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
Zoological Garden of Hamburg society for the purposes of creating a zoo. On July 10, 1860, at the charter meeting of the Zoological Society of Hamburg (German: "Zoologische Gesellschaft in Hamburg"), Merck was selected as president. It was the fifth zoo in Germany, following the Berlin Zoological Garden in 1844, the Frankfurt Zoological Garden in 1858, the Cologne Zoological Garden in 1860 and the Dresden Zoo in 1861. The Society was a shareholding company. In 1861 it purchased a 13-hectare (32 acre) plot of land outside the Hamburg city walls, next to a municipal cemetery. In November 1862 the zoo issued additional shares to