Honorary citizenship has been awarded in Hamburg for more than 200 years. It is the highest award that the Hanseatic City of Hamburg can bestow. An overview of previous honorary citizens.
There are no written provisions for the granting of honorary citizenship. According to the city of Hamburg, it was created during the French era and can be traced back to the French Revolution. Until 1948, honorary citizenship was only granted to non-Hamburgers - in the political sense - in order to make them "one of ours". This historical tradition was broken for the first time in 1948, when former Senator Henry Everling was awarded honorary citizenship on the occasion of his 75th birthday for his great services to the cooperative system.
Here is an overview of all the people who have received this honor so far (Adolf Hitler is not listed and Hermann Goering , who were granted honorary citizenship during the Nazi era and revoked it in 1945):
1813:Friedrich Carl Baron von Tettenborn (1778-1845), Imperial Russian Colonel for his work in restoring Hamburg's independence and liberation from Napoleon's occupation troops
1816:Prince Gebhard Leberecht Blücher von Wahlstatt (1742-1819), Royal Prussian Field Marshal a.D.
1826:Count August Otto Grote (1747-1830), Royal Prussian Privy Council
1834:J.U.Dr. James Colquhoun (1780-1855), Hanseatic Consul General in London and Stalhofmeister
1838:Georg Michael Gramlich (1795-1880), merchant, Hanseatic chargé d'affaires to the Republic of Venezuela
1843:Eduard Heinrich von Flottwell (1786-1865), Royal Prussian Real Privy Councilor and President of the Province of Saxony in Magdeburg;
1843:Conrad Daniel Graf von Blücher-Altona (1764-1845), Royal Danish Privy Councilor and Lord President of the City of Altona
1843:Heinrich Christoph Gottfried von Struve (1772-1851), Imperial Russian Privy Councilor, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Free and Hanseatic Cities
1843:Johann Smidt (1773-1857) Mayor of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen
1871:Otto Fürst von Bismarck-Schönhausen (1815-1898), German Chancellor
1871:Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke (1800-1891), Prussian general, later Royal Prussian Field Marshal
1886:Gustav Christian Schwabe (1813-1897), merchant in London, patron of the arts
1889: Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), composer
1901:Alfred Ludwig Heinrich Karl Graf von Waldersee (1832-1904), Royal Prussian Field Marshal
1917:Paul von Beneckendorff and von Hindenburg (1847-1934), Royal Prussian Field Marshal and later Reich President
1948:Henry Everling (1873-1960), former Senator D.
1950:Adolph Schönfelder (1875-1966), President of the Parliament, a.D.
1960: Max Brauer (1887-1973), President of the Senate
1971:Herbert Weichmann (1896-1983), Hamburg mayor and finance senator
1978:Herbert Dau (1911- 2000), former President of the Parliament
1983: Helmut Schmidt (1918-2015), former Federal Chancellor
1985: Ida Honor (1900-1989), actress, director
1986: Gerd Bucerius (1906-1995), politician, publicist and entrepreneur
1986:Herbert Wehner (1906-1990), member of the Bundestag in Hamburg
1991:Alfred C. Toepfer (1894-1994), businessman and founder
1991:Kurt A. Körber (1909-1992), entrepreneur and founder
1993: Rudolf Augstein (1923-2002), publisher and publicist
1999: Marion Gräfin Dönhoff (1909-2002), publisher and publicist
2001: Siegfried Lenz (1926-2014), Writer
2003: Uwe Seeler (b. 1936), football idol and first athlete to be granted this right
2005:Hannelore Greve (b. 1926) and Helmut Greve (1922-2016), entrepreneur couple, sponsor of culture, science and social projects
2007: John Neumeier (born 1942), ballet director and chief choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet
2009: Hannelore "Loki" Schmidt , (1919-2010), teacher and conservationist
2013: Michael Otto (born 1943), entrepreneur and founder
2019: Kirsten Boie (b. 1950), author of children's books