Oranienburg
Oranienburg (ōrä'nyənbʊrkh), city (1994 pop. 28,320), Brandenburg, NE Germany, on the Havel River. It is a center of a fruit-growing region. Manufactures include chemicals and steel products. Oranienburg was the site of one of the earliest concentration camps (est. 1933) set up by the National Socialist (Nazi) regime.
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Concentration Camp located near Berlin, in the Potsdam district of Germany. Oranienburg was one of the first camps to be instituted by the Nazis. The first group of prisoners arrived at the camp on March 31, 1933, less than three months after the Nazis rose to national power in Germany. This transport was made up of 40 Communists and Social Democrats.
Just a few weeks after Oranienburg had been set up, the camp commandant, an officer in the SA, submitted his command to the Potsdam chief of Police, who agreed to take responsibility for the camp's costs. Soon, the number of prisoners began to rise, and by August 1933 there were 900 people interned at the camp. This made Oranienburg one of the three largest concentration camps in Germany, besides Dachau and Esterwegen.
Oranienburg quickly became infamous as a camp where the prisoners were treated very harshly. Because of that stinging reputation, and because the facility was rather limited in size, Hermann Goering (at that time Prussian Minister of the Interior) decided to close down the camp. During the summer of 1933 Goering and the chief of the Gestapo at that time, Rudolf Diels, concluded that the facilities set aside for political prisoners were too disorganized, and that they should be replaced with a few large camps that would be controlled by the government. In November 1933 some 300 prisoners from Oranienburg were moved to camps at Sonnenberg, Brandenburg, Moringen, and at other locations within the Reich.
On June 30, 1934 many SA men, including SA leader Ernst Rohm, were murdered by the SS in a massacre called the "Night of the Long Knives." At that point, the SS took over the administration of Oranienburg, and Goering stepped up his efforts to shut the camp down. That September, he ordered that the camp should only be used in a case of overflow from other camps. The last report about the camp was issued in March 1935.
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Oranienburg
| Oranienburg | |
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 Oranienburg
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Location of the town of Oranienburg within Oberhavel district
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| Coordinates | 52°45′16″N 13°14′13″E / 52.75444°N 13.23694°ECoordinates: 52°45′16″N 13°14′13″E / 52.75444°N 13.23694°E |
| Administration | |
| Country | Germany |
| State | Brandenburg |
| District | Oberhavel |
| Town subdivisions | 9 districts |
| Mayor | Hans-Joachim Laesicke (SPD) |
| Basic statistics | |
| Area | 162.37 km2 (62.69 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 34 m (112 ft) |
| Population | 41,810 (31 December 2010)[1] |
| - Density | 257 /km2 (667 /sq mi) |
| Other information | |
| Time zone | CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) |
| Licence plate | OHV |
| Postal code | 16515 |
| Area code | 03301 |
| Website | www.oranienburg.de |
Oranienburg is a town in Brandenburg, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Oberhavel.
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Geography
Oranienburg is a town located on the banks of the Havel river, 35 km north of the centre of Berlin.
Division of the town
Oranienburg consists of 9 districts
- Friedrichsthal
- Germendorf
- Lehnitz
- Malz
- Oranienburg
- Sachsenhausen
- Schmachtenhagen
- Wensickendorf
- Zehlendorf
History
The original name of Oranienburg was Bötzow. The town was founded in the 12th century and was first mentioned in 1216. Albert the Bear is believed to have ordered the construction of a castle on the banks of the Havel. Around the castle there was a settlement of traders and craftsmen.
In 1646, Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg married Louise Henriette of Orange-Nassau (German: Oranien-Nassau). She was so attracted by the town of Bötzow, that her husband presented the entire region to her. The princess ordered a new castle to be built in the Dutch style and called it Oranienburg or Schloss Oranienburg. In 1653, the town of Bötzow was renamed Oranienburg.
One of the first Nazi concentration camps was built in Oranienburg in 1933. In 1935 it was replaced by the Sachsenhausen concentration camp which continued to operate until the end of the Nazi regime; 100,000 people were killed in Sachsenhausen before the liberation of the camp by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.
Oranienburg was also the center of Nazi Germany's nuclear energy project and according to military historian Antony Beevor, the launching of the Battle for Berlin by Stalin was motivated by his desire to acquire that facility.[2] It has also been claimed that the preemptive destruction of these facilities by the USAAF Eighth Air Force on March 15, 1945, was done so as to prevent it from falling into Soviet hands.[3]
International relations
Main article: List of twin towns and sister cities in Germany
Oranienburg is twinned with:
Bagnolet (France) -- since 1964
Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) -- since 1990
Mělník (Czech Republic) -- since 1974
Vught (Netherlands) -- since 2000- Friedrichsthal (Saarland, Germany) -- since 1991
Public institutions
The Zehlendorf transmission facility, a large facility for broadcasting in longwave, medium wave and FM-range, is located near Oranienburg, at Zehlendorf.
See also
Footnotes
- ^ "Bevölkerung im Land Brandenburg am am 30. Dezember 2010 nach amtsfreien Gemeinden, Ämtern und Gemeinden. Gebietsstand: 31.12.2010" (in German). Amt für Statistik Berlin-Brandenburg. 31 December 2010. http://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de//Publikationen/OTab/2011/OT_A01-04-00_124_201012_BB.pdf.
- ^ Antony Beevor Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5 Preface xxxiv
- ^ Richard G. Davis,Bombing the European Axis Powers. A Historical Digest of the Combined Bomber Offensive 1939–1945 Alabama: Air University Press, 2006, page 518
External links
Media related to Oranienburg at Wikimedia Commons
- Official site (German)
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