Neuruppin

Neuruppin is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, the administrative seat of Ostprignitz-Ruppin district. It is the birthplace of the novelist Theodor Fontane and therefore also referred to as Fontanestadt. A garrison town since 1688 and largely rebuilt in a Neoclassical style after a devastating fire in 1787, Neuruppin has the reputation of being "the most Prussian of all Prussian towns".

Geography

Geographical position

Neuruppin is one of the largest cities in Germany in terms of area. The city of Neuruppin, northwest of Berlin in the district of Ostprignitz-Ruppin, consists in the south of the districts located on the shores of Ruppiner See, which is crossed by the Rhin River, including the actual core city of Neuruppin and Alt Ruppin. In the north, it stretches up to the Rheinsberg Lake Region and the border with Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It is part of the Stechlin-Ruppiner Land Nature Park and is connected to the Wittstock-Ruppiner Heide, which was partly used for military purposes as the Wittstock military training area.

Municipal subdivisions

After several annexations in 1993, Neuruppin today is one of Germany's largest municipalities by area. The following districts and residential areas belong to Neuruppin since the annexations in 1993.

Districts	Parts of the municipality	Residences
Alt Ruppin, Buskow, Gnewikow, Gühlen-Glienicke, Karwe, Lichtenberg, Krangen, Molchow, Neuruppin, Nietwerder, Radensleben, Stöffin, Wulkow, Wuthenow	Binenwalde, Boltenmühle, Kunsterspring, Neuglienicke, Pabstthum, Radehorst, Rheinsberg-Glienicke, Seehof, Steinberge, Stendenitz, Zermützel, Zippelsförde	Alte Schäferei, Ausbau Nietwerder, Ausbau Wulkow, Bechlin, Birkenhof, Bürgerwendemark, Bütow, Dietershof, Ferienpark Klausheide, Fristow, Gentzrode, Gildenhall, Heidehaus, Hermannshof, Lietze, Musikersiedlung, Neumühle, Quäste, Rägelsdorf, Roofwinkel, Rottstiel, Stöffiner Berg, Tornow, Treskow

In addition, there is the deserted Krangensbrück.

Climate

History

Before the city fire (until 1787)

The prehistoric settlement of the country ranges from the Middle Stone Age through the younger Bronze Age with first Germanic, later Slavic settlements on the shores of Lake Ruppin. In late Slavic times, this area was settled by the Zamzizi tribe, whose center was probably the Slawenburg Ruppin on the island of Poggenwerder near Alt Ruppin. After the Wendish Crusade in 1147 and the conquest of the land by the German nobility, around 1200 on the Amtswerder, a peninsula next to the island of Poggenwerder, the Ruppin Castle was built as a large lowland castle and political center of the Lordship of Ruppin. In the northern foreland a market settlement with Nikolai church developed, east of it and beyond the Rhin the Kietz: the town Alt Ruppin had arisen.
Southwest of the castle town, the settlement of today's Neuruppin with Nikolaikirche and a street market was established at the beginning of the 13th century, keeping the name Ruppin.
The then Ruppin was a planned town foundation of the counts of Lindow-Ruppin, a collateral line of the Arnsteins, who resided in Alt Ruppin. The first documentary mention dates back to 1238. An expansion of the original Marktsiedlung Alt Ruppin, towards the present-day city of Neuruppin, probably took place before the foundation of the Dominican monastery in 1246 as the first settlement of the order between the Elbe and Oder rivers by the first prior Wichmann von Arnstein. The granting of the Stendal town charter took place on March 9, 1256, by Günther von Arnstein. The city was fortified in the 13th century by palisades and a rampart-ditch system, later it was fortified by walls and rampart-ditches; 24 "Wiekhäuser" and two high towers reinforced the city wall. In addition, there were three gates, the Altruppiner/Rheinsberger Tor in the north, the Berliner/Bechliner Tor in the south and the Seetor in the east. The complete walled enclosure occurred at the latest towards the end of the 15th century.
Neuruppin's oldest part was an elongated Anger, accompanied by two parallel streets between the southern and northern city gates, in the south on it the oldest church of Neuruppin. The main street of Neuruppin was pavement since the middle of the 16th century. Across Neuruppin, from the northwest toward the lake, ran the Klappgraben, coming from the Ruppiner Mesche, to supply the city with service water and for drainage, which was partially filled in 1537 and renewed as an open canal in Schinkelstraße after the city fire of 1787.
In the Middle Ages, Neuruppin was one of the larger northeastern German cities. Preserved from this period are, among other things, parts of the city wall, parts of the monastery church of St. Trinitatis, St. George's Chapel, the leprosorium with the St. Lazarus Chapel consecrated in 1491, as well as remains of the lake district. The medieval city had a nearly square ground plan of about 700 m × 700 m, which blunts conspicuously at the eastern corner. The east-southeast side borders on the Ruppiner Lake.
In 1512, to celebrate a peace treaty, Elector Joachim I organized a three-day jousting tournament in Neuruppin. After the extinction of the Counts of Lindow-Ruppin in 1524, Neuruppin came to the Elector Joachim I as a settled fief. The Thirty Years' War also devastated Neuruppin. In the course of the Reformation, the monastery property fell to the elector around 1540. In 1564, he donated the monastery to the city. During this time, a legend depicted in the monastery church about a mouse chasing a rat, which is interpreted as a sign that the church would remain Lutheran in the future.
A Latin school was first documented in Neuruppin in 1365, which at times had supra-regional importance. Its history is well documented since 1477. In 1777 Philipp Julius Lieberkühn and Johann Stuve took over the school administration and reformed the school in the Basedowsche Sense, which received general attention.
In 1688 Neuruppin became one of the first garrison towns in Brandenburg. It was here that Crown Prince Frederick was imprisoned from 1732 to 1740 after his unsuccessful escape attempt and subsequent imprisonment in Küstrin. Holder of the Regiment on Foot Crown Prince. During this time, Bernhard Feldmann city physicist. His transcripts of historically interesting council records are considered the most important collection of sources on early town history, as the original records were destroyed in the town fire of 1787. At times the number of soldiers and civilian troop members was 1500 out of 3500 inhabitants. Neuruppin only lost this status with the withdrawal of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.
After 1685, French Huguenots settled there. From 1740 the organ builder Gottlieb Scholtze had his workshop in Neuruppin, who among other things built the organ in Rheinsberg.

City fire and reconstruction (1787-1803)

A break in the development of the town was the wildfire of Sunday, August 26, 1787. The fire broke out in a barn filled with grain at the Bechliner Tor in the afternoon and spread rapidly. Only two narrow areas on the eastern and western edges of the city remained. A total of 401 bourgeois houses, 159 outbuildings and outhouses, 228 stables and 38 barns, the parish church of St. Mary, the town hall, the Reformed church, and the Prince's Palace were destroyed. Property damage was estimated at nearly 600,000 talers. The Fire Fund replaced about 220,000 thalers, a special church collection yielded 60,000 thalers, and the Prussian Government provided 130,000 thalers of funding for the reconstruction of the city. In total, the state spent over one million thalers in the following years.
The city planning director Bernhard Matthias Brasch, who had been active in the city since 1783, implemented the specifications of the reconstruction commission and supervised the corresponding works. These took place from 1788 to 1803, following a uniformly planned ground plan. Brasch's plan envisaged the expansion of the city from 46 to almost 61 hectares with the removal of the ramparts between the Tempelgarten and the lake. The two north–south streets, which were close together, were united into one axis, later Karl-Marx-Strasse. A rectangular network of streets with continuous two-story troughshouses was created. Long wide streets interrupted by stately plazas, and houses in a transformation architecture mixing Baroque, Mannerist and Gothic design elements with Neoclassical trends, have shaped the townscape since that time. These urban reform principles are well recognizable. Thus, with the reconstruction, a classicist city layout unique in this originality was created. The reconstruction was already completed in 1803. Only the completion of the parish church of St. Mary dragged on until 1806 due to structural problems.
After the disastrous fire in 1787, the neo-classicism of the rebuilt town's buildings have characterised its townscape to the present day. It remained a garrison town until the late 20th century, since Soviet troops were stationed here until 1993; during this time, there were as many Soviet soldiers as inhabitants in Neuruppin.

Reconstruction in the 19th century (1804-1900)

began producing picture sheets in Neuruppin, thematically designed and for a long time as hand-colored broadsides. His son Gustav Kühn achieved print runs of sometimes over three million copies per year. The prints became known worldwide with the inscription Neu-Ruppin, zu haben bei Gustav Kühn. Three other companies produced the popular picture sheets: Philipp Oehmigke, Hermann Riemschneider, and Friedrich Wilhelm Bergemann. All three picture sheet producers managed to hold their own in the German picture sheet manufacturer competition and to occupy the leading positions for a long time.
From 1815 to 1945, Neuruppin was part of the Prussian Province of Brandenburg. In September 1820, the Infantry Regiment 24 came to Neuruppin with its staff and two battalions, while the Fusilier Battalion took up garrison in Prenzlau. The regiment had been raised elsewhere in 1813, and had participated in the wars of liberation and the occupation of France. Initially, the regiment was housed in Neuruppin burghers' quarters.
In 1877, the organ builder Albert Hollenbach set up his workshop in Neuruppin. His works include organs in the churches of the districts of Bechlin, Buskow, Karwe, Nietwerder and Storbeck as well as the Siechenhauskapelle in the old town of Neuruppin. After 1880, Neuruppin became the center of a branch line network, which was operated by the Ruppiner Eisenbahn AG until 1945. This radiated to Fehrbellin-Paulinenaue, Kremmen-Berlin and Wittstock-Meyenburg, and Neustadt and Herzberg respectively. For this purpose, a railroad embankment was built across the Ruppiner See, cutting across the lake 2.5 kilometers from the north shore in an east–west direction.
In 1893, the Neuruppin State Lunatic Asylum was built on the southern edge of the central city.