History of Mannheim
As the former royal seat of the historic Electoral Palatinate, Mannheim is still the economic and cultural center of the region. It was unable to build on its cultural heyday in the 18th century, but in its eventful history it has at least made a name for itself in the invention of the two-wheeler, automobile and agricultural machinery.
The beginnings
A brick kiln excavated in the Seckenheim district in 1929 and operated from AD 74 to the early 2nd century documents a settlement in prehistoric times.
The village of Mannenheim (home of Manno) was first mentioned in a document on March 11, 766 in the Lorsch Codex . The assumption that Mannenheim was a small, insignificant fishing village for many years has now been refuted. Thanks to numerous donations within a short period of time, the Lorsch Abbey received 160.5 days of field work, which corresponds to the area and hay yield of a medium-sized royal court. In 1284 Mannheim fell to the Count Palatine near Rhine from the House of Wittelsbach .
In contrast, Neckarau is already 368 knowledgeable about history. The Burgus of the Alta Ripa fort ( Altrip ) was located in what is now the Neckarau district. Neckarau was first mentioned in a document in 871 as Naucrauia . In 771 the village of Hermsheim ( Herimundesheim ), probably located in Gewann Bösfeld east of today's Neuhermsheim, is mentioned for the first time in the Lorsch Codex. In 1212, Emperor Friedrich II gave Neckarau to the Bishop of Worms . Between 1294 and 1365 the Neckar changed its course and since then has flowed north of Mannheim into the Rhine. The village of Hermsheim was given up and the residents moved to Neckarau.
The Zollburg Eichelsheim , built in 1349 on the Rhine in what is now the Lindenhof district, gained regional importance and demanded a fee from the Rhine boatmen. In 1415 the deposed Pope John XXIII was in her . imprisoned on behalf of Emperor Sigismund . With the victory in the Battle of Seckenheim in 1462 over the army of his allied opponents, the Count of Württemberg , the Margrave of Baden and the Bishop of Metz , Elector Friedrich von der Pfalz “the Victorious” established the Palatinate supremacy on the central Upper Rhine.
In 1496 today's district Neckarau came to the Heidelberg Oberamt as a village . In 1577 there were 101 households there. In 1566 Mannheim was also one of the largest villages in the Heidelberg Oberamt with 130 tax-paying heads of household (around 700 residents).
Neckarau was destroyed in 1689. In 1817 there were 1,253 inhabitants. In the second half of the 19th century, many industrial companies also settled there. In 1899 Neckarau - as the largest Baden village at the time - was incorporated into Mannheim.
Emergence of a city
In 1606, Elector Friedrich IV of the Palatinate laid the foundation stone for the building of the Friedrichsburg Citadel and commissioned the Dutch fortress architect Bartel Janson to expand the city. The planning of a grid-shaped street network for the city of Mannheim, which is connected to the fortress, has been preserved to this day. The name square city can be traced back to these blocks, which are roughly the same size . On January 24, 1607, Mannheim received city privileges from Elector Friedrich IV. In 1622, during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), Tilly , military leader of the Catholic League , destroyed the city and fortress. Until the end of the Thirty Years' War, Mannheim was occupied and devastated several times. In 1652, Elector Karl Ludwig von der Pfalz granted extended city privileges in order to facilitate the reconstruction. But as early as 1689 in the Palatinate War of Succession , French troops destroyed Mannheim. In 1692, citizens who returned to the right bank of the Neckar set up the Neu-Mannheim settlement, which was largely destroyed by fire in 1697. Elector Johann Wilhelm called for the city to be rebuilt. In order to persuade the people who had fled to return and to attract new immigrants, in 1698 the elector once again issued extended privileges. In 1709 the Friedrichsburg Fortress was united with the city of Mannheim.
Cultural and political rise of the city
In 1720, Elector Karl Philipp moved the court and state administration from Heidelberg to Mannheim and began building the palace (completed in 1760). Mannheim became the royal seat of the Electoral Palatinate . A brief but splendid glory of the young city began. The Palatinate court promoted art and music, science and trade. The talents flocked to Mannheim from all over Europe to stay at the court of the elector.
