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The New Magdeburg—After the Ring of Fire

Written by David Carrico

The author wishes to express his appreciation to Virginia DeMarce, Gorg Huff and Kerryn Offord, whose contributions to this article were substantial.

 

Map by Gorg Huff.

 

General information about Magdeburg:

 

The general plan of Magdeburg is that the long axis is more or less north/south and the short axis is east/west.

The Elbe River runs along the east side of Magdeburg, with the current flowing north.

Magdeburg in 1631 is shaped roughly like a tall and narrow right triangle, with the hypotenuse running from the southwest corner to the northeast corner. The city is a bit over half a mile (.95 km) wide at the widest point and not quite two miles (approx 3 km) long. This amounts to somewhat less than a square mile of city area. It’s small. Buildings are crammed together. OT, the city’s population on January 1, 1631, was approximately 36,000, but that probably included several thousand people from the surrounding area that had taken refuge within the city walls. (See further notes about population below.)

Magdeburg is divided into two parts: the old city (Altstadt) to the south, and the new city (Neustadt) to the north. A wide moat encircles the old city, and the northern arm of the moat divides the old city from the new city. The moat flows from the Elbe, around the old city, and back to the Elbe. We think the moat is formally named Der Magdeburg Burggraben, but everyone just calls it Der Grosse Graben—the Big Ditch.

The city had fortification walls surrounding it. The fortifications around the old city appear to have been somewhat stronger than those around the new city.

Roughly two-thirds of the city was owned by private individuals and was subject to the authority of the city council (Rat). The remaining one-third of the city was owned by the arch-bishopric itself, and even though it was contained within the walls of the city, was not subject to the laws and authority of the city council. This consisted mainly of the churches and associated housing, some of which was destroyed in the sack. There were also a few Catholic properties (a couple of monasteries, for example), that were not under the authority of the city council or the arch-bishopric.

The area south of the Altstadt at one time had been built up with buildings and was called the Sudenburg. It was leveled by the Swedish garrison before Tilly and Pappenheim arrived to conduct the siege that led to the sack of the city.

 

Information about the Sack of Magdeburg and the Ring of Fire:

 

Pre-sack Magdeburg had approximately 1,900 households, and according to Otto Gericke there was a population within the Altstadt of approximately 26,000. In addition, there were perhaps another 9,000 people who were from the surrounding areas who had the legal right to take refuge in the city, and probably about 2,000 or so garrison troops. (This was not the high point of Magdeburg's population. In the late 1550s, the city's population is reliably estimated at about 40,000. A plague in 1597 killed about 13,000 people, and another in 1625-1626 killed several thousand more.)

The city was heavily damaged during Tilly's sack and systematically leveled by Pappenheim's occupation forces before he withdrew. The Dom and some buildings near it in the southeast corner of the old city were not destroyed, nor were the fishermen shacks and the tanneries on the riverside, but very little else escaped major damage, and most buildings were burned to their foundations, particularly in the southwest quadrant of the city.

(An interesting side note: Pappenheim would not have been a favorite person amongst the surviving citizens of Magdeburg. Among other things, he:

· Packed the cellar of the Dom with 136 tuns [estimated to be about 300,000 pounds/ 136,000 kg] of gunpowder with an eye toward reducing it to rubble. Only the rain and the rapid approach of Swedish troops forestalled that.

· Stripped all the metal organ pipes from the Dom's organ and sold them off for the value of the metal.

· Allowed a few remaining residents to sift through the ashes of destroyed houses and salvage any metal objects or blobs that survived the fires, which in effect robbed the actual owners and tenants [or their heirs] of the right of salvage of their own property. [Surviving citizens were surprisingly bitter about this.]

All things considered, ally or no ally, Pappenheim probably shouldn't show his face in Magdeburg any time soon.)

We are assuming that the butterfly effect touched the Sack of Magdeburg and the subsequent occupation, but that the sack was not quite as severe as it was in our timeline. The sack began with initial breaches in the walls on May 20, 1631, and the Ring of Fire happened on or about May 25, 1631. So, we may not be able to butterfly out the main atrocities against the people, in which some 30,000 residents were reported to have been massacred. Also, in our timeline Pappenheim withdrew from Magdeburg in January 1632 after doing as much destruction as he could. We will posit, however, that post-ROF Gustavus Adolphus moved on Magdeburg sooner, and that Pappenheim actually left Magdeburg in December 1631. However, we can butterfly out some of the damage to the city. Two main effects:

 

· Less destruction by Tilly’s troops of the buildings in the city, particularly the churches. This will speed up the rebuilding.

· Less destruction of the fortification walls around the city. They will be restored ASAP.

(Why rebuild the walls? Other people lived around that city. They held legal contracts, for which they paid [like modern insurance policies] to the effect that when armies came by, they, their families, and X amount of their possessions could come inside the walls for safety. No walls = many lawsuits for breach of contract, and substantial loss of revenue.

For most of the time, these contracts were a regular and fairly secure source of income for a city or town government, cost them nothing, and reduced the taxes they had to impose on their own citizens. In an emergency, they're the reason why you find 9,000 refugees packed into Magdeburg on top of the ordinary, much smaller, population.

In addition, in our timeline Gustav II Adolph wanted new and improved fortifications built back ASAP and took a lively interest in it. He had Baner appoint an engineer to begin surveying work to that end almost immediately. We assume that will still be the case in the 1632-verse.)

 

(Note: not all of the damage in Magdeburg was from the sack or from Pappenheim's planned destruction. There was a fire in the Neustadt in the 1620's that destroyed much of that sector of the city. As of 1631, little rebuilding had occurred.)

 

Information about the rebuilding of Magdeburg:

 

Ludwig Fürst von Anhalt-Coethen, as Swedish administrator of the archbishoprics of Halberstadt and Magdeburg, on behalf of Gustav Adolph, commissioned Otto Gericke to develop a plan to rebuild the city. His idealized 1632 plan was dated 10 April 1632.

In February 1632, Ludwig of Anhalt-Coethen, on behalf of Gustav Adolph, issued a decree permitting former residents to return to the city. However, they were to build only temporary shelters until such time as Gustav Adolph had approved the new city plan. No permanent buildings were to be constructed, whether homes or businesses, until the new plan was in effect.

As in our timeline, Gustav appointed Otto Gericke as the chief engineer to rebuild the city. Per "In the Navy" (Ring of Fire), we will allow that the big boulevards and squares get built, but otherwise most rebuilding will occur on pre-sack lots and back streets. The fact that many/most of the property owners and lessees were probably killed or displaced in the sack will provide a huge muddle about who owns what, which Gericke with Gustav’s authority behind him will be able to take advantage of. By the time heirs are identified, located, and notified, much of the work will have ...