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Lower Saxony
Tidal mud flats and heathland. Lower Saxony is the second
largest state in Germany (47,609 square kilometers) and larger
than the country of Switzerland. It stretches from the North Sea
island of Borkum marked by a high-seas climate to the Harz Mountains
featuring winter sports areas with reliable snow conditions. In
between lie remote heathland regions, greater metropolitan Hanover
with a population of over one million, and the Hildesheimer Börde
with the most fertile arable soil in the Federal Republic. Lower
Saxony has about 7.7 million inhabitants. These are joined every
year by millions of visitors who seek rest and recreation on the
seven East Frisian islands of Borkum, Juist, Norderney, Baltrum,
Langeoog, Spiekeroog and Wangerooge, in the Harz Mountains, in
the Weser Hills, in the Teutoburg Forest or in the Lüneburg
Heath (Germany's oldest nature park) - or who wish to keep abreast
of the latest developments at the world's two largest trade fairs
held in the state capital. Another popular attraction, especially
when the apple orchards are in bloom, is the "Altes Land”,
Europe's largest fruit-growing area. Here, just outside the gates
of Hamburg, begins the "wet triangle”: the lowlands
between the mouths of the Weser and Elbe rivers with the tidal
mud flats known as the "Wattenmeer” (Germany's largest
nature park), the fishing town of Cuxhaven and the artists' colony
of Worpswede. Lower Saxony offers cyclists the most extensive
network of biking paths in Germany.
Home of the "Beetle” - center of alternative energy
production. Two thirds of the state's total area is given
over to farming; the food industry produces a wide variety of
delicacies ranging from Oldenburg smoked ham to honey from the
Lüneburg Heath. Nevertheless, Lower Saxony cannot be classified
as an agricultural state: In addition to traditional industries
such as steel, chemicals and shipbuilding (the Meyer Werft in
Papenburg, for instance, is a producer of luxury liners) it now
also has thriving electronics and computer industries. The VW
Beetle, made in Wolfsburg, is the most frequently built car in
the world; it still rolls off the line in Mexico. Volkswagen AG
is the state's biggest company and has manufactured more than
50 million automobiles in Lower Saxony to date. The Volkswagen
Foundation is the largest non-governmental foundation for the
promotion of science and scholarship in Germany. Schimmel pianos
and the world-famous Rollei cameras are made in Brunswick. This
city is likewise the home of the Federal Institute of Physics
and Metrology, the federal authority for the testing, standardization
and licensing of materials, which also determines the exact Central
European Time (CET) per radio signal. Video recorders and CD players
are built in Peine and Osterode; television sets are assembled
in Celle. The firm MAN in Salzgitter manufactures trucks, among
other things; Wilhelmshaven is the only German deepwater port
for supertankers. In Emsland the Transrapid magnetic-levitation
train is currently undergoing testing. Hanover, the state capital,
is an industrial and service center, seat of a world-famous writing
materials manufacturer and of TUI, Europe's biggest tour operator.
Each year the latest developments are presented at the Hanover
Fair, the world's largest industrial
fair, and at "CeBIT”,
the international fair for communications technology. At the turn
of the millennium Hanover will be the venue of the world exposition
"EXPO
2000”, which will have the theme "Mankind
- Nature - Technology”. Natural gas from Lower Saxony satisfies
one fifth of the Federal Republic's requirement. Between the Ems
and the Elbe rivers, the Lower Saxony Energy Agency is already
exploring alternatives for the next millennium: electricity generated
by wind power, solar power, landfill gas and animal excrement.
Explorers and inventors, intellect and politics. Sailing
in the service of Denmark, Diederik Pining of Hildesheim landed
in America 19 years before Columbus - and, namely, on the mainland.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz developed the binary system of numeration
in Hanover and built the world's first functional calculating
machine. Carl Friedrich Gauss of Brunswick invented the telegraph,
Robert Wilhelm Bunsen of Göttingen the carbon-zinc battery,
Werner von Siemens of Lenthe the generation of electricity by
means of a dynamo, and Emil Berliner of Hanover the Gramophone.
Karl Jatho completed the first successful powered flight in history
at the Vahrenwalder Heide in Hanover - three months before the
Wright brothers' attempt in the United States. Walter Bruch, likewise
from Hanover, developed the PAL color system for color television.
1961 marked the appearance of the last volume of the "Deutsches
Wörterbuch”, a comprehensive dictionary of the German
language that had been started 123 years earlier, in 1838, by
the brothers Grimm at the University of
Göttingen. In 1837
the brothers Grimm and five other professors - the "Göttingen
Seven” - had protested against the sovereign's decision to
repeal the constitution. In 1957 the "Göttingen
Eighteen”, a group that included the Nobel Prize laureates
Max Born, Otto Hahn, Werner Heisenberg and Max von Laue, warned
against the dangers of nuclear rearmament.
Stone witnesses to power. At the turn of the 10th century
Hildesheim was the center of the Ottonian Empire; in the 12th
century Bardowick - which is virtually unknown today - was the
most important hub of trade between East and West. Brunswick grew
to become one of the four major metropolises of the Late Middle
Ages. At the end of the 16th century Emden boasted more ships
than any other port in Europe; in the 18th century, thanks to
extensive ore deposits, Clausthal-Zellerfeld in the Harz Mountains
was one of the world's principal industrial centers. Stone witnesses
to the past are everywhere: The 900-year-old church in Idesen
is considered the most outstanding ecclesiastical structure of
its time in Germany. The world's largest medieval library, where
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing worked as a librarian, is located in
Wolfenbüttel;
Goslar, with its magnificent old townscape,
is the site of the Kaiserpfalz (Imperial Palace), Germany's largest
medieval secular building. Particularly impressive is the Romanesque
St. Michael's Church in Hildesheim.
Brunswick's Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum is the oldest art museum on the European continent. Celle is the home of Germany's oldest theater in which performances are still staged. Notable collections of modern art can be found in the Art Gallery in Emden and the Sprengel Museum of Modern Art in Hanover, whereas Hildesheim's Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum with a fine collection of Egyptian antiquities is a tip for archaeology buffs. The "Violinale” in Hanover is one of the world's preeminent violin competitions.