France Festival (Düsseldorf)
The France Festival Dusseldorf (French: La grande fête française ) is one of the trade association Destination Dusseldorf Event GmbH organized tourist major event , in addition to increasing the attractiveness of the state capital Dusseldorf the cultural, economic and friendly relations with France to deepen. Since 2001, the event has been held annually around the banks of the Rhine and City Hall in Düsseldorf, close to the French national holiday on July 14th . It supposedly had more than 100,000 visitors in 2013, making it the largest festival of its kind in Germany . Guests of honor in 2013 were the French Ambassador Maurice Gourdault-Montagne and the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hannelore Kraft .
The program consists of a market with French products, a gastronomic line on the banks of the Rhine with a diverse culinary offer, an extensive cultural program and a classic car rally called the Tour de Düsseldorf . The festival lasts three days and runs from Friday to Sunday.
At the 15th France Festival, which, according to the organizer, set a new record with a participation of “well over 100,000 visitors”, the performance artist Milo Moiré posed for a “naked selfie ” on Burgplatz . She used the 15-meter-tall replica of the Eiffel Tower erected there as the background for her photo . The 15th Festival of France cost almost half a million euros and the number of its stands rose from 85 to 98. At the 16th Festival of France, which took place from July 8 to 10, 2016 and, according to the press, was also attended by over 100,000 people, the organizer announced announced that the Principality of Monaco also wanted to participate in the festival in 2017 .
Relationships
A number of historical facts illuminate the interdependencies that connect Düsseldorf's history with France:
16th Century
To France in the succession question about the Duchy of funds and the county Zutphen to draw to his side, married William the realms of Jülich-Cleves-Berg in 1541 in Châtellerault , the only 13-year-old niece of Francis I , Jeanne d'Albret . However, this marriage policy step did not bring about the hoped-for intervention by France in favor of Jülich-Kleve-Berg and did not prevent Wilhelm from finally succumbing to the Roman-German Emperor Charles V in the dispute over the expansion of his territory and had to sign the Treaty of Venlo in 1543 . Wilhelm's marriage to Jeanne d'Albret was annulled in 1545 because of non-execution. In 1546, Wilhelm concluded the marriage, initiated in the Treaty of Venlo, with Maria of Austria , the daughter of the Roman-German King Ferdinand , who was elected in 1531 .
17th century
On the occasion of the Jülich-Klevian succession dispute , France's partisanship for the princes of the Protestant Union threatened to expand the conflict over the Jülich-Kleve-Berg inheritance into a major European war. Dutch and French units under the command of Moritz von Oranien and Claude de La Châtre were already planning to wrest the Jülich state fortress from the Catholic League when the French King Henry IV was assassinated on May 14, 1610. A little later, under the regent Maria de 'Medici , France preferred to withdraw from the conflict. This in turn encouraged the New Burgher Hereditary Prince Wolfgang Wilhelm to change sides by marrying the Bavarian Princess Magdalene , to profess the Catholic faith, to join the Catholic League and thereby secure the Jülich-Berg states for the Palatinate-Neuburg line. For the residents of these countries, this meant that the Protestant creeds were suppressed there and Catholic culture was promoted in the course of extensive re-Catholicization and counter-reformation .
In the Thirty Years War , troops of the French King Louis XIII attacked. again on the Protestant side in the conflict. Under Marshal Jean Baptiste Budes de Guébriant they were able to defeat the Catholic ( imperial and Electoral Cologne ) armed forces in 1642 in the battle of the Kempen Heide . Not only Kurköln, but also the duchies of Jülich-Berg fell temporarily under their control.
Because Heidelberg, the capital of the Electorate of the Palatinate, was destroyed by the troops of Louis XIV in 1693 during the War of the Palatinate Succession , Düsseldorf was able to become the main residence of Elector Johann Wilhelm . The courtly and state functions associated with this significantly favored the city's development. Military threats, particularly from France, led to the construction of modern city fortifications based on French and Italian models.
18th century
In the War of the Spanish Succession , in which the nephew of the Elector Johann Wilhelm, Archduke Karl , defended the claim of the House of Habsburg to the Spanish royal throne, the French garrison troops defended the Marquis de Blainville under the command of Marshal Camille d'Hostun de la Baume, duc de Tallard , in 1702 the Electorate of Cologne, Kaiserswerth , today a district of Düsseldorf, against the Electoral Palatinate troops of Johann Wilhelm and his Dutch , Brunswick and Brandenburg-Prussian allies. The castle , town and fortress were captured and completely destroyed after a siege lasting several weeks .
