[HN Gopher] The rise and fall of the Hanseatic League
___________________________________________________________________
The rise and fall of the Hanseatic League
Author : loeber
Score : 150 points
Date : 2025-07-23 08:36 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (worksinprogress.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (worksinprogress.co)
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| I live in an Hanseatic League city (Stralsund) and the city still
| owns lots of land and is a rich one, hundreds of years later
| (though insignificant today).
| yu3zhou4 wrote:
| Same here with Gdansk, Poland. You can see the same Hanseatic
| influence even in this he architecture
| cenamus wrote:
| I was amazed when I visited, you can see just how much it
| looks like other Hanse-cities, Bremen for example. Of course
| a lot of it is newly constructed/restored, because there
| wasn't much left after the German did their thing with Poland
| in WW2
| zurfer wrote:
| Little nitpic, Gdansk was a free city, neither Polish nor
| German when nazis annexed it in 1939. Most of the
| destruction happened in 1945 because of fighting with the
| red army.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| And the Russians. For some reasons everyone seems to forget
| that the invasion of Poland (and other East European
| countries) was a joint operation by Germany and Russia (not
| to diminish any atrocities etc. perpetuated by Germans).
|
| Especially in this case, because the city was also called
| Danzig before and (after various owners over the centuries,
| mostly Polish [0]) was co-owned-German (free city, German
| leaning because of ethnicity) at the time of WW2.
| Destruction should then have been (haven't verified that)
| by the Red Army (again not to diminish any German war
| crimes - also [1]).
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gda%C5%84sk
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Westerplatte
| rpastuszak wrote:
| Ha, my high school was named after a related event (https
| ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_of_the_Polish_Post_Off..
| .)
|
| Also known for a song about three boys, the youngest of
| whom--who, to put it mildly, didn't have his life
| together--made a choice. (This is heavy dad-humour
| though.) Trzech synow matka miala,
| Dwoch slynelo z madrosci, A trzeci, co byl glupi,
| Poszedl do lacznosci!
|
| That said, it's a paraphrase of an older song about WWI.
|
| (the school was fine, and my dorm was a constant nerd-
| fest, so I am not complaining)
| geokon wrote:
| i think its because the germans deliberately destroyed
| cities, like Warsaw (not sure if it was done as
| systemstically in other cities). they literally dynamited
| the old city and levelled it to the ground
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Warsaw
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pabst_Plan
|
| Krakow was famously deliberately spared on Hitler's
| orders
|
| i dont think the soviets did the equivalent. And they
| poured a lot of resources in to restoring the old town in
| warsaw after the war
|
| Id love to be corrected if im wrong
| pirate787 wrote:
| Both Russia and Germany engaged in scorched earth
| destruction when on the retreat.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbCGhqhKK-8
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| So you agree it was a joint military operation and
| everyone forgets that, but want to add the Germans were
| worse, which made everyone forget it was a joint
| operation?
| bragh wrote:
| Trying to paint Russians as the good guys, in 2025?
|
| > The most extensive and destructive of the Soviet air
| assaults was carried out on 9-10 March 1944 in connection
| with the Battle of Narva. A week before, the mayor of
| Tallinn had given an order to the city dwellers to leave
| the town, but the evacuation failed, as the extent of the
| attack was beyond the expectations of the local people
| and the German Army Group North. The first attack, from
| 6:30 - 9:00 pm, saw 300 aircraft drop 3068 bombs, 1725
| explosive and 1300 incendiary.[4][5][3] Bombers hit the
| capital again at 2 a.m. for an additional hour and a
| half.[3] The fire brigades were scarce on water, as
| Soviet saboteurs had blown up the city pumping station
| before the air raid. A large part of the wooden suburbs
| went up in flames, and the city centre suffered major
| damage. In all, about twenty percent of the buildings in
| Tallinn were burnt to the ground.[3]
|
| > Military damage was minor, with a few military
| installations and supply stores destroyed. The major
| military loss was the burning of a million litres of fuel
| in the fuel depot. Of the enterprises with some military
| importance, the "Luther" plywood factory and the Urania-
| Werke-run cable factory were destroyed. Most of the bombs
| fell on the dwellings and public buildings, including the
| Estonia Theatre, St. Nicholas Church, the city synagogue,
| four cinemas, and the Tallinn City Archives.[6]
|
| > According to the official report, 757 people were
| killed, of whom 586 were civilians, 50 were military
| personnel, and 121 were prisoners-of-war. 213 had serious
| injuries, 446 had minor injuries. Amongst the injured
| were 65 military servicemen and 75 prisoners-of-war.
