DEUTSCHLAND	GERMANY
Bundesland: Niedersachsen	Lower Saxony
Stadt: Salzgitter

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Salzgitter is situated at an elevation of 90 m in southeast Lower Saxony, Germany, located between Hildesheim and Braunschweig. With about 109,1002 inhabitants and 224 square kilometres (2004), its area is the largest in Lower Saxony and one of the largest in Germany. Salzgitter originated as a conglomeration of several small towns and villages, and is today made up of 31 boroughs, which are relatively compact conurbations with wide stretches of open country between them. Until 31 March 1942, Salzgitter was the name of a town where the borough Salzgitter-Bad now is. From then until 1951, Salzgitter was the name of a borough of the city Watenstedt-Salzgitter that existed at the time. In 1951, the borough Salzgitter was renamed Salzgitter-Bad; the name Salzgitter, having thus been freed up, became the new and more succinct name of the city that had been called Watenstedt-Salzgitter until then. (Nowadays, Salzgitter-Watenstedt is the name of a small borough with a few hundred inhabitants.)

Salzgitter originated in the beginning of the 14th century around salt springs near the village Verpstedt (later Vöppstedt). The name was derived from the neighbouring village Gitter (nowadays a city borough) as "up dem solte to Gytere", which means "on the salt near Gitter"; the first mention was in 1347. After 200 years of salt production at various springs, the peasants in the area which is nowadays Salzgitter were chartered around 1350, but lost municipal law again when being transferred to the Duchy of Braunschweig-Lüneburg in the beginning of the 16th century. Later, Salzgitter belonged to the diocese of Hildesheim. When the diocese was transferred to Prussia in 1803, the municipal law was reconfirmed, but taken away once more in 1815, when Salzgitter became part of the Kingdom of Hannover. In 1830, a brine bath was established in Salzgitter. After the Kingdom of Hannover was transferred to Prussia in 1866, Salzgitter became a Prussian municipality, which was chartered again in 1929. Prior to that, the towns Vorsalz and Liebenhall had been incorporated (in 1926 and 1928, respectively). Salzgitter now belonged to the Landkreis (district) of Goslar and included, apart from Salzgitter itself, also some small settlements like Gittertor, which is nowadays part of Salzgitter-Bad. In 1936, Kniestedt was incorporated; it is also part of Salzgitter-Bad now. Due to the large iron ore body in Salzgitter, which had been mentioned first in 1310, the National Socialists founded the "Reichswerke Hermann Göring" for ore mining and iron production in 1937. In order to facilitate an unobstructed development of the smelting works, a unique administration structure in the whole area was conceived. Therefore it was decreed in the "Order about the area settlement around the Hermann-Göring-Werke Salzgitter", effective from 1 April 1942, to form a unified city district (independent city); thus, 7 municipalities from the district Goslar (including Salzgitter) and 21 municipalities from the district Wolfenbüttel were merged to the Stadtkreis (city district) Watenstedt-Salzgitter. In October 1942, the SS established the Drütte concentration camp, a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp, to provide slave labour for the Hermann Göring Works. This large subcamp held 2,800 inmates. During the war, Salzgitter was severely damaged by several American and British bombings. In 1951, the city was renamed to "Stadt Salzgitter" (City of Salzgitter), while the borough Salzgitter was renamed to "Salzgitter-Bad", referring to the brine bath there.

The Bismarck tower [top picture] on the Hamberg hill (272 m) was built in 1900. It is one of only three of its kind constructed in iron. Unlike the other two iron towers in Bielefeld and Hasselfelde-Trautenstein (today part of Oberharz am Brocken), which are entirely built from metal, this tower (12 m) rests on a stone base (5 m). The tower was renovated in 1990 and 2002.
Note: on glass no. 2950 the labelling reads: "Bismark-Turm", which incorrectly spells the name of Otto von Bismarck omitting the 'c'.
Several glasses of this collection show other monuments for Otto von Bismarck.

The bottom pictures on glass no. 2950 show views of Marktstraße (Market Street) [bottom left] and Marktplatz (Market Square) [bottom right].

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salzgitter, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salzgitter]
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismarckturm_(Salzgitter), http://www.helmut-stolze.de/bismarck/bismarck.html]