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32-625: The Kurmark included the Altmark in the west and the Mittelmark , core territory of the 10th century Northern March , as well as the Uckermark region in the northeast and Prignitz in the northwest. The boundary also comprised the minor lordships of Ruppin and Lubusz Land west of the Oder River; since 1575 also Beeskow and Storkow . It did not include the adjacent possessions of

64-549: A combined tonnage of 62,915  gross register tons  (GRT), plus two more (totalling 21,125  GRT ) in cooperation with Komet . The German freighter Anneliese Essberger , disguised as the Norwegian freighter Herstein , was meant to meet the Orion on 30 Aug. 1941. The planned rendezvous was Point Corona at 28 degrees N, 43 degrees W. But the freighter failed to see the Orion , and continued north. De-commissioned as

96-458: A commerce raider, the ship was renamed Hektor in 1944 and was used as artillery training ship. In January 1945 she was again renamed Orion and was used to take refugees from Germany's eastern provinces across the Baltic Sea to ports in northern Germany and occupied Denmark. On her way to Copenhagen on 4 May 1945, after she had picked up the crew of the old battleship Schlesien , Orion

128-796: 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 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

160-496: The German auxiliary cruiser  Komet and supply ship Kulmerland . Operating together, they sank another seven ships, including the liner Rangitane and five ships off Nauru , before going their separate ways in the new year. The German naval attaché to Japan, Vice-Admiral Paul Wenneker , bought a Nakajima E8N float plane early in 1941. It was dispatched on board the supply ship Münsterland to rendezvous with Orion at

192-680: The Hohenzollern dynasty , such as the Neumark (New March) beyond the Oder, purchased by the margraves in the mid 13th century, and Cottbus in the southeast. The Kurmark corresponded to the Margraviate of Brandenburg held by the House of Hohenzollern until 1535, when upon the death of Elector Joachim I Nestor , the lands were divided among his elder son Joachim II Hector , who also inherited

224-700: The House of Hohenzollern , the Altmark became part of Brandenburg-Prussia and (from 1701) of the Kingdom of Prussia . After Prussia's defeat at 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

256-632: 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 the Altmark towards Schwerin is planned. Beside which the Federal roads B71 , B107, B188 , B189, B190, B248 run through

288-743: 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 the Eastphalian territory of the Duchy of Saxony , which, from 843 onwards, constituted

320-690: The March of Brandenburg ecclesiastical province were that of the New March and Lower Lusatia and that of Berlin . Most known is Kurmark's General Superintendent F. K. Otto Dibelius , officially serving in this position from 1925 until his furlough by the Prussian State Commissioner for the Prussian ecclesiastical affairs ( German : Staatskommissar für die preußischen kirchlichen Angelegenheiten ), August Jäger, in 1933. After

352-846: The Maug Islands in the Northern Marianas. They met on 1 February 1941, and Orion thus became the only German naval ship of World War II to use a Japanese float plane. Another six months cruising in the Indian Ocean yielded nothing, though she did encounter and capture her final victim, Chaucer , in July 1941, in the South Atlantic when Orion was on her way home. Orion returned to Bordeaux in occupied France on 23 August 1941. After 510 days and 127,337 nautical miles (235,828 km) at sea she had sunk ten ships with

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384-762: The Protestant Reformation in the Electorate of Brandenburg, starting officially in 1539, the following year the first general superintendent of Kurmark was appointed. In 1815 the usage of the title was interrupted. Within the March of Brandenburg ecclesiastical province of the Evangelical Church in Prussia , established in 1817, the Kurmark formed again a general superintendency from 1829 to 1948. Two other general superintendencies within

416-544: The Sprengel Neuruppin continued to exist. Despite the name, the general superintendent is seated in Potsdam . In 1933 the streamlined official church body replaced the title by that of a provost , subordinate to the general superintendency of Berlin, then newly titled Bishopric of Berlin, led by a provincial bishop: In 1945 the old title was re-established: In 1963 the general superintendency of Kurmark

448-639: The cargo ship Kurmark . The navy requisitioned her at the start of World War II, had her converted into the auxiliary cruiser Orion , and commissioned her on 9 December 1939. Known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 36 , her Royal Navy designation was Raider A . She was named after the constellation Orion . Blohm & Voss in Hamburg built the ship as a freighter for the Hamburg America Line (HAPAG). To save money, steam turbines from

