History
In the Middle Ages there was a massacre of allegedly 4,500 Saxons, by order of Charlemagne because of their involvement in a preceding uprising. Verden was then within the Duchy of Saxony. After in 1180 a coalition of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and his allies had defeated the then Saxo-Bavarian Duke Henry the Lion. He was subsequently stripped of his duchies. Saxony was divided among the imperial coalitionaries and so the Catholic Bishop of Verden gained for parts of his diocesan territory imperial immediacy, thus establishing the Prince-Bishopric of Verden.
On 12 March 1259 Prince-Bishop Gerhard of Verden granted the place town privileges following the Bremian version of German town law. In the 15th c. Verden gained considerable independence as Free Imperial City, immediately under the emperors (imperial immediacy), circumventing its former overlords the prince-bishops, who still held the cathedral and pertaining premises in town as an immunity district.
By the Peace of Westphalia the city of Verden was mediatised as regular city again within the Prince-Bishopric of Verden, which was transformed by the same contract into the Principality of Verden in May 1648. The northern city (with the town hall and St. John's church) and the southern town (with the proto-cathedral) were then united to form one city.
The Principality of Verden was first ruled in personal union by the Swedish Crown - interrupted by a Danish occupation (1712–1715) - and from 1715 on by the Hanoverian Crown. The Kingdom of Hanover incorporated the principality in a real union and the princely territory, including Verden upon Aller, became part of the new Stade Region, established in 1823.
Until the Second World War, Verden was renowned for its trade and crafts and also its mounted division. During the Nazi Regime forced-labourers were used in a furniture factory in Verden. Between 1945 and 1949 Verden was part of the British zone of occupation. Refugees from the formers Prussian provinces of East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia, settled in and around the town.
With the labour immigration from the East German Democratic Republic inhibited by the Berlin Wall foreign workers (Gastarbeiter) started to arrive from southern Europe and Anatolia in the 1960s. After the fall of Communism more immigrants arrived from Eastern Europe.
From 1945 until 1993 latterly the 1st Armoured Division of the British Army of the Rhine was stationed in Verden. One of the former British Barracks is now used to house the District administration and a new sporting stadium has been erected opposite.
Read more about this topic: Verden An Der Aller
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