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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’.