The Stade Region emerged in 1823 by an administrative reorganisation of the dominions of the Kingdom of Hanover, a sovereign state, whose then territory is almost completely part of today's German federal state of Lower Saxony. Until 1837 the Kingdom of Hanover was ruled in personal union by the Kings of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
The official title of the Region was High-Bailiwick of Stade (1823–1885; German: Landdrostei Stade) and then Governorate of Stade (1885–1978; German: Regierungsbezirk Stade). The High-Bailiwick of Stade, being a mere administrative unit of the integrated Kingdom of Hanover, was named after and seated in Stade, Bremen-Verden's former capital, taking over its staff, installations and buildings. The territory of the Stade Region was combined by the territories of the Land of Hadeln, the Duchies of Bremen and Verden (German pronunciation: [ˈfɛːɐ̯dən]), all Hanoverian dominions, which were collectively administered. The territory belonging to the Stade Region covered about the triangular area between the mouths of the rivers Elbe and Weser to the North Sea and today's German federal states of Hamburg and Bremen. This area included about today's Lower Saxon counties (German: Landkreis or Kreis) of Cuxhaven (southernly), Osterholz, Rotenburg upon Wümme, Stade and Verden as well as of the Bremian exclave of the city of Bremerhaven.
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History
Before the establishment of the High-Bailiwick of Stade
The collectively administered Land of Hadeln, the Duchy of Bremen and the Duchy of Verden were therefore colloquially referred to as the Duchies of Bremen-Verden or simply Bremen-Verden. The latter two emerged in 1648 by the transformation of the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, then Duchy of Bremen, and the Prince-Bishopric of Verden, then Duchy of Verden.
The Kingdom of Hanover's predecessor the Prince-Electorate of Brunswick and Lunenburg (or, colloquially called after its capital Electorate of Hanover; German: Kurfürstentum Braunschweig und Lüneburg, or Kurhannover) purchased Bremen-Verden from its Danish occupants de facto in 1715 (and again from its legitimate owner Sweden in 1719 (Treaty of Stockholm) for rixdollars [Rtlr] 1 million). De jure this acquisition had to be legitimised by imperial feoffment. It took Elector George II Augustus until 1733 to get Charles VI to enfeoff him with the Duchy of Bremen and Verden.
In 1728 Emperor Charles VI enfeoffed Elector George II Augustus, who in 1727 had succeeded his father George I Louis, with the reverted fief of Saxe-Lauenburg. By a redeployment of Hanoverian territories in 1731 Bremen-Verden was conveyed the administration of the neighboured Land of Hadeln (at the Northern tip of Bremen-Verden), since 1180 an exclave, first of the younger Duchy of Saxony, from 1296 on of the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg, one of the former's successors.
At both feoffments George II Augustus swore that he would respect the existing privileges and constitutions of the Estates of Bremen-Verden and of Hadeln, thus confirming 400-year-old traditions of Estate participation in government. The small Land of Hadeln maintained until 1885 as to its legislation a certain level of internal autonomy (Estates of Hadeln) but as to the executive power Hadeln was administered by neighboured Bremen-Verden's provincial government.
Being a Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and represented in its Diet by virtue of his Electorate of Hanover, George II Augustus didn't bother about Bremen-Verden's status of Imperial immediacy. Since Bremen-Verden had turned Hanoverian it never again sent its own representatives to a Diet .
The Stade Region as part of the state of Hanover in the years from 1813 to 1866
After the Napoleonic Wars, which brought changing occupations and annexations of the Duchies of Bremen and Verden (for more details see Bremen-Verden), Bremen-Verden was restored in 1813 to the Electorate of Hanover, which transformed into the Kingdom of Hanover in 1814. Even though Bremen-Verden's status as a territory of imperial immediacy had become void with the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Duchies were not right away incorporated in real union into the Hanoverian state. Since the Hanoverian monarchs had moved to London, Hanover had become a state of very conservative and backwarded rule, with a local government recruited from local aristocrats adding up much to the preservation of outdated structures.
