Hanover
Hanover is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 makes it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest in northern Germany after Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen. Hanover's urban area comprises the towns of Garbsen, Langenhagen and Laatzen and has a population of about 791,000. The Hanover Region has approximately 1.16 million inhabitants and is the largest in the Hanover–Braunschweig–Göttingen–Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region, the 17th biggest metropolitan area by GDP in the European Union.
Before it became the capital of Lower Saxony in 1946, Hanover was the capital of the Principality of Calenberg, the Electorate of Hanover, the Kingdom of Hanover, the Province of Hanover of the Kingdom of Prussia, the Province of Hanover of the Free State of Prussia and of the State of Hanover. From 1714 to 1837 Hanover was by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, under their title of the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg.
The city lies at the confluence of the River Leine and its tributary the Ihme, in the south of the North German Plain. The city is a major crossing point of railway lines and motorways, connecting European main lines in both the east–west and north–south directions. Hanover Airport lies north of the city, in Langenhagen, and is Germany's ninth-busiest airport. The city's most notable institutes of higher education are the Hanover Medical School, one of Germany's leading medical schools, with its university hospital, and the Leibniz University Hanover. The city is also home to International Neuroscience Institute.
The Hanover Fairground, owing to numerous extensions, especially for the Expo 2000, is the largest in the world. Hanover hosts annual commercial trade fairs such as the Hanover Fair and up to 2018 the CeBIT. It also hosts the biannual IAA Commercial Vehicles show, the world's leading trade show for transport, logistics and mobility. Every year Hanover hosts the Schützenfest Hanover, the world's largest marksmen's festival, and the Oktoberfest Hanover.
Etymology
The name of the city may derive from the German hohen Ufer, literally 'on the high bank'.Traditionally, the English spelling is. However,, the German spelling with a double-, has become more popular in English. Recent editions of Encyclopædia Britannica prefer the German spelling, and the local government uses the German spelling on their English webpages. The English pronunciation, with stress on the first syllable, is applied to both the German and English spellings, which is different from German pronunciation, with stress on the second syllable and a long second vowel. The traditional English spelling is still used in historical contexts, especially when referring to the British House of Hanover.
History
Early history
Hanover was founded in medieval times on the east bank of the Leine River. Its original name Honovere may mean 'high river bank', but that is debated. Hanover was a small village of ferrymen and fishermen that became a comparatively large town in the 13th century and received town privileges in 1241 because of its position at a natural crossroads. As overland travel was relatively difficult, its position on the upper navigable reaches of the river helped it grow from increasing trade. It was connected to the Hanseatic League city of Bremen by the Leine River and was situated near the southern edge of the wide North German Plain and northwest of the Harz mountains, so east–west traffic such as mule trains passed through it. Hanover was thus a gateway to the Rhine, Ruhr and Saar river valleys, and their industrial areas which grew up to the southwest and the plains regions to the east and north for overland traffic skirting the Harz between the Low Countries and Saxony or Thuringia.In the 14th century, the main churches of Hanover were built, as well as a city wall with three city gates. The beginning of industrialization in Germany led to trade in iron and silver from the northern Harz Mountains, which increased the city's importance.
In 1636 George, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, ruler of the Brunswick-Lüneburg principality of Calenberg, moved his residence to Hanover. The Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg were elevated by the Holy Roman Emperor to the rank of Prince-Elector in 1692, which was confirmed by the Imperial Diet in 1708. Thus, the principality was upgraded to the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg, colloquially known as the Electorate of Hanover after Calenberg's capital. Its electors later became monarchs of Great Britain. The first of them was George I Louis, who acceded to the British throne in 1714. The last British monarch who reigned in Hanover was William IV. Semi-Salic law, which required succession by the male line if possible, forbade the accession of Queen Victoria in Hanover. As a male-line descendant of George I, Queen Victoria was herself a member of the House of Hanover. Her descendants, however, bore her husband's titular name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Three kings of Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, were concurrently also Electoral Princes of Hanover.
During the time of the personal union of the crowns of the United Kingdom and Hanover, the monarchs rarely visited the city. In fact during the reigns of the last three joint rulers, there was only one short visit, by George IV in 1821. From 1816 to 1837, Viceroy Adolphus represented the monarch in Hanover.
