the Electorate of Saxony. After the Napoleonic Wars ended, the Vienna Congress assigned Eisleben to the Kingdom of Prussia, which had long been allied with House of Welf which held the Duchy of Magdeburg, and after secularization in 1680 was administered by the Elector of Brandenburg. The Prussian Province of Saxony became part of the Free State of Prussia after World War I. It was the scene of fighting during the March Action in 1921. On 6 June 1927, American aviator Clarence D. Chamberlin landed in a wheat field outside Eisleben, completing the first transatlantic passenger flight (Charles Albert Levine was the passenger), and breaking Charles Lindbergh's distance record that set only two weeks earlier in Paris, France. In 1947, after World War II, Eisleben became part of the new state of Saxony-Anhalt within the German Democratic Republic (GDR). At the 1952 administration reform it became part of Bezirk Halle. After Germany's reunification in 1990, it became part of the re-created state Saxony-Anhalt. Eisleben was the capital of the former district of Mansfelder Land and of the former Verwaltungsgemeinschaft ("collective municipality") Lutherstadt Eisleben. Between 2004 and 2010 the town Eisleben absorbed 10 former municipalities: Volkstedt in 2004, Rothenschirmbach and Wolferode in 2005, Polleben and Unterrißdorf in 2006, Bischofrode, Osterhausen and Schmalzerode in 2009, and Burgsdorf and Hedersleben in 2010. Historical population The population has been declining since the mid-1960s due to declining birth rates and outward migration, although the municipal area has been enlarged several times by merging with neighboring districts. * population as of 31 December, except for 1964–1981: census Geography The town Eisleben consists of Eisleben proper and the following 11 Ortschaften or municipal divisions: Bischofrode Burgsdorf Hedersleben Helfta Osterhausen Polleben Rothenschirmbach Schmalzerode Unterrißdorf Volkstedt Wolferode Helfta The Counts of Mansfield in 1229 endowed a nunnery on the grounds of their castle, then built another monastery at Helfta near Eisleben, which was founded in 1258. Governed under either Benedictines or Cistercians, Helfta became known for its powerful and mystical abbesses, most of all Gertrude of Hackeborn, Gertrude the Great and Mechtild of Magdeburg. However, Duke Albrecht of Brunswick destroyed the nunnery in 1342. Rebuilt the following year, it was sometimes called the "crown of German convents". It closed in 1524, during the religious wars sometimes associated with Martin Luther, but reopened on a smaller scale until 1542, after which it became secularized, and controlled by local farmers. In