The real union with Hanover only followed in 1823, when an administrative reform united Bremen-Verden and Hadeln to form the High-Bailiwick of Stade, administered according to unitarian modern standards, thereby doing away with various traditional Bremian government forms. Hadeln kept part of its traditional autonomy until 1852, its Estates continued to function with restricted authority until 1884. In 1823 the high-bailiwick consisted of 7,025 square kilometres with 208,251 inhabitants.
On 1 May 1827 a small section of the lower Weser shore in the West of the High-Bailiwick of Stade, forming the nucleus of the future city of Bremerhaven, was transferred to the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, as agreed upon earlier that year in a contract by the Hanoveran minister Friedrich Franz Dieterich von Bremer and Bremen's Burgomaster Johann Smidt. Bremerhaven (literally English: Bremian Harbour) was founded to be a haven for Bremen's merchant marine, with that city located upstream the Weser being more and more disconnected from the sea, due to that river's silting up. Bremerhaven also became the home port of the German Confederation's Navy under Karl Rudolf Brommy.
Reorganisation of religious bodies in the Stade region
Two Lutheran consistories, one for the Land of Hadeln in Otterndorf (founded by Hadeln's Estates in 1535, integrated into Stade's consistory in 1885) and one in Stade (founded by Swedish Bremen-Verden's government in 1650) for the rest of the High-Bailiwick supervised the Lutheran cult and clergy. A general superintendent chaired each consistory. Lutherans made up by far the majority of the population. Among Lutherans revivalism played a major role in the 1850s. In 1848 the Lutheran parishes were democratised by the introduction of presbyteries (parish councils), elected by all major male parishioners and chairing each parish in co-operation with the pastor, being before the sole chairman. This introduction of presbyteries was somewhat revolutionary in the rather hierarchically structured Lutheran church.
The Lutheran church was the state church of the Kingdom of Hanover with the king being summus episcopus (Supreme Governor of the Lutheran Church). In 1864 Carl Lichtenberg, Hanoverian minister of education, cultural and religious affairs (1862–1865), persuaded the Hanoverian parliament to pass a new law as to the constitution of the Lutheran church. The constitution provided a state synod (parishioners' parliament, German: Landessynode). But its first session only materialised in 1869, when after the Prussian annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover (1866) the Hanoverian Lutherans desired a representative body separate from Prussian rule, though it was restricted to Lutheran matters only.
After the Prussian conquest in 1866, on 19 September 1866, the day before the official Prussian annexation took place and with the last king, George V of Hanover, in exile, the Kingdom's six consistories joined to form the still existing Lutheran State Church of Hanover. An all-Hanoverian consistory, the Landeskonsistorium (state consistory), was formed with representatives from the regional consistories. The Lutheran state church became a stronghold of Hanoverian separatism and therefore somewhat politicised. It opposed the Evangelical State Church in Prussia, comprising the Protestant parishes in the Prussian territory prior the 1866 annexations, not only for its being a stronghold of Prussian patriotism, but for being a united church of formerly Lutheran and Calvinist parishes, with a preponderance of Calvinism because the Calvinist Hohenzollern dynasty wielded its influence in the unification of Lutherans and Calvinists in then Prussia in 1817. The Hanoverian Lutherans managed to maintain their independence and the Evangelical State Church in Prussia stayed abreast of the changes and renamed in 1875 into Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces.
The Stade Region as an administrative unit of Prussia (1866-1945/1947)
After the Prussian annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover in 1866, the kingdom was transformed into the Prussian Province of Hanover. The adaptation to other Prussian administrative structures took only place in 1885, when the high-bailiwick was redesigned according to Prussian law as the Governorate of Stade (German: Regierungsbezirk Stade). The Hanoverian subsections of a high-bailiwick (German: Amt, plural: Ämter), were redeployed into 14 bigger Prussian style counties (German: Kreis, plural: Kreise). At the time of its redeployment the high-bailiwick's population amounted to 300,000. In 1905 the population amounted to 403,302 with an area of 6,786 square kilometres (2,620 sq mi), which made up a density of 59 persons per square kilometre. The Governorate of Stade weathered the following wars and constitutional changes.
