Ahrensburg Germany

Ahrensburg is a town in Schleswig-Holstein Germany and a part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Town. One of the outstanding sights of Ahrensburg is the Renaissance Castle of 1595. Other sights include the adjacent Castle Church with the Gottesbuden almshouses. Ahrensburg is located in the Tunneltal where many items dating to the ice age were excavated. Ahrensburg is conveniently approachable by car and train, situated beside the Autobahn and the railway route between the hanseatic cities of Hamburg and Lubeck. The Ahrensburg Tunneltal contains evidences for late Paleolithic reindeer hunters. Today the railway connection between the cities of Lubeck and Hamburg follows the bottom of the flat valley.

The town of Ahrensburg dates back to the 13th century when the Counts of Schauenburg instituted the village of Woldenhorn, which was later called Ahrensburg, and later the neighboring villages of Ahrensfelde, Meilsdorf and Beimoor. Woldenhorn or Ahrensburg was first mentioned in 1314 AD, shortly after which the town was possessed by the Cistercian monastery in Reinfeld. In 1326, Count John III of Schauenburg abandoned the castle relocating his monastery reeve to Trittau. After the monasteries were dissolved during the Reformation, the entire area of Ahrensburg came under the control of the king of Denmark.

The Ahrensburg Estate belonged to the Noble Estates which were given freedom and self-administration. Ahrensburg was the seat of the Stormarn Provost (a senior rank in the church) of the Lutheran church from 1823 to 1899. Ahrensburg housed a small Jewish community until the 1930s. The synagogue was demolished in 1931 due to structural constraints. The Jewish cemetery, opened in 1822, can be seen from the western edge of Ahrensburg, Germany near the golf course. It stands as a quiet reminder of a bygone era. In the subsequent decades following the 1950s, the infrastructure of Ahrensburg was greatly enhanced to make it an eminent business center.