Hamburg

The Hanseatic League began to disintegrate at the end of the Middle Ages. Hamburg went its way and had overtaken Lübeck economically by 1550.

The stock exchange opened in 1558, and the Hamburg Bank in 1619. A convoy system for merchant shipping emerged in 1662. Hamburg merchants were the first in the open sea accompanied by warships. At the same time, marine insurance became available in Germany for the first time.

There were two reasons for the fortification of Hamburg: on the one hand, the religious wars in the second half of the 16th century forced many Dutch merchants to emigrate to the Lower Elbe, making Hamburg the center of international trade; on the other hand, the city was so well fortified in 1616-1625 that city's business developed smoothly even during the worst crises of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). By the end of the 17th century, Hamburg had become the second largest city in Germany after Cologne, with a population of 70,000.

The Treaty of Gottorp, signed with the Danes on May 27, 1768, freed Hamburg from theoretical subordination to the Danish king and enabled it to be recognized as an imperial city in 1770. In this treaty, Hamburg was also given the islands from Weddel to Finkenwerder, which lay between it and the left bank of the Elbe and on which new port facilities emerged a century later. However, Hamburg didn't enjoy its advantages for long: the Napoleonic Wars destroyed the old order in Germany, and in 1810, the land became a part of Napoleon's French Empire.