In 1758, during the Seven Years' War , in which France fought against an alliance of German and British troops in the Rhineland , Düsseldorf was involved in the events of the Battle of Krefeld . During this war, Düsseldorf was occupied by French troops between 1759 and 1762 and used as headquarters by their Marshal Louis-Georges-Erasme de Contades .
Especially in the 18th century, in the age of the Enlightenment , the French language, literature and culture gave the intellectual life of Düsseldorf important impulses, for example the brothers Johann Georg and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi . The architecture of the baroque and late baroque periods in Düsseldorf shows French influences, e. B. Benrath Palace or Jägerhof Palace . The Gemäldegalerie Düsseldorf was also a sight for French visitors at this time, such as the later French kings Louis XVIII. and Charles X , who left France to avoid revolution , reign of terror and the guillotine .
In the course of the First Coalition War , Düsseldorf was shelled by French artillery from the left bank of the Rhine on October 6, 1794, a few days after the Second Battle of Aldenhoven . The following night the Düsseldorf Palace caught fire and was destroyed. In 1795, French troops under Claude-Juste-Alexandre Legrand reappeared and occupied the city after the Palatinate troops had surrendered without a fight.
19th century
The Treaty of Lunéville , which was sealed between France and the Holy Roman Empire at the end of the Second Coalition War , not only determined the cession of the left bank of the Rhine, including the parts of Düsseldorf today on the left bank of the Rhine, to France, but also demanded that the demolished Düsseldorf city fortifications could not be restored. This led - still under Elector Maximilian Joseph von Kurpfalz-Bayern - to the beginning of urban redesign, such as the construction of a canal, the city moat , and an esplanade, today's Königsallee .
In 1805, the elector recognized that he could achieve royal dignity by making contractual concessions to France and elevate his country to the Kingdom of Bavaria . In the Bogenhausen Treaty of September 25, 1805, he concluded a secret alliance with France. He let his troops in Bohemia against Austria fight what the French emperor Napoleon helped in the battle of Austerlitz Austria and Russia to defeat. On the basis of the Peace of Pressburg and the Treaty of Schönbrunn , Maximilian Joseph agreed to an exchange of countries in which he left sovereignty over the Duchy of Berg to the French Emperor. To compensate, Maximilian Joseph received the Land of Ansbach-Bayreuth from the Kingdom of Prussia and the French recognition of his kingship.
Napoleon transferred the Duchy of Berg to his brother-in-law Joachim Murat , the husband of his sister Caroline . When he moved in on March 24, 1806, Murat paid homage to the Düsseldorf market square as the new sovereign. Since Caroline was not satisfied with the ducal salutation "Highness", the duchy was raised to the Grand Duchy of Berg in the summer of 1806 with the creation of the Rheinbund , a German confederation under the protectorate of Napoleon . Caroline and Joachim Murat therefore deserved the grand-ducal salutation "Royal Highness". During his stays in Düsseldorf, Murat resided in the Electoral Palatinate Governor's Palace on Mühlenstrasse or at Benrath Palace . In his Paris city residence , the Élysée Palace , Grand Duke Joachim asked Antoine Charles Horace Vernet to paint a view of Benrath Palace in 1806. On July 15, 1808, Caroline and Joachim Murat moved to the throne of the Kingdom of Naples and Emperor Napoleon himself took over the reign of the Grand Duchy of Berg. In an attempt to develop Berg into a model state , Napoleon was supported by Pierre-Louis Roederer , Minister for the Grand Duchy in Paris, and Jacques Claude Beugnot , Imperial Commissioner in Düsseldorf.
In 1811 Napoleon visited Düsseldorf, at that time the festively decorated Bergische capital. In connection with this event, Roederer created the term Little Paris as a synonym for Düsseldorf. The emperor, to whom the Bergische government by the architect Adolph von Vagedes a wooden triumphal arch with the inscription DIVO NAPOLEONI MAGNO IMPERATORI ET REGI, VICTORI INVICTO GENTIUMQUE PROTECTORI (German: Dem divine Napoleon, the great emperor and king, modeled on the Arc de Triomphe) the invincible victor and protector of the peoples ), decreed the beautification of the city after his visit. The measures decided included the reconstruction of the palace as a university and the expansion of the courtyard garden , where the Napoleonsberg and Kaiserstraße still commemorate the regent of the Grand Duchy of Berg. Napoleon had the first Düsseldorf trade fair organized, a forerunner of the Düsseldorf trade fair . He had the civil code introduced, which among other things led to the legal emancipation of the Düsseldorf Jews and which, as "Rhenish law", shaped civil law on the Rhine until 1900.
