and coat of arms with a lion resting between two oak trees. The colors and flag of the town, green and yellow, are derived from this coat of arms. In the Thirty Years' War, there was a battle close to Dachtmissen. In 1637, citizens of Burgdorf rioted against the tributes imposed upon them. Fires destroyed large parts of the town in 1658 and 1809, but it was rebuilt each time. Brandende ("Fire's end") square in the old town still reminds of the place where the flames were finally subdued. In 1811, a new synagogue was built for the Jewish community in the town. They were forced to sell the building to the town in 1939. Hitlerjugend occupyed the building from 1941 on. It was used as a public library from 1944 to 1959. A businessman bought the building in 2007 and rented it to the town. Since 2008, it is used as a museum and cultural center. Burgdorf became seat of the eponymous District in 1885. Despite resistance of the local population, it was merged with the Neustadt am Rübenberge, Springe and the old Hanover Districts to the new Hanover (district) in 1974. Thus Burgdorf moved from the administrative region of Lüneburg to that of Hanover. It was dissolved in the end of the year 2004 along with all other Lower Saxon administrative regions. The city and district of Hanover merged on November 1., 2001 to form Hanover Region. Culture Sports The most successful club from the town is TSV Hannover-Burgdorf, competing in the German Handball-Bundesliga ever since 2009. Language Historically, Burgdorf was part of the Eastphalian Low German language area. Standard German replaced Low German in the urban areas around Hanover from the 19th century on and nowadays the whole area is said to be speaking the purest form of Standard German. There are, however, a few peculiarities in the colloquial language, which can partially be explained by a Low German substratum. /l/ is often vocalized in the syllable coda, so that "mal" sounds like "ma" and "solche" like "Seuche". Short /ɪ/ merges with short /ʏ/ and lenition of intervocalic consonants is frequent, so that standard "bitte" sounds like "büdde" [ˈbʏ.də]. People from the area often say "ebent" instead of "eben". Adverbial tmesis is also frequent ("Da kann ich nichts für" instead of "Dafür kann ich nichts"). Transport Burgdorf is connected to Hanover via the A37 motorway, which passes