Wo ist das Meer?

The city Landskrona was founded at the location of Scania’s best natural harbour, as a means of King Eric of Pomerania’s anti-Hanseatic policy, intended to compete with Danish towns under Hanseatic control. A Carmelite monastery was founded in 1410, English merchants were granted the privileges in a royal charter in 1412, and the town itself was chartered in 1413. Landskrona was burned by the Hanseatic League in 1428.The town supported the deposed king Christian II of Denmark (1525), and opposed the Reformation in Denmark (1535), and in both cases found itself among the defeated. The Reformist King Christian III of Denmark abstained however from retaliation, and instead founded a castle to protect the harbour. The castle, built where the monastery had been situated until the Reformation, was completed by 1560.

After the Scanian lands was ceded to Sweden in 1658, the good harbour and the strong fort were reasons for plans to make Landskrona a commercial center of the acquired territory with extraordinary privileges for foreign trade. The castle was reinforced by bastions, the area inside the moats extended to 400×400 meters, the castle was considered the strongest and most modern in Scandinavia, but was temporarily lost to the Danes after a comparably short siege July 8-August 2, 1676. The commandant Colonel Hieronymus Lindeberg was consequently sentenced to death for high treason.

The citadell of Landskrona

Any further plans for Landskrona were however not realized, for various reasons. The continued Swedish-Danish wars favoured Karlskrona, located at a safer distance from Denmark, replacing Landskrona as a naval base, the fortifications were discontinued, and Malmö remained the most important commercial town – despite Malmö lacking a harbour until the late 18th century. The fortifications at Landskrona were expanded considerably between 1747 and 1788, but were condemned in 1822, whereafter the garrison was abolished in 1869. The walls and moats of the fortifications are today a beautiful recreational area, commonly known as the Landskrona Citadel.