Battle of Hamburg (1945) siege by the Soviet Red Army, refused to send reinforcements. The Germans managed to resist the British in Bremen for a week; the surviving troops retreated to the Jutland peninsula. The last remaining defence was the city of Hamburg and the Germans sought to make a final stand there. After capturing Soltau, the British 7th Armoured Division of the VIII Corps was poised to assault the city. The British advance towards Hamburg was spearheaded by the 7th Armoured Division, attacking Harburg and advancing to the River Elbe across from Hamburg, with the 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division assaulting the town of
Accession of Hamburg to the German Customs Union (Zollverein) Accession of Hamburg to the German Customs Union (Zollverein) The accession of the city state of Hamburg to the Customs Union in 1888 (along with Bremen) was the culmination of a project for the economic and monetary union of Germany, stretching back to 1819. In that year Schwarzburg-Sondershausen joined Prussia’s internal customs union, the first other state to do so and the first of many to follow. When the German Customs Union (Deutscher Zollverein) was initially formed, in the 1830s and 1840s, the motives of the states in joining did not include any particular desire to unite with others to