Lübeck noun1 •A city in Schleswig-Holstein, north-central Germany, northeast of Hamburg; a major Baltic port and industrial center, the present city dates from 1143 and was the leading town of the Hanseatic League after its designation as a free city in 1226; it retained that status until 1937.Lübeck alone has lost 12,000 laboring jobs in the past 15 years, many in the shipbuilding industry. — 1989