480-635: The ocean liner RMS  Niagara five days later. Two other ships struck mines from Orion , as did two trawlers and an auxiliary minesweeper. Orion then raided across the Indian and Pacific Oceans attacking four more ships. One ship, the Norwegian freighter Tropic Sea , was captured without a fight and sent to occupied France as a prize, though she was scuttled in the Bay of Biscay after encountering HMS  Truant . The other ships encountered by Orion were sunk. On 20 October 1940 she rendezvoused with

512-471: The schism of the evangelical church (then Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union , under this name 1922-1953) into a schismatic streamlined Nazi-obedient branch and a steadfast truly Protestant branch, clinging to the Confessing Church , Dibelius ignored the furlough and continued to serve as general superintendent until 1945 - with effect only in the non-schismatic congregations. In 1945

544-685: 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 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

576-601: The command of Korvettenkapitän (later Fregattenkapitän ) Kurt Weyher . Disguised as a neutral ship she passed south through the Atlantic Ocean , where she attacked and sank Haxby , a 5,207  GRT freighter. In May 1940 Orion rounded Cape Horn and entered the Pacific Ocean . She entered New Zealand waters in June 1940 and laid mines off Auckland during the night of 13–14 June 1940, one of which sank

608-798: 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 the Elbe. Gero thereafter campaigned in the Slavic lands far beyond the river Elbe and thereafter established

640-519: The electoral dignity, and the younger John of Küstrin . John received the Neumark territory and Cottbus, which were split off the electoral lands. Already in 1571, the Hohenzollern lands were re-united under Elector John George of Brandenburg , when his uncle John of Küstrin died without heirs. Nevertheless, the denotation Kurmark remained affiliated with the territory west of the Oder. With

672-515: The liner New York were re-used. That proved a poor decision, since the Orion was plagued for her entire life by engine problems. After the war began the German Seekriegsleitung (Naval Operations Command) was ill-prepared for raider warfare. The operations of the German auxiliary cruisers of World War I were evaluated by German military planners and considered a great success, having disrupted British merchant shipping around

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704-533: The new constitution of the March of Brandenburg ecclesiastical province, now named Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg renamed the general superintendency of Kurmark into Sprengel Neuruppin (1949) with a smaller territory. Also after the merger of the Silesian and Berlin-Brandenburg evangelical church bodies into today's Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia in 2004

736-651: 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, 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

768-601: 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 a population of 39,000, and Salzwedel (21,500). Before the Migration Period of 300 to 700 AD,

800-738: 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 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

832-609: 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 German auxiliary cruiser Orion Orion (HSK-1) was an auxiliary cruiser of Nazi Germany 's Kriegsmarine which operated as a merchant raider in World War II . Blohm & Voss built her in Hamburg in 1930–31 as

864-588: 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 the Slavic Hevelli prince Pribislav and in 1150 succeeded him in his eastern territory around the fortress of Brandenburg an der Havel , which became

896-467: The schism was overcome by repressing many prominent Nazi-obedient leaders from their positions in the official church body. The provisional advisory council ( German : Beirat ), leading the church body for the time being until the new election of a provincial synod (October 1946), reconfirmed Dibelius as General Superintendent of Kurmark and commissioned him to also serve the vacant general superintendencies of Berlin and New March and Lusatia . In 1948

928-595: The world. However the overall effect on the war was evaluated as having been rather minor and so only a small program of converting merchant ships into auxiliary cruisers was initiated on 5 September 1939. The first two ships being requisitioned were the Kurmark ( Orion ) and the Neumark ( German auxiliary cruiser  Widder ), and conversion started immediately. One of Germany's first auxiliary cruisers in World War II, Orion left Germany on 6 April 1940, under

960-510: Was hit by two bombs dropped by aircraft of the Soviet 51st Mine-Torpedo Aviation Regiment off Swinemünde . The crew managed to beach the fiercely burning ship on a sandbank, but more than 150 passengers and crew were killed. The hulk was scrapped in 1952. (The claims by several sources that the freighters Port Bowen and Baltannic were also victims of the Orion's mines, seem, on examination of

992-599: Was incorporated into the new Prussian Province of Saxony rather than being attached to the Province of Brandenburg . Within Prussian Saxony, 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

Kurmark - Misplaced Pages Continue

1024-575: Was renamed into Sprengel Neuruppin with a smaller ambit. Things named after the Kurmark include the freighter Kurmark and the Panzer Division Kurmark . Altmark The Altmark (English: Old March ) is a historic region in Germany , comprising 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 ,

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