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Stade (; ), officially the Hanseatic City of Stade (, ) is a city in Lower Saxony in northern Germany. First mentioned in records in 934, it is the seat of the district (Landkreis) which bears its name. It is located roughly to the west of Hamburg and belongs to that city's wider metropolitan region. Within the area of the city are the urban districts of Bützfleth, Hagen, Haddorf and Wiepenkathen, each of which have a council (Ortsrat) of their own with some autonomous decision-making rights.
Stade is located in the Niederelbe of the river Elbe. It is also on the German Timber-Frame Road.
Sweden and Danes under Eric the Victorious conquered Stade and looted the town during the 990s. Many prominent Saxons were taken back as slaves by Swedish troops. A majority of Vikings withdrew after taking plenty of plunder. A minor part of the Swedish and Danish forces stayed but were later defeated by reinforcements sent by the emperor. Adam av Bremen (1984) pp. 87–8 (Book II, Chapters 31-32).
Since 1180 Stade belonged to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. In early 1208 King Valdemar II of Denmark and his troops conquered Stade. In August Valdemar II's cousin being in enmity with the king, the then Prince-Archbishop Valdemar reconquered the city only to lose it soon after again to Valdemar II.Adolf Hofmeister, "Der Kampf um das Erbe des Stader Grafen zwischen den Welfen und der Bremer Kirche (1144–1236)", In: Geschichte des Landes zwischen Elbe und Weser: 3 vols., Hans-Eckhard Dannenberg and Heinz-Joachim Schulze (eds.) on behalf of the Landschaftsverband der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, Stade: Landschaftsverband der ehem. Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, 1995 and 2008, (Schriftenreihe des Landschaftsverbandes der ehem. Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden; No. 7), vol. II: Mittelalter (1995), pp. 105–157, here p. 123. In 1209 Emperor Otto IV persuaded his ally Valdemar II to withdraw into the north of the Elbe, and the deposed Prince-Archbishop Valdemar took Stade.
On 2 May 1209 Otto IV granted important town privileges (Stadtrecht) to Stade. Otto IV confirmed the bourgeoisie to be personally free and recognised them constituting a political entity of their own law, the burgenses and optimi cives of Stade.Jürgen Bohmbach, "Der werdende Territorialstaat der Erzbischöfe von Bremen (1236–1511): III. Die Städte im Erzstift Bremen", In: Geschichte des Landes zwischen Elbe und Weser: 3 vols., Hans-Eckhard Dannenberg and Heinz-Joachim Schulze (eds.) on behalf of the Landschaftsverband der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, Stade: Landschaftsverband der ehem. Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden, 1995 and 2008, (Schriftenreihe des Landschaftsverbandes der ehem. Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden; No. 7), vol. II: Mittelalter (1995), pp. 241–262, here p. 249. Property within the municipal boundaries could not be subjected to feudal overlordship and was to be freely inherited without feudal claims to reversion. Fair juridical procedures were constituted and maximal fines fixed. Otto IV obliged himself to prevent burghers from being taken as hostages and to liberate captured burghers.
After Otto IV had changed his mind and reinvested Prince-Archbishop Valdemar with the Episcopal see in 1211, Valdemar II recaptured Stade. In 1213 Otto's elder brother Count Palatine Henry V of the Rhine, reconquered Stade for the Prince-Archbishop. In 1215 Henry repelled another Danish attack on Stade. In the winter of 1216 Valdemar II and his Danish troops, unable to take the city of Stade, ravaged the County of Stade. From then on Stade remained a part of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen.
In medieval times (from the 13th century to the late 17th century), Stade was a prominent member of the Hanseatic League, but was later eclipsed by Hamburg. In 1611 the city signed a contract with Sephardim Jews, allowing the foundation of a community. In 1613, Johann Friedrich, Administrator of the Prince-Archbishopric, followed by settling Ashkenazim Jews in the city, but during the turmoil of Catholic conquest and Lutheran reconquest the last archival traces of Jews date from 1630. In 1648, by the Treaty of Westphalia, the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen underwent a constitutional transformation from a prince-bishopric into a monarchy, the Duchy of Bremen. The duchy and the neighbouring Principality of Verden, colloquially referred to as Bremen-Verden, were granted by the Treaty of Westphalia as an appanage to the Swedish crown. Stade, already under Swedish occupation since 1645, was a part of the Sweden province of Bremen-Verden-Wildeshausen from 1645 to 1712, and some of the buildings built by the Swedes are still in use today.
