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Staßfurt (Stassfurt) () is a town in the
Salzlandkreis Salzland is a district in the middle of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Its area is . It is bounded by (from the west and clockwise) the districts Harz, Börde, Magdeburg, Jerichower Land, Anhalt-Bitterfeld, Mansfeld-Südharz and Saalekreis. History ...
district, in
Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a States of Germany, state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the List of German states ...
,
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 both sides of the river Bode, approximately northeast of
Aschersleben Aschersleben () is a town in the Salzlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated approximately 22 km east of Quedlinburg, and 45 km northwest of Halle (Saale). Geography Aschersleben lies near the confluence of the ...
, and south of
Magdeburg Magdeburg (; ) is the Capital city, capital of the Germany, German States of Germany, state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is on the Elbe river. Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archbishopric of Mag ...
. Pop. (2005) 23,538. It was one of the chief seats of the German salt-producing industry. It is still surrounded in part by the ruins of its ancient walls, but, with the exception of the parish church of St. John (15th century), there are no buildings worthy of special notice.


History

The first mention of the place was in connection with the village of Alt-Staßfurt in 806, in an invitation by Emperor
Charlemagne Charlemagne ( ; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was List of Frankish kings, King of the Franks from 768, List of kings of the Lombards, King of the Lombards from 774, and Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian ...
to the Abbot Fulrad of St. Quentin to hold an army meeting at Starasfurt on the Bode River. The interpretation of the name is most likely from a composition of the Old Slavic word for old (''staraja'') with the Old High German word for river-crossing (''furt''). The importance of Staßfurt in the Middle Ages was due to its location. Here, the old trading and salt road led from
Lüneburg Lüneburg, officially the Hanseatic City of Lüneburg and also known in English as Lunenburg, is a town in the German Bundesland (Germany), state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of another Hanseatic League, Hanseatic city, Hambur ...
coming to Halle. The village Alt-Staßfurt north of the Bode was temporally and spiritually under the Archbishop of Magdeburg. In the 11th century, a castle was built south of the Bode. By 1180, the city law was extended to settlement areas south of the Bode within the defensive walls. Until 1277, Staßfurt and its castle was in the possession of the Anhalt Counts. Afterward, the brother Dukes of Saxony,
John I John I may refer to: People Religious figures * John I (bishop of Jerusalem) * John Chrysostom (349 – c. 407), Patriarch of Constantinople * John I of Antioch (died 441) * Pope John I of Alexandria, Coptic Pope from 496 to 505 * Pope John I, P ...
and Albrecht II, held such a huge banquet celebrating their knighthoods that they to settle the debt of 6,000 silver marks by pledging Staßfurt to Archbishop Conrad II of
Magdeburg Magdeburg (; ) is the Capital city, capital of the Germany, German States of Germany, state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is on the Elbe river. Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archbishopric of Mag ...
on 8 July 1276. In the
Peace of Westphalia The Peace of Westphalia (, ) is the collective name for two peace treaties signed in October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. They ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and brought peace to the Holy Roman Empire ...
of 1648, Staßfurt shared the fate of Magdeburg and was awarded to
Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...
, but only on the death of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, who had been promised the territory in the Peace of Prague in 1635. As of 1680, Staßfurt was a so-called Immediate City directly subordinated to the Duchy of Magdeburg and lay until 1807 in the ''Holzkreis'' region. After this, it was temporarily within a canton of the
Kingdom of Westphalia The Kingdom of Westphalia was a client state of First French Empire, France in present-day Germany that existed from 1807 to 1813. While formally independent, it was ruled by Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte. It was named after Westphalia, ...
. From 1815, Staßfurt was incorporated into the administrative district of Magdeburg in the
Province of Saxony The Province of Saxony (), 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 merger of various territories ceded ...
, and remained so until the dissolution of the Prussian state in 1947. During the Second World War, a small satellite camp of
Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...
called Staßfurt I / Neustaßfurt (alias ''deer'') was built on 13 September 1944, situated between the villages of Löderburg-Lust and Atzendorf in which 459 prisoners, mostly from
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, at the underground relocation of Ernst Heinkel AG had to work together with Polish concentration camp prisoners in extremely poor conditions. Of those, between 300 and 380 lost their lives. Another external camp existed from December 28, 1944 in the village of Leopoldshall. Both camps were evacuated on April 11, 1945 with a death march. The atomic bomb
Little Boy Little Boy was a type of atomic bomb created by the Manhattan Project during World War II. The name is also often used to describe the specific bomb (L-11) used in the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress ...
, detonated over
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...
on 6 August 1945, contained 64 kilograms of
uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...
. At least part of the uranium allegedly came from the approximately 1,100 tons of uranium ore and uranium oxide, which had been secured by U.S. forces in Staßfurt in the second half of April 1945. From 1952 to 1994, Staßfurt was county seat of the district of Staßfurt and later government district Magdeburg. With the regional reform in 1994, the new county of Aschersleben-Staßfurt was formed by the merger of the districts
Aschersleben Aschersleben () is a town in the Salzlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated approximately 22 km east of Quedlinburg, and 45 km northwest of Halle (Saale). Geography Aschersleben lies near the confluence of the ...
and Staßfurt. In the course of the district reform in 2007, Staßfurt was transferred to the newly formed
Salzlandkreis Salzland is a district in the middle of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Its area is . It is bounded by (from the west and clockwise) the districts Harz, Börde, Magdeburg, Jerichower Land, Anhalt-Bitterfeld, Mansfeld-Südharz and Saalekreis. History ...
. The militant group
SWAPO The South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO ; , SWAVO; , SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former independence movement in Namibia (formerly South West Africa). Founded in 1960, it has been ...
sent children from war-torn areas of
South West Africa South West Africa was a territory under Union of South Africa, South African administration from 1915 to 1990. Renamed ''Namibia'' by the United Nations in 1968, Independence of Namibia, it became independent under this name on 21 March 1990. ...
to Staßfurt for education and training in the
German Democratic Republic 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 ...
during the independence struggle in the 1980s. Thus, at the beginning of 1990, 291 such children were at the school of friendship in Staßfurt. In August 1990, they were returned to the now independent
Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
.