| Later, more victims were found, with the number of deaths
| estimated at up to 800.[5] More than 20,000 people were
| left without a shelter in the spring thaw, while the
| military objects were almost untouched.[4][7] Immediately
| after the bombing raid Finnish air force bombers followed
| returning Soviet bombers to three military airbases near
| Leningrad and bombed them.[8] During the attack, fuel
| tanks were destroyed and ca 25 Soviet airplanes were shot
| down in Tallinn with an additional ten destroyed by the
| Finnish Air Force (Ilmavoimat) later the same night.[3]
| Finland's actions prevented a third attack wave, likely
| saving Tallinn's old city from complete destruction.[9]
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Shameless plug for Tallinn but as I used to live there I
| have to also mention that despite the Soviets efforts the
| old town is well-preserved, lovely, and definitely worth
| a visit! I put together a visitors guide after a
| monthlong visit this May in case its useful:
| https://www.rebootinganation.com/exploring-tallinn
| cenamus wrote:
| Of course. But I'm the Russians did not make sure to
| level any building over three stories in basically any
| Polish city during their retreat
| funnymunny wrote:
| I would HIGHLY recommend visiting Visby (and Gotland, Sweden in
| general) for anyone interested in this sort of history
| perihelions wrote:
| There's a remarkable painting depicting that (Hanseatic-era
| Visby). I'd always been fascinated by the hats.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdemar_Atterdag_holding_Visb...
| ( _" Valdemar Atterdag holding Visby to ransom, 1361"_)
| wood_spirit wrote:
| In the battle the local farmers resisted the Danes as they
| retreated to the walls of the town where the townsfolk didn't
| let them in. They were slaughtered and then the townsfolk
| surrendered. The mass graves of the farmers have been a major
| archeological excavation.
| woodpanel wrote:
| looks like the urbanites always had a lack of compassion
| for the ruralites.
| dgan wrote:
| "Patrician II/III", anyone ? my favorite game when i was kid,
| second only to Civilization
| thatspartan wrote:
| Ahh, half-timbered houses, parties and pirate hunting. It was a
| nice day when GoG put it up as one of their good old games.
| alecsm wrote:
| I wanted Imperium III and I got Patrician III by mistake. I
| didn't know how to play it at first as it wasn't your typical
| strategy game but after a while it became my favorite game.
|
| I ended up controlling the whole Hanseatic League from Lubeck.
|
| Good times.
| dgan wrote:
| Lubeck wasn't even the "best" for anything
|
| i distinctly remember the "beer from Gdansk -> Textile from
| Malmo -> sell everything in Lubeck" route
| alecsm wrote:
| No, it wasn't the best but it's the first city I picked and
| I ended up liking it the most.
|
| Also I think it was the easiest wealthy city to raid as a
| pirate, so you could donate a lot of money as a mayor and
| then steal it as a pirate only to donate it again and earn
| reputation.
| spankibalt wrote:
| The first title of the series either came bundled with my first
| sound card, or I bought it separately at the same time.
| weinzierl wrote:
| I enjoyed _" Die Fugger"_ a lot. Unfortunately it never saw the
| success of _" The Patrician"_.
|
| The following funny little side story might have contributed to
| that:
|
| The game's publisher Sonflower was sued by a descendant of the
| Fugger family because they claimed the game puts the name of
| his family in a bad light. They won and _" Die Fugger II"_
| could not be sold anymore. _" Die Fugger III"_ appeared under
| the name _" Die Gilde"_.
| fleischhauf wrote:
| die Fugger, best Game of my childhood! thanks for the
| reminder!
| p_l wrote:
| Oh, didn't know the game I know as "The Guild" had a longer
| past.
|
| It had 2 more sequels after Die Gilde, in fact.
| SilasX wrote:
| When I was an exchange student in Germany, the host family had
| _Hanse: Die Expedition_ [1] on their computer, which they
| explained to me but I also had to kind of feel my way through,
| not being completely fluent in German. You'd play as a
| merchant, sending out salt to other ports to trade for goods.
| Each turn was a year, and it would go through many generations,
| the goal being to contribute enough from your profits to build
| a cathedral.
|
| Other things I remember:
|
| - When you'd die, you'd pick an heir from your kids. They would
| be described as (sometimes you were supposed to understand as)
| being skilled at either fighting, exploring, or trading. If you
| didn't have an old enough one to pick, you'd have to pay a lot
| for some godparent to take over in the interim.
|
| - You could raise capital by selling shares in your operation,
| but the more shares outstanding, the more interest (Zinsen)
| you'd have to pay. (You could also buy them back, but they'd be
| more expensive when you had a good year.)
|
| - If you couldn't pay your obligations, you'd lose a turn to
| the Schuldturm (debtor's prison, lit. "debt tower").
