On the evening of April 1, 1937, Rudolf Hess, the "Führer's" deputy, stepped onto the balcony of Hamburg City Hall, on which an oversized swastika flag was hanging. 30,000 people have marched on Adolf-Hitler-Platz, which shines in the glow of their torches. Then Hess announces:"What has necessarily belonged together for a long time has been brought together:Greater Hamburg has become a reality!"
Hitler wants a strong metropolis on the Elbe
A stroke of the pen from Hitler was enough to legislate the Prussian cities of Altona, Wandsbek and Harburg-Wilhelmsburg to the Hanseatic city, almost doubling Hamburg's national territory and increasing the population by 500,000 to 1.7 million.
Sandwiched between neighboring cities, Hamburg has been demanding this expansion of its borders for decades. However, a reorganization such as that which took place in Berlin or the Ruhr area in 1920 has not yet taken place. Because the Prussian cities mostly resisted the forced unification at their own expense, instead pushing for the expansion of independence.
The cities have been cooperating for a long time
A stone in the pavement in St. Pauli reminds of the former border between Altona and Hamburg.At the same time, they rely on cooperation, for example in the port industry or in local transport:the tram has been running from the Berliner Tor in Hamburg to the Altona district of Ottensen for a long time. And the residents of the four cities have always known how to take advantage of the close proximity:Wandsbek merchants do their business on the Hamburg Stock Exchange, the Altonaer Parks on the Elbe are a popular destination for Hanseatic residents, and painters, poets, musicians and actors party together the famous Hamburg artist festival.
But now the National Socialists are planning to arm themselves for the war. And for that they need a powerful economic metropolis on the Elbe, the combination of the commercial city of Hamburg with the surrounding Prussian industrial cities - regardless of historical development.
Goering plans for the war
With the words "Altona, that's nonsense, we shouldn't think about that anymore" years earlier, Hitler allegedly swept aside the restriction of the gigantic development on the banks of the Elbe to the city limits of Hamburg. Now Hermann Göring, his representative for the four-year plan preparing for the war, completes the unification to become the "capital of German shipping" and the second largest city in the Reich.
In the Eimsbütteler Chaussee, the border used to run right through the pedestrian path. Today a marker shows exactly where.From now on, a third of the German fishing industry, a quarter of the shipyards and a fifth of the mineral oil industry are concentrated in Großhamburg. Soon, tens of thousands of workers were also producing in the factories for rearmament, such as warships, tank parts, howitzers, bombs, pistols and ammunition. The first heavy cruiser in the German Navy, the "Admiral Hipper", was launched at Blohm + Voss in winter.
Reorganization affects all of Northern Germany
However, the reorganization not only affected the Hamburg economic area, but large parts of northern Germany, primarily to compensate for Prussia's severe losses. Lübeck loses its more than 700 years of state independence. It is dissolved as a state and added to the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein. The Hamburg city of Geesthacht and Oldenburg's Eutin also go to Prussia.
In what is now Lower Saxony, what was then Prussian Wilhelmshaven was united with neighboring Rüstringen and incorporated into the state of Oldenburg. The Ritzebüttel district at the mouth of the Elbe with the city of Cuxhaven and the islands of Neuwerk and Scharhoern, part of Hamburg since 1394, is transferred to the state of Prussia. Small areas were even exchanged between Mecklenburg and Prussia. In addition, 27 surrounding communities from the districts of Pinneberg, Stormarn, Stade, Harburg and the Duchy of Lauenburg Hamburg will be affiliated.
Criticism in the Hamburg area
Especially in the Hamburg area, the demarcation, which came about after brief negotiations between the Gauleiters involved, which were not guided by urban planning expertise, happened more or less by chance. And while the people of Hamburg celebrate, there are also critical voices in the incorporated areas, especially in Harburg and Stormarn.
The alternation of the paving stones in the Ophagen street shows where Altona once ended and Hamburg began.The social and cultural historian Prof. Dr. Norbert Fischer, who researched the historical development of the metropolitan region on the Elbe, speaks of a one-sided objective in favor of Hamburg:"The district of Stormarn, for example, was just as little involved in the preparation of the law as the other affected surrounding areas. It lost half of its residents and most of its commercial-industrial developed areas - such as Billstedt, Bramfeld and Lohbrügge."
Greater Hamburg still exists
Nevertheless, after 1945 there was no revision of the NS law. Lübeck fails to restore its autonomy in 1956 before the Federal Constitutional Court. In Hamburg, the British occupying power actually wants to remove the city connection again in order to weaken the strong economic area. But the Senate, which will soon be headed by the former mayor of Altona, Max Brauer, successfully opposes the plans. Because the advantages of the unification - such as the streamlined administration, concentrated trade tax revenue, uniform economic policy - outweigh the urgently needed reconstruction of the destroyed city. They have proven themselves to this day.
In many places, however, the residents have retained a special consciousness for decades, for example in the former Oldenburg town of Eutin, but also in Harburg and Altona, where initiatives with separatist goals come up every now and then and older citizens still say "I'm going to Hamburg" when they go to the Jungfernstieg want.