Neuruppin

The town is located on the shore of the Ruppiner See, a lake traversed by the Rhin river, about 60 km (37 mi) northwest of Berlin. In the north, the hilly landscape of Ruppin Switzerland stretches up to the Rheinsberg Lake Region and the border with Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It is part of the Stechlin-Ruppiner Land Nature Park.

After several incorporations in 1993, Neuruppin today is one of Germany's largest municipalities by area.

The shores of Ruppiner See were settled since the Stone Age; in the 9th century AD, Poggenwerder Island was the site of a Slavic gord (burgwall), probably built by Polabian Zamizi tribes. The castle was possibly slighted during the Wendish Crusade of 1147 and about 1200 a lowland castle was erected on an opposite peninsula, which from 1214 served as the residence of the Lords of Ruppin. Their lordship remained an immediate Imperial estate until its final incorporation into the neighbouring Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1524.

View of Neuruppin, about 1694

The name Neuruppin means "New Ruppin", as the original settlement of Ruppin (later Alt Ruppin, "Old Ruppin") was located around the castle on the north-eastern shore of the Ruppiner See. In the early 13th century, when the settlement became too small for the growing population, Neuruppin on the western shore of the lake was established by the Lords of Lindow-Ruppin. First mentioned in a 1238 deed, it became the first establishment of the Dominican Order between the Elbe and Oder rivers, when the local noble Wichmann von Arnstein founded Neuruppin Abbey in 1246. Today only the monastery church is still standing. Since the Protestant Reformation it is called St Trinitatis. Neuruppin received town privileges on 9 March 1256; town walls were erected and completed until the 15th century.

In 1524 Ruppin Land was finally seized as a reverted fief by the Hohenzollern Elector Joachim I Nestor of Brandenburg. The monastery was secularised in the course of the Reformation and its premises ceded to the Neuruppin citizens. The town was ravaged by the Thirty Years' War, from about 1685 French Huguenot refugees settled here. In 1688 Neuruppin became a Brandenburg-Prussian garrison town.

After a disastrous fire in 1787 the Neo-Classicism of the rebuilt town's buildings characterise its townscape to the present day. It remained a garrison town until the late 20th century, since Soviet (resp. Russian) troops were stationed here until 1993; during this time there were as many Soviet soldiers as inhabitants in Neuruppin.

• 
  Development of population since 1875 within the current Boundaries (Blue Line: Population; Dotted Line: Comparison to Population development in Brandenburg state; Grey Background: Time of Nazi Germany; Red Background: Time of communist East Germany)
• 
  Recent Population Development and Projections (Population Development before Census 2011 (blue line); Recent Population Development according to the Census in Germany in 2011 (blue bordered line); Official projections for 2005–2030 (yellow line); for 2017–2030 (scarlet line); for 2020–2030 (green line)

• 1810–1816: Dr. Braun
• 1816–1822: Balthasar Friedrich Knoevenvogel
• 1822–1851: Ernst Adolph Bienengräber
• 1851–1888: Ch. L. G. von Schulz
• 1889–1899: Adolf Trenckmann
• 1899–1923: Max Warzecha
• 1923–1933: Ernst Blümel
• 1934–1945: Kurt Krüger
• 1945: Reinhold Meyer[4]
• 1945: Karl Hochstädt
• 1945: Hermann Huch
• 1945–1946: Richard Schulz
• 1946–1948: Trude Marx[5]
• 1948–1949: H. Schulz[4]
• 1949–1951: Joseph Robiné
• 1951–1953: Otto Herms
• 1954–?: Max Hartmann
• 1957–1965: Bruno Salvat
• 1965–1970: Günter Weigt
• 1970–1978: Gerd Hohlfeld
• 1978–1988: Harald Lemke
• 1988–1990: Rainer Frank
• 1990–1991: Silke Bringmann
• 1991–1994: Joachim Zindler
• 1994–2004: Otto Theel
• 2005-2020: Jens-Peter Golde
• since 2020:Nico Ruhle

Neuruppin is twinned with:[6]

• Babimost, Poland
• Bad Kreuznach, Germany
• Certaldo, Italy
• Niiza, Japan
• Nymburk, Czech Republic

Ferdinand von Bredow 1930

• Joachim Ludwig Schultheiss von Unfriedt (1678–1753), architect
• Karl Friedrich von dem Knesebeck (1768–1848), Prussian field marshal
• Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841), architect
• Ferdinand Möhring (1816–1887), composer
• Theodor Fontane (1819–1898), novelist and poet
• Otto Friedrich Ferdinand von Görschen (1824–1875), lieutenant colonel
• Paul Carl Beiersdorf (1836–1896), pharmacist and founder of Beiersdorf AG
• Carl Großmann (1863–1922), serial killer
• Ferdinand von Bredow (1884–1934), Major General of Reichswehr
• Hermann Hoth (1885–1971), army commander and war criminal
• Klaus Schwarzkopf (1922–1991), actor
• Horst Giese (1926–2008), actor
• Eva Strittmatter (1930–2011), writer
• Jörg Hube (1943–2009), actor
• Uwe Hohn (born 1962), javelin thrower
• Ulrich Papke (born 1962), canoeist
• Bernd Gummelt (born 1963), race walker
• Jens-Peter Herold (born 1965), middle-distance runner
• Ralf Büchner (born 1967), gymnast
• Timo Gottschalk (born 1974), rally navigator

• 
  Schinkel statue
• 
  Statue by Matthias Zágon Hohl-Stein
• 
  Manor house of the family Gentz in Gentzrode
• 
  Ruppiner Lake with monastery church towers
• 
  ″Sabine" in Binenwalde
• 
  Neumühle
• 
  Trinitatiskirche
• 
  Former fire extinguisher factory

Media related to Neuruppin at Wikimedia Commons