During the Seven Years' War, the Battle of Hastenbeck was fought near the city on 26 July 1757. The French army defeated the Hanoverian Army of Observation, which led to the city's occupation as part of the Invasion of Hanover. It was recaptured by Anglo-German forces, led by Ferdinand of Brunswick, the following year.
19th century
After Napoleon imposed the Convention of Artlenburg on 5 July 1803, about 35,000 French soldiers occupied Hanover. The convention also required disbanding the Hanoverian Army. However, George III did not recognise the Convention of the Elbe, which resulted in a great number of soldiers from Hanover eventually emigrating to Great Britain, where the King's German Legion was formed. It was only troops from Hanover and Brunswick who consistently opposed France throughout the Napoleonic Wars. The Legion later played an important role in the Peninsular War and the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In 1814 the electorate became the Kingdom of Hanover.In 1837, the personal union of the United Kingdom and Hanover ended because William IV's heir in the United Kingdom was female. Hanover could be inherited only by male heirs. Thus, Hanover passed to William IV's brother, Ernest Augustus, and remained a kingdom until 1866, when it was annexed by the Prussia during the Austro-Prussian war. Though Hanover was expected to defeat Prussia at the Battle of Langensalza in 1866, Prussia employed Moltke the Elder's Kesselschlacht order of battle to destroy the Hanoverian Army. Thereafter the city of Hanover became the capital of the Prussian Province of Hanover.
In 1872, the first horse railway was inaugurated, and in 1893, an electric tram was installed.
A local newspaper, the Hannoverscher Kurier, was published in Hanover at this time.
Nazi era
After 1937 the lord mayor and the state commissioners of Hanover were members of the NSDAP. A large Jewish population then existed in Hanover. In October 1938, 484 Hanoverian Jews of Polish origin were expelled to Poland, including the Grynszpan family. However, Poland refused to accept them, leaving them stranded at the border with thousands of other Polish-Jewish deportees, fed only intermittently by the Polish Red Cross and Jewish welfare organisations. The Grynszpans' son Herschel Grynszpan was in Paris at the time. When he learned of what was happening, he drove to the German embassy in Paris and shot the German diplomat Eduard Ernst vom Rath, who died shortly afterwards.The Nazis took this act as a pretext to stage a nationwide pogrom known as Kristallnacht. On that day, the synagogue of Hanover, designed in 1870 by Edwin Oppler in neo-romantic style, was burnt by the Nazis.
World War II
In September 1941, through the "Action Lauterbacher" plan, a ghettoisation of the remaining Hanoverian Jewish families began. Even before the Wannsee Conference, on 15 December 1941, the first Jews from Hanover were deported to Riga. A total of 2,400 people were deported, and very few survived. During the war seven concentration camps were constructed in Hanover, in which many Jews were confined, but also Polish, French and Russian women. Of the approximately 2271 Jews who had lived in Hanover in 1939, fewer than 100 were still in the city when troops of the United States Army arrived on 10 April 1945 to occupy Hanover at the end of the war. Today, a memorial at the Opera Square is a reminder of the persecution of the Jews in Hanover.After the war a large group of Orthodox Jewish survivors of the nearby Bergen-Belsen concentration camp settled in Hanover.
There was also a camp for Sinti and Romani people, and dozens of forced labour subcamps of the Stalag XI-B prisoner-of-war camp for Allied POWs.
As an important railway and road junction and production centre, Hanover was a major target for strategic bombing during World War II, including the Oil Campaign. Targets included the AFA, the Deurag-Nerag refinery, the Continental plants, the United light metal works in Ricklingen and Laatzen, the Hanover/Limmer rubber reclamation plant, the Hanomag factory and the tank factory M.N.H. Maschinenfabrik Niedersachsen. Residential areas were also targeted, and more than 6,000 civilians were killed by the Allied bombing raids. More than 90% of the city centre was destroyed in a total of 88 bombing raids. After the war, the Aegidienkirche was not rebuilt and its ruins were left as a war memorial. Today around 25% of the city consists of buildings from before 1950.
The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Hanover in April 1945. The US 84th Infantry Division captured the city on 10 April 1945.