The area around Lübeck was settled after the last Ice Age. Several
Neolithic dolmens can be found in the area.
Around AD 700
Slavic peoples started coming into the eastern parts of Holstein which had previously been settled by
Germanic inhabitants and were then evacuated in the course of the
Migration Period. In the early 9th century
Charlemagne, whose attempts to
Christianise the area were opposed by the
Saxons, moved the Saxons out and brought in
Polabian Slavs, allied to Charlemagne, in their stead.
Liubice ("lovely") was founded on the banks of the river Trave about four kilometres north of the present-day city centre of Lübeck. In the 10th century it became the most important settlement of the
Obotrite confederacy and a castle was built. The settlement was burned down in 1128 by the pagan
Rani from
Rügen.
The modern town was founded by
Adolf II, Count of Schauenburg and Holstein, in 1143 as a German settlement on the river island
Bucu. He established a new castle which was first mentioned by
Helmold in 1147. Adolf had to cede the castle to
Henry the Lion in 1158. After Henry's fall from power in 1181, the town became an
Imperial city for eight years.
[citation needed] Emperor
Barbarossa ordained that the city should have a ruling council of twenty members. Being dominated by merchants, it meant Lübeck's politics were dominated by trade interests for centuries to come. The council survived into the 19th century.
Around 1200 the port became the main point of departure for colonists leaving for the Baltic territories conquered by the
Livonian Order and, later,
Teutonic Order. In 1226 Emperor
Frederick II elevated the town to the status of an
Imperial Free City, by which it became the
Free City of Lübeck. In the 14th century Lübeck became the "Queen of the
Hanseatic League", being by far the largest and most powerful member of this mediaeval trade organization. In 1375, Emperor
Charles IV named Lübeck one of the five "Glories of the Empire", a title shared with
Venice,
Rome,
Pisa and
Florence. Several conflicts about trade privileges were fought by Lübeck and the Hanseatic League against Denmark and Norway with varying outcomes. While Lübeck and the
Hanseatic League prevailed in conflicts in 1435 and 1512, Lübeck lost when it became involved in the
Count's Feud, a civil war that raged in Denmark from 1534 to 1536. Lübeck also joined the
Schmalkaldic League.
After its defeat in the
Count's Feud, Lübeck's power slowly declined. The city managed to remain neutral in the
Thirty Years' War, but with the devastation caused by the decades-long war and the new transatlantic orientation of European trade, the Hanseatic League and thus Lübeck lost importance. However, after the Hanseatic League was de facto disbanded in 1669, Lübeck still remained an important trading town on the Baltic Sea.
The great Danish-German composer
Dieterich Buxtehude (born in what is present-day Sweden) became organist at the
Marienkirche in Lübeck in 1668 and remained at the post until at least 1703.
In 1937 the
Nazis passed the so-called
Greater Hamburg Act, whereby the nearby
Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg was expanded, to encompass towns that had formally belonged to the
Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein. To compensate Prussia for these losses (and partly because Hitler had a personal dislike for Lübeck after it had refused to allow him to campaign there in 1932
[3]), the 711-year-long independence of Lübeck came to an end and almost all its territory was incorporated into Schleswig-Holstein.
Lübeck in 1641
During
World War II, Lübeck was the first German city to be attacked in substantial numbers by the
Royal Air Force. The attack on 28 March 1942 created a
firestorm, that caused severe damage to the historic centre and the
Bombing of Lübeck in World War II destroyed three of the main churches and greater parts of the built-up area. A
POW camp for officers,
Oflag X-C, was located near the city from 1940 until April 1945. Lübeck was occupied without resistance by the British
Second Army on 2 May 1945.
On 3 May 1945, one of the biggest disasters in naval history occurred in the
Bay of Lübeck when RAF bombers sank three ships - the
SS Cap Arcona, the
SS Deutschland, and the
SS Thielbek - which, unknown to them, were packed with concentration-camp inmates. About 7,000 people were killed.
Lübeck's population grew considerably from about 150,000 in 1939 to more than 220,000 after the war, owing to an influx of refugees expelled from the
former Eastern provinces of Germany.
Lübeck remained part of Schleswig-Holstein after the war (and consequently lay within
West Germany) and was situated directly on the
inner German border during the division of Germany into two states in the
Cold War period. South of the city the border followed the path of the river Wakenitz that separated both countries by less than 10 m (32.81 ft) in many parts. The northernmost border crossing was in Lübeck's district of Schlutup. Lübeck's restored historic city centre became a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
Lübeck was the scene of a notable art scandal in the 1950s.
Lothar Malskat was hired to restore the medieval
frescoes of the cathedral of the Marienkirche in Lübeck, which were discovered inside the walls after the cathedral had been badly damaged during World War II. Instead he painted new works which were passed off as restorations, fooling many experts. The West German government printed 2 million postage stamps depicting the frescoes. Among Malskat's additions were
wild turkeys, unknown in Europe during the Middle Ages. Some experts considered this evidence for the early
discovery of America by the
Vikings. Malskat later exposed the deception himself. The incident plays a prominent role in
Günter Grass's novel
The Rat.
On the night of January, 18th 1996 a fire broke out in a home for foreign refugees, killing 10 people and severely injuring more than 30 others, mostly children. While most of the shelter's inhabitants considered a racist motivation for the attack obvious, the police and the local court have been accused of having ruled out racism as a possible motive before even beginning preliminary investigations. The incident has not been elucidated to this day.
