Pasewalk () is a town in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district, in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in north-eastern Germany. Located on the Uecker river, it is the capital of the former Uecker-Randow district, and the seat of the Uecker-Randow-Tal Amt, of which it is not part.

Name The earliest reference to Posduwlc is dated to approximately 1150. Later, the name of the settlement was also documented as: 1168 Pozdewolk, 1177 Posdewolc, Pozdewolk, 1260 Poswalc, 1276 Poswalk, 1288 Pozewalch, 1302 Pasewalck. The initial interpretation of the toponymy was provided by the authors of the Annals of Pegau (Annales Pegavienses) in the mid-12th century, who explained the place name in Latin as urbs Wolfi (‘Wolf’s castle’) from the Polabian *vouk ‘wolf’. More recently, the toponym has been linked to Old Polabian *volk and Proto-Slavic *vľ̥kti ‘to drag, to pull’, associated with Polabian *vlåk ‘fishing net, trawl net’. The first part of the old place name pozde, pozdu, remains challenging to interpret, but could be related to Proto-Slavic *pozdъ ‘late’, which is thought to be derived from Indo-European *pos ‘at, by, after’.

In certain Polish sources, the name has been rendered as Pozdawilk.

History

Pasewalk became a town during the 12th century and was soon a member of the Hanseatic League. In 1359 it passed to the Duke of Pomerania. Frequently ravaged during the wars which devastated the district, it was plundered several times by Imperial troops during the Thirty Years' War. In the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 it was given to Sweden. In 1657 it was burned down by the Poles, in 1676 it was conquered by Brandenburg, and in 1713 it was burned down by the Russians. In 1720, in the Peace of Stockholm, it passed from Sweden to Prussia. In the early 18th century, a commune of French Huguenots was established in the town. It was part to the Prussian Province of Pomerania from 1720 until 1945. In 1760, the Battle of Pasewalk was fought, won by the Swedes.

The town is famous for having been surrendered to the French without a fight during the War of the Fourth Coalition, despite them being far less numerous than the defenders of the city. On the day World War I ended, Adolf Hitler, the future dictator of Nazi Germany, was being treated here after being wounded by a gas attack. During the Battle of Berlin, part of World War II, Pasewalk was captured by troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front of the Red Army on 28 April 1945. From 1945 to 1952, Pasewalk was part of the State of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, from 1952 to 1990 of the Bezirk Neubrandenburg of East Germany and since 1990 again of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Mayors of Pasewalk 1905–1917 Wilhelm Prüter 1917–1937 Dr. Willy Peppler (1880–1957) 1937–1942 Malsfey 1942 Klingbeil 1942–? Hans-Heinrich Wentzlaff-Eggebert (1894–1966) 1945–? Hermann Bülow 1945–1949 Erich Pretzer (1882–1968) 1950–1961 Helene Medrow (1902–1976) 1961–1974 Eberhard Schmidt (1924–2010) around 1982 Börner 1986–1990 Bärbel Steinmüller (born 1948) 1990–1994 Heinz-Georg Eckleben (born 1945), independent 1994–2002 Wilfried Sieber (born 1941), CDU 2002–2014 Rainer Dambach (1952–2013), independent November 2013–May 2014 Gudrun Baganz, temporary May 2014 – May 2022 Sandra Nachtweih (born 1975), independent since May 2022 Danny Rodewald (born 1979), independent

Population over time

Year Inhabitants 1618 ca. 2.000 Stadt Pasewalk (Hrsg.): Pasewalk. Kulturhistorische und Heimatgeschichtliche Beiträge. Pasewalk 1991, S. 40–49. 1648 ca. 250 1740 2.401 Gustav Kratz: Die Städte der Provinz Pommern. Abriss ihrer Geschichte, zumeist nach Urkunden. Verlag A. Bath, Berlin 1865, S. 282–292. 1812 3.888 1848 ca. 6.500 Carsten Plötz: Pasewalk 1848–1945. Ein Jahrhundert vorpommerscher Stadtgeschichte, Verlag Dr. Helmut Maaß, Pasewalk 2005, S. 363–369. 1852 6.586 1880 9.469 1885 9.514 1895 9.788 Year Inhabitants 1900 10.299 Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich 1904, S. 10. 1919 11.041 Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reiche 1921/22, S. 9. 1925 11.768 1933 12.582 1939 12.568 Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reiche 1941/42, S. 19. 1955 12.597 Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1955, S. 17. 1980 15.366 Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1981, S. 12. 1985 15.881 Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1986, S. 12. 1990 15.516 Der Bevölkerungsstand nach Gemeinden und Kreisen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, zum 31. Dezember des jeweiligen Jahres. SIS-Datenbank des Statistischen Amtes Mecklenburg-Vorpommerns 1995 13.932 Year Inhabitants 2010 11.319 2015 10.535

Born in Pasewalk

Wilhelm von Tümpling (1809–1884), Prussian General of the Infantry Georg von Kameke (1817–1893), Prussian General of the Infantry and War Minister Erich Paulun (1862–1909), former naval surgeon, founded the Tongji Hospital in Wuhan Oskar Picht (1871–1945), German teacher and inventor of the first braille typewriter Erich Hamann (born 1944), German footballer (265 games) and player of the GDR national football team Rainer Knaak (born 1953), German chess Grandmaster Sabine Zimmermann (born 1960), German politician Patrick Dahlemann (born 1988),politician Chris Gueffroy (1968–1989), penultimate death victim on the Berlin Wall

Climate Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as oceanic (Cfb).

International relations

Pasewalk is twinned with:

: Halen : Norden : Police

External links

References