page_title: History of Hamburg
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Hamburg / Modern History / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Der Große Brand von 1842, gemalt von Peter Suhr 1842
context_page_description: The history of Hamburg begins with its foundation in the 9th century as a mission settlement to convert the Saxons. Since the Middle Ages, Hamburg was an important trading center in Europe. The convenient location of the port and its independence as a city and state for centuries strengthened this position.
  The city was member in the medieval Hanseatic trading league and a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. From 1815 until 1866 Hamburg was an independent and sovereign state of the German Confederation, then the North German Confederation, the German Empire and during the period of the Weimar Republic. In Nazi Germany Hamburg was a city-state and a Gau from 1934 until 1945. After the Second World War Hamburg was in the British Zone of Occupation and became a state in the western part of Germany in the Federal Republic of Germany.
context_section_description: Briefly annexed by Napoleon I (1810–14), Hamburg was the capital of the department Bouches-de-l'Elbe, with Amandus Augustus Abendroth as the new mayor. Hamburg suffered severely during the Continental Blockade and Napoleon's last campaign in Germany but managed to raise two forces to fight against him, the Hamburg Citizen Militia and Hanseatic Legion. The city was besieged for over a year by Allied forces (mostly Russian, Swedish and German). Russian forces under General Bennigsen finally freed the city in 1814. In addition to stimulating German nationalism, the war had a major impact in mobilizing a civic spirit in numerous volunteer activities.  Many volunteer militias and civic associations were formed, and collaborated with churches, and the press to support local and state armies, patriotic wartime mobilization, humanitarian relief and postwar commemorative practices and rituals.
  Hamburg was a member of the 39-state German Confederation from 1814 to 1866 and, as the other member-states, enjoyed full sovereignty. After periodic political unrest, particularly in 1848, the self-ruling city-state adopted a democratic constitution in 1860 that provided for the election of the Senate, the governing body of the city-state, by adult taxpaying males. Other innovations were the separation of powers, the separation of Church and State, freedom of the press, of assembly and association. Hamburg became a member of the North German Confederation (1866–71), the German Empire (1871–1918), while in 1888 it was one of the last two states to join the German Customs Union (along with Bremen) and was to maintain its self-ruling status during the Weimar Republic (1919–33).
  During the first half of the 19th century a patron goddess with Hamburg's Latin name Hammonia emerged, mostly in romantic and poetic references, and although she has no mythology to call her own, Hammonia became the symbol of the city's spirit during this time.
  In 1842, about a third of the city was destroyed in the "Great Fire". This fire started on the night of 4 May 1842 and was extinguished on 8 May. It destroyed three churches, the town hall, and countless other buildings. It killed 51 people, and left an estimated 20,000 homeless. Reconstruction took more than 40 years. As part of the reconstruction, the first large modern sanitation system in Europe was built in Hamburg.
  Hamburg experienced its fastest growth during the second half of the 19th century, when its population more than quadrupled to 800,000 as the growth of the city's Atlantic trade helped make it Europe's third-largest port. Construction of the port lead to the disappearance of several of the smaller of Hamburg's many rivers and channels, such as the Dradenau.
  A major outbreak of cholera in 1892 was very badly handled by the city government, which still retained an unusual degree of independence for a German city at the time.  About 8,600 died in the largest German epidemic of the late 19th century, and the last major cholera epidemic in an important city in the Western world.  The Hamburg water supply from the Elbe did not meet modern standards, and the authorities long continued to deny there was an epidemic, or implement the new understanding of the germ theory of disease.  The Imperial government used the scandal to greatly reduce the powers of the city authorities.
caption: The great fire 1842, by Peter Suhr 1842
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