Calvörde () is a
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality ...
in the
Börde district of
Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of
and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it the ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
. It is part of the
Verbandsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde (; plural Verbandsgemeinden) is a low-level administrative unit in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A Verbandsgemeinde is typically composed of a small group of villages or towns.
Rhine ...
("collective municipality")
Flechtingen.
Geography
Calvörde is situated approximately northwest of
Haldensleben and northwest of the state capital
Magdeburg
Magdeburg (; nds, label= Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river.
Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Mag ...
. It is located between the
Drömling range in the west and the
Flechtingen Hills in the south. In the north, it borders on
Gardelegen
Gardelegen (; nds, Garlä) is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Milde, 20 m. W. from Stendal, on the main line of railway Berlin-Hanover.
History
Gardelegen has a Roman Catholic and three Evangelical chu ...
in the
Altmarkkreis Salzwedel
Altmarkkreis Salzwedel is a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is bounded by (from the west and clockwise) the districts Gifhorn, Uelzen, Lüchow-Dannenberg in Lower Saxony, and the districts of Stendal and Börde (district).
History
Th ...
district. The main settlement Calvörde proper lies between the
Ohre River and the parallel
Midland Canal.
The municipal area comprises 11 localities (''Ortsteile''):
[Hauptsatzung der Gemeinde Calvörde]
July 2014.
*
Berenbrock
* Calvörde
* Dorst
* Elsebeck
*
Grauingen
*
Klüden
* Lössewitz
*
Mannhausen
*
Velsdorf
*
Wegenstedt
Wegenstedt is a village and a former municipality in the Börde district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the ...
*
Zobbenitz
History
Archaeological excavations in the area date back to the Iron Age
Jastorf culture
The Jastorf culture was an Iron Age material culture in what is now northern Germany and southern Scandinavia spanning the 6th to 1st centuries BC, forming part of the Pre-Roman Iron Age and associating with Germanic peoples. The culture evo ...
about 600-300 BC. The settlement itself was first documented in 1196, probably named after a
ford crossing the Ohre river at the place where today still is a bridge. A trade route which came from
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
and Magdeburg in the southeast crossed the river here, leading northwestwards to
Lüneburg
Lüneburg (officially the ''Hanseatic City of Lüneburg'', German: ''Hansestadt Lüneburg'', , Low German ''Lümborg'', Latin ''Luneburgum'' or ''Lunaburgum'', Old High German ''Luneburc'', Old Saxon ''Hliuni'', Polabian ''Glain''), also calle ...
and
Hamburg
Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...
, with a branch-off to
Braunschweig
Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
in the west. ''Calvörde'' is possibly derived from "bleak (''kahl'') ford", however, according to local tradition, the emergence of the ford is attributed to a man named Kale and the historic meaning is "Kale's ford".
In the 11th century, the area was located in the eastern borderland of the
Kingdom of Germany
The Kingdom of Germany or German Kingdom ( la, regnum Teutonicorum "kingdom of the Germans", "German kingdom", "kingdom of Germany") was the mostly Germanic-speaking East Frankish kingdom, which was formed by the Treaty of Verdun in 843, espe ...
with the lands of the
Polabian Slavs (
Wends
Wends ( ang, Winedas ; non, Vindar; german: Wenden , ; da, vendere; sv, vender; pl, Wendowie, cz, Wendové) is a historical name for Slavs living near Germanic settlement areas. It refers not to a homogeneous people, but to various peopl ...
), who had reconquered the lands of the
Northern March east of the
Elbe
The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Rep ...
River in the
Great Slav Rising
In the Slavic revolt of 983, Polabian Slavs, Wends, Lutici and Obotrite tribes, that lived east of the Elbe River in modern north-east Germany overthrew an assumed Ottonian rule over the Slavic lands and rejected Christianization under Emperor ...
of 983. The forces of the
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country ( Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the No ...
nobles were able to repulse further Slav attacks and to control the way across the Ohre River. A fortress was erected, which from 1208 was held by the noble
House of Regenstein.
