1189
7 May
According to tradition, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa grants Adolf III the right to duty-free trade all along the Lower Elbe to the point where it flows into the North Sea.
1190
Inhabitants revolt and try to free themselves from aristocratic rulers.
1201
Hamburg is invaded by Danes.
1227
Danes expelled by Adolf III’s son, Count Adolf IV.
1235
Alster is dammed.
1250
Population 5,000.
1265
‘Barbarossa’s Charter’ drawn up formally.
13th C
Hamburg joins Hanseatic League.
1400
Population 7,500.
early 1400s
Klaus Stoertebeker and Godeke Michels, Hamburg’s equivalent of Robin Hood, wage buccaneer war against Hanseatic fleet.
1510
Emperor Maximillian I declares Hamburg an Imperial City – an important step in gaining emancipation from Danes.
1558
Founding of Hamburg Stock Exchange. Population around 20,000.
16th C
Lutheran reformation in city carried through by Johannes Bugenhagen. Influx of Protestants to city to avoid persecution elsewhere.
early 17th C
Influx of Sephardic Jews from Portugal and Spain to avoid persecution.
1619
Founding of Bank of Hamburg.
1800
Population 130,000.
1806
Napoleon invades Hamburg.
1814
Napoleon’s troops repelled.
1815
Congress of Vienna guarantees freedom of the city.
1842
The Great Fire.
1847
Founding of HAPAG (Hamburg-Amerikanische-Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft), to become the biggest ship business in Germany.
1867
Hamburg joins North German League.
1871
Integration into German Reich under Bismarck.
1872
Opening of rail bridge across Elbe – followed by New Elbe Bridge for road traffic in 1887.
1881–88
Erection of Speicherstadt, a harbour storage city district.
1888
Hamburg joins German Customs Union. ‘Free port’ established, enabling Hamburg to become one of the largest storage locations for coffee, cocoa, spices and carpets.
1892
Cholera epidemic kills 8,000.
1895
Construction of Baltic–North Sea Canal.
1897
Inauguration of new Rathaus.
1900
Population passes 1 million.
1912
Hamburg becomes the third largest port in the world, after London and New York.
1914–18
40,000 citizens die in First World War.
1918
Revolution starts with mutiny of sailors in Kiel, and quickly spreads to Hamburg. On 6 November they form ‘Workers and Soldiers Council’, and seize political power. After elections the following spring, they hand over power to city council on 16 March 1919.
1919
University of Hamburg founded. Treaty of Versailles requires coastal towns to hand over majority of merchant fleets.
1923
Hyperinflation cripples Hamburg.
1927
Links with UK and US help Hamburg to recover quicker than most of Germany. Blue-collar workers’ pay reaches pre-war levels again at last. White-collar workers pay would be the same by 1929.
1929–30
World slump hits Hamburg hard. Companies go bankrupt. City’s welfare expenditure spirals out of control.
1932
Unemployment almost 40 per cent – radicalism returns.
1933
30 January
Hamburg’s senate implements persecutions ordered by Nazis, so as not to give new government any pretext to intervene in the running of the city.
28 February
Orders issued to carry out arrests.
1 March
Seventy-five Communist Party functionaries arrested, to be followed by Social Democrats, trade unionists and other opponents of National Socialism.
5 March
Nazi vote in Hamburg rises by 100,000, giving them 38.8 per cent of vote.
14 October
Hamburg’s city council, is dissolved.
1935
1 January
Nazi Party has 46,500 members in Hamburg, 3.8 per cent of population. Air-raid training begins.
1937
Greater Hamburg Act (Gross Hamburg Gesetz) incorporates Altona, Wandsbek, Harburg and twenty-seven other municipalities under Prussian control until then. As a result Hamburg nearly doubles in size, and population rises 41 per cent to 1.68 million inhabitants.
Hamburg–Lübeck Autobahncompleted. Black-out drills started.
1938
1 April
Merger of Hamburg and other towns comes into being.
December
Neuengamme concentration camp is completed.
1939
July
Air-raid shelters start to be built – 108 completed by September 1942, but still only enough for 10 per cent of population.
1940
18 May
Hamburg bombed for the first time.
1943
20 April
Hamburg leaders draw up a disaster plan in case of heavy air raids.
27 May
Sir Arthur Harris unveils plans to destroy Hamburg.
19/20 June
Hamburg defences carry out rehearsal for their disaster plan in Altona. Their worst-case scenario involves some 3,000 dead, 1,000 wounded and 110,000 homeless.
25 June
USAAF fly on Hamburg for the first time.
They fail to reach the city, and lose eighteen planes.
6–12 July
A week of consultation by Hamburg’s leaders over the city’s disaster plan, concluding in another rehearsal.
27 July
Firestorm (see Appendix C).
August
Goering, Goebbels, Frick and others visit the stricken city, but Hitler refuses to come.
1944
end
Anti-tank obstacles erected in streets, and territorial army of old men and adolescents called up.
1945
29 April
Commanding officer Brigadier-General Alwin Wolz establishes contact with British troops outside Hamburg.
3 May
Wolz signs unconditional surrender. British troops enter the city.
1946–7
winter
Severe and sustained freeze sees temperatures drop to –28°C. Famine in the city.
1949
Hamburg becomes a federal state in Federal Republic of Germany.
1962
Storm causes flooding, which ruins old town and kills 300 people.
1993
24 July
Student protesters interrupt the fiftieth anniversary commemoration of the Firestorm, proclaiming ‘there is nothing to mourn’.