Neumünster, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

🇩🇪 Neumünster is a city in the middle of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the fourth-largest municipality in Schleswig-Holstein. The Holstenhallen and the Stadthalle make the city an important trade fair location.

History The city was first formally mentioned as Wippendorp im Gau Faldera in 1127. In that year, the Bishop Vicelinus was sent there by the Archbishop of Bremen to perform missionary work. By 1136, Vicelinus built a new monastery there (Latin: novum monasterium, Greco-Latin: Neomonasterium, German: neues Kloster or neues Münster). The name "Novum monasterium" eventually replaced the previous names of Wippendorf and Faldera and led to the current name.

In April 1870, Neumünster received town privileges. Since 1903 Neumünster is a so-called "independent city" (Kreisfreie Stadt) as it is not part of a district (Kreis).

Großflecken (Large spot), a large, centrally-located street and public space in the city, became a place for civil unrest several times. In March 1848, riots broke out at Großflecken as part of the German revolution and again in 1923 during a period of inflation.

The city was criticized by the Rural People's Movement as part of a farmers' protest movement in northern Germany from 1928 to 1933, which was the basis for Hans Fallada's novel A Small Circus (Bauern, Bonzen und Bomben). The city's Hans Fallada Prize is named after him.

The Schleswig-Holstein Nazi Party was founded in 1925 by Hinrich Lohse. The local Nazi Party group of Neumünster met at Hofbräu München, a brewery at Großflecken. In 1926, Joseph Goebbels spoke to the local members there. In 1929 there were reportedly 29 members of the local Nazi Party group, but this number increased to 400 members a year later and to over 2,000 members by 1932. Shortly after the Nazi seizure of power, Großflecken was renamed to Adolf-Hitler-Platz (English: Adolf Hitler Place). On Kristallnacht in 1938, all Jewish men were arrested and sent to KZ Sachsenhausen.

During World War 2, Neumünster was bombed multiple times by Allied forces in 1945, partly because of its importance as a railway junction and industrial city. The British took control of the City in May 1945.

In the fall of 1946, the state of Schleswig-Holstein was founded and postwar Neumünster held its first municipal election.

Neumünster used to be a hub for the textile industry, with its first fulling mill going back to 1566. However, the industry eventually left the city due to competition from overseas and Neumünster's last cloth factory closed in the beginning of the 1990s. This, among other reasons, led to Neumünster having a relatively high rate of unemployment compared to nationwide averages.

In 2012, McArthurGlen Group opened a designer outlet shopping centre in the industrial section of the city, using approximately 15,000 square meters.

Current infrastructure The city is divided into nine neighborhoods: Böcklersiedlung-Bugenhagen, Brachenfeld-Rutenberg, Einfeld, Faldera, Gadeland, Gartenstadt, Stadtmitte, Tungendorf and Wittorf.

Neumünster station is a major railway junction with lines running in six (formerly seven) directions, including the important Hamburg-Altona–Kiel and Neumünster–Flensburg lines.

Near Neumünster at Ehndorf, there is a high-power medium wave transmission facility for transmitting the programmes of Deutschlandfunk, the Ehndorf transmitter, which is often named incorrectly as "Neumünster transmitter".

The city has an airfield and a hospital. The utility company, "Stadtwerke Neumünster" (SWN), also manages local inter-city bus routes. In 2022, SWN ended all its inter-city bus service for Sundays and holidays, instead offering an on-demand shuttle van requiring an additional "comfort surcharge" on top of regular bus fares.

Education The University of Applied Sciences Kiel offers a bachelor's degree in nursing at its Neumünster site.

Geography Neumünster is located at the rivers Schwale and Stör, near the geographical centre of Schleswig-Holstein, 35 km (22 mi) south of Kiel, 65 km (40 mi) north of Hamburg and 72 km (45 mi) west of Lübeck. The Aukrug Nature Park is close to the town.

Museums and artists' house The Museum Tuch + Technik shows the history of the cloth-making craft from the Iron Age to the present day as well as of the city of Neumünster. The museum, which is supported by the Foundation Museum, Art and Culture of the City of Neumünster, was reopened on October 13, 2007 with a revised exhibition in a specially constructed building.

The Herbert Gerisch Foundation is an art foundation established in 2001 by Brigitte and Herbert Gerisch and based in Neumünster-Brachenfeld. The foundation serves the care, promotion and presentation of regional as well as international contemporary art. At the same time as the foundation was established, an international sculpture park was continuously built up.

The Keramikkünstlerhaus Neumünster (until 2022 Stadttöpferei Neumünster) is an artists' house in Neumünster, which has been awarding work and residency scholarships for outstanding international graduates in the field of artistic ceramics since 1987. The Keramikkünstlerhaus is located in the Fürsthof, a small street in Neumünster's historic city center. The three-story brick building was built around 1900.

Zoo The Tierpark Neumünster houses about 700 animals from a total of 100 species of mammals, birds and reptiles on a wooded area of 24 hectares.

Nature reserves The raised bog Dosenmoor near Einfeld north-east of Neumünster has an area of 521 hectares and is the largest and best preserved raised bog in Schleswig-Holstein. Due to the good condition of the moor, a diverse flora and fauna can be explored here.

The nature reserve on the western shore of Einfelder See protects the near-natural shoreline landscape with siltation zones and the open water areas in front of them.