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Itzehoe (; ) is a town in Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany.
As the capital of the district Steinburg, Itzehoe is located on the Stör, a navigable tributary of the Elbe, 51 km (31.7 mi) northwest of Hamburg and 24 km (14.9 mi) north of Glückstadt. The population is about 32,530.
/ref> The town of Itzehoe (‘Opidium Ekeho’) was first mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus in 1196. Later it was mentioned again as ‘de Ezeho’. The meaning of the name is still disputed today. The component -hoe seems most likely to describe an elevation or raised river bend and to be related to the -Hoo, -ho or -hoe names found in England (‘Sutton Hoo’, ‘Ivinghoe'). The first part, ‘Etze-’, ‘Eche-’ or “Itze-”, is associated either with a pasture or the Old Saxon word for ‘oak’.
As part of the Duchy of Holstein, Itzehoe remained under the rule of the Danish crown from 1460 until 1864.
In the 16th century, the proximity to Breitenburg, the ancestral seat of the Rantzau family, who were the governors of the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein on behalf of the Danish king, was particularly beneficial. Heinrich Rantzau, in particular, expanded the economic infrastructure of the surrounding area and promoted the Itzehoe monastery. He also built a city palace on Breiten Straße, which no longer exists today, and expanded the Rantzau family's burial grounds in the church. He also initiated the installation of the first organ in St. Laurentii Church and the promotion of church music. The first depiction and written description of the city in Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg's map collection was commissioned directly by Heinrich Rantzau.
During the Thirty Years' War, the town was repeatedly occupied and plundered, but there was no major destruction because the town council surrendered the town to General Wallenstein without a fight in 1627. This allowed Itzehoe to maintain its status as the fifth of the eighteen towns of Schleswig-Holstein.
After having been largely spared from war for a long time, Itzehoe was almost completely destroyed by Swedish soldiers in 1657 during the Danish-Swedish War (1657–1658). As a result, the cloister of St. Laurentii Church is now the only surviving medieval building in Itzehoe.
In 1712, the bubonic plague, which had been brought in from East Prussia and Poland, broke out in Itzehoe. The disease claimed the lives of 250 inhabitants (around 7% of the population of 3,500 at that time).
Itzehoe was only indirectly affected by the Napoleonic Wars through transit and quartering as well as financial burdens. From 1807, Itzehoe briefly became the residence of Elector Wilhelm I of Hesse-Kassel, who had fled into exile from Napoleon.
From the first two decades of the 19th century onwards, a lively cultural life developed in Itzehoe. This was further promoted by the presence of Danish nobility in the administration and military. From the 1810s onwards, the first Literary society and Choir were founded. At the same time, several printing houses were established and, in 1817, the Itzehoer Wochenblatt, the town's first newspaper, was launched, which soon became important beyond the region. Before the Schleswig-Holstein uprising, in which a large part of the citizens of Itzehoe took sides with the pro-German Schleswig-Holstein movement, the Holstein Assembly of Estates met in Itzehoe from 1835 to 1848 and again from 1852 to 1863, thus establishing the history of parliamentarianism in Schleswig-Holstein.
After the German-Danish War of 1864, the Duchy of Holstein was initially administered jointly by Prussia and Austrian Empire, ending over 400 years of Danish rule. The new governor Ludwig Karl Wilhelm von Gablenz finally convened the Holstein Assembly of Estates for the last time on 11 June 1866. However, a conference was prevented by the events surrounding the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. After the end of this war, the Duchy of Holstein, including Itzehoe, fell to Prussia: in 1867, together with the Duchy of Schleswig, the province of Schleswig-Holstein was created.
The railway connection (1847) and the link to the new road from Hamburg to Rendsburg (1846) ushered in the industrial age in Itzehoe, with many commercial and industrial enterprises (including sugar production, weaving, chemical industry and shipbuilding) settled in and around Itzehoe, helping the town regain its economic importance.
Itzehoe was listed as a garrison depot (Wehrkreis X (Hamburg)) of the former 225th Infantry Division, which was implicated in the 1940 Vinkt Massacre in Belgium.
Following the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, it was the location of the Oflag X-A prisoner-of-war camp for Polish people officers, which was eventually relocated to Sandbostel in 1941. (2026). 9780253060891, Indiana University Press, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. ISBN 9780253060891 During the war, Itzehoe was not initially a primary target for the Allied strategic bombing campaign, but was hit by an Allied bombing raid very late in the war, when Allied carpet bombing on 2 May 1945 (just two days before the German surrender at Lüneburg Heath) caused 22 fatalities in the city.