|
| - You could send explorers to find more lucrative ports,
| Novgorod being a good one.
|
| - Depending on the weather, you might lose ships. Sometimes you
| wouldn't want to send any out, in which case it would warn you,
| "Keine Koggen auf der See! Zug wirklich beenden?" ("No cogs[2]
| on the sea! Really end turn?")
|
| - You would get random events each turn, one of them being a
| soothsayer that would offer to predict your fortune. They would
| then give you the option to pay for extra advice, which would
| always be "Don't trust charlatans!"
|
| - As your empire expanded, you'd be promoted in rank, some of
| the higher ones being Senator or Patrician.
|
| - There would be battles, as nobles would sometimes attack your
| ports.
|
| [1] https://www.mobygames.com/game/9273/hanse-die-expedition/
|
| [2] A kind of ship used back then (also mentioned in the
| article as replacing the Knarr):
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cog_(ship)?useskin=vector
| webslung wrote:
| If you're interested in merchant trade especially on the sea,
| explore the history from 970-931 BCE. It's incredibly
| interesting.
| nkzd wrote:
| Any specific recommendation? I'd like to watch a documentary on
| it.
| hnthrowaway3000 wrote:
| Found some:
|
| History Channel Documentary - King Solomon And The Queen Of
| Sheba https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VE9-6kHW6Q
|
| The Priceless Treasure Of The Queen Of Sheba | Myth Hunters
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tpoz1rGuM
|
| The Story of the Queen of Sheba
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSPuFjFeuYQ
|
| The Queen of Sheba's Mysterious Legacy (S2, E8)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq32h2zzg5o
|
| Sheba: The Lost Kingdom of the Queen
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySHMIeJW3lE
|
| The Lost Gold of King Solomon (S1, E7)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjWG4geGLHQ
|
| The Naked Archaeologist 206 - The Legacy of King Solomon Part
| 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGjETo2221k
|
| The Entire History of the Phoenicians (2500 - 300 BC) Ancient
| History https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-p8OZz5KJoo
|
| The Phoenicians: Princes of the Sea
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLHj1n9VTdI
|
| History of the Phoenicians: The Maritime Superpowers
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU4aU5yoyp4
|
| Revealing a Lost Mediterranean Civilization from the Levant
| to Spain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmp-d6XhQjM
|
| The Quest For The Phoenicians
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBObLQZdeq8
|
| Quest for the Phoenicians (National Geographic Documentary)
| https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9hsjf8
|
| The Phoenicians Before Columbus Expedition | WYL Ep. 201
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcnYtAqn0iw
|
| Phoenicians Before Columbus - Video for the Explorer's Club
| NY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-jjFiiosh7A
|
| Ancient Egypt - When Egyptians Ruled the Sea | FD Ancient
| History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGTXqmbM-0w
|
| When Ancient Egyptians Ruled the Sea
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RMuyEyCDTw
|
| Sea Peoples: The Ancient Warriors Who Challenged Egypt
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/i0XTCjjg3mQ
|
| Sea Peoples and the Bronze Age Collapse
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CB7bo4f6E8
|
| 1177 B.C.: When Civilization Collapsed
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M4LRHJlijVU
|
| The Minoans | Ancient Worlds
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VJqnTlbCS0
|
| The Surprisingly Sophisticated Conveniences of Mycenae
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VmObzEWIEA
|
| Ancient Sailing Ships from Bronze Age Scandinavia
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aFoy25t_Ns
|
| The Nordic Bronze Age: Best Time to Ever be Alive
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_yKrkna1Dc
|
| Lost Worlds of the Mediterranean | Drain the Oceans
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmH4FDs3yl0
|
| Explore the Hidden Wonders of Jordan and Iran with
| Christopher Clark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeF_Y4OU9ow
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Man I hate to ask for a non-video resource after your link
| generosity, but if you know one, I'll be that guy.
| codethief wrote:
| > History Channel Documentary - King Solomon And The Queen
| Of Sheba
|
| Thanks, I just spent 2 months in Ethiopia and have been
| wanting to learn more about Queen Sheba!
| Bridged7756 wrote:
| I thought of the Hanza from the Metro books. I guess my European
| history knowledge isn't that great.
| m0d0nne11 wrote:
| Firstly, the article is appreciated - thanks. Now a minor gripe:
| several links I've clicked for further info point at paywalled
| matter, even for straightforward explanatory stuff like
| "moldboard plows" and, yes - I can go find info about such plows
| elsewhere but it breaks the stride when all that's needed is a
| sentence or two for clarification, not somebody's curated PhD
| thesis... ;->
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Hansa wasn't a democracy or an autocracy -- in my understanding,
| it was an entirely consensus-based organization. At the Bremen
| town hall, I learned about the tagfahrt, where they would wait
| for the representatives to come to consensus. Once they started
| the meeting, it would continue for days until they actually
| reached consensus.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Just like European Council or NATO.