The writer Heinrich Heine , "Düsseldorf's greatest son", had experienced the relief for the Jews and Napoleon's visit as a child. In the essay The Book Le Grand , published in 1828, he confessed to Napoleon, whom he portrays in scenes from his childhood memories, and to the ideals of the French Revolution . Because of Prussian censorship and repression, Heine had to end his life as an exile in Paris, in his " mattress crypt ", the documents of which are on display in the "France area" of the Heinrich Heine Institute in Düsseldorf.
The February Revolution that broke out in Paris in 1848 sparked the March Revolution in Germany. One of the focal points of the demand for civil liberties was also Düsseldorf, where members of a vigilante group finally fought bloody barricade battles with the Prussian military. The Kingdom of Prussia, after the founding of the empire the Hohenzollern Empire , was able to soothe the criticism of its regime through national romantic narratives, also by helping the Rhinelanders after the Rhine crisis , which in 1840 by demands of the French Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers for the Rhine as the French eastern border was triggered, successfully as Germany's " Watch on the Rhine " portrayed.
Many Düsseldorf painters made contacts in France in the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Heinrich Christoph Kolbe , Anselm Feuerbach , Benjamin Vautier and Ludwig Knaus . The latter achieved top honors at the World Fairs in Paris in 1855 and Paris in 1867 . Napoleon III decorated him with the Officer's Cross of the Legion of Honor .
As the son of the French princess Antoinette Murat and the son-in-law of Napoleon's adopted daughter Stéphanie de Beauharnais , the Düsseldorf division commander and honorary citizen Karl Anton von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen maintained close relationships with France and Napoleon III in the mid-19th century. These relationships helped him place his children on or on the thrones of Europe. His daughter Stephanie became Queen of Portugal in 1858 , his son Karl became Prince in 1866 and King of Romania in 1881 , and his daughter Marie became Princess of Belgium in 1867 . When his son Leopold was a candidate for the Spanish throne in 1869 , however, this was met with the rejection of Napoleon III. and triggered the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 . The war memorial in the Hofgarten commemorates the people of Düsseldorf who died in this war .
In 1896 the people of Düsseldorf inaugurated their Kaiser Wilhelm monument . In the spirit of Wilhelminism, it glorifies the Hohenzollern Empire and the establishment of the German Empire as a triumphant victory over the Second French Empire .
20th century
Düsseldorf art exhibitions of the Rhenish artist association Sonderbund , 1909 in the Kunsthalle , 1910 in the Kunstpalast , 1911 again in the Kunsthalle, conveyed contemporary French painting to the Düsseldorfers, especially the art of the Impressionists and Fauvists . The Düsseldorf gallery owner Alfred Flechtheim exhibited works by Aristide Maillol , drawings, lithographs and the bronze portrait bust of Renoir at his opening exhibition in 1913 . In the same year, the play Schneider Wibbel by Hans Müller-Schlösser was premiered at the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf , which is set in the time of the Grand Duchy of Berg, ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, and which targets the circumstances at that time.
From March 8, 1921 to August 25, 1925, Düsseldorf was once again occupied by French troops as part of the Allied occupation of the Rhineland . The general staff of the French units used the confiscated Düsseldorf Stahlhof from 1923 to 1925 as their accommodation and command center during the war against the Ruhr . When the Mayor of Düsseldorf Emil Köttgen refused to publish a notice of the French occupation, he was arrested on February 19, 1923 and expelled from the city. Activists of the Ruhr struggle operating in Düsseldorf were Friedrich Grimm and Albert Leo Schlageter . Schlageter was caught by the Sûreté on April 7, 1923 , sentenced to death by a French military tribunal for espionage and explosive attacks, and executed in Düsseldorf on May 26, 1923. The circles of the Weimar Republic on the right and Nazi propagandists then stylized Schlageter into a political martyr figure and created a “Schlageter cult” through numerous Schlageter monuments and name sponsorships . In the Düsseldorf districts of Golzheim and Stockum , the National Socialists had a “Schlageterstadt” built by 1937 in connection with a Schlageter National Monument inaugurated in 1931 and a Reich Exhibition of Creative People , consisting of parks , streets and settlements designed for propaganda purposes . The lawyer Grimm, who had defended Schlageter at the military court, served the National Socialist regime as an influential specialist in France and an interface for collaboration .