Calvörde Castle was first mentioned in the late 13th century. From 1318 it was held by Duke
Otto of Brunswick. The
Welf dukes repeatedly gave Calvörde Castle in pawn to local nobles like the
House of Alvensleben, while the adjacent settlement (''Flecken'') prospered, with town walls, a city council and seal. In 1571 Calvörde passed to the
Principality of Wolfenbüttel under Duke
Julius of Brunswick. With several surrounding villages and manors, it was reorganised as the
Amt Calvörde, which remained an eastern
exclave
An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...
of the
Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg
The Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg (german: Herzogtum Braunschweig und Lüneburg), or more properly the Duchy of Brunswick and Lüneburg, was a historical duchy that existed from the late Middle Ages to the Late Modern era within the Holy Ro ...
between the Brandenburgian
Altmark :''See German tanker Altmark for the ship named after Altmark and Stary Targ for the Polish village named Altmark in German.''
The (English: Old MarchHansard, ''The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time ...'', Volume 32. ...
in the north and the
Archbishopric of Magdeburg
The Archbishopric of Magdeburg was a Roman Catholic archdiocese (969–1552) and Prince-Archbishopric (1180–1680) of the Holy Roman Empire centered on the city of Magdeburg on the Elbe River.
Planned since 955 and established in 968, the R ...
in the south.
Under the unlucky rule of Duke
Frederick Ulrich of Brunswick, Calvörde was devastated by
Imperial
Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism.
Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to:
Places
United States
* Imperial, California
* Imperial, Missouri
* Imperial, Nebraska
* Imperial, Pennsylvania
* Imperial, Texas
...
troops in the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battl ...
, until it passed into the allodial possessions of his wife Duchess Anna Sophia. Entirely surrounded by
Brandenburg-Prussian territory from 1680, the Calvörde exclave by resolution of the 1815
Vienna Congress became part of the newly established
Duchy of Brunswick
The Duchy of Brunswick (german: Herzogtum Braunschweig) was a historical German state. Its capital was the city of Brunswick ().
It was established as the successor state of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel by the Congress of Vienn ...
, the
Free State of Brunswick after the
German Revolution of 1918–19. 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 ...
, however, according to the 1945
Potsdam Agreement
The Potsdam Agreement (german: Potsdamer Abkommen) was the agreement between three of the Allies of World War II: the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union on 1 August 1945. A product of the Potsdam Conference, it concerned t ...
, it fell with the Prussian
Province of Saxony
The Province of Saxony (german: link=no, Provinz Sachsen), also known as Prussian Saxony () was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the Free State of Prussia from 1816 until 1944. Its capital was Magdeburg.
It was formed by the merge ...
to the
Soviet occupation zone
The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a c ...
and from 1949 was part of
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
.
On 1 January 2010 Calvörde absorbed the former municipalities
Berenbrock, Dorst,
Grauingen,
Klüden,
Mannhausen,
Velsdorf,
Wegenstedt
Wegenstedt is a village and a former municipality in the Börde district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the ...
and
Zobbenitz.
Gebietsänderungen vom 01. Januar bis 31. Dezember 2010
Statistisches Bundesamt
The Federal Statistical Office (german: Statistisches Bundesamt, shortened ''Destatis'') is a federal authority of Germany. It reports to the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
The Office is responsible for collecting, processing, presenting and ...
Politics
Seats in the municipal assembly (''Gemeinderat'') as of 2009 local elections:
* Free Voters: 7
* Christian Democratic Union (CDU): 6
* Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD): 2
* The Left: 1
Notable people
* Gustav von Meyern-Hohenberg (1820–1878), jurist and playwright
*Wilhelm von Bode
Wilhelm von Bode (10 December 1845 – 1 March 1929) was a German art historian and museum curator. Born Arnold Wilhelm Bode in Calvörde, he was ennobled in 1913. He was the creator and first curator of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, now ca ...
(1845–1929), art historian and curator
* Friedrich Voss (1872–1953), civil engineer
External links
Official site
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Calvorde
Börde (district)
Duchy of Brunswick