From 1675 to 1676, in the Swedish-Brandenburg War, Swedish Stade was conquered during a campaign by Denmark-Norway and several states of the Holy Roman Empire and remained in allied hands until the end of that war in 1679. Stade, as the headquarters of the Swedish Stadhalter, was besieged from early April 1676 to 13 Aug 1676. In the wake of the Treaty of Saint Germain in 1679, Stade was once again awarded to Sweden.
The Elbe customs station near Stade, in Brunshausen at the mouth of the Schwinge, played special role in trading on the River Elbe from the period of the archbishopric. In 1663, the Swedes stationed an Elbe customs frigate as a permanent patrol ship. This arrangement continued to exist under various rulers until 1850 and the customs station on the Schwinge fieldworks itself existed until 1865.Richard Graewe: Die zweihundertjährige Geschichte der Elb-Zoll-Fregatte zu Brunshausen und ihrer Kommandanten 1650–1850. Selbstverlag des Stader Geschichts- und Heimatvereins, Stade 1963
Swedish sovereignty ended in 1712. Danish troops besieged the town in the Great Northern War and shelled it from 29 August to 7 September 1712 that destroyed 152 houses, a quarter of the built-up area.
During the Swedish times Stade was the capital of the province.
In 1355 and in 1712, Stade suffered from the Black Death epidemic, which killed at least 30–40% of the city's population.
By the end of the 17th century Ashkenazi Jews reappeared in Stade. In 1842 the Kingdom of Hanover granted equal rights to Jews and promoted building up Jewish congregations and a regional superstructure () within a nationwide scope. The Jews in Stade regarded this as progress and a burden alike, because prior they had not employed any rabbi and religion teacher due to the implied financial burden. In 1845 – according to the new law – a land-rabbinate, under Land-Rabbi Joseph Heilbut, was established in the city, serving 16 Jewish congregations, which were founded over the years in the whole Stade Region, with altogether 1,250 Jews in 1864 (highest number ever reached). The local authorities now requested, that the Jewish congregations establish synagogues and Jewish education for the pupils.
In 1849 Stade's synagogue opened, but had to close due to financial restrictions in 1908. And a teacher for Judaism and Hebrew was employed (after 1890 Stade's community couldn't afford a teacher any more). From 1903 on the Jewish community of Stade was granted public subsidies to continue functioning. The Stade Region stayed a Jewish diaspora, and from 1860 on Stade's land-rabbinate was never staffed again, but served alternately by one of the other three Hanoverian land-rabbinates. Labour migration and emigrationAbout a third of the Jews emigrated in the 19th century to the USA. Cf. Jürgen Bohmbach, Sie lebten mit uns: Juden im Landkreis Stade vom 18. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, Stade: city of Stade, 2001, (Veröffentlichungen aus dem Stadtarchiv Stade; vol. 21), p. 4. to urban centres outside the Stade Region and Jewish demography rather lead to a reduction of the number of Jews in the Stade Region (786 in 1913, 716 in 1928).Albert Marx, Geschichte der Juden in Niedersachsen, Hanover: Fackelträger-Verlag, 1995, p. 144 and Jürgen Bohmbach, Sie lebten mit uns: Juden im Landkreis Stade vom 18. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, Stade: city of Stade, 2001, (Veröffentlichungen aus dem Stadtarchiv Stade; vol. 21), p. 4. However, most of the remaining Jews were deported during the Nazi reign. During World War II, Stade remained completely untouched by Allied bombings.
In past decades, Stade has economically benefited significantly from the presence of chemical and aerospace industry at the Elbe river, most notably Dow Chemical and Airbus. Also by the Elbe at Stade is the decommissioned Stade Nuclear Power Plant, which was connected to the power grid from 1972 to 2003. By the time the plant was brought offline, it was Germany's second oldest reactor. Following Germany's 2002 decision to phase out nuclear power generation, Stade was the first German plant to be affected; it was closed down permanently on 14 November 2003. Close to the former nuclear plant there is an inactive oil-fired power station, the Schilling Power Station.
Located near to Stade are the gigantic pylons of Elbe Crossing 1 and Elbe Crossing 2; the Elbe Crossing 2 pylons are the tallest in Europe and the sixth-tallest in the world.
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