Neustrelitz (; ) is a town in the Mecklenburgische Seenplatte district in the state of

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; ), also known by its Anglicisation, anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a Federated state, state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's States of Germany, sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpom ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It is situated on the shore of the Zierker See in the Mecklenburg Lake District. From 1738 until 1918 it was the capital of the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. From 1994 until 2011 it was the capital of the district of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The name ''Strelitz'' is derived from the Polabian word ''Strelci'', meaning "archers" or "shooters".

History

The village of Strelitz was first mentioned in 1278. It grew to a small town in the following centuries. In the 17th century Strelitz was a part of the duchy of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, which ceased to exist after the death of the last duke in 1695. Afterwards the new Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was established (1701). This small duchy contained the present-day district and an exclave around

Ratzeburg Ratzeburg (; Low German: ''Ratzborg'') is a town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is surrounded by Ratzeburger See, four lakes—the resulting isthmuses between the lakes form the access lanes to the town. Ratzeburg is the capital of the distri ...

, which is today situated in

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; ; ; ; ; occasionally in English ''Sleswick-Holsatia'') is the Northern Germany, northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical Duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of S ...

. In 1712 the castle and the town of Strelitz burnt down. After this disaster the duke and his family lived on their hunting lodge at the lake called ''Zierker See'' (Lake Zierke) to the northwest of Strelitz. Around this place the new town of ''Neustrelitz'' (New Strelitz) was constructed. It became the official capital of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1736. Neustrelitz remained the ducal seat until 1918 and was the capital of the Free State of Mecklenburg-Strelitz from 1918 to 1933. In 1934 it was merged with Mecklenburg-Schwerin to the ''Gau'' of Mecklenburg. The ancient town of Strelitz continued to exist after the fire of 1712; it was a small village, which was suburbanised by Neustrelitz in 1931. When the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

troops of the

2nd Belorussian Front The 2nd Belorussian Front (, ''Vtoroi Belorusskiy front'', also romanized "Byelorussian SSR, Byelorussian"), was a Front (military formation), major formation of the Soviet Army during World War II, being equivalent to a Western army group. I ...

entered the town on 30 April 1945, 681 people committed suicide.

Sights and monuments

The city centre is characterised by

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

architecture. Its heart is the ''Marktplatz'' (Market Square), with the ''Stadtkirche'' (city church), built in 1768–1778 and the opposite ''Rathaus'' (Town Hall), built in 1841 by Friedrich W. Buttel, a disciple of

Karl Friedrich Schinkel Karl Friedrich Schinkel (13 March 1781 – 9 October 1841) was a Prussian architect, urban planning, city planner and painter who also designed furniture and stage sets. Schinkel was one of the most prominent architects of Germany and designed b ...

. The Baroque Neustrelitz Palace was destroyed in 1945, but the palace gardens (''Schloßgarten'') still exist. Worth seeing are the 18th-century ''Orangerie'' (from orange), initially used as a summerhouse, the ''Schloßkirche'' (Palace Church) built in 1855–1859 in English Neo-Gothic style, the Neoclassic Hebe temple (with a replica of a statue of the goddess Hebe), and the Louise Temple, built in 1891 in the shape of a Greek temple to house the tomb of Queen Louise of Prussia, born Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. There is a small lake, Glambeck See, where one can swim in summer in a protected area and have lunch at a restaurant overlooking the lake.

Transport

The town has a station on the

Berlin Northern Railway The Berlin Northern Railway () is a 223-kilometre-long main line (railway), main line route, that runs from Berlin via Neustrelitz and Neubrandenburg to Stralsund on the Baltic Sea coast. Nowadays, long-distance and regional traffic on the Nord ...

and provides direct connections to

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and

Rostock Rostock (; Polabian language, Polabian: ''Roztoc''), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (), is the largest city in the German States of Germany, state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the sta ...

Gallery

File:Fürstensee Großer Fürstenseer See 2010-04-07 207.jpg, Lake ''Großer Fürstenseer'' File:Neustrelitz Glambecker See 2011.jpg, Lake ''Glambecker See'' File:Gymnasium Carolinum.jpg, Gymnasium Carolinum File:Rathaus Neustrelitz.jpg , Neustrelitz Town Hall File:Stadthafen Neustrelitz (4).jpg, City harbour File:Stadtkirche Neustrelitz-IMG 2248.jpg, City church File:Schlosskirche (Neustrelitz) Front.jpg, Castle church File:Friedrich-Wolf-Plastik.jpg, Friedrich Wolf File:Altstrelitz Kriegerdenkmal 1870-71.jpg,

