Neumunster

Neumunster, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein, lies on both banks of the small river Schwale, in the basin of the Stor, 40 m. N. of Altona-Hamburg by rail, and at the junction of lines to Kiel, Vamdrup (Denmark) and Tonning. Pop. (1905) 31,347. It has an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church and several schools. It is, after Altona, the most important industrial town in the province, and contains extensive cloth-factories, besides manufactories of leather, cotton, wadding, carpets, paper, machinery, beer and sweetmeats. Its trade is also brisk. The name, which was originally Wipendorp, is derived from an Augustine monastery, founded in 1130 by Vicelin, the apostle of Holstein, and is mentioned as "novum monasterium" in a document of 1136. Its industrial importance began in the 17th century, when the cloth-workers of Segeberg, a town to the south-east, migrated to it. It became a town in 1870.

See Kirmis, Geschichte der Stadt Neumiinster (1900); and Dittmann, Aus dem alien Neumiinster (1879).