In the period between the world wars, France promoted secession movements in the Rhineland, in particular the attempts to establish a Rhenish Republic , in which people from Düsseldorf were also involved, such as the former public prosecutor at the Düsseldorf Regional Court, Hans Adam Dorten .
The Ruhr question , France's concern that Germany would regain its strength and the resulting military threat, led to the establishment of an International Ruhr Authority in Düsseldorf after the Second World War , whose task it was to monitor West German heavy industry. From 1950 to 1952, the French Alain Poher was the president of their council.
As a result of the coal and steel union, founded on April 18, 1951, and the Élysée Treaty of January 22, 1963, the citizens and governments of the nations previously separated by " hereditary enmity " have built up intensive Franco-German relations and to a certain extent a common European identity .
On the occasion of the Paris Treaties , the city of Düsseldorf under Mayor Josef Gockeln , who was also the President of the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia , organized the “Paris Week” from April 24 to May 1, 1955 as a “celebration of Franco-German understanding”. The French Ambassador André François-Poncet , the Paris Council President Lafay, Prime Minister Karl Arnold and Federal Ministers Gerhard Schröder and Heinrich Lübke were represented at the opening ceremony in front of the State Parliament building . On September 6, 1962, the French President Charles de Gaulle visited Düsseldorf as part of a state visit .
The ties that Düsseldorf gallery owners and artists established with France in the post-war period , such as Jean-Pierre Wilhelm , Hella Nebelung , Gerhard Hoehme , Winfred Gaul and Peter Brüning, were particularly intense . Their impressions manifested themselves in the work of Gruppe 53 , who implemented the art of French Tachism in the form of Informel in Germany . The exhibition Yves - Propositions Monochromes by the then largely unknown Yves Klein , with which the Schmela Gallery was opened on May 31, 1957 in Düsseldorf's Hunsrückstrasse, is particularly significant in terms of art history . The opening speech was given by the French art critic Pierre Restany . The exhibition, organized by gallery owner Alfred Schmela , resulted in long-term artistic and personal contacts between Düsseldorf artists from the ZERO group and the milieu of the Nouveau Réalisme art movement . There was also a contact to the architect Werner Ruhnau and his project of a Bauhaus- inspired music theater in the Revier (Gelsenkirchen). Yves Klein's wife became Rotraut Uecker in 1962 , the sister of the Düsseldorf artist Günther Uecker . In 1958 the Leverkusen artist Wolf Vostell organized the happening The Theater is on the Street in Paris, the first event of its kind in Europe. In 1963 Konrad Fischer received groundbreaking impulses for Pop Art from the Parisian art dealer Ileana Sonnabend , which he implemented and further developed together with Gerhard Richter in the Düsseldorf exhibition and art campaign Leben mit Pop - a demonstration for capitalist realism .
In 1983 the Düsseldorf electro-pop band Kraftwerk , whose members Ralf Hütter and Karl Bartos were avid cyclists, released the single Tour de France . At the end of the 1970s, Antoine de Caunes introduced them to the French TV audience in the music program Chorus .
21st century
Nowadays there is a French consulate general in Düsseldorf , an Institut français (in Palais Wittgenstein ), the department responsible for Germany of the French export promotion company Ubifrance, the German-French Circle eV founded in 1955, a French film festival, the French School Düsseldorf with a complete range of activities for everyone Grades from kindergarten to high school graduation , a day-care center with teachers in German and French as well as direct connections by plane and Thalys train. Because of the concentration of French economic institutions and companies, including the Germany-headquarters of the company Air Liquide , L'Oreal , Sonepar , Targobank , Technip , Total and Vallourec , the designated Chamber of Commerce Dusseldorf the city as the most important site of the French economy in Germany. On December 31, 2010, 3061 citizens of France with their main residence in Düsseldorf were registered, among them the chef Jean-Claude Bourgueil as "French culinary ambassador to Germany". The state capital maintains friendly relations with Toulouse in southern France. A marketing partnership has existed since 2014 between the advertising associations of Düsseldorfer Königsallee and Pariser Avenue Montaigne.