Local divisions

Staßfurt is divided into the following localities (with postal codes): * Altstaßfurt (39418) * Atzendorf (39443) * Athensleben (39446) * Brumby (39443) * Förderstedt (39443) * Glöthe (39443) * Hohenerxleben (39443) * Leopoldshall (39418) * Löbnitz (39443) * Löderburg (39446) * Lust (39446) * Neu Staßfurt (39418) * Neundorf (39418) * Rathmannsdorf (39418) * Rothenförde (39446) * Staßfurt (Altstadt) (39418) * Staßfurt-Nord (39418) * Üllnitz (39443) Staßfurt has the following ''Ortschaften'' or municipal divisions: Athensleben, Förderstedt, Hohenerxleben, Löderburg, Neundorf and Rathmannsdorf.Hauptsatzung der Stadt Staßfurt
December 2019.


The lost hamlets of Atzendorf

Around the village of Atzendorf are several lost hamlets, reputedly destroyed together with Atzendorf and many other villages of Staßfurt on 29 August 1635 by Imperialist troops. Although the ruined hamlets of Eikendorfer Kock, Eimecke, Kötlingen, Luxdorf, and Stieritz appeared on older maps, today there is only tilled farmland. The old road to the nearby town of Borne bei Staßfurt was demolished but traces of its route are still visible in the lay of the land.


Salt production

Although saline springs are mentioned here as early as the 13th century, the first attempt to bore for salt was not made until 1839, while the systematic exploitation of the salt-beds, to which the town is indebted for its prosperity, dates only from 1856. The shafts reached deposits of salt at a depth of 850 ft. (190 m); but the finer and purer layers lie more than 100 ft. (31 m) below the surface. The rock-salt is excavated by blasting. Besides the rock-salt, the deposits of Stassfurt yield a considerable quantity of
deliquescent Hygroscopy is the phenomenon of attracting and holding water molecules via either absorption (chemistry), absorption or adsorption from the surrounding Natural environment, environment, which is usually at normal or room temperature. If water mol ...
salts and other saline products, which have encouraged the foundation of numerous chemical factories in the town and in the neighboring village of Leopoldshall (currently part of Staßfurt). The rock-salt works are mainly government property, while the chemical factories are in private hands. The town is also home to Staßfurt Museum shed, which houses many preserved steam locomotives.


Stassfurt potash deposit

The Staßfurt
potash Potash ( ) includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water- soluble form.
deposit, a part of the same
evaporite An evaporite () is a water- soluble sedimentary mineral deposit that results from concentration and crystallization by evaporation from an aqueous solution. There are two types of evaporite deposits: marine, which can also be described as oce ...
sequence that hosts the salt mines, is notable historically as the site of the earliest large-scale mining of potash for
fertilizer A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from liming materials or other non-nutrient soil amendments. Man ...
, beginning in 1861.


Environmental Issues

The discharge of wastewater by local companies into the Bode has been frequently criticized as severely damaging the ecosystem of the river by Environmentalist Organisations. The decrease in water quality of the Bode may be the cause of high fish mortality. To prevent damage to the river’s wildlife the state of Saxony-Anhalt has announced to increase the supervision of the Bode The city council's measures to reduce chemical emissions in wastewaters have been criticized as insufficient by BUND ( Friends of the Earth Germany), the IG Bode-Lachs e.V. and the Green Party.


Notable people

* Heike Brehmer (born 1962), politician * Waltraud Dietsch (born 1950), athlete * Hermann Volrath Hilprecht (born 1859), archaeologist and assyriologist * Eberhard Köllner (born 1939), Backup for
Sigmund Jähn Sigmund Werner Paul Jähn (; 13 February 1937 – 21 September 2019) was a German Aircraft pilot, pilot, cosmonaut, and ''Generalmajor#Generalmajor in East Germany, Generalmajor'' (equivalent to a Brigadier General in Western armies) in the Nat ...
, research cosmonaut of the GDR * Günther Noll (born 1927), music educator * Wilhelm Steinkopf (1879–1949), German chemist * Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk (1887–1977), Minister of Finance of Germany from 1932 to 1945 and Leading Minister of the German Reich (Chancellor) in May 1945 * Karl Wilhelm von Willisen (1790–1879),
Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...
n general * Andreas Wecker (born 1970), German gymnast


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stassfurt Salzlandkreis