History
Werder has several different specific mentions in the ancient historical records of Berlin, which lies just 35 km (22 mi) in the northeast. The city "Werdere" is mentioned in 1317, "Wehrder" in 1450 and in its present spelling in 1580. However, in its southwest end pieces of ancient broken glass have been discovered, and on its south end are remains of what may have been an Early Medieval Slavic castle wall.
The coin-shaped city island in the Havel river is mentioned as being accessible via a bridge in a 1317 deed, when the ministeriales of the Brandenburg margraves had to sell the estates to the monks of nearby Lehnin Abbey. The town was devastated by Swedish troops during the Thirty Years' War.
During World War II and prior thereto an airfield existed in the north of the city which, together with an adjacent park, was used during the war as an airplane pilot training area. Werder was the base of Luftwaffe general Karl Koller during the Battle of Berlin. After the end of the war, Soviet troops were stationed in this area of the city. The last Russian troops departed in 1993, three years after the reunification of Germany.
Read more about this topic: Werder (Havel)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)