Bremerhaven was several times enlarged at the expense of the Governorate of Stade´s territory. But on the latter's territory several suburbs grew and in 1924 were united to form the urban county of Wesermünde. In 1932 by an administrative reform the number of the governorate's 13 rural counties was reduced to a mere seven. In 1932 in the Great Depression the Lutheran Church of the State of Hanover opened a camp for formerly workless singles, employed in public works (roadworks, amelioration) in Sandbostel.
In 1933 the Nazis seized the power in Germany (Machtergreifung). On the Reich's and the level of the states gradually all resistance was decapitated. Anti-Semitic discriminations were imposed onto Jewish Germans and Germans of Jewish descent. In 1932 Franz von Papen's Reich's government had overthrown the last democratic Prussian government under Otto Braun (Prussian Coup). So the Governorate of Stade, being a part of the Free State of Prussia, one of the most stable and democratised German states, came fast under Nazi influence. The governor Hermann Rose resigned under pressure of Gauleiter Otto Telschow. The Nazis' rule enforcement was characterised by installing Nazi-loyal parallel structures, which would interfere with existing public administration and bring it to dictatorial lines. The Governorate of Stade came under ever increasing interference of the Nazi party's regional subsection Gau Eastern Hanover under Gauleiter Otto Telschow, especially after 1935, when the Nazi-party Gaue replaced the functions of the streamlined German states.
The new Nazi Reich's government – "provisionally" ruling Prussia – had direct rule over the Prussian police, with police being an institution of the respective German states. The ordinary police had to guard together with S.A. men, the Prussian Criminal Police Department in charge for the Governorate of Stade was seated in its biggest city Wesermünde. In March/April 1933 the Criminal Police was transformed into the new Wesermünde Department of the State Police, directly subordinated to the new Geheime Staatspolizei (GeStapo, secret state police), circumventing all prior existing Prussian administrative structures, to which the former Criminal Police had been subjected and reporting before. At first Wesermünde's Stapo Department persecuted all political enemies of Nazism and later persons involved in all kinds of disobediences, such as strikes, absenteeism, black marketing, circumventions of ordered dues to be delivered, which all became an ever-growing phenomenon with the increasing weariness in the long duration of the war. The Stapo had its special eye on forced labourers in the governorate, abducted from all over German occupied Europe.
The Governorate of Stade as part of the British and U.S. Zone of Occupation (1945–1949)
From 1945 on the occupational U.S. forces in defeated Germany used the harbours of Bremen and Wesermünde as their Port of Embarkation. Being actually located in the British Zone of Occupation the Control Commission for Germany - British Element and the Office of Military Government for Germany, U.S. (OMGUS) agreed in 1947 to constitute the cities of Bremen and Wesermünde as a German state named Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, becoming at that occasion an exclave of the American Zone of Occupation within the British zone. Radio AFN (American Forces Network), based in rechristened Bremerhaven, became popular for its transmissions of jazz and rock music.
After this territorial toing and froing the Governorate of Stade belonged to Lower Saxony, the state newly founded in 1946 by the Control Commission for Germany – British Element (Cf. Ordinance No. 46), even before in 1947 the Allies officially dissolved the Free State of Prussia.
The Governorate of Stade as an administrative unit of the state of Lower Saxony (1946–1978)
From 1973 to 1977 the number of Lower Saxon counties has been reduced by uniting counties. The urban county of Cuxhaven and the neighboured counties of the Land of Hadeln and Wesermünde were united to form the new County of Cuxhaven. The county of Bremervörde was integrated into the County of Rotenburg upon Wümme. Thus the governorate consisted only of a mere five counties: Cuxhaven, Osterholz, Rotenburg (Wümme), Stade and Verden. In 1977 the governorate's population amounted to almost 700,000.