|
| In European Council proposal will only be adopted if all member
| states are in agreeance. Formal voting does not take place, the
| member states deliberate until they reach general agreement.
|
| NATO is the same. Any Article consultations like Article 4, or
| 5 end with consensus. One country can water it down.
|
| Consensus based does not mean equal. Big participants usually
| throw their weight around a lot.
| ecshafer wrote:
| There is a great podcast, The History of the Germans, that have a
| season on the Hanseatic League. Its a great podcast if you enjoy
| history in general, the host isn't a professor or anything, but
| he does a great job with research and also makes interesting
| connections with how certain events were interpreted by German
| Nationalists, Fascists, Modern Day, etc. which is interesting.
|
| https://historyofthegermans.com/hanseatic-league/
| eatonphil wrote:
| Hamburg is mentioned in the article but not shown on the map?
| aswegs8 wrote:
| It just shows the Kontors
| junon wrote:
| If you are ever in the Hamburg area, I _highly_ recommend making
| a day trip with the Regional train up to Lubeck to visit the
| Hanse Museum.
|
| It's one of the most beautifully designed museums on a specific
| topic like this I've ever seen (it's also very accessible). The
| entire museum and all of its stations are translated into various
| languages by scanning a card you set up at the beginning,
| including customizing your information experience with certain
| topics you're particularly interested in (I chose naval
| architecture, if memory serves).
|
| There's a cute coffee shop or two right there in the complex too,
| and the entirety of Lubeck is a beautiful, cozy area too. Many of
| the old Hanseatic buildings still stand as they were relatively
| untouched by the war.
|
| Another hour in the same direction on the train takes you to the
| Travemunde beaches which are also gorgeous. Makes for a good day
| trip.
| weinzierl wrote:
| And if you always wanted to visit Hamburg you could easily
| combine it with attending Chaos Communication Congress. Two
| birds with one stone!
|
| Other nerdy things to do there:
|
| - Visit the container terminals of Europe's third busiest port
|
| - Go to the Miniaturwunderland
|
| - If you are into architecture or music: Elbphilharmonie
| willvarfar wrote:
| Yeap have heard from (grown up!) friends about
| https://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/ and always wanted to
| visit!
| elcapitan wrote:
| > easily combine it with attending Chaos Communication
| Congress
|
| "Easily" as in "26th to 30th of December, and tickets are
| available on three days in November if you can click fast
| enough" ;)
| weinzierl wrote:
| I hear you but 26th to 30th of December is the perfect
| time, what else are going to do in this otherwise useless
| part of the year? Have family? Bring them, C3 is a pretty
| family friendly event.
|
| Also, clicking fast is what we nerds excel at, right;-)
|
| More seriously, when it comes to tickets my impression was
| that the post-pandemic years were pretty relaxed with only
| last year becoming more difficult again.
| elcapitan wrote:
| I've been to C3 when it was in Berlin, then in Hamburg,
| then in Leipzig, but haven't been to it since it's back
| in Hamburg after the pandemic - before that it was always
| a bit of a fight with crashing ticket systems and other
| people's perl scripts :D So not necessarily my definition
| of something that you can easily just do on a spontaneous
| visit to Hamburg ;)
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >Visit the container terminals of Europe's third busiest port
|
| I wish more big industrial sites were set up for tourist
| access: mines, quarries, dams, ports etc. But maybe I'm just
| strange.
| danans wrote:
| > The next year, Edward II reaffirmed Hansa merchants' freedom
| from taxes, travel, and arrest in exchange for PS1,000 (which
| would have been three percent of the Crown's total annual tax
| revenues). Remarkably, he even promised that neither he nor
| subsequent kings would place new restrictions on the Hansa
| without their consent. These privileges ensured that Hanseatic
| merchants paid even lower tax rates than their English
| counterparts.
|
| Autocracy and the absence of accountability (either financial or
| criminal) for the very wealthy is an age old problem that we
| still deal with.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| How can people muster up the bile to be jealous and resentful
| of people who died hundreds of years ago? They are dust, you
| are alive. Do something with the fantastic gift of life while
| you still have it. Soon enough you will also be dust.
| psalaun wrote:
| Where do you see jealousy in the comment?
| doug_durham wrote:
| What a well written piece. This is why I come to Hacker News.
| Bravo.
| aswegs8 wrote:
| My thoughts exactly!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-07-26 23:00 UTC)