The Mittelmark (German for "Middle March ") is a historical region in eastern Germany that was the core territory of the Margrave of Brandenburg between the Oder and Elbe rivers.
18-610: The name refers to the location of the territory between the Altmark (Old March) and the Neumark (New March) and it lay roughly in the area of the earlier Nordmark . The name of Mittelmark was used for a short-lived province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1713 and again from 1993 to the present for the district of Potsdam-Mittelmark in the German state of Brandenburg . However, the southern part of
36-682: A population of 39,000, and Salzwedel (21,500). Before the Migration Period of 300 to 700 AD, the Lombards had settled the future Altmark. Subsequently, Old Germanic Saxon tribes lived in the northwest and Polabian Slavs in the eastern territories along the Elbe. After the Saxon Wars , waged by Charlemagne from 772 to 804, the lands became part of the Carolingian Empire . They formed part of
54-656: A son of Count Wichmann the Elder and Frederuna, sister of Queen Matilda , and held large estates along the Elbe and Saale rivers. A henchman of the royal Ottonian dynasty , Dietrich in 953 supported King Otto I of Germany against his revolting son Duke Liudolf of Swabia . He also fought - without success - against the Polabian Slavs settling on the Elbe river at the eastern rim of his Eastphalian home territory. In return Otto, Holy Roman Emperor since 962, appointed him margrave in
72-745: The Eastphalian territory of the Duchy of Saxony , which, from 843 onwards, constituted the eastern borderlands of East Francia under Louis the German . The bishops of Verden and of Halberstadt promoted the Christianisation of the Saxon population. In 936 the German king Otto I allotted the territory of the later Altmark to the Saxon Count Gero , in order to subdue the West Slavic Wends settling on
90-599: The Altmark (literally "Old March ") in contrast to the Mittelmark (Middle March) and Neumark (New March) beyond the Oder river; the written record first mentions it in 1304 as Antiqua Marchia . As part of Brandenburg, from 1415 held by the House of Hohenzollern , the Altmark became part of Brandenburg-Prussia and (from 1701) of the Kingdom of Prussia . After Prussia's defeat at
108-739: The Altmark became part of a reconstituted Saxony-Anhalt. The region is drained by the Elbe , joined by the Havel at Havelberg , and its left tributaries of the Milde-Biese- Aland system and the Jeetzel river. The largest natural lake of the Altmark is the Arendsee . The Altmark is located off the main traffic routes. The Bundesautobahn 14 leads to the Bundesautobahn 2 from Hanover to Berlin , it however ends north of Magdeburg. A continuation through
126-548: The Altmark towards Schwerin is planned. Beside which the Federal roads B71 , B107, B188 , B189, B190, B248 run through the region. Stendal station is a stop on the Hanover–Berlin high-speed railway . Other lines include: 52°43′N 11°24′E / 52.717°N 11.400°E / 52.717; 11.400 Dietrich of Haldensleben Dietrich ( Theoderich, Theodoric) of Haldensleben (died 25 August 985)
144-647: The Altmark was subdivided into the districts of Salzwedel , Gardelegen , Osterburg , and Stendal , all administered within the Regierungsbezirk of Magdeburg . After World War II the Altmark, lying to the east of the inner German border , became part of the new state of Saxony-Anhalt in the Soviet occupation zone . The regional administration of East Germany saw it administered within Bezirk Magdeburg from 1952 to 1990. With German reunification in 1990,
162-615: The Elbe. Gero thereafter campaigned in the Slavic lands far beyond the river Elbe and thereafter established the Saxon Marca Geronis stretching up to the Oder in the east. Upon Gero's death in 965, his marca was split and the Northern March was granted to Dietrich of Haldensleben , who nevertheless turned out to be an incapable ruler and lost all the territories east of the Elbe in
180-523: The Northern March beyond the Elbe, the largest part of the former Marca Geronis after its dissolution upon the death of Margrave Gero in 965. Dietrich was a harsh overlord. Together with Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg he enforced the Christianization of the local Slavic population and was instrumental in the execution of his rival Gero , Count of Alsleben . Owing to his pride as stated by
198-561: The Slavic Hevelli prince Pribislav and in 1150 succeeded him in his eastern territory around the fortress of Brandenburg an der Havel , which became the nucleus of his newly established Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1157. As the Brandenburg margraves expanded their territory during the course of the Ostsiedlung , the original western territory of the Northern March became known as
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#1732849118845216-562: The Slavic Lutici uprising of 983. He retained only his margravial title and the initial land basis of his predecessor Gero's conquests west of the river. For more than one and a half centuries, the lands east of the Elbe defied German control, until in 1134 Emperor Lothair of Supplinburg bestowed the Northern March on the Ascanian count Albert the Bear . Albert signed an inheritance contract with
234-436: The chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg (he allegedly once refused the marriage of one of his kinswoman to a Slav "dog"), in 983 the Slavic Lutici and Hevelli tribes sacked the lands of the eastern bishoprics of Havelberg and Brandenburg and reverted to paganism. According to the medieval chroniclers Adam of Bremen and Annalista Saxo , Dietrich was deprived of his march in the same year, though he later again appeared as
252-452: The district containing Bad Belzig did not historically belong to Mittelmark, it was instead a part of Saxony . This German history article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Brandenburg location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Altmark The Altmark (English: Old March ) is a historic region in Germany , comprising
270-686: The hands of Napoleon in 1806, the terms of the Treaty of Tilsit (1807) assigned the territory of the Altmark to the new Kingdom of Westphalia . Prussia regained the area upon Napoleon's defeat (per Article XXIII of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna , 1815); however, it was incorporated into the new Prussian Province of Saxony rather than being attached to the Province of Brandenburg . Within Prussian Saxony,
288-457: The northern third of Saxony-Anhalt . As the initial territory of the March of Brandenburg , it is sometimes referred to as the "Cradle of Prussia", as by Otto von Bismarck , a native of Schönhausen near Stendal . The Altmark is located west of the Elbe river between the cities of Hamburg and Magdeburg , mostly included in the present-day districts of Altmarkkreis Salzwedel and Stendal . In
306-845: The west, the Drawehn hill range and the Drömling depression separate it from the Lüneburg Heath in Lower Saxony ; the Altmark also borders the Wendland region in the north and the Magdeburg Börde in the south. Adjacent east of the Elbe is the historical Prignitz region. The population is small. The cultural landscape within the North European Plain is rural and widely covered with forests and heathlands . The largest towns are Stendal , with
324-683: Was a count in the Schwabengau , later also in the Nordthüringgau and the Derlingau , who was the first Margrave of the Northern March from 965 until the Great Slav Rising of 983. He also bore the title of a dux (duke) in contemporary sources.He was a ancestor of John V Dietrich was the ancestor of a comital branch named after the residence of Haldensleben in Eastphalia . He may have been
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