Gardelegen

Gardelegen is a town on the right bank of the Milde river in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, about twenty miles west of Stendal on the Hanover to Berlin rail line, with roughly 21,822 residents as of December 2024. Founded in the tenth century, it joined the Hanseatic League in 1358 and, following municipal expansions between 2009 and 2011, became the third largest town by area in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg despite its modest population. On April 13, 1945, more than 1,000 concentration camp inmates were killed by Nazi forces and local civilians at the Isenschnibbe Barn in the Gardelegen massacre, now commemorated by a military cemetery.