Aurich (; East Frisian Low Saxon: ''Auerk'', West Frisian: ''Auwerk'', stq, Aurk) is a town in the

East Frisia East Frisia or East Friesland (german: Ostfriesland; ; stq, Aastfräislound) is a historic region in the northwest of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is primarily located on the western half of the East Frisian peninsula, to the east of West Frisia ...

n region of

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

. It is the

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used fo ...

of the district of Aurich and is the second largest City in East Frisia, both in population, after

Emden Emden () is an independent city and seaport in Lower Saxony in the northwest of Germany, on the river Ems. It is the main city of the region of East Frisia and, in 2011, had a total population of 51,528. History The exact founding date of ...

, and in area, after Wittmund.

History

The history of Aurich dates back to the 13th century, when the settlement of ''Aurechove'' was mentioned in a

Frisia Frisia is a cross-border cultural region in Northwestern Europe. Stretching along the Wadden Sea, it encompasses the north of the Netherlands and parts of northwestern Germany. The region is traditionally inhabited by the Frisians, a West G ...

n document called the ''

Brokmerbrief __NOTOC__ The Brokmerbrief or Law of Brokmerland is the early 13th-century law code of the ''brocmanni'', the inhabitants of Brokmerland, west of Aurich in East Frisia. The area had been placed under cultivation and settled by the end of the 12th ...

'' in 1276. There are various hypotheses about the interpretation of the city name. It either refers to a person (Affo, East Frisian first name ) and his property (Reich) or it refers to waterworks on the fertile, water-rich lowland of the Aa (or Ehe) river, upon which the city was built; medieval realizations were Aurichove, Aurike, Aurikehove, Auerk, Auryke, Auwerckhove, Auwerick, Auwerck, Auwreke, Awerck, Awreke, Awrik, Auwerich and Aurickeshove . In 1517, Count Edzard from the House of Cirksena began rebuilding the town after an attack. In 1539, the land authorities were brought together in Aurich, making it the county capital and, later,

, remaining the seat of the land authorities when East Frisia was inherited by the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. ...

in 1744. After the

Prussian Army The Royal Prussian Army (1701–1919, german: Königlich Preußische Armee) served as the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It became vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power. The Prussian Army had its roots in the co ...

was defeated in the

Battle of Jena A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...

in 1807, Aurich became part of the

Kingdom of Holland The Kingdom of Holland ( nl, Holland (contemporary), (modern); french: Royaume de Hollande) was created by Napoleon Bonaparte, overthrowing the Batavian Republic in March 1806 in order to better control the Netherlands. Since becoming Empero ...

in 1808. In 1810, the Kingdom of Holland was annexed by France and Aurich was made the capital of the department Ems-Oriental of the

First French Empire The First French Empire, officially the French Republic, then the French Empire (; Latin: ) after 1809, also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental E ...

. After Napoleon was defeated in 1814, it passed to the

Kingdom of Hanover The Kingdom of Hanover (german: Königreich Hannover) was established in October 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, with the restoration of George III to his Hanoverian territories after the Napoleonic era. It succeeded the former Electorate of Ha ...

in 1815, and then was annexed by Prussia in 1866 and made part of the Province of Hanover. From 21 October 1944, until 23 December 1944, a

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

concentration camp was established in Aurich. The camp was a subcamp to the Neuengamme concentration camp. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Aurich became part of the new state of

Local council

The local council has 40 members The elections in September 2016 showed the following results * SPD: 13 seats * CDU: 11 seats *AWG 4 seats *Gemeinsam für Aurich (GfA), 4 seats *

Alliance 90/The Greens Alliance 90/The Greens (german: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, ), often simply referred to as the Greens ( ), is a green political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens (formed in West Germany in 1980) and Alliance 90 (for ...

3 seats * The Left 2 seats *Grün-Alternative Politik (GAP)(Green alternative politics) 2 seats * FDP, 1 seat

Coat of arms

Aurich's coat of arms is drawn by the

blazon In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct the appropriate image. The verb ''to blazon'' means to create such a description. The ...

: "Arms: Landscape with chief two-thirds sky and base third earth, a

shield A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry or projectiles such as arrows, by means of ...

Gules emblazoned with letter ' A' Or, an open-topped crown Or above, two growing

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

s Vert at sides. Crown: A battlement Gules with three merlons and two embrasures. Supporters: Two

branch A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term '' twig'' usuall ...

es of

mistletoe Mistletoe is the common name for obligate hemiparasitic plants in the order Santalales. They are attached to their host tree or shrub by a structure called the haustorium, through which they extract water and nutrients from the host plant. ...

with

leaves A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, st ...

and

berries A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples are strawberries, ras ...

Or.". Note that the coat of arms of the district with the same name is different.

Twin towns – sister cities

Aurich is twinned with: * Appingedam, Netherlands

Notable people

* Liefmann Calmer (1711–1784), important personage in French Jewry of the eighteenth century * Friedrich August Peter von Colomb (1775–1854),

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...

n general * Rudolf von Jhering (1818–1892), jurist. * Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–1895), writer *

Laura Hillman Laura Hillman (born Hannelore Wolff; October 16, 1923 – June 4, 2020) was a German-born American survivor of Holocaust concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau. She was also a '' Schindlerjude'', who survived the Holocaust with the ...

(1923–2020), American writer and memoirist, and

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

survivor * Rudolf Eucken (1846–1926), philosopher, winner of the 1908 Nobel Prize for Literature. * Karl Deichgräber (1903–1984), classical philologist *

Yitzhak Raveh Yitzhak Raveh ( he, יצחק רווה; 10 November 1906 – 8 November 1989) was a German-born Israeli judge who was one of the panel of three judges presiding over the trial of Adolf Eichmann. The other judges were Moshe Landau and Benjamin H ...

(1906–1989), Israeli judge * Aloys Wobben (1952–2021), engineer * Uwe Rosenberg (born 1970), board game designer * Paul Ronzheimer (born 1985), journalist and war correspondent

References

External links

* *Official German list of concentration camp
Record of the concentration camp and its sub-camps
{{Authority control Neuengamme concentration camp Aurich (district) Towns and villages in East Frisia