History of mother city
The large village of Mutterstadt in the historical Electoral Palatinate is a center of the Rhine-Palatinate District and has participated in all the events in the region in its eventful history.
Prehistoric times
Human life in the Mutterstadt area can be traced back to the Stone Age (600,000 to 4,000 years ago). The oldest finds come from people who, as hunters and gatherers, preferred resting places with a wide view. These were found on the dune-like bumps that rose up to 6 meters above the level of the landscape in the Paleolithic Age. The oldest finds are clumsy stone chips like a short, versatile broad blade. During the last great glaciation, the native inhabitants related to the Neanderthals had to give way to other races. Of these, small tools , so-called microliths , have been handed down, which belong to a special class of the Moustérien , which were found here for the first time in Germany.
In 1955 a Mesolithic find was made in a sand pit. There, at a depth of 80 centimeters in the sand, a skeleton lay in a sleeping position on a limestone slab. Charcoal remains under the lower legs suggested a cleaning fire. The only grave gift was a stone cut made of reddish-brown porphyrite from the Donnersberg . A work place of a Mesolithic toolmaker discovered in 1955 resulted in 1,855 