The Governorate of Stade continued to exist until 31 January 1978. The next day it was incorporated into the neighbouring Governorate of Lunenburg (German: Regierungsbezirk Lüneburg), with the complete dissolution of all Lower Saxon governorates following in 2004.
Today no single administrative entity covers the territory of the former Bremen-Verden. Today's efforts and activities in the field of culture in the region are covered by the Landschaftsverband der ehemaligen Herzogtümer Bremen und Verden (Engl. about: landscape union of the former duchies of Bremen and Verden, or short Landschaftsverband Stade).
List of High-Bailiffs and Governors
Bearing the title: High-Bailiff (German: Landdrost, plural: Landdroste)
1823–41 Engelbert Johann Marschalck (1766–1845), Bremen-Verden's Estates elected him the last president of the provisional government (1813–1823) after the French retreat. In 1823 he became the first High-Bailiff of the Stade Region, the merely administrative entity succeeding Bremen-Verden's dissolution in 1823.
1841–55 Freiherr Ernst von Bülow (1801–1861), father of the later Prussian general Ernst von Bülow
1856–58 Freiherr Otto Alexander Marschalck (1798–1858), also Royal Hanoverian High-Bailiff in Osnabrück
1858–62 Friedrich Wilhelm Heise (died 23 November 1862), Geheimer Rat (privy councillor)
1863–72 August Theodor Braun (1802–1887), 1848–1850 minister for education, cultural and religious affairs of the Kingdom of Hanover
1872–85 Heinrich Küster
Bearing the title: Governor (German: Regierungspräsident, plural: Regierungspräsidenten)
1885–88 Ludwig Eberhard Franzius
1888–95 Dr. Gustav Heyer
1895–99 Dr. Edgar Himly
1899–1909 Freiherr Rudolf von Reiswitz und Kaderzin
1909–11 Graf Kurd von Berg-Schönfeld
1911–22 Hans Grashoff
1922–33 Dr. Hermann Rose (1879–1943), member of the Prussian House of Commons (1921–1932) for the DVP, forced to resign as governor by Gauleiter Otto Telschow
Vital Statistics 1890–1980
Source
Notable people from the Stade Region as from 1823 on
A list of interesting people whose birth, death, residence or activity took place in the Stade Region.
Ludwig Alpers (1866–1959), teacher, politician, after Prussian annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover in 1866 member of the separatist German-Hanoverian Party
Anita Augspurg (born in Verden upon Aller; 1857–1943), suffragette, women's rights fighter
Johann(es) Gerhard Behrens (1889–1979), Lutheran pastor in Stade, in 1935 beaten up by a Nazi squad, scolding him 'serf of the Jews' (Judenknecht), astronomer (name-giver of the asteroid 1651 Behrens), member of the anti-Nazi Protestant Confessing Church
Cato Bontjes van Beek (1920–1943), grew up in Fischerhude, ceramist, resistant fighter against Nazism, beheaded in Berlin-Plötzensee
Heinrich Böse (1783–1867), Bremian, Danish and West Indian sugar manufacturer, politician, anti-Napoléonic freedom fighter
Hans Heinrich Brockmann, (born in Altkloster, 1903–1988), chemist
Karl Rudolf Brommy (born Bromme; 1804–1864), counter-admiral, navy-warrior in the independence wars of Brazil, Chile and Greece, founding organiser of the Greek Navy, supreme commander of the German Confederation's Reich's Navy in Bremerhaven (1849–1853)
Adolf Butenandt (born and grown up in Lehe, since 1947 part of Bremerhaven; 1903–1995), biochemist, Nobel prize-winner of chemistry in 1939
Louise Cooper (1849–1931), missionary, founder and leader of blind mission in Hildesheim