Salzgitter


Salzgitter is an independent city in southeast Lower Saxony, Germany, located between Hildesheim and Braunschweig. Together with Wolfsburg and Braunschweig, Salzgitter is one of the seven Oberzentren of Lower Saxony. With 101,079 inhabitants and , its area is the largest in Lower Saxony and one of the largest in Germany. Salzgitter originated as a conglomeration of several small towns and villages, and is today made up of 31 boroughs, which are relatively compact conurbations with wide stretches of open country between them. The main shopping street of the young city is in the borough of Lebenstedt, and the central business district is in the borough of Salzgitter-Bad. The city is connected to the Mittellandkanal and the Elbe Lateral Canal by a distributary. The nearest metropolises are Braunschweig, about to the northeast, and Hanover, about to the northwest. The population of the City of Salzgitter has exceeded 100,000 inhabitants since its foundation in 1942 in contrast to a town, when it was still called Watenstedt-Salzgitter. Beside Wolfsburg, Leverkusen and Eisenhüttenstadt, Salzgitter is therefore one of the few cities in Germany founded during the 20th century.

History of the name

Until 31 March 1942, "Salzgitter" was the name of a town where the borough Salzgitter-Bad now is. From then until 1951, "Salzgitter" was the name of a borough of the city Watenstedt-Salzgitter that existed at the time. In 1951, the borough Salzgitter was renamed Salzgitter-Bad; the name Salzgitter, having thus been freed up, became the new and more succinct name of the city that had been called "Watenstedt-Salzgitter" until then.

Geography

Salzgitter is located in a wide dell coated with loess, between the Oderwald Forest and the Salzgitter-Höhenzug. The city stretches up to from north to south and up to from east to west. The highest point is the hill Hamberg, located northwest of Salzgitter-Bad.

Neighbouring municipalities

The following cities, towns and municipalities, listed clockwise beginning in the northeast, border on the city of Salzgitter.
The area of the City of Salzgitter consists of 31 boroughs : Bad, Barum, Beddingen, Beinum, Bleckenstedt, Bruchmachtersen, Calbecht, Drütte, Engelnstedt, Engerode, Flachstöckheim, Gebhardshagen, Gitter, Groß Mahner, Hallendorf, Heerte, Hohenrode, Immendorf, Lebenstedt, Lesse, Lichtenberg, Lobmachtersen, Ohlendorf, Osterlinde, Reppner, Ringelheim, Salder, Sauingen, Thiede, Üfingen and Watenstedt.
These 31 boroughs are combined to 7 towns. Each town has an elected mayor and town council.
The towns with their boroughs are:
Salzgitter originated in the beginning of the 14th century around salt springs near the village Verpstedt. The name was derived from the neighbouring village Gitter as "up dem solte to Gytere", which means "salt near Gitter"; the first mention was in 1347. After 200 years of salt production at various springs, the peasants in the area which is nowadays Salzgitter were chartered around 1350, but lost municipal law again when being transferred to the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the beginning of the 16th century. Later, Salzgitter belonged to the diocese of Hildesheim. When the diocese was transferred to Prussia in 1803, the municipal law was reconfirmed, but taken away once more in 1815, when Salzgitter became part of the Kingdom of Hanover. In 1830, a brine bath was established in Salzgitter.
After the Kingdom of Hanover was transferred to Prussia in 1866, Salzgitter became a Prussian municipality, which was chartered again in 1929. Prior to that, the towns Vorsalz and Liebenhall had been incorporated. Salzgitter now belonged to the Landkreis of Goslar and included, apart from Salzgitter itself, also some small settlements like Gittertor, which is nowadays part of Salzgitter-Bad. In 1936, Kniestedt was incorporated; it is also part of Salzgitter-Bad now.
memorial
Due to the large iron ore body in Salzgitter, which had been mentioned first in 1310, the National Socialists founded the "Reichswerke Hermann Göring" for ore mining and iron production in 1937. In order to facilitate an unobstructed development of the smelting works, a unique administration structure in the whole area was conceived. Therefore, it was decreed in the Order about the area settlement around the Hermann-Göring-Werke Salzgitter, effective from 1 April 1942, to form a unified city district. Towards this aim, the town of Salzgitter and the municipalities Beinum, Flachstöckheim, Groß-Mahner, Hohenrode, Ohlendorf and Ringelheim and Barum, Beddingen, Bleckenstedt, Bruchmachtersen, Calbecht, Drütte, Engelnstedt, Engerode, Gebhardshagen, Hallendorf, Heerte, Immendorf, Lebenstedt, Lesse, Lichtenberg, Lobmachtersen, Osterlinde, Reppner, Salder, Thiede-Steterburg and Watenstedt were merged to form the Stadtkreis Watenstedt-Salzgitter. As the neighbouring municipality Gitter had already been incorporated in 1938, the young city initially comprised 29 boroughs in 1942. Together with the remainder of the district of Goslar, the new independent municipality was integrated into the Free State of Brunswick. In return, Braunschweig transferred the Landkreis Holzminden to the Prussian Province of Hanover. In October, 1942, the SS established the Drütte concentration camp, a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp, to provide slave labour for the Hermann Göring Works. This large subcamp held 2,800 inmates. There were three concentration camps located in Salzgitter. During the war, Salzgitter was severely damaged by several American and British bombings. After the war, the State of Braunschweig became part of the Land Lower Saxony, and Watenstedt-Salzgitter became an Independent City in the "Administrative District of Braunschweig".
In 1951, the city was renamed to "Stadt Salzgitter", while the borough Salzgitter was renamed to "Salzgitter-Bad", referring to the brine bath there. In the course of the local administrative reform of Lower-Saxony effective from 1 March 1974, the municipalities Üfingen and Sauingen were incorporated, increasing the number of boroughs to 31. Iron ore continued to be mined in Salzgitter until 1982; in the former mine Schacht Konrad, an ultimate disposal place for radioactive waste has been planned since 1975.

