Schönhausen ( Low Saxon: ''Schöönhusen'') is a municipality in the district of

Stendal The Hanseatic City of Stendal () is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is the capital of the Stendal District and the unofficial capital of the Altmark region. Geography Situated west of the Elbe valley, the Stendal town centre is located s ...

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 th ...

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 betwe ...

. It is the seat 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. Rhinelan ...

'' ("collective municipality")

Elbe-Havel-Land Elbe-Havel-Land is a ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") in the district of Stendal, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Until 1 January 2010, it was a Verwaltungsgemeinschaft. It is situated on the right bank of the Elbe, south of Havelberg. ...

Geography

The village is situated on a

terminal moraine A terminal moraine, also called end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front edge ...

, stretching along the eastern bank 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 Re ...

River. It is located about north of the state capital of

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 Magdebu ...

, halfway between

in the west and

Rathenow Rathenow () is a town in the district of Havelland in Brandenburg, Germany, with a population of 24,063 (2020). Overview The Protestant church of St. Marien Andreas, originally a basilica, and transformed to the Gothic style in 1517-1589, and the ...

in the east. Since 1 January 2010 Schönhausen includes the former municipality of Hohengöhren.Gebietsänderungen vom 01. Januar bis 31. Dezember 2010
Statistisches Bundesamt Schönhausen station is a stop on the Berlin–Lehrte railway line, served by Regionalbahn trains. The parallel Hanover–Berlin high-speed railway runs through the municipality without stopping.

History

Schönhausen was founded by the Bishops of Havelberg, who had the Romanesque brick church with its prominent

westwork A westwork (german: Westwerk), forepart, avant-corps or avancorpo is the monumental, often west-facing entrance section of a Carolingian, Ottonian, or Romanesque church. The exterior consists of multiple stories between two towers. The interio ...

erected in 1212. After the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and ...

, the Schönhausen estate was secularized by the

Electors of Brandenburg This article lists the Margraves and Electors of Brandenburg during the period of time that Brandenburg was a constituent state of the Holy Roman Empire. The Mark, or ''March'', of Brandenburg was one of the primary constituent states of the Hol ...

. In 1562 the administrator of Havelberg, Joachim III Frederick of Brandenburg, ceded the Schönhausen estates to the

Bismarck family The House of Bismarck is a German noble family that rose to prominence in the 19th century, largely through the achievements of the statesman Otto von Bismarck. He was granted a hereditary comital title in 1865, the hereditary title of Prince o ...

from

, who had to swap it against Burgstall in the

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. ...

. The village was devastated by

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

troops during 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 battle ...

. In 1680 it became part of the Brandenburgian

Duchy of Magdeburg The Duchy of Magdeburg (german: Herzogtum Magdeburg) was a province of the Margraviate of Brandenburg from 1680 to 1701 and a province of the German Kingdom of Prussia from 1701 to 1807. It replaced the Archbishopric of Magdeburg after its secula ...

, a constituent land of 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''. ...

from 1701. The Bismarcks built two Baroque residences, the castles of Schönhausen I (about 1700) and Schönhausen II (from 1729), both with extended gardens. Both manors belonged to different branches of the family. On 1 April 1815 the later German chancellor Otto von Bismarck was born at Schönhausen I; he nevertheless grew up at his family's estate in Kniephof,

Pomerania Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...

. He inherited the Schönhausen I manor upon the death of his father in 1845; 40 years later, the Chancellor also received Schönhausen II as a present "by the German nation" on the occasion of his 70th birthday, for which purpose it had been bought by the German government in 1885, having been sold previously in 1830 by a different family branch. 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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Schönhausen became part of 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 ...

and the Bismarcks were deprived of their property by the Soviet Military Administration in 1945. The Communist

East German 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 ...

government had the manor of Schönhausen I demolished in 1958, labeling it a symbol of

Prussian Junkers The Junkers ( ; ) were members of the landed nobility in Prussia. They owned great estates that were maintained and worked by peasants with few rights. These estates often lay in the countryside outside of major cities or towns. They were an impor ...

and militarism. In 1998 a Bismarck museum was established in a preserved side wing. The manor of Schönhausen II, previously used as Bismarck museum, became a school in the GDR era; since 2012 it is used as a community center with a registry office, event hall, club rooms, etc. Schloss Schönhausen Sammlung Duncker.jpg, Schönhausen I manor, birth place and parental home of Otto von Bismarck Schönhausen Elbe Herrenhaus II.JPG, Schönhausen II manor Schönhausen.jpg, Bismarck museum

Twin town

Schönhausen is twinned with: * Kirchlinteln,

Notable people

* Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), first Chancellor of Germany *

Otto Christian Archibald von Bismarck Otto Christian Archibald, Prince of Bismarck (25 September 1897 in Schönhausen, Brandenburg – 24 December 1975), was a German politician and diplomat, and the Prince of Bismarck from 1904 to his death (since 1919 only as a part of his n ...

(1897–1975), politician and diplomat *

Annett Louisan Annett Louis (born Annett Päge; 2 April 1977 in Havelberg, Saxony-Anhalt, East Germany) is a German singer. She lives in Hamburg, Germany. Louisan is her stage name, derived from the name of her grandmother, Louise. Concerning her birth year ...

(born 1977 in

Havelberg Havelberg () is a town in the district of Stendal, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the Havel, and part of the town is built on an island in the centre of the river. The two parts were incorporated as a town in 1875. It has a populati ...

), singer, grew up in Schönhausen.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schonhausen Stendal (district) Otto von Bismarck

Geography

History

Twin town

Notable people

See also

References