The Hanseatic League was a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Northwestern and Central Europe. Growing from a few North German towns in the late 1100s, the league came to dominate Baltic maritime trade for three centuries along the coasts of Northern Europe. Hansa territories stretched from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland during the Late Middle Ages, and diminished slowly after 1450.
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, also known by its anglicized name Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania or Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, is a state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ranks 14th in population, 6th in area, and 16th in population density. Schwerin is the state capital and Rostock is the largest city. Other major cities include Neubrandenburg, Stralsund, Greifswald, Wismar and Güstrow.
Rostock, officially the University and Hanseatic City of Rostock, is the largest city in the German federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, close to the border with Pomerania. With around 208,000 inhabitants, it is the third largest city on the German Baltic coast after Kiel and Lübeck, the eighth largest city in the area of former East Germany, as well as the 39th largest city of Germany. Rostock was the largest coastal and most important port city in East Germany.
Greifswald, officially the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald is a town in northeastern Germany.
Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German communist politician. In 1949, he became the first, and only President of the German Democratic Republic, and the office was abolished upon his death. His successor as head of state was the collective Council of State, whose chairman, and thus most prominent member, was SED First Secretary Walter Ulbricht.
Gorch Fock I is a German three-mast barque, the first of a series built as school ships for the German Reichsmarine in 1933.
The University of Greifswald, formerly also known as “Ernst-Moritz-Arnt University of Greifswald“, is a public research university located in Greifswald, Germany, in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
The University of Rostock is a public university located in Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Founded in 1419, it is the third-oldest university in Germany. It is the oldest and largest university in continental northern Europe and the Baltic Sea area, and 8th oldest in Central Europe. It was the 5th university established in the Holy Roman Empire.
The Hanse Sail in Rostock is the largest maritime festival in Mecklenburg (Germany) and one of the largest in Europe.
Preussen (PROY-sin) was a German steel-hulled, five-masted, ship-rigged sailing ship built in 1902 for the F. Laeisz shipping company and named after the German state and kingdom of Prussia. It was the world's only ship of this class with five masts carrying six square sails on each mast.
Potosi was a five-masted steel barque built in 1895 by Joh. C. Tecklenborg ship yard in Geestemünde, Germany, for the sailing ship company F. Laeisz as a trading vessel. Its primary purpose was as a "nitrate clipper" collecting guano in South America for use in chemical companies in Germany. As its shipping route was between Germany and Chile, it was designed to be capable of withstanding the rough weather encountered around Cape Horn.
SMS Greif was a German cargo steamship that was converted into a merchant raider for the Imperial German Navy.
The Stages of Life is an allegorical oil painting of 1835 by the German Romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich. Completed just five years before his death, this picture, like many of his works, forms a meditation both on his own mortality and on the transience of life.
The Action of 29 February 1916 was a naval engagement fought during the First World War between the United Kingdom and the German Empire. SMS Greif a German commerce raider, broke out into the North Sea and Admiral Sir John Jellicoe dispatched Royal Navy warships to intercept the raider. Four British vessels made contact with the Greif and in the ensuing encounter, the commerce raider and the armed merchant cruiser RMS Alcantara were sunk.
Hanne Marie is a traditional sailing vessel with a gaff ketch rig that was built in Fanø Denmark in 1919. The ship originally functioned as a fishing vessel, but was decommissioned in Esbjerg in the 1970s. After being renovated between 1980 and 1990 Hanne Marie was transferred to Bielefeld, Germany and an association was created to maintain and sail the boat. Since 2004 the home port of Hanne Marie is Greifswald, Germany. There it is managed as a traditional ship by a small sailing collective called 'Hanne Marie Segeln e.V.'. Sailing trips start from the museum port in Greifswald and the excursions generally take place in the southern and western Baltic Sea. The goal of the collective is to preserve the art of traditional sailing.
SMS Greif was an aviso built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the mid-1880s, the only ship of her class. Designed at a time where torpedoes had become effective weapons and spurred the development of the Jeune École, Greif was intended to guard the capital ships of the fleet against torpedo boat attacks. For this role, she carried a battery of 10.5 cm (4.1 in) and 3.7 cm (1.5 in) guns, unlike other German avisos of the period, which also carried torpedo tubes. Greif was not a successful warship, however, and she spent much of her career laid up, out of service.
SMS Blücher was a Bismarck-class corvette built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the late 1870s. The Bismarck-class corvettes were ordered as part of a major naval construction program in the early 1870s, and she was designed to serve as a fleet scout and on extended tours in Germany's colonial empire. Blücher was laid down in March 1876, launched in September 1877, and was commissioned into the fleet in late 1878. Unlike her sister ships, Blücher was converted shortly after entering service into a torpedo training ship to experiment with the new self-propelled torpedoes and develop German torpedo doctrine.
MY Albin Köbis was built in 1952 by Engelbrecht-Werft in Berlin-Köpenick on order by Wilhelm Pieck and served as the presidential yacht of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) until 1971 when it was replaced by MY Ostseeland. It was named in honour of Albin Köbis, a German sailor and revolutionary during World War I.
F. Laeisz is a German shipping company with offices in Hamburg, Rostock, Bremerhaven and Grabow, Germany, as well as Japan and the Philippines.
Dehler is a German brand of sailing yachts. It is originated in the former Dehler shipyard that was founded in the 1960s by Willi and Heinz Dehler. As of 2009, the brand belongs to German yacht manufacturer HanseYachts, Greifswald. Dehler cooperates with the yacht design studio Judel/Vrolijk & Co. The current range comprises six models from 29 to 46 ft in length.
Germany