Population development

Population figures in order to the then area, i.e. until 1942 the contemporary quarter Salzgitter-Bad and from 1942 on the Independent City Watenstedt-Salzgitter and Salzgitter respectively.

Religions

The area of the modern city of Salzgitter originally pertained to the diocese of Hildesheim. In 1568, the Reformation was established in Salzgitter, and two ecclesiastical superintendencies came into existence: the southern part of the area of the modern city, the Superintendency of Salzgitter, pertained to the Province of Hanover and thus ecclesiastically to the Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Hanover ; the northern part, however, belonged to the Free State of Brunswick and therefore to the Evangelical Lutheran State Church in Brunswick.
When the city of Watenstedt-Salzgitter was created in 1942, the entire area was attached to the state of Brunswick both politically and ecclesiastically. Thus, all parishes of Salzgitter now belong to the Church of Brunswick. The two superintendencies are called Propstei today, and both the Propsteien Salzgitter-Bad and Salzgitter-Lebenstedt comprise additional parishes which are not within the city of Salzgitter.
Roman Catholics who after the Reformation moved into the city belonged, as in the Middle Ages, to the diocese of Hildesheim, which established a separate deanery in Salzgitter. All Roman Catholic parishes of the city now pertain to that deanery.
Besides the two major denominations, there are congregtions in Salzgitter which belong to free churches. These include a Baptist parish, the Church of God, Plymouth Brethren, and the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as well as several New Apostolic Churches.
Due to the immigration of foreign workers during the 1970s, there are some Islamic mosques. According to calculations based on census data, Salzgitter in 2011 had the highest proportion of Muslim migrants of all major cities in Lower Saxony.

Politics

After the creation of Salzgitter a state commissar was set in place as provisional Mayer of the city of Watenstedt-Salzgitter. After World War II, the military government of the British zone of occupation installed the communal constitution of Britain. Furthermore, there is an elected Council in place. The Council elects one of its members to Mayor as leader and representative of the city. Besides, since 1946 on there was the Oberstadtdirektor as the Chief Executive of the City Council. Since 2001, the office of the leader of the Council and the Chief Executive are merged into one, simply called Mayor. Being elected by the people, he represents the city and leads the Council.

