Gardelegen

Gardelegen
Gardelegen
Location of the town of Gardelegen within Altmarkkreis Salzwedel district
Coordinates	52°31′35″N 11°23′33″E
Administration
Country	Germany
State	Saxony-Anhalt
District	Altmarkkreis Salzwedel
Mayor	Konrad Fuchs (SPD)
Basic statistics
Area	632.24 km2 (244.11 sq mi)
Elevation	43 m  (141 ft)
Population	23,971 (31 December 2010)
- Density	38 /km2 (98 /sq mi)
Other information
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Licence plate	SAW
Postal code	39638
Area codes	03907, 039056, 039085, 039087, 039088
Website	www.gardelegen.info

Gardelegen (German pronunciation: [ˈɡaʁdəleːɡən]) is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Milde, 20 m. W. from Stendal, on the main line of railway Berlin-Hanover.

History

Under the direction of an American soldier, German civilians from Gardelegen carry wooden crosses to the site where they were ordered to bury the bodies of concentration camp prisoners killed by the SS in a barn just outside the town. It had been widely reported that members of the local population provided support to the SS during the operation

It has a Roman Catholic and three Evangelical churches, a hospital, founded in 1285, and a high-grade school. There are considerable manufactures, notably agricultural machinery and buttons, and its beer has a great repute. Gardelegen was founded in the 10th century (first named 1196), and was for a long time the seat of a line of counts. In 1358 Gardelegen became a city of the Hanse. It suffered considerably in the Thirty Years' War, and in 1775 was burned by the French. On the neighboring heath Margrave Louis I. of Brandenburg gained, in 1343, a victory over Otto the Mild of Brunswick.

On 13 April 1945, 1016 concentration camp prisoners were killed by the Germans in the Isenschnibbler Feldscheune. Today this area is the site of a memorial for the dead.

At the height of the cold war, a USAF RB-66 recoinassance aircraft was shot down by Soviet fighters near the town on 10 March 1964. Her crew bailed out and was rescued and eventually handed back to West-Berlin by Soviet forces.

International relations

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Germany

Gardelegen is twinned with:

• Waltrop, Northrhine-Westphalia, Germany
• Gifhorn, Lower-Saxony, Germany
• Darłowo, Poland
• Dumfries, United Kingdom

External links

• www.gardelegen.info

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.