Free City of Lübeck

Jazz Baltica is a jazz festival which was started in 1990. Up until 2011 it was held every summer in Schloss Salzau (Salzau Palace) near Kiel, Germany, and the coast of the Baltic Sea. In 2009 the festival was directed by Bengt-Arne Wallin and in 2012, Swedish trombonist Nils Landgren took over as artistic director and it was moved to the Evers-Werft shipyard at the harbor of Niendorf, a Baltic Sea resort near Lübeck.The festival attracts jazz musicians from around the globe and is a noted event on the yearly jazz calendar. Artists who have played at the festival include: Wolfgang Dauner, Marcin Wasilewski (pianist), Kate McGarry, and Nils Landgren,It differs from most other festivals in its intimacy and the access that visitors have to the musicians. The festival has changed its focus to feature primarily musicians from Northern Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic countries. Between 20–23 June 2019 approximately 19,000 visitors celebrated the 29th edition of JazzBaltica in Timmendorfer Strand - 2000 more than 2018.Since 2002, Jazz Baltica has been conducted as part of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. Until 2011 the festival's founder Rainer Haarmann was the musical director for most years. The festival takes place around the last weekend of June.What makes this festival so unique is its intimate nature due to the relatively small concert venues, which limits the number of attendees to several thousand on any given day. This gives attendees unusually close-up access to jazz artists. The festival starts Friday afternoon and runs through Sunday night. It concentrates on music from bebop through to contemporary jazz with a smattering of world music. Besides the concerts that require tickets, there are also free midday concerts by young local musicians and free concerts in the late evening.

The Theater Lübeck (formerly Stage of the Hansestadt Lübeck, colloquially Stadttheater) is one of the largest theaters in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. It is managed by Theater Lübeck GmbH, a state-owned company of the Hansestadt Lübeck. Public interest in theatrical works and opera arose in Lübeck in the early days of the Age of Enlightenment and the first opera production in the city took place on 2 June 1746 in the house of master craftsman Schröder Ecke on the Königstraße. The predecessor of the current building dates from 1752. The transition of the company to the city in the 19th century is described by Thomas Mann in his novel Buddenbrooks. Prominent conductors that began their careers in Lübeck include Hermann Abendroth, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Christoph von Dohnányi.

Lübeck (German: [ˈlyːbɛk] (listen); Low German also Lübeek), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (German: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, after its capital of Kiel, and is the 35th-largest city in Germany. The city lies in Holstein, northeast of Hamburg, on the mouth of the River Trave, which flows into the Bay of Lübeck in the borough of Travemünde, and on the Trave's tributary Wakenitz. The city is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, and is the southwesternmost city on the Baltic, as well as the closest point of access to the Baltic from Hamburg. The port of Lübeck is the second-largest German Baltic port after the port of Rostock. The city lies in the Northern Low Saxon dialect area of Low German. Lübeck is famous for having been the cradle and the de facto capital of the Hanseatic League. Its city centre is Germany's most extensive UNESCO World Heritage Site. While the city's symbol is the Holsten Gate, Lübeck's skyline is dominated by the seven towers of its five main churches St Mary's, Lübeck Cathedral, St Jacob's (Jakobikirche (Lübeck)), St Peter's (Petrikirche (Lübeck)), and St Giles'. The cathedral, finished around 1230, was the first large brickwork church in the Baltic region. St Mary's, finished in 1351, served as model for the other Brick Gothic churches around the Baltic. It has the second-tallest two-steeples façade after Cologne Cathedral, which only surpassed it in 1880, the tallest brick vault, and is the second-tallest brickwork structure after St Martin's in Landshut. Travemünde is a famous seaside resort, and its Maritim high-rise serves as the second-tallest lighthouse in the world at 114 metres (374 ft) high. Lübeck is also known for Lübeck Marzipan.

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

The Sparkasse zu Lübeck AG, based in Lübeck, is one of five free public savings banks that still exist in Germany.

The Lübeck Marienkirche (officially St. Marien zu Lübeck) was built between 1265 and 1351. The Lübeck market and main parish church is located on the highest point of Lübeck's old town island, is part of the Lübeck Old Town UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the largest brick churches. It is referred to as the "mother church of brick Gothic" and is considered a major work of church building in the Baltic Sea region. St. Marien belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany. St. Mary's epitomizes north German Brick Gothic and set the standard for about 70 other churches in the Baltic region, making it a building of enormous architectural significance. St Mary's Church embodied the towering style of Gothic architecture style using north German brick. It has the tallest brick vault in the world, the height of the central nave being 38.5 metres (126 ft). It is built as a three-aisled basilica with side chapels, an ambulatory with radiating chapels, and vestibules like the arms of a transept. The westwork has a monumental two-tower façade. The height of the towers, including the weather vanes, is 124.95 metres (409.9 ft) and 124.75 metres (409.3 ft), respectively. St. Mary's is located in the Hanseatic merchants' quarter, which extends uphill from the warehouses on the River Trave to the church. As the main parish church of the citizens and the city council of Lübeck, it was built close to the town hall and the market.

