A church was built in what is today Geesthacht around the year 800. The town was first mentioned in 1216 as Hachede, then a part of the Duchy of Saxony. A change in the course of the Elbe cut the settlement into two: Geesthacht and Marschacht (in today's Lower Saxony). In 1296, Geesthacht became part of the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg, partitioned from Saxony. Duke Eric III pawned Geesthacht - as part of the Herrschaft of Bergedorf - to the Free City of Lübeck in 1370. In 1401, Duke Eric IV retook the pawned area by force. Geesthacht was ceded as part of a condominium to the Hanseatic cities Hamburg and Lübeck by the Peace of Perleberg in 1420.
In 1811, Geesthacht was annexed to the First French Empire as part of the Bouches de l'Elbe département, but the condominium was restored two years later. In the 1860s, Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel established a glycerin factory in Geesthacht (on Krümmel hill) and invented dynamite, with Krümmel becoming the first dynamite factory in the world. [citation needed]Lübeck sold its share in the condominium to Hamburg in 1868, and Geesthacht became a part Hamburg's state territory. The Bergedorf-Geesthachter Railway (BGE) opened in 1906.
Rudolf Basedau (1897–1975), politician (SPD), member of the Schleswig-Holstein parliament
Trivia
The conservative politician Uwe Barschel, who was later involved in the "Waterkantgate" scandal, took his Abitur at the Otto-Hahn-Gymnasium in Geesthacht and as a student representative invited former Nazi admiral Dönitz to give a presentation on the topic of 'The Modernisation of History Classes' ("Aktualisierung des Geschichtsunterrichts"). Following the scandal, his principal committed suicide under the ensuing pressure.[4]
Heinz Bohlmann: Fäuste, Führer, Flüchtlingstrecks. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Städte Geesthacht und Lauenburg/Elbe 1930–1950. Schwarzenbeck 1990. ISBN3-921595-15-0
Bernhard Michael Menapace: "Klein-Moskau" wird braun: Geesthacht in der Endphase der Weimarer Republik (1928–1933). Kiel 1991. ISBN3-89029-923-7
August Ziehl: Geesthacht - 60 Jahre Arbeiterbewegung 1890–1950. Geesthacht 1958.