The Mannheim School of Early Classical Music, which Hofkapellmeister Johann Stamitz (* 1717 in Deutschbrod / Böhmen) founded around 1750, was particularly effective . The original orchestral school became, alongside the one in Vienna and the Bach sons, one of the most important “trendsetters” in the transition from late baroque music to Viennese classical music .
It was because of her that the young Mozart came to Mannheim for a year in 1777 (where he fell seriously in love for the first time - with Aloysia Weber, the sister of his future wife). Johann Christian Cannabich , the director of the now famous Mannheim orchestra, welcomed Mozart on a friendly basis. The Mannheim efforts to create a German opera turned out to be very fruitful for Mozart.
During this time, well-known buildings such as the department store in N 1 on Paradeplatz were built, the construction of which began according to plans by Alessandro Galli da Bibiena (completed in 1747). The foundation stone for the Jesuit Church , completed in 1760 , the largest baroque church on the Upper Rhine, was laid. In 1763, Elector Karl Theodor founded the Electoral Palatinate Academy of Sciences and in 1775 the German Society . Christian Mayer moved into the newly built Mannheim observatory in 1774 . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Friedrich Schiller , Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock , Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Christoph Martin Wieland stayed in Mannheim. The first Masonic activity in Mannheim also fell during this time . Roots can be traced back to 1727. The Masonic Lodge Carl zur Eintracht , which was founded in 1756, dates back to this time and continues to exist today. The city had over 25,000 inhabitants in the middle of the century.
Loss of political position
In order to be able to take over his Bavarian inheritance, Karl Theodor had to move the residence to Munich in 1778 . Wolfgang Heribert Freiherr von Dalberg was entrusted with the management of the National Theater, which the Elector had in Mannheim to compensate for the court's departure. Nevertheless, an economic and cultural bloodletting began. Between 1790 and 1794 the Neckar was regulated and straightened. In 1795 Mannheim was occupied by the French in the First Coalition War; During the reconquest by Austrian troops, the city suffered severe damage from artillery fire. From 1799 the fortifications were razed (until 1821).
The Electoral Palatinate was dissolved as an independent territory in the course of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss in 1803 and Mannheim subsequently fell to Baden, where - geographically pushed to the north-western edge - it assumed the status of a border town. After the loss of the residence in 1778, Mannheim had to give up its function as the capital, which initially resulted in further demographic and economic bloodletting. On the other hand, the reintroduction of the Neckar stack and the designation of Mannheim as one of the three exclusive loading and unloading points on the banks of the Rhine in Baden proved to be decisive for the further structural development of the city. This laid decisive prerequisites for Mannheim's later rise to become the leading south-west German trading city, which gained additional momentum with the construction of the Rhine harbor in 1840. 1817 of Karl Drais , then still Baron in Mannheim with the trolley tested the first two-wheeler as a substitute for starving horses on the track between the castle and the present district Rheinau. In 1819 the democratic fraternity member Karl Ludwig Sand murdered the reactionary writer and Russian State Councilor August von Kotzebue for political reasons . The act triggered repressive measures against national and liberal endeavors in the states of the German Confederation ( Karlsbad resolutions ).
The renewed economic upswing
In 1828 a free port was opened on the Rhine . In 1831, with the conclusion of the first Rhine Convention on Shipping ( Mainz Act ), Mannheim became the end of large shipping on the Rhine. Another heyday of Mannheim began, which was marked by the economic rise of the bourgeoisie. In 1840 the Rhine port and the first Baden railway line from Mannheim to Heidelberg was opened. The Badische Hauptbahn was built with a gauge of 1600 mm, which is why it was later necessary to convert to standard gauge.
In 1848 Mannheim was a center of the political and revolutionary movement (see also March Revolution ). The first popular assembly in Baden took place here on February 27th . Prominent moderate liberals such as Friedrich Daniel Bassermann , Karl Mathy and Alexander von Soiron , middle-class men such as Lorenz Brentano , but also radical democrats such as Karl Blind , Friedrich Hecker or Gustav von Struve came from the city of squares . After the popular uprising in Baden was suppressed in 1849, numerous revolutionaries were shot dead, such as Karl Höfer , Valentin Streuber and Adolf von Trützschler in Mannheim . 1863 Town Office Mannheim with communities of the repealed Office Ladenburg for district office Mannheim combined.
In 1865 Friedrich Engelhorn founded the Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik (BASF) , which was later relocated to Ludwigshafen am Rhein . The paint factory has become the largest chemical company in the world to this day. In 1868 the revised Rhine Shipping Act was signed in Mannheim. The Mannheim Act forms the legal basis for free navigation on the Rhine to this day. The forerunner of the tram, the horse-drawn railway , opened in 1878. In 1880 Werner von Siemens presented the first electric elevator in Mannheim. In 1886, Carl Benz patented his "Velocipede with a ligroing gas engine" and made his first test drive on July 3rd: the automobile was born. On August 5, 1888, his wife Bertha Benz made the first overland drive of a car with both sons at the wheel to Pforzheim . In 1895 the town of Sandhofen acquired the Friesenheimer Insel and began building the industrial port . The incorporation of Käfertal (1897) brought the Waldhof industrial area to Mannheim. The city now had over 100,000 inhabitants. The incorporations of Neckarau (1899), Feudenheim (1910) and Sandhofen and the Rheinau area (1913) followed by 1913. The municipal area of the city increased by almost 350 percent. During this time people spoke of American growth. Between 1867 and 1930, the population of Mannheim and Ludwigshafen, which developed from the old Mannheimer Rheinschanze , increased ninefold from 42,000 to 385,000. The first section of the electric tram went into operation in 1900.
In 1907 Mannheim celebrated its 300th city anniversary. The art gallery was opened. Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden inaugurated the industrial port. A number of important companies settled there and Mannheim became the most important industrial and commercial city in the southwest.
After the First World War
After the First World War , Mannheim became a border town as a result of the French occupation of the area on the left bank of the Rhine. In 1921 Heinrich Lanz AG presented the first self-propelled crude oil tractor ( Bulldog ) for agricultural use and thus triggered a revolution in machine-assisted agriculture. In 1924 the Mannheim district office was expanded to include the municipalities of the dissolved Schwetzingen district office . In 1925 the Kunsthalle directed by Gustav Hartlaub showed the exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit , which gave its name to an important art movement of the 1920s. In 1928, Hermann Heimerich , a Social Democrat, was elected Lord Mayor for the first time. With Friedrichsfeld and Seckenheim, the process of incorporation was completed in 1930.
Mannheim in the Third Reich
After the news of Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor arrived in Mannheim on January 30, 1933 , around 700 NSDAP supporters marched through the city. The resistance of communists and social democrats with counter-demonstrations in the first days after the seizure of power subsided sharply in the run-up to the Reichstag elections in 1933, accompanied by newspaper bans and arrests, discrimination and intimidation. The NSDAP in Mannheim emerged from the city council elections as the strongest party with 35.5 percent of the vote. On March 6, 1933, the swastika flag was hoisted at the town hall, on March 9, SA men dragged the incumbent mayor and social democrat Hermann Heimerich onto the balcony of the town hall. There he had to watch the burning of the black, red and gold flag of the Republic. Nervously weakened after these incidents, he was taken into " protective custody " in the hospital on March 12th .
Mannheim was " brought into line " and from the two district offices of Mannheim and Weinheim was founded in 1936, the district Mannheim. In 1939 the city left the Mannheim district and became an independent city, but remained the seat of the Mannheim district.
After the devastation of the main synagogue , the Klaus synagogue and the Feudenheim synagogue, almost 2,000 Mannheim Jews were deported to the Gurs internment camp in France in 1940 ( Wagner-Bürckel action ). Many died there from untreated diseases and malnutrition. Many were abducted from there in 1941/42 to the extermination camps in the East and murdered. In September 1944, a satellite camp of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp was set up in the Sandhofen district . It housed 1,060 Polish prisoners as forced laborers who were used by Daimler-Benz . During the Second World War , Mannheim was almost completely destroyed due to the constant air raids on the industrial, railway and residential areas ( air raids on Mannheim ).
On March 17, 1945 Dwight D. Eisenhower declared the city of Mannheim to be a combat zone, although at that time there was still fighting on the Palatinate side. Most of the population then left the city in the direction of the Odenwald, so that at that point in time less than 100,000 people were probably living in Mannheim.
On March 22nd, the Americans crossed the Rhine near Oppenheim and shortly afterwards (March 26th) also near Worms. At this point all Rhine bridges in this region had already been blown up, only the bridge at Germersheim remained intact until March 24th as a retreat. The Americans advanced from the north towards Mannheim from the bridgeheads they had formed .
On Wednesday, March 28, 1945, the first telephone surrender in history took place. Via an intact line from the city center to the Käfertal waterworks, Gretje Ahlrichs, a telephone operator for the city of Mannheim, negotiated a break from fire with the Americans in the waterworks, which she could use to answer the phone to one of the few city administration employees who had not yet fled who was authorized to negotiate the surrender of the city. US troops occupied downtown on Thursday March 29th. On Good Friday, March 30, 1945, all of Mannheim was occupied. The American military government put Josef Brown on March 31, 1945, as mayor.
Reconstruction until today
A number of important NATO and American military facilities have been in Mannheim since the end of the war, such as the headquarters of the 5th Signal Command , which was the telecommunications command of the United States Army in Europe.
The reconstruction of the city began only with difficulty. The castle and water tower were rebuilt, and the National Theater was built in a new location. There was still a housing shortage. Therefore, new residential areas (Waldhof-Ost, Vogelstang , Herzogenried, Neckar bank development) were developed in quick succession . In 1967 Mannheim became a university town and is now home to a number of other universities, including a vocational academy and a technical college, as well as the federal technical colleges.
During the district reform on January 1, 1973, the Mannheim district was combined with the Heidelberg district and parts of the Sinsheim district to form the Rhein-Neckar district . After more than 170 years, Mannheim lost the seat of an office or district, as Heidelberg became the seat of the new district. The city itself remained independent. As a “compensation” for this, Mannheim became the seat of the newly formed Lower Neckar region (today the Rhine-Neckar region ).
In 1975 the Federal Garden Show was a highlight in Luisen- and Herzogenriedpark with a summer-long festival. In those years a number of structural measures were implemented: the telecommunications tower was erected, a second Rhine bridge ( Kurt Schumacher Bridge ) was built, the “planks” became a pedestrian zone, the new rose garden was inaugurated, the Aerobus floated through Mannheim. A number of major projects were also implemented in the 1980s and 1990s: the planetarium at the Augustaanlage , the extension of the art gallery, the new Reiss Museum, the town house, the new Maimarkt area, the synagogue , the Yavuz Sultan Selim Mosque , the State Museum for Technology and Labor , Carl-Benz stadium , Fahrlachtunnel .
In the recent past, the economic decline in industrial jobs has shaped Mannheim. The city tried to counteract this with the designation of industrial areas and the settlement of service companies. A prime example is the construction of the diamond-shaped Victoria high-rise in 2001 in Lindenhof, one of the tallest buildings in the city (27 upper floors).
With a view to the city's 400th anniversary in 2007, a number of urban development activities were implemented from 2000: SAP Arena with connection to the new Stadtbahnring Ost, renovation of the Breite Straße pedestrian zone , the armory and the castle, complete redesign of the old measuring station and the new Schafweide urban railway line.
literature
- Johann Seobaldus Fabricius: Hist. PP Manhemium et Lutrea Caesarea sive de utriusque urbis originibus, incrementis et instauratione nova. Browne, Heidelberg 1656 (History of Mannheim and Kaiserslautern, digitized version )
- Gustav Wiederkehr: Mannheim in legend and history. Mannheim 1907. (New edition Ubstadt-Weiher 1999, ISBN 3-89735-120-X )
- Friedrich Walter: Mannheim in the past and present. 2 volumes. Mannheim 1907.
- Friedrich Walter: Fate of a German City. 2 volumes. Fritz Knapp, Frankfurt 1949-50.
- Friedrich Walter: Task and Legacy of a German City. Frankfurt 1952.
- Hansjörg Probst : Little Mannheim City History. Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2005, ISBN 3-7917-1972-6 .
- Richard Paid: Dr. Johanna Geissmar : From Mannheim to Heidelberg and across the Black Forest through Gurs to Auschwitz-Birkenau. 1877-1942. In memory of a Jewish doctor 60 years later. Hartung-Gorre Publishing House. 2001, ISBN 3-89649-661-1 .
- Hansjörg Probst (Ed. On behalf of the Society of Friends of Mannheim and the Former Electoral Palatinate - Mannheimer Altertumsverein von 1859 (MAV) and the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen (Rem)): Mannheim before the city was founded. 4 volumes, Regensburg 2006–2008, ISBN 978-3-7917-2074-6 .
- Edited on behalf of the City of Mannheim by Ulrich Nieß and Michael Caroli: History of the City of Mannheim. 3 volumes, Verlag Regionalkultur, Ubstadt-Weiher 2007–2009, Vol. 1, ISBN 978-3-89735-470-8 ; Vol. 2, ISBN 978-3-89735-471-5 ; Vol. 3, ISBN 978-3-89735-472-2 .
- Building and architectural history
- City Archives Mannheim, Mannheimer Architektur- u. Bauarchiv e. V. (Hrsg.): Architektur in Mannheim… 1907–2007, 5 volumes all at Verlag Edition Quadrat, Mannheim.
- … 1918–1939 by Monika Ryll (adaptation), Claudia Brandt, Aina Hedström, Gudrun Höhl, Volker Keller, Barbara Kilian, Christmut Präger, Helga Purm, Hanspeter Rings. 1994, ISBN 3-923003-59-5 . Review at zum.de
- Andreas Schenk: Buildings for administration, trade and commerce. 2000, ISBN 3-923003-83-8 .
- Andreas Schenk: Buildings for education, cult, art and culture. ISBN 3-923003-85-4 .
- Andreas Schenk: Buildings for living, social affairs, squares and green spaces. ISBN 3-923003-89-7 .
- Sonja Steiner-Welz, Reinhard Welz: Mannheim: Villas and Country Houses. Vermittlerverlag Mannheim, 2001
- Wiltrud Heber: The work of Nicolas de Pigage in the former Palatinate residences Mannheim and Schwetzingen. 1987, ISBN 3-88462-909-3 .
- Gerhard Widder, Jörg Schadt, Monika Ryll von Brandt: Department store, town hall, town house in Mannheim. Buildings in contradiction between government and citizenship. KF v Paperback, 1991.
Web links
- Chronicle of the city of Mannheim , MARCHIVUM chronicle star
- City history of Mannheim
- The Mannheim Experiment - Immigration, Immigration, Multiculturalism in Germany? The city between the Rhine and Neckar has shown in the 17th century that it is possible . In: Die Zeit , No. 6/2002
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ulrich Brandl, Emmi Federhofer: Sound + Technology. Roman bricks. Theiss, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8062-2403-0 ( publications from the Limes Museum Aalen. No. 61)
- ↑ Karl Josef Minst [transl.]: Lorscher Codex (Volume 2), Certificate 549, March 11, 766 - Reg. 20. In: Heidelberg historical stocks - digital. Heidelberg University Library, p. 197 , accessed on January 29, 2016 .
- ↑ List of places for the Lorsch Codex, Mannheim , Archivum Laureshamense - digital, Heidelberg University Library.
- ↑ Mannheimer Morgen , March 19, 2016, page 21, “But no poor fishing village”, online at www.morgenweb.de , accessed on March 21, 2016.
- ↑ Neckarau. LEO-BW (Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg), discover regional studies online, accessed on April 16, 2015 .
- ↑ Minst, Karl Josef [transl.]: Lorscher Codex (Volume 2), Certificate 600 May 1, 771 - Reg. 608. In: Heidelberg historical stocks - digital. Heidelberg University Library, p. 218 , accessed on April 5, 2015 .
- ↑ http://verlag-regionalkultur.de/media/pdf/bib_772-3.pdf
- ↑ Hermann Heimerich. A Lord Mayor of Mannheim in the mirror of his estate. Author: Tarokic, Angelika. Year of publication: 2006, ISBN 978-3-926260-70-3
- ↑ Stadtarchiv Mannheim, Chronikstar ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Search terms date 1945/03/28, 1945/03/29, 1945/03/30
- ↑ Stadtarchiv Mannheim, Chronikstar ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Search term date 1945/03/31
