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1860s ~ Great Grandfather John Peter Petersen ~ Flensborg - Germany ~ 2007 |
| Millennium File
Birth, Marriage, & Death |
Name: |
John Peter Petersen |
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Parents: |
Nicolaj Petersen, Kristiane Augusta Petersen |
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Other: |
Christiane A. Petersen |
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City-Country: |
Flensborg - Germany |
Our Great Grandfather John Peter Petersen came to the United States around early 1860 and eventually settled on land in northern Illinois near the Wisconsin border. He started him farm and his wife, Christiane later followed him from Germany. Our Grandfather told us he didn't remember when the name was changed from Petersen to Peterson. Check out the maps and the following links for an over view of the history of the town of Flensburg.
| Middle Ages | Early modern times | History as a German town | Since the Second World War | Amalgamations | Danish minority | Politics | Coat of Arms |
In return for this great pro-German majority, the town of Flensburg was given a great event hall, the "Deutsches Haus", which was endowed by the government as "thanks for German loyalty".
Flensburg had been founded at the latest by 1200 at the innermost end of the Flensburg Fjord by Danish settlers. In 1284, its town rights were confirmed and the town quickly rose to become one of the most important in the Duchy of Schleswig. Unlike Holstein, however, Schleswig did not belong to the German Empire. Flensburg was not a member of the Hanseatic League, but it did maintain contacts with this important trading network.
Historians presume that there were several reasons for choosing this spot as a town site:
Herrings, especially kippered, were what brought about the blossoming of the town's trade in the Middle Ages. They were sent inland and to almost every European country.
On 28 October 1412, Queen Margaret I of Denmark died on board a ship in Flensburg Harbour of the Plague.
From time to time plagues such as bubonic plague, caused mainly by rat fleas (Xenopsylla cheopis – a parasite found on brown rats), "red" dysentery and other scourges killed a great deal of Flensburg's population. Lepers were strictly isolated, namely at the St.-Jürgen-Hospital (built before 1290), which lay far outside the town's gates, where the St. Jürgen Church is nowadays. About 1500, syphilis also appeared. The church hospital "Zum Heiligen Geist" ("To the Holy Ghost") stood in Große Straße, now Flensburg's pedestrian precinct.
A Flensburger's everyday life was very hard, and the old transportation routes were bad. The main streets were neither paved nor lit at night. When they got too bad, citizens had to make the dung-filled streets passable with wooden pathways. Only the few upper-class houses had windows.
In 1485, a great fire struck Flensburg. Even storm tides beset the town at times.
Cvery household in the town kept livestock in the house and the yard. Townsfolk furthermore had their own cowherds and a swineherd.
After the Hanse fell in the 16th century, Flensburg was said to be one of the most important trading towns in the Scandinavian area. Even as far away as the Mediterranean, Greenland and the Caribbean, Flensburg merchants were active. The most important commodities, after herring, were sugar and whale oil, the latter from whaling off Greenland. Only the Thirty Years' War put an end to this boom time as the town was becoming Protestant and thereby ever more German culturally and linguistically, while the neighboring countryside remained decidedly Danish.
In the 18th century, thanks to the rum trade, Flensburg had yet another boom. Cane sugar was imported from the Danish West Indies (now the US Virgin Islands) and refined in Flensburg. Only in the 19th century, as a result of industrialization, was the town at last outdone by competition from nearby cities such as Copenhagen and Hamburg.
The rum blended in Flensburg then became a secondary industry in West Indian trade, and as of 1864 no longer with the Danish West Indies, but rather with Jamaica, then ruled by the British. It was imported from there, blended, and sold all over Europe. There is nowadays only one active rum distillery in Flensburg, "A. H. Johannsen".
Between 1460 and 1864, Flensburg was, after Copenhagen, the second biggest port in the Kingdom of Denmark, but passed to Prussia after the Second War of Schleswig in 1864. There is still, however, a considerable Danish community in the town today. Some estimates put the percentage of Flensburgers who belong to it as high as 25% (other estimates put that percentage much lower). Before 1864, it was more than 70%, witnessed even today by the great number of Danish surnames in the Flensburg telephone directory (Asmussen, Claussen, Jacobsen, Jensen, Petersen, etc.). The upper classes and the learnéd at that time, however, were German, and since 1864, the German language has prevailed in the town.
In return for this great pro-German majority, the town of Flensburg was given a great event hall, the "Deutsches Haus", which was endowed by the government as "thanks for German loyalty".
During the Second World War, the town was left almost unscathed by the raids that laid other German cities waste. However, in 1943, 20 children died when their nursery school was bombarded, and shortly after the war ended, an explosion at a local munitions storage site claimed many victims.