Until it was filled in with around 110,000 m3 of sand in 1974, a bend in the River Stör had a decisive influence on the appearance of Itzehoe town centre. The bend was the original course of the river. The Stör crossing ( Low German ‘Delf’, from which the names “Delftor” and “Delftorbrücke” of the town exit and the Störbrücke bridge originate) turned Itzehoe's castle complex into an island. There are said to have been sluices in the delta that closed when the water ran out, forcing the water to flow through and clean the bend. After their removal, the river increasingly silted up and developed into an almost stagnant, foul-smelling body of water. The old town centre, the ‘Neustadt’ (new town), could only be reached via bridges. In the course of the redevelopment of the ‘Neustadt’, during which almost all the houses on this former island were demolished and replaced by new buildings and new streets were laid out, this element that characterised the town became extinct.Vgl. Dagmar Vorbeck, in: Stadt Itzehoe (Hrsg.): Itzehoe. Geschichte einer Stadt in Schleswig-Holstein. Bd. II, S. 390. Only a few artificially created water basins between the new theatre and Salzstraße are reminders of the original course of the loop.
In order to improve the cityscape again, an initiative was launched in 2011 with the aim of promoting the reopening of the filled-in Störschleife in the centre of Itzehoe. In 2017, the entire city centre was declared a redevelopment area. The restoration of the Störschleife was explicitly named as a goal. On 26 September 2021, the residents of Itzehoe voted by 7707 votes in favour of restoring the Stör bend. Concrete plans for implementation have been underway since August 2022. In February 2023, the winning design was to be presented by one of nine planning teams.
In the 1990s, the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology ISIT was established on the northern edge of Itzehoe. Many chip research and high-tech companies have since settled around this institute on the InnoQuarter Itzehoe industrial estate. As a result, Itzehoe is increasingly developing into a centre of high technology in northern Germany.
Itzehoe Westerhof April-2009 SL270958.JPG|Former Court Building Itzehoe
Kreishaus IMG 2172.JPG|County House Steinburg
Itzehoe, Germany - Altes Rathaus.jpg|Historic Town Hall
Itzehoe, Germany Den Opfern des Nationalsozialismus 2.jpg|Memorial to the Victims of National Socialism
Itzehoe Delftorbrücke July-2009 SL273176.JPG|Delftor Bridge crossing the river Stör
Itzehoe, Germany - Laurentii-Kirche.jpg|St. Laurentii Church
Itzehoe St Jürgen-Kapelle IMG 3548.JPG|Chappel of St.-Jürgen
Itzehoe Reichenstrasse 41 IMG 3334.JPG|'Altes Pastorat'
Itzehoe Probstenhaus IMG 2285.JPG|'Probstenhaus' (Provost's office)
Itzehoe, Germany - Haeuserzeile am Markt.jpg|Houses at the market sqare
Itzehoe Kirchenstrasse 5 IMG 4367.JPG|Altes Katasteramt (former Land Registry Office)
Altes Postamt IMG 2199.JPG|Former Post Office
Haus der Heimat IMG 1934.JPG|'Haus der Heimat' Museum
Itzehoe Breite Straße 2 IMG 3250.JPG|Half-timbered house in the city centre
Itzehoe, Klosterhof, Panorama IMG 1971.JPG|Monastery courtyard
Itzehoe, Germany - Wenzel Hablik Museum-3.jpg|Wenzel Hablik Museum
Itzehoe, Germany - theater itzehoe.jpg|theater itzehoe
Itzehoe is also the location of the Wenzel Hablik Museum which is dedicated to the work of the utopian and expressionist artist architect Wenzel Hablik, who settled in Itzehoe in 1907, where he pursued architectural and interior design projects. Hablik produced designs for furniture, textiles, tapestries, jewellery, cutlery and wallpaper. In 1917, he married the German weaver and textile designer Elisabeth Lindemann (1879-1960). They shared a workshop and a studio in Itzehoe.
During the period up to and including the Wacken Open Air festival many festival goers depart for the festival from Itzehoe using the 'Metal Shuttle Bus’, which leaves from near Itzehoe station. During this time the town can become very overcrowded and inundated with traffic.
/ref> The Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology (ISIT) and the Society for Technology Promotion Itzehoe mbH (IZET Innovation Centre Itzehoe) are among the most important economic factors in the entire region. As a result, a number of well-known high-tech companies in the fields of computer chip and battery cell manufacturing and renewable energies have settled in Itzehoe, mainly in the ‘InnoQuarter’ industrial park around the ISIT. These include the companies Vishay, Prokon and CustomCells.
In 2025, an additional university chair for battery cell research was established, which is based at ISIT.
Other major companies in the city include Itzehoer Versicherungen, Pano Verschluss GmbH and the pump manufacturer Flowserve SIHI. Alliance Healthcare Deutschland (formerly Andreae-Noris Zahn / ANZAG), the cement manufacturer Holcim and plants belonging to the pharmaceutical manufacturer Pohl-Boskamp have sites near the city. The largest single employer is the Itzehoe Clinic, with approximately 3,000 employees.
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