Antique map - Harbourg 1920

Pharus-Plan of Harburg (Harburg an der Elbe) in 1920: the Prussian industrial city facing Hamburg, its Lauenbruch ports and its bridges, before the merger of 1927.

This Pharus-Plan shows Harburg, Harburg an der Elbe in German, in 1920. The city was then Prussian, in the province of Hanover, and was an independent city (Stadtkreis), on the south bank of the Elbe, facing Hamburg. Today it forms one of the seven districts of the city-state of Hamburg (Hamburg-Harburg). Since the 19th century, "an der Elbe" has been added to distinguish it from another city of the same name in Bavaria.

Harburg received its city rights in 1297, based on the model of Lüneburg. It originated around the Horeburg, a castle built on an island in the Süderelbe, at the site of the current inner port. It remained independent for more than six centuries: in 1927, it merged with Wilhelmsburg to form the city of Harburg-Wilhelmsburg, which had over 100,000 inhabitants. The Greater Hamburg Act (Groß-Hamburg-Gesetz) transferred it from Prussia to Hamburg on April 1, 1937, and the city lost its municipal autonomy in 1938.

Places and neighborhoods shown:

• The Elbe bridges - at the top, the map shows the bridges connecting Harburg to Wilhelmsburg. Until 1872, no fixed bridge crossed the Elbe here, and all traffic had to be transshipped. The railway bridge was built between 1870 and 1872, and the road bridge opened in 1899. According to the city of Hamburg, Napoleon himself had ordered the construction of a bridge to Wilhelmsburg during the French occupation.
• The Lauenbruch ports - in the northwest, the map names Seehafen 1, 2 and 3, the tidal basins of the seaport. The construction of the Lauenbruch ports on the Süderelbe began in 1909, and three basins existed in 1920; a fourth was built in 1927. On the map, the area is marked "Ehem. Lauenbruch", the former municipality.
• The rubber industry - in 1856, the "Harburger Gummi-Kamm-Compagnie" was founded in Harburg, which manufactured hardened rubber combs, and that same year, brothers Albert and Louis Cohen settled there to manufacture rubber shoes and vulcanized rubber. Harburg became a city of machine factories, chemicals and shipbuilding.
• The Binnenhafen and the Schlossinsel - the inner port, at the site of the former castle, is the old heart of the city. The map names the castle district (Schloß-Bezirk).
• The neighboring municipalities - the map names "Ehem. Heimfeld" and "Ehem. Wilstorf", former municipalities annexed to Harburg as early as 1888, and, still independent, Eißendorf, Moorburg, Rönneburg, Langenbek, Marmstorf, Sinstorf and Gut Moor. The map specifies that the territory of Moorburg, to the west, belonged to the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. Most of the other villages did not join Hamburg until 1937.
• The forests - in the southwest, the map names "Die Haake" and the Heimfelder Holz, the woods of the Harburg hills.
• The railway stations - the map names the Hauptbahnhof, the Unterelbe station, as well as a large Seehafen-Rangierbahnhof, the port marshalling yard.

Cartographic reference: this "Pharus-Plan Harburg" belongs to the same series as the plans of Berlin, Aachen, Bremen, Breslau, Koblenz, Cologne, Darmstadt, Dresden, Duisburg, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt from 1917, with the railway stations in red and the monuments in perspective. A street directory (Straßenverzeichnis) occupies the right side, with their squares in the grid, the legend distinguishes railways and trams, and a compass rose is drawn on the right.

In short: for anyone with ties to Harburg, Hamburg or the Elbe, interested in the history of the ports, industry or the cities absorbed by Hamburg in 1937, this map shows Harburg before the merger of 1927, with its recent ports and its still-independent villages.

What area does this map of Harburg cover? It covers Harburg and its surroundings, on the south bank of the Elbe: the center, the inner port, the Lauenbruch ports, the railway stations, the former municipalities of Heimfeld and Wilstorf, as well as the neighboring villages and woods.

In what year was this map published? This map dates from 1920. It was published by Pharus-Verlag in Berlin.

Reproduction of the "Pharus-Plan Harburg", published in 1920 by Pharus-Verlag in Berlin.

Printed on textured 200 g/m² art paper. Landscape orientation, standard 50x70 and 70x100 cm formats: easy to frame.