Franco-Prussian War The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...

memorial in Strelitz-Alt

Entertainment

The city has hosted the popular Immergut Festival since the year 2000, attended by almost 5000 visitors each year. Neustrelitz boasts its own theatre with a permanent resident cast. Drama, operas, operettas and musicals are regularly performed there. The theatre seats 400 persons. A review (in German) of a 2017 opera performance of Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann is to be found here. www.myway.de/hoffmann/1617-neustrelitz.html

Notable people

* Adolf Friedrich von Olthof (1718-1793), a Swedish Pomeranian councillor and patron of the arts. * Carl Eggers (1787–1863), history painter * Albert Wolff (1814–1892), sculptor * Wilhelm von Kardorff (1828-1907), landowner and politician * Heinrich Gärtner (1828–1909), landscape painter. * Karl Ludwig Ernst Schroeder (1838–1887), gynecologist * Karl Kraepelin (1848–1915), biologist, founder of the Natural History Museum in Hamburg * Emil Cohn (1854–1944), physicist worked on theoretical

electromagnetism In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge via electromagnetic fields. The electromagnetic force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature. It is the dominant force in the interacti ...

. * Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926), psychiatrist, considered as father of modern psychiatry * Hans Kundt (1869–1939), German-Bolivian general in the First World War and the Chacokrieg * Marie Kundt (1870–1932), photographer, teacher and director at the Lette-Verein, Berlin *

Carl Friedrich Roewer Carl Friedrich Roewer (12 October 1881, in Neustrelitz – 17 June 1963) was a German arachnologist. He concentrated on harvestmen, where he described almost a third (2,260) of today's known species, but also almost 700 taxa of spiders and num ...

(1881–1963), pedagogue,

arachnologist Arachnology is the scientific study of arachnids, which comprise spiders and related invertebrates such as scorpions, pseudoscorpions, harvestmen, ticks, and mites. Those who study spiders and other arachnids are arachnologists. More narrowly ...

and museum director * Franz Rademacher (1906–1973), lawyer and diplomat. * Herbert Wagner (born 1948), politician (CDU), Lord Mayor of Dresden 1990–2001 * Thomas Böttger (born 1957), composer and pianist * Charly Hübner (born 1972), actor * Anna Kovalchuk (born 1977), a Russian film, TV and theatre actress.

Aristocracy

* Adolphus Frederick III (1686–1752), Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz from 1708 to 1752. * Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg (1708–1752), member of the Strelitz branch of the

House of Mecklenburg The House of Mecklenburg, also known as Nikloting, is a North German dynasty of Polabian Slavs, Polabian origin that ruled German revolution, until 1918 in the Mecklenburg region, being among the longest-ruling families of Europe. Queen Juliana o ...

. * Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels (1812–1875), German prince and military officer for Austria & the Grand Duchy of Hesse; founded

New Braunfels, Texas New Braunfels ( ) is a city in Comal County, Texas, Comal and Guadalupe County, Texas, Guadalupe counties in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat of Comal County. The city covers and had a population of 90,403 as of the 2020 United Sta ...

* Frederick William, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1819–1904), grand duke from 1860 to 1904. * Kuno von Moltke (1847–1923), adjutant to

Wilhelm II Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia from 1888 until Abdication of Wilhelm II, his abdication in 1918, which marked the end of the German Empire as well as th ...

; main player in the Eulenburg affair, a homosexual scandal. * Adolphus Frederick V (1848–1914), grand duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz from 1904 to 1914. * Adolphus Frederick VI (1882–1918), the last reigning grand duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz from 1914 to 1918.

Sport

* Bernhard Horwitz (1807–1885), chess master * Rainer Ernst (born 1961), footballer, played over 330 games and 56 for

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

* Ulf Hoffmann (born 1961), gymnast, silver medallist at the

1988 Summer Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and officially branded as Seoul 1988 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. 159 nations were represe ...

. * Andreas Dittmer (born 1972), three time Olympic gold medallist in canoeing * Olaf Winter (born 1973), gold medallist in canoeing at the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

International relations

Twin towns – Sister cities

Neustrelitz is twinned with: * Chaykovsky,

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

* Szczecinek,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

Rovaniemi Rovaniemi ( , ; ; ; ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Lapland (Finland), Lapland. It is located near the Arctic Circle in the northern interior of the country. The population of Rovaniemi is approximately , while the Rovaniemi su ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

* Schwäbisch Hall, Germany

References

External links

* {{Authority control Cities and towns in Mecklenburg Populated places established in 1733 Capitals of former nations