Lindau (also: Lindau (Eichsfeld)) is a village in the southern Lower Saxon section of the Eichsfeld, Germany. Lindau belongs to the Gemeinde (municipality) of Katlenburg-Lindau and to the Landkreis (district) of Northeim. The village is known to many space physicists and radio engineers around the world, as the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (known as "Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy" until June 2004) was based there until 2014, when it moved to Göttingen, also in Lower Saxony.
Geography
Lindau lies on an area of level farmland between the Oder and Rhume rivers.
History
Lindau was mentioned in writing for the first time in 1184. Around 1322 Otto II of Woldenberg, bishop of Hildesheim, established the Muthaus, today the oldest building of the municipality of Gemeinde Katlenburg-Lindau, and in which the Lindau administration was accommodated until 1741.
In the 19th century, Lindau's economy grew with a jute spinning mill set up by the Greve company (1872) and the brewery.
The fire of Easter 1911
In the afternoon of 15 April 1911, Easter Sunday, Lindau experienced its largest and most devastating fire. In a farmyard in the Unterflecken area of the village, two boys had made a fire. Since it was very windy, the fire spread to the farm buildings and those of a bricklayer. Primitive fire fighting equipment and the distance from the local river led to the entire Unterflecken being burnt. Sparks ignited other houses and stored chemicals exploded.
42 houses and 30 auxiliary buildings were destroyed and many were never rebuilt. In the village marketplace the Mariendenkmal monument was erected. In the same year, a local volunteer fire brigade was established.
Weimar Republic (1918–1933)
Lindau's predominantly catholic population influenced the village's voting pattern . (A census from the year 1934 indicated there were 1487 inhabitants, of whom 85.5% were Catholic, only 14.5% Lutheran while no Jewish inhabitants were recorded.)
The Zentrumspartei centrist party, abbreviated 'Zentrum', held a special supremacy in the district during the period of the Weimar Republic. In 1920 Zentrum gained 69.8% of Lindau's Reichstag votes. This high vote was maintained through all the years of the Weimar Republic until 1932, when with the last free elections this party still gained 60.8% of the vote while in many other places the Nazi Party had long been the strongest political power. The Nazis recorded just two votes (0.3%) for the first time in 1928 and were insignificant at first in subsequent years. In November 1932 the Nazis were no longer to be ignored, at 21.9% the second strongest party in Lindau after the Zentrum. A local Nazi group formed in 1930 (the district's first had been formed in 1925 in Duderstadt).
The last months of the Weimar Republic were shaped by violent political arguments in Lindau, with many party meetings and banners in the village. A news item from this time reports that a Lindau SA member was hurt “by a political opponent, with a key, on the head.”
Lindau during national socialism (1933–1945)
No documents remain from the March 1933 elections, but it is assumed that Lindau voted along customary lines. At first the Lindau population remained sceptically opposed to the new ruling powers. However, the concordat between the German Reich and the Vatican encouraged many Catholic voters. Gradually national socialism became acceptable among them.
In May 1933 the first Nazi mayor was appointed. The municipality had no more influence on policy. The new ruling powers determined everything.
In November of the same year Reichstag elections took place. However it was only possible to vote 'yes' or 'no'. With these elections 910 Lindauers voted for the Nazis: 98%. Only 19 voters (approx 2%) were either invalid or 'no' votes.
Job creation measures led to new roads and more people. Among other things in 1938 the market place was paved and was used as a stage for many political demonstrations.
The economy flourished, the Greve string factory for example got many orders from the armed forces during preparations for the Second World War.
Second World War (1939–1945) An early influence of the outbreak of World War II was the arrival of women and children from large cities of the Saarland in December 1939.
During the war many prisoners of war came to Lindau, among others Frenchmen and Poles, who were used in agriculture.
In 1945 a group of Canadian airmen crashed.
The Second World War cost 111 Lindau soldiers' lives, nearly twice as high as the casualties in the First World War of 1914–1918.
The post-war period (1945–1949)