Coat of arms

Salzgitter's Coat of Arms consists of a silver furnace visible behind a silver pinnacle wall on which there is a buckler whose upper ground is green and adorned with two saltern instruments and whose lower ground is gold and adorned with a black sledge and black iron. On the red ground behind the furnace, there are two wheaten ears.
The Coat of Arms stands for the agriculture, which is important for many villages of Salzgitter, on the one hand, and for the industry, which led to Salzgitter's foundation, on the other hand.
This Coat of Arms is from 1951. Before, Watenstedt-Salzgitter had got a different one. Also the former town Salzgitter had got various coats of arms from 1854 on.
Like many German cities, Salzgitter has used the city's logo for some years. It is a green field with a white snaking way that narrows towards the horizon.

Twin towns - sister cities

Salzgitter is twinned with:

Traffic

Road

In the north of Salzgitter, there is an Autobahn from Braunschweig to the interchange Salzgitter. Salzgitter has got five grade-separated interchanges to this Autobahn. East from Salzgitter, there is the Autobahn 395, which can be reached from Salzgitter by four interchanges.

Moreover, two Bundesstraßen go through Salzgitter.

Railway

Salzgitter has six railway stations. The most important one is in the quarter Salzgitter-Ringelheim, the most central one in Salzgitter-Lebenstedt. There is no Hauptbahnhof in Salzgitter. Salzgitter-Ringelheim's station is located on the Halle -Goslar-Salzgitter-Hildesheim-Hanover line. Another line leads into the Harz Mountains and to Braunschweig, passing Salzgitter-Bad. Salzgitter-Lebenstedt is the end of a local line coming from Braunschweig and passing the other train stops of Salzgitter.

Public transport

There are three bus companies in Salzgitter. The bus network is quite important considering Salzgitter consists of many spread-out villages.

Media

In Salzgitter, the daily newspaper Salzgitter-Zeitung and the Sunday newspaper Salzgitter-Woche am Sonntag are published. There is the event calendar Salzgitter Szene and the online magazine Salzgitter-aktuell. Furthermore, the local TV channel TV 38 is broadcast by cable television.

Important companies in Salzgitter

Salzgitter is seat of these public institutions:
Since 1993, there is a site of the Fachhochschule Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, where you can study
In addition, you can study after having completed a study in the past
and – by correspondence course –
The other sites of the Fachhochschule are Braunschweig, Wolfenbüttel and Wolfsburg.
Furthermore, there are several general-education schools and vocational schools, among them three grammar schools, the Gymnasium Salzgitter-Bad, the Gymnasium am Fredenberg and the Kranich-Gymnasium, the latter two located at Salzgitter-Lebenstedt.
For education outside school, there is the Volkshochschule Salzgitter with sites in Salzgitter-Bad and in Salzgitter-Lebenstedt.

Culture and sights

Libraries

There are three public libraries in Salzgitter. The main-library is located in Salzgitter-Lebenstedt with branch-libraries in Salzgitter-Bad and Salzgitter-Fredenberg .

Theatre

There is no theatre in Salzgitter nor any building used as one. Yet there are several representations at various places.
For example, in Salzgitter-Bad there is a society rooting in the students' theater of the local grammar-school that supports the amateur play. They act on various stages, with an auditory between 100 and 600 people. Furthermore, there are irregular performances of musicals.

Museums

steam locomotive No. 670. Built by Hanomag in Hannover-Linden, Lower Saxony, Germany in 1923 as No. 10265. Now on display at the salder castle museum in Salzgitter-Salder, Lower Saxony, Germany
steam locomotive No. 760. Built by Hanomag in Hannover-Linden, Lower Saxony, Germany in 1923 as No. 10265. Now on display at the salder castle museum in Salzgitter-Salder, Lower Saxony, Germany

Buildings