St. James' Church (German: Jakobikirche) is one of the five main Evangelical Lutheran parish churches in Lübeck's old town, Germany. It was consecrated in 1334, serving as a church for sailors and fishermen who still have their "Schütting" (originally from the Norwegian "Skotting" and now known as Schøttstuene) for meeting houses in the shipping company opposite the church. The patron saint of the church is Saint James the Elder. The church also serves as a stop on a branch of the North German Way of St. James, alongside the Holy Spirit Hospital and the neighboring Gertrudenherberge. Since September 2007, the northern tower chapel of the church has been a national memorial for civil seafaring, known as the Pamir Chapel.

The Katharineum zu Lübeck is a humanistic gymnasium founded 1531 in the Hanseatic city Lübeck, Germany. In 2006 the 475th anniversary of this Latin school was celebrated with several events. The school uses the buildings of a former Franciscan monastery next to Saint Catherine Church, which was extended in the 1880s. At the Katharineum it is possible to choose Latin as the first foreign language. In year nine it is also possible to choose ancient Greek as the third foreign language. Thomas Mann, himself a student of the Katharineum, thought of this school when describing the school Hanno went to in the Buddenbrooks. Mann, who as a bad student had to resit two years, made it clear that he disliked the Katharineum by describing both the school and the teachers with strong sarcasm. His brother Heinrich Mann described the school and one infamous teacher in Professor Unrat.

St. Catherine Church in Lübeck is a Brick Gothic church which belonged to a Franciscan monastery in the name of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, seized along other property from the Catholic Church by a city ordinance (Der keyserliken Lübeck christlike Order Inge. 1531) drawn up by the Lutheran pastor and friend of Martin Luther, Johannes Bugenhagen (who had arrived with his family from Wittenberg on October 28, 1530, at the request of those townsmen in favor of the Reformation to support their cause), passed and implemented on May 27, 1531, as Bugenhagen had previously accomplished this in Braunschweig (on September 5, 1528, with what is considered the first ever Protestant church ordinance, the Braunschweiger Kirchenordnung and Hamburg (Der ehrbaren Stadt Hamburg Christliche Ordnung. 1529), Lübeck (Der keyserliken Stadt Lübeck christlike Ordeninge. 1531). The Church was built in the early 14th century. It is part of the Lübeck world heritage and used as a museum church and exhibition hall by the Lübeck museums since 1980. The exhibits include a copy of Saint George and the Dragon made by Bernt Notke for Storkyrkan in Stockholms Gamla Stan, an Epitaph by Godfrey Kneller in memory of his father and another one by Tintoretto, the Resurrection of Lazarus. Some the former altars, like Hermen Rodes St. Luke altar, are on permanent exhibit in the St. Annen Museum in Lübeck. The facade is decorated with 20th-century clinker brick sculptures by Ernst Barlach and Gerhard Marcks.

The Oberappellationsgericht der vier Freien Städte (English: High Court of Appeal of the Four Free Cities), since 1867 the Oberappellationsgericht der Freien Hansestädte (High Court of Appeal of the Free Hanseatic Cities), seated in Lübeck was an appeals court of the German Confederation and the North German Confederation with territorial jurisdiction for Bremen, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Lübeck. Frankfurt was removed from the court's jurisdiction in 1867 after its annexation by Prussia. In 1870 the court lost its subject-matter jurisdiction for commercial law to the Reichsoberhandelsgericht and was altogether abolished in 1879. The court was considered to be the most influential German court of its time due to its exemplary combination of theory and practice.

The Willy-Brandt-Haus in Lübeck is a museum and a memorial to the late politician Federal Chancellor and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Willy Brandt, of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The Berlin based branch of the federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation also houses the Office of Monumental Protection of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, in Schleswig-Holstein. It is the third establishment in the city to honor a Nobel Prize laureate from Lübeck. The director of the Willy-Brandt-Haus is the historian, Jürgen Lillteicher. Willy Brandt was not born in this building, but in different house in the Lübeck district of St. Lorenz.

J. G. Niederegger GmbH & Co. KG is a producer of marzipan and sweets which is based in Lübeck, Germany. Niederegger was founded in Lübeck on 1 March 1806 by Johann Georg Niederegger (1777–1856). The company is a family-owned limited private partnership. Niederegger marzipan made by "canditors" since the days of the Hanseatic League is classed as 100% marzipan. By the 19th century, marzipan, traditionally the choice of kings and queens, was becoming popular with the ordinary people of Lübeck. The tradition that Niederegger marzipan contains much less sugar than that produced by other marzipan makers began with Johann Georg, who was apprentice to Maret, another confectioner. Johann Georg left in 1806 to set up his own shop, and the products he produced were of such high quality that they were sought out by kings and emperors.In the town center of Lübeck, opposite the Town Hall, the always-crowded Café Niederegger, known as the "harem confectionery", offers a café, a shop for Niederegger sweets, and a marzipan museum on its upper floors. It is possible to trace the sale of the almond product on the premises back to the 12th century. Niederegger's many customers have included the writer, and son of Lübeck, Thomas Mann.