Individual evidence
- ↑ About us . Presentation of Destination Düsseldorf Veranstaltungs GmbH in the portal destination-duesseldorf.de , accessed on July 17, 2013
- ^ French attitude towards life at the 13th Düsseldorf France Festival . Article from June 24, 2013 on the homepage of the city of Düsseldorf, accessed on July 13, 2013.
- ↑ More than 100,000 visitors to the France Festival in the city center . Article from July 15, 2013 in the welt.de portal , accessed on July 17, 2013
- ↑ 13th Düsseldorf France Festival ( Memento from August 11, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), article from July 18, 2013 in the destination-duesseldorf.de portal , accessed on August 10, 2013
- ↑ Uwe-Jens Ruhnau: Record visit to the France Festival . Article from July 12, 2015 in the portal rp-online.de , accessed on July 12, 2015
- ↑ The artist makes a “nude selfie” on Burgplatz . Article from July 12, 2015 in the portal rp-online.de , accessed on July 12, 2015
- ↑ Record visit to the France Festival . Article from July 12, 2015 in the portal rp-online.de , accessed on July 13, 2015
- ↑ Record number of visitors at the France Festival in Düsseldorf . Article from July 10, 2016 in the portal rp-online.de , accessed on July 10, 2016
- ^ Kurt Hamburger: The wedding of Châtellerault (1541) of Duke Wilhem von Kleve-Jülich-Berg - a political marriage adventure 450 years ago . Joseph-Kuhl-Gesellschaft, Society for the History of the City of Jülich and the Jülich Land, Kleine Schriftenreihe, Vol. 15, Jülich 2000, ISBN 3-932903-15-3 , 55 pages; also in: New Contributions to Jülich History, 1999
- ^ F. Emmanuel Toulongeon: History of France since the Revolution of 1798 . Edited by Philipp August Petri, Verlag Peter Waldeck, Münster 1810, p. 327 ( online )
- ↑ From the capital of a grand duchy to an industrial city . Article in the duesseldorf.de portal , accessed on July 17, 2013
- ^ Heinrich Heine: Das Buch Le Grand , 1828, reproduced in the Gutenberg-DE portal , accessed on July 19, 2013
- ^ France , page of the Heinrich Heine Institute of the state capital Düsseldorf , accessed on the duesseldorf.de portal on August 24, 2013
- ^ Rainer Nolden: Düsseldorf-Derendorf . Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2002, ISBN 978-3-89702-404-5 , p. 52 ( online )
- ^ State capital Düsseldorf (ed.): Paris Week in Düsseldorf. A celebration of Franco-German understanding (La fête d'une entente franco-allemande. La Semaine de Paris à Düsseldorf) . Düsseldorf 1955, 36 pages
- ^ Hugo Weidenhaupt: Brief history of the city of Düsseldorf . 9th, revised edition, Triltsch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1983, p. 212
- ↑ Hugo Weidenhaupt, p. 211
- ↑ Düsseldorfer Stadtchronik 1962 , accessed on November 1, 2014 from the duesseldorf.de portal
- ↑ Yves Klein Archives: biography ( memento of May 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), biography of Yves Klein in the yveskleinarchives.org portal , accessed on August 6, 2013
- ↑ Consulat Général de France à Dusseldorf , website in the portal ambafrance-de.org , accessed on October 23, 2013
- ↑ UBIFRANCE - Exportförderungsgesellschaft , website from May 8, 2012 in the ambafrance-de.org portal , accessed on October 23, 2013
- ^ Statutes of the German-French Circle eV , website in the portal dfkdus.de , accessed on October 23, 2013
- ↑ Our school website in the portal franzoesische-schule-duesseldorf.de (Lycée français de Düsseldorf, 2010) , accessed on October 20, 2013
- ↑ Laura Ihme: German-French day care center opened . Article from October 19, 2013 in the portal rp-online.de , accessed on October 20, 2013
- ↑ Thorsten Breitkopf: IHK invites you to the series of events in France . Article from October 23, 2013 in the portal rp-online.de , accessed on October 23, 2013
- ↑ Dagmar Haas Pilwat: Kings and Parisian miles are partners . Article from May 31, 2014 in the portal rp-online.de , accessed on July 1, 2014