Bad Belzig is located within the Fläming hill range and in the centre of the High Fläming Nature Park. The plains north of the town are home to one of the few great bustard populations in Germany.
Since 2003, when 14 surrounding villages were incorporated into Bad Belzig, some of them voluntarily, others by Brandenburg Landtag (state parliament) legislation, Bad Belzig has an area of 234.83 km². These villages became districts (Ortsteile) of Belzig:
A Slavic fort of Belizi was first mentioned in a 997 deed issued by Emperor Otto III in favour of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg. Whether this denotation refers to Bad Belzig or the neighbouring town of Beelitz has not been conclusively established. Nevertheless, both towns celebrated their 1000 years anniversary in 1997.
The Romanesque St Mary's Church was built in the late 13th century. According to an inscription in the keystone of the western entrance, Martin Luther preached here on January 14, 1530. Eisenhardt Castle. Bad Belzig was granted town privileges in 1702. During the War of the Sixth Coalition on August 27, 1813 troops of the French Empire and Saxony were attacked by Prussian and Russian forces near the village of Hagelberg. The encounter ended in a French defeat, while several Saxon units went over to the Prussians. According to the Final Act of the 1815 Congress of Vienna Bad Belzig was ceded to Prussia and became part of the Province of Brandenburg, after having belonged to the Saxon Electorate for centuries.
In 1934 ammunition works were established in Bad Belzig including a labor camp with about 1500 forced laborers. During the years 1936–1945, Burg Eisenhardt was the site of the Reichsschule (leadership school) for the Technischen Nothilfe ('technical emergency relief'). (The Technische Nothilfe was abolished in May, 1945, but the idea was revived by Otto Lummitzsch in the form of the Technisches Hilfswerk in 1950, which exists to this day as one of the pillars of the German civil protection infrastructure.) Between 1940 and 1945 a subcamp of the women's concentration camp Ravensbrück with about 750 inmates was also located nearby. Bad Belzig was also the site of a large radio transmitter station, erected in 1939. In 1952 the town became the capital of the Belzig district and in 1993 of the newly created district of Potsdam-Mittelmark. In 1995 Bad Belzig was awarded the official title of a climatic health resort. Effective March 2010, the town's name was changed to "Bad Belzig".
Demography
Development of population since 1875 within the current Boundaries (Blue Line: Population; Dotted Line: Comparison to Population development in Brandenburg state; Grey Background: Time of Nazi Germany; Red Background: Time of communist East Germany)
Recent Population Development and Projections (Population Development before Census 2011 (blue line); Recent Population Development according to the Census in Germany in 2011 (blue bordered line); Official projections for 2005-2030 (yellow line); for 2017-2030 (scarlet line); for 2020-2030 (green line)
Bad Belzig: Population development within the current boundaries (2020)[3]
Year
Pop.
±% p.a.
1875
8,847
—
1890
8,665
−0.14%
1910
9,162
+0.28%
1925
9,362
+0.14%
1939
10,636
+0.92%
1950
14,139
+2.62%
1964
12,329
−0.97%
Year
Pop.
±% p.a.
1971
12,145
−0.21%
1981
11,873
−0.23%
1985
11,849
−0.05%
1990
11,960
+0.19%
1995
11,711
−0.42%
2000
12,263
+0.93%
2005
11,772
−0.81%
Year
Pop.
±% p.a.
2010
11,248
−0.91%
2015
11,120
−0.23%
2016
11,113
−0.06%
2017
11,126
+0.12%
2018
11,144
+0.16%
2019
11,141
−0.03%
2020
11,096
−0.40%
Politics
Town hall
Mayors
1990–2008: Peter Kiep (SPD)
2008–2016: Hannelore Klabunde-Quast (independent)
since 1. Dezember 2016: Roland Leisegang (independent)
Peter Kiep could work in office only till 2006. He died in 2013.[4]
Hannelore Klabunde-Quast became in 2006 the substitute of Peter Kiep. She was elected mayor in 2008.
Roland Leisegang (a founding member of the band Keimzeit) was elected mayor in 2016 with 65,4 % of the votes.[5]
The municipal assembly (Stadtverordnetenversammlung) has 22 members. The 2014 elections showed the following results:
Bad Belzig exchanges students with Even Yehuda, Israel. Yet, there is not official agreement between the cities[citation needed].
Places of interest
Main attractions are medieval Eisenhardt castle and the thermal bath SteinTherme. There is also a picturesque historic town centre with the town hall and the market place in the middle.
Places of interest in the incorporated villages include Glien Manor (Klein Glien) in Hagelberg and the windmill in Borne.
The district administration is the major employer in Bad Belzig.
Bad Belzig is the main town in the rural Higher Fläming area, with schools, shops, supermarkets, a hospital and a cinema all used by the inhabitants of surrounding towns and villages.
There is a successful rehabilitation clinic (sanatorium) in Bad Belzig.
In 1989, Bad Belzig launched an ambitious programme to become a spa town (achieving recognition in 2009) and promote tourism.
