stolberg-Wernigerode branch in 1645. The latter surrendered its military and fiscal independence to
Prussia in 1714, but retained some of its sovereign rights till 1876. The counts were raised to
princely rank in 1890.
Mayors • Runden, • Ludwig Gepel, 7 January 1921 to 6 January 1933 • Ulrich von Fresenius (1 September 1888; died 12 November 1962), 10 January 1933 to 20 April 1945 • Max Otto (1889–1969),
SPD/
SED, 20 April 1945 to 1951 • Gustav Strahl, 1951 to 1962 •
Martin Kilian,
SED, 24 October 1962 to 1990 • Herbert Teubner,
CDU, 1990 to 1991 • Horst-Dieter Weyrauch,
CDU, 1991 to 1994 • Ludwig Hoffmann,
SPD, 1994 to 31 July 2008 • Peter Gaffert, independent, since 1 August 2008 • Tobias Kascha, SPD, since 1 August 2022
Population statistics • 1595: 2,500 • 1806: 3,700 • 1845: 5,000 • 1869: 7,000 • 1886: 9,000 • 1895: 10,662 • 1904: 12,000 • 1914: 18,000 • 1957: 33,353 • 1990: 37,000 • 2006: 33,871 • 2007: 34,413 • 2008: 35,041 • 2009: 34,673 ==Architecture==