In 1945, Admiral Karl Dönitz, who was briefly President of Germany once Adolf Hitler had appointed him his successor and then killed himself, fled to Flensburg with what was left of his government where they were arrested and unseated at the Navy School in Mürwik by British troops. Flensburg was thereby, for a few weeks, the seat of the last Reich government, and also Germany's capital.
After the Second World War, the town's population broke the 100,000 mark for a short time, thereby making Flensburg a city (Großstadt) under one traditional definition. The population later sank below that mark, however.
In the years after the Second World War, there was in South Schleswig, and particularly in Flensburg a strong pro-Danish movement connected with the idea of the "Eider Danes". Their goal was for the town, and indeed all of Schleswig – the whole area north of the river Eider – to be united with Denmark. In the years following 1945, Flensburg's town council was dominated by Danish parties, and the town had a Danish mayor.
The town of Flensburg profited from the planned location of military installations. Since German Reunification, the number of soldiers has dropped to about 8,000. Since Denmark's entry into the European Economic Community (now the European Union), border trade has played an important role in Flensburg's economic life. Some Danish businesses, such as Danfoss, have set up shop just south of the border for tax reasons.
In 1970, Flensburg district was expanded to include the municipalities in the Amt of Medelby, formerly in Südtondern district, and in 1974 it was united with Schleswig district to form the district of Schleswig-Flensburg, whose district seat was the town of Schleswig. Flensburg thereby lost its function as a district seat, but it remained an independent (district-free) town.
Until the middle of the 19th century Flensburg's municipal area comprised a total area of 2 639 ha. Beginning in 1874, however, many of the communities or rural areas (Gemarkungen) were annexed to the town of Flensburg.
The Danish minority in Flensburg and the surrounding towns run their own schools, libraries and Lutheran churches from which the German majority is not excluded. The co-existence of these two groups is considered a sound and healthy symbiosis.
In Denmark, Flensburg seems to be mainly associated with its duty-free shops where, amongst other things, spirits, beer and candy can be purchased at cheaper prices than in Denmark. However, owing to the vagaries of the money markets, the bargains are not as great as they once were.
The town council was led for centuries by two mayors, one for the north town (St. Marien) and the other for the south town (St. Nikolai and St. Johannis). The council members and the mayors were chosen by the council itself, that is, retiring officials had their successors named by the remaining councillors in such a way that both halves of the town had as many members. These councillors usually bore the title "Senator".
This "town government" lasted until 1742 when the "northern mayor" was made the "directing mayor" by the Danish King. From this position came what was later known as the First Mayor. The second mayor simply bore the title "mayor" ("Bürgermeister"). After the town had been ceded to Prussia, the mayors were elected by the townsfolk as of 1870, and the First Mayor was given the title Oberbürgermeister, still the usual title in German towns and cities. During the Third Reich, the town head was appointed by those who held power locally at the time.
In 1945, after the Second World War, a twofold leadership based on a British model was introduced. Heading the town stood foremost the Oberbürgermeister, who was chosen by town council and whose job was as chairman of council and the municipality. Next to him was an Oberstadtdirektor ("Higher Town Director") who was leader of administration. In 1950, when Schleswig-Holstein brought its new laws for municipalities into force, the title Oberbürgermeister was transferred (once again) to this latter official. At first, and for a while, he was chosen by council. Since that time, the former official has been called the Stadtpräsident ("Town President"), and is likewise chosen by council after each municipal election. However, since 1999, the Oberbürgermeister has been chosen directly by the voters as once before.
The first directly elected Oberbürgermeister Hermann Stell died on 4 May 2004 of a stroke. On 14 November of the same year, the independent candidate suggested by the Christian Democratic Union Klaus Tscheuschner was elected to replace Stell with 59% of the vote. Since the last municipal election in 2003, Hans Hermann Laturnus has been Flensburg's Stadtpräsident.
Represented on Flensburg town council are the CDU, the SPD, The South Schleswig Voter Federation (Südschleswigscher Wählerverband) and the Greens.
Flensburg's coat of arms shows in gold above blue and silver waves rising to the left a six-sided red tower with a blue pointed roof breaking out of which, one above the other are the two lions of Schleswig and Denmark; above is a red shield with the silver Holsatian nettle leaf on it. The town's flag is blue, overlaid with the coat of arms in colour.
The lions symbolize Schleswig, and the nettle leaf Holstein, thus expressing the town's unity with these two historic lands. The tower recalls Flensburg's old town rights and the old castle that was the town's namesake (Burg means "castle" in German). The waves refer to the town's position on the Flensburg Fjord.
The coat of arms was granted the town by King Wilhelm II of Prussia in 1901, and once again in modified, newly approved form on 19 January 1937 by Schleswig-Holstein's High President (Oberpräsident)