Elberfeld city fire in 1687
When the Elberfeld city fire on May 22, 1687, the entire city of Elberfeld was destroyed by fire except for five houses. Ten people were killed.
150 years earlier, on April 18, 1536, there was the first major fire in Elberfeld. A large part of the castle and the freedom Elberfeld fell victim to this. For decades the rubble dominated the cityscape.
In 1687 Elberfeld had around 2500 to 3000 inhabitants who lived in around 400 houses. The city recovered economically from the Thirty Years War during these years , and new buildings were built, including two schools.
The fire broke out in a poor district in the south of the city and spread through a strong south wind in a very short time throughout the city, which consisted almost exclusively of half-timbered houses . After around three hours, the city, including the town hall built in 1660 and the Reformed Church (today CityKirche Elberfeld ), burned down to the ground, despite extensive attempts to extinguish the fire. The Latin school (today Wilhelm-Dörpfeld-Gymnasium ) also fell victim to the fire, the building of which had previously been in the churchyard of this church. The files and documents of the city that had been kept up to then were all destroyed.
Because that day was Ascension Day , many people were not at home. The poorer Elberfelders attended an afternoon service in the church, the better layers celebrated a double wedding in the town hall. As a result, there were only ten fatalities: one woman, three men and six children.
The city was rebuilt relatively quickly, as Elector Johann Wilhelm ("Jan Wellem") waived all taxes for the city and anyone who wanted to settle in it for 20 years. The reconstruction of the town hall began in 1707, the new school opened in 1718. This in turn attracted new citizens, including many Protestants from Cologne . Since the bleachers on the banks of the Wupper had been spared the fire, economic life in Elberfeld was soon able to recover after the great fire.
literature
- Herbert Pogt: Historical views from the Wuppertal of the 18th and 19th centuries . Self-published by the Bergisches Geschichtsverein - Wuppertal Department, Wuppertal 1998, ISBN 3-9801338-1-8 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Florian Launus: When the whole of Elberfeld sank into ashes. In: Westdeutsche Zeitung . May 22, 2012. Retrieved November 17, 2019 .
- ↑ Bergische Geschichte. In: bergische-geschichte.de. January 19, 1934, Retrieved October 10, 2019 .
- ↑ Elberfeld 1610-1929. In: wuppertal.de. Retrieved April 24, 2020 .
- ↑ Uwe Eckardt: 400 years of Elberfeld city rights . In: Bergischer Geschichtsverein (ed.): History in Wuppertal . S. 10 ( archive.org [PDF; accessed April 24, 2020]).
- ↑ Pogt, Historical Views , p. 85