Bremen-Vegesack

Vegesack is located about 20 km (12 mi) north from the centre of Bremen-city at the mouth of the river Lesum, beside the Weser River (53°10′07″N 8°37′30″E). Abutting the district of Vegesack to the northwest is the district of Blumenthal, in the southeast the district of Burglesum. Across the river Weser is the Lower Saxony village Lemwerder, connected to Vegesack by a ferry service.

Beached whale at Vegesack harbor in 1670 by local painter Franz Wulfhagen shows the earliest known picture of Vegesack.

Vegesack was established long before the 14th century. At that time the mouth of the river Lesum and the small brook Aue to the river Weser was a preferred and protected berth for sailing ships in the winter time or in the stormy seasons. Therefore, the first buildings might have been a few workshops and accommodations and pubs for the sailors. After the first mention of a ferry across the Weser in the 14th century, the name "Vegesack" was first used in 1453. The source and the meaning of the name is unknown but might be derived from the pub "Thom Fegesacke".

In its long history Vegesack often changed hands. In 1648 it became Swedish, 1712 Danish, 1802 Bremish and 1810 French. In 1850 Vegesack received town privileges and in 1939 it became again part of the city of Bremen.

From 1619 to 1623 the first artificial harbour of Germany, and one of the first in Europe, was built in Vegesack. The reason for this was the growth of shallows in the river Weser, which blocked big sailing ships from reaching Bremen´s harbour. Goods were then transshipped in the Vegesack-harbour to smaller boats or horse-drawn vehicles and transported to Bremen. With the new harbour the importance of Vegesack increased rapidly.

The importance of Vegesack can be seen in the following:

In 1863 the forerunner of the German life boat service (German: Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Rettung Schiffbrüchiger) was founded in Bremen by Adolph Bermpohl, a navigation-teacher in Vegesack

In 1893 a fishing company was founded which became, in the mid-1930s, Europe's biggest herring fleet; Vegesack was the port of registry of this company which was closed in the 1960s.

In 1805 the Lange shipyard was founded by Johann Lange. This company constructed in 1817 Germany´s first steaming ship Die Weser.

In the first half of the 19th century Vegesack was the home of the Lange and the Ulrich shipyards. Both were the predecessors of the Bremer Vulkan shipyard and the Janssen/Sager shipyard. With these three shipyards, Vegesack was the greatest and most important shipbuilding site on the Weser river for a long time.

In 1896 the shipyard Bremer Vulkan was founded by some Bremen politicians and merchants. It became the greatest shipyard in civilian shipbuilding before World War I. The so-called Bremer Vulkan Verbund AG or Vulkan Group became Germany´s greatest shipbuilding company in the 1970s with altogether about 22,000 workers. The Vegesack shipyard closed in 1997.

The 1875 the Lürssen shipyard was founded and is one of the greatest German shipyards today. While the headquarters is located directly at the Vegesack harbour, the production facilities are located on the opposite side of the Weser in Lemwerder as well as in the former Vulkan area.

• Vegesack is connected to the A 27 by the Autobahn 270.
• A railway branch line, operated by NordWestBahn, links Vegesack to Bremen central station and Verden. Public transport is served by several bus lines of the Bremer Straßenbahn AG.
• A car ferry connects Vegesack and Lemwerder.

Jacobs University Bremen in Grohn.

August Wilmanns around 1880

Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs

• Heinrich Behmann (1891-1970), mathematician, professor in Halle (Saale).
• Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs (1831-1896), African explorer and writer; After him the main shopping street and a school center (former Gerhard-Rohlfs-Gymnasium) is named in Vegesack.
• Günther Schwarberg (1926-2008), journalist in Hamburg, wrote the book The SS Physician and the Children of the Bullenhuser Damm , a forgotten chapter from the "Endphaseverbrechen" (crimes at the end of the war) in Nazi Germany.
• Jürgen Trittin (born 1954), politician Alliance '90/The Greens), Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety from 1998 to 2005,
• August Wilmanns (1833-1917), old philologist and general manager of the Berlin State Library

The following personalities (alphabetically arranged) acted in Vegesack:

Albrecht Roth

• Jan Böhmermann (born 1981 in Bremen), radio and television supporter and comedian.
• Leo Drabent (1899-1944) lived in Vegesack and organized the antifascist resistance in and around Bremen.
• Erich Lackner (1913-1992) German engineering scientist of Austrian origin.
• Walter Momper (born 1945), SPD politician, President of the House of Representatives of Berlin and former mayor of Berlin, grew up in Vegesack.
• Bernd Neumann (born 1942 in Elbing), politician (CDU), state minister for culture and media in Berlin, graduated in Vegesack and worked as a teacher.
• Heinrich Oebker (1899-1975), teacher and headmaster,
• Albrecht Wilhelm Roth (1757-1834), German physician and botanist
• Carl Schuchhardt (1859-1943), prehistorian and director of the Neues Museum in Berlin. He grew up in Vegesack and went to school in 1872-1877.

• Sophie Hollanders: Vegesack – Alte Bilder einer Hafenstadt. Johann Heinrich Döll Verlag, Bremen 1984, ISBN 3-88808-016-9 (Vegesack- Old Pictures of a Port-Town)

• Bremen.de
• Vegesack.de, commercial portal