History of Hamburg Germany

Past History of Hamburg:

Mediaval times: to merchandise and be rescued for pirates a lot of towns in Europe build the Hanse. Hamburg was/is a great mechandise point in Europe. The Hanse was build from round about 70-80 active and 100 other towns. Example in Germany: Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, in Belgium: Antwerp, Brügge, in Norway: Bergen etc.

1189: Hamburg was a town under the leadership of the Duke of Schauenburg and Holstein in the empire of Germany. In 1189 Hamburg gets an "emperor free letter"; it means that every ship could bring the merchandise without paying toll from the begin of the river Elbe to Hamburg, without paying toll in one of the little towns like Stade.

1292: The Duke of Schauenburg (his chief was the King of Denmark) gives Hamburg the rights to make their own law, statues and so on; and new town-law for the "Rat von Hamburg= Senat"

1340: Every citizen of the town had the law to go to vote other cititzen for the "Bürgerschaft"

1768: Hamburg is Emperor and Free Empiretown 1811: The Emperor of France (Napoleon) pressed Hamburg to be a town of the Departement Elbmündung France 1815: The Free Town Hamburg was a part of the "Deutschen Bund" a union of the German Kingdoms, Dukedoms etc. 20-12-1819: Name of the town Freie- und Hansestadt Hamburg

Political Construction:
Citizenship= Bürgerschaft= parliament of the state senators= Senat= government präsident of the government/ governor= 1. Bürgermeister = 1. major major of part of town= Bezirksamtsleiter=community chief chief of the authority= senator

All Senator's build the Senat= government. To help them on the side of law they have counsellors= Senatssyndici or Staatsrat. The citizen are called on to cooperate with the administration = Deputation. Our town constitution say that the town is a Country of the Federal Republik of Germany. No seperation between state and community task's. That means a "townstate", if I am right like New York.

Occupations in Hamburg:
Main occupation in Hamburg is the harbour, merchandise, film and tv.

Authority in Hamburg:
We have 7 authorities in Hamburg and in that authority working area are the most old villiages.
(Village means a real big village or only one or two houses)

>From "Hamburg Porträt " Heft 19/1984 Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte:

The most important reason for the - in comparison with Bremen - slower rise in the number of emigrants transported via the port of Hamburg lay in their geograpihcal provenance. At first the emigrants came from the catchment areas of the Rhine and later from those of the Weser. It was not until 1840s that emigrants in larger numbers began to come from central and eastern parts of Germany. We read a report dated 2-2-1847 in the "Allgemeine Auswandererzeitung " (Emigrants Newspaper): Altough Hamburg lags far beheind Bremen in both shipping and emigrant traffic, it will, hoever, according to bookings received transport a greater number of emigrants in the current year than at any previous time. The urge to emigrate is now also affecting those regions previously untouched by it such Saxony, Silesia, the Brandenburg Mrach and even Pomerania. Two societies have been formed in Berlin alone, each of 400 or 500 persons, who on the basis of a joint project wish to settle in Texas. HAmburg is the nearest port of embarkation for the lands in question.

But it was not only the unfavourable geographical provenance of the streams of emigrants which enabled Bremen to emerge as victor in the competition for the transport of emigrants. Hamburg had, at this time, not a parcticulary good reputation as a city for emigrants. This is why the Bavarian government for a time prohibited any form of activity by Hamburg emigration agents in Bavaria and recommended emigration via Bremen. In practise Hamburg had largely adopted Bremen's emigration legislation. But indirect emigration to the USA via Hull and Liverpool was not regulatetd nor where there any regeluation about the treatment of emigrants during their stay in Hamburg.

" Finally, when in 1854 the emigrants leaving via Hamburg numbered nearly 51.000 ......"

" From 1836 - the year since which exact records on Hamburg emigration figures have been available - until 1880, i.e. the end of the emigrant sailling ship age, the Hamburg statistics record a total of 1.072.404 emigrants, of whom only 1.5% originatetd from Hamburg itself."

"For the year 1886, when the number of emigrants in Hamburg amounted to 88.600 persons ......"