1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Havelberg

HAVELBERG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Brandenburg, on the Havel and the railway Glöwen-Havelberg. Pop. (1905), 5988. The town is built partly on an island in the Havel, and partly on hills on the right bank of the river, on one of which stands the fine Romanesque cathedral dating from the 12th century. The two parts, which are connected by a bridge, were incorporated as one town in 1875. The inhabitants are chiefly engaged in tobacco manufacturing, sugar-refining and boat-building, and in the timber trade.

Otto I. founded a bishopric at Havelberg in 946; the bishop, however, who was a prince of the Empire, generally resided at Plattenburg, or Wittstock, a few miles to the north. In 1548 the bishopric was seized by the elector of Brandenburg, who finally took possession of it fifty years later, and the cathedral passed to the Protestant Church, retaining its endowments till the edict of 1810, by which all former ecclesiastical possessions were assumed by the crown. The final secularization was delayed till 1819. Havelberg was formerly a strong fortress, but in the Thirty Years’ War it was taken from the Danish by the imperial troops in 1627. Recaptured by the Swedes in 1631, and again in 1635 and 1636, it was in 1637 retaken by the Saxons. It suffered severely from a conflagration in 1870.