LÜBECK 
History

History   I   Sightseeing   I   Practical   I  Hotels in Lübeck

The history of Lübeck goes back to around the year 1000 A.D., when the Wends established "Liubice" as a royal seat and trading center. In 1143 Count Adolf II of Schauenburg built a settlement of Christian merchants between the Trave and the Wakenitz Rivers and borrowed the old name "Liubice" from the older and meanwhile destroyed settlement. The city of Luebeck was born. After a devastating fire the Saxon King, Henry the Lion established Luebeck for a second time. From 1159 Luebeck was booming. A pulsating center of trade developed which in its effect could only be compared with its counterpart of Venice. At breathtaking speed, Luebeck became the most powerful economic center of Northern Europe.

In 1173 Henry the Lion laid the cornerstone of the largest brick structure of the North, the Cathedral (Dom zu Luebeck). The churches St. Mary and St. Peter (Marienkirche und Petrikirche) also got their start during the same year. Henry the Lion indeed made even more of a mark on the city since under his leadership the layout of the Old Town of Luebeck was designed and it remains even to this day almost completely unchanged. Whoever goes through Luebeck's Old Town is truly walking on historic ground.
Another big name which is perhaps even more important for the history of this city is Emperor Friedrich II. It was he who in 1226 granted Luebeck its almost unique freedom and independence - its status as a free imperial city. This meant that the city and its citizens were not subjects of a duke, count or bishop, but only of the emperor himself. This free area continued for 711 years.

At the end of the 13th century a powerful alliance of cities, the Hanseatic League, has developed from a merchant's union with Luebeck taking on the leadership position of the Hanseatic Council. Despite the power that she wielded, Luebeck, the queen of the Hanseatic League, was never a war-like city. The latin phrase on the 1478 completed Holsten Gate reads, "Concordia Domi Foris Pax": Harmony within, peace without, which was the prerequisite for the functional community and the undisrupted free trade which Luebeck enjoyed.

Important artists and writers were born here – the poet Emanuel Geibel, the Nazarene painter Friedrich Overbeck and, not least of all, the brothers Heinrich and Thomas Mann. Furthermore, famous Baroque musician Dietrich Buxtehude was organist at St. Mary's Church here some 40 years. The great Johann Sebastian Bach was his pupil for several months.

Five major churches with a total of seven tall spires dominate the city's unmistakable skyline. Lübeck's best-known landmark, however, is the Holstentor city gate, built 1464-78. Witnesses to Lübeck's golden days are found at every step in the Old Quarter. Well worth seeing is the 13th-centuryHospital of the Holy Ghost, one of Europe's oldest social welfare institutions.

The Old Town, though partially destroyed during the war, is still an architectural museum of the middle ages, and has just been elected "UNESCO World Heritage Site".