Hamburg, Altona and the Hansa
Christopher lived a year in Hamburg and asked two questions: where did the Hamburg Mennonites come from, and do the Hanseatic League, the family’s religious history and its family history ever meet?
Summary
- The Hamburg Mennonites were refugees from the Low Countries (Flanders, Brabant, Holland, Friesland) who fled persecution from the 1530s and especially after the Duke of Alba arrived in 1567. They were the same Dutch and Frisian Anabaptist movement the Wiebes came from, but this group went to the Elbe instead of the Vistula.
- Lutheran Hamburg would not let them worship, so they settled just outside the city wall in Altona, which belonged to the Counts of Schauenburg (later Denmark). From 1601 the count granted them toleration.
- Yes, the Hansa and the family’s story meet, mostly on the Wiebe side: Danzig and Elbing were Hanseatic cities; Melchior Hoffman preached in Hanseatic towns; Menno Simons spent his last years between Lübeck and Hamburg and worked at Wismar; Gerhard Wiebe sailed to America from Bremen in 1894. The Swiss lines meet it only along the Rhine.
Where the Hamburg Mennonites came from
| When | What | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| 1530s–1550s | First Anabaptist refugees from the Netherlands and Friesland reach the Elbe and Holstein. Menno Simons spends his last years (c.1554–1561) at Wüstenfelde near Bad Oldesloe, between Lübeck and Hamburg, under the protection of the nobleman Bartholomäus von Ahlefeldt; his books were printed there. He died there in 1561. | standard |
| 1567 onward | The Duke of Alba’s terror in the Spanish Netherlands sends a large wave of Flemish and Brabant Protestants, including Mennonites, to Hamburg and Altona. Many were merchants and craftsmen. | standard |
| 1601 | Count Ernst of Schauenburg, ruler of Pinneberg (including Altona), makes an agreement with his business agent François Noë, an Anabaptist, and grants the Mennonites toleration. This is counted as the founding of the Hamburg-Altona congregation. (A congregation history gives the privilege as 1602; the dates are not reconciled.) | 400-years CD-ROM; IHR review |
| from 1611 | Altona’s “Freiheit”: freedom of worship for non-Lutherans (Mennonites, Reformed, Catholics, Jews). The street “Große Freiheit” (“Great Freedom”) off the Reeperbahn is named after it. | standard |
| 1641 | Altona passes to King Christian IV of Denmark, who keeps the Mennonite privileges. Denmark also invited Mennonites to Glückstadt on the Elbe (1623) and Friedrichstadt on the Eider (1620s) for their trade. | IHR review |
| 1612–1711 | Geeritt Roosen, merchant and long-serving preacher of the Low Countries refugee congregations in Hamburg and Altona. | IHR review |
| 1675 | First church building for Mennonite use in Altona. | IHR review |
| 1713 | Swedish troops burn Altona in the Great Northern War, including the church; it is rebuilt. | standard (date to check) |
| 17th–18th c. | Hamburg-Altona Mennonite merchant families (Roosen, de Vlieger, van der Smissen, Goverts) are leaders in Greenland whaling, shipping and trade. | standard (to check) |
| today | Mennonitengemeinde zu Hamburg und Altona, church on the Mennonitenstraße in Altona. One of the oldest Mennonite congregations still meeting anywhere. | — |
Connection to the Wiebes: not by blood (no known Wiebe ancestor lived in Hamburg), but by origin. Both groups came out of the same Dutch-Frisian Anabaptist movement that began with Hoffman’s baptisms at Emden in 1530. The refugees split along the trade routes: east by sea to Danzig and the Vistula (the Wiebes) and up the Elbe to Hamburg-Altona. The two communities stayed in touch: Dutch money from Amsterdam and Hamburg helped the Prussian congregations.
Where the Hansa meets the family’s faith and family
| Hanseatic place | Religious history | Family history |
|---|---|---|
| Danzig (Gdańsk) | A Hansa city. Its council wrote to Emden in 1534 about Anabaptists arriving by ship; Dirk Philips was elder there; Jan Gerrits of Emden in 1607. | The Wiebes’ city. The Vistula delta villages (Altenau, Ladekopp, Heubuden) lay in Danzig’s and Marienburg’s hinterland. Dutch drainage skills paid for their toleration. |
| Elbing (Elbląg) | A Hansa city; a Mennonite congregation in the delta around it. | Wiebe and Fieguth territory. |
| Amsterdam → Danzig grain trade | The Dutch “mother trade” in Baltic grain overtook the Hansa in the 1500s; refugees travelled on those ships. | Probably how the first Wiebe reached Prussia. |
| Reval, Dorpat, Riga, Stockholm, Kiel | Melchior Hoffman preached in these Hanseatic and Baltic towns (1523–29) before Strasbourg and Emden. | — |
| Lübeck | In 1535, after Münster, the Hanseatic cities took measures against Anabaptists. Lübeck’s mayor Jürgen Wullenwever was falsely accused of Anabaptist sympathies; he was executed in 1537. | — |
| Wismar | Menno lived and debated here in 1553–54 (the “Wismar Articles”). | — |
| Hamburg / Altona | The congregation described above. | Christopher’s year in Hamburg. |
| Bremen | A Hansa city; port of Norddeutscher Lloyd. | Gerhard A. Wiebe (1873–1942) sailed from Bremen in 1894 (ship to confirm). |
| Cologne | A Hansa city on the Rhine. | The 1711 Bernese exiles’ boats, and later Swiss emigrants, went down the Rhine past Cologne (1711 The Rhine exodus from Bern). The only point where the Swiss lines touch Hansa territory. |
| Emden | Not a full Hansa member, but on the same North Sea routes. | Origin of many Prussian Mennonites (Penner 1963). |
Answer: yes. The Hansa is the stage of the Wiebe faith story: the cities that persecuted, tolerated and traded with the Dutch Anabaptists were Hanseatic ports, and the sea routes that carried the Wiebes’ ancestors to the Vistula were the Baltic grain routes the Dutch took over from the Hansa. For the Swiss lines (Ramseyer, Neuenschwander, Miller), the Hansa is almost absent.
To check and read
- Mennonite Encyclopedia: “Hamburg-Altona”, “Altona”, “Roosen”, “Smissen, van der”, “Wüstenfelde”, “Glückstadt”, “Friedrichstadt”, “Wismar” task/human
- Michael D. Driedger, Obedient Heretics: Mennonite Identities in Lutheran Hamburg and Altona during the Confessional Age (2002), the standard study task/human
- Confirm the 1713 burning and the van der Smissen whaling role task/ai
- If Christopher is in Hamburg again: the Mennonite church on Mennonitenstraße, the Große Freiheit, and the congregation’s archive task/human
Sources
- Review of Driedger, Obedient Heretics (Institute of Historical Research): 1641 privileges, 1675 church, Geeritt Roosen
- 400 Jahre Mennoniten in Hamburg und Altona (CD-ROM): 1601, Count Ernst and François Noë
- The Wiebe faith trail - Friesland to the Vistula; Anabaptist population by place
Record compiled 31 October 2026.
About this research
Supporting documentation is linked throughout. This project is an exercise in AI-assisted research and development, and I haven’t manually verified every link or conclusion. All transcriptions and translations of Swiss parish records were made with AI, and their accuracy should be treated accordingly.