Eutin

Eutin stands beside a lake in eastern Holstein. Its name is Slavic, and the Abodrites built a stronghold on an island in the Great Eutin Lake. After the counts of Holstein conquered the region in the twelfth century, settlers arrived from northern Germany and the Netherlands. Eutin became a market in 1156 and received town rights in 1257. Around 1300 it became a residence of the bishops of Lübeck.

The bishops' town later enjoyed a flourishing cultural life. Between 1776 and 1829 writers and thinkers including Johann Heinrich Voss and Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg formed the Eutin circle; the composer Carl Maria von Weber was born here in 1786. The ecclesiastical principality was secularized in 1803, and Eutin passed with its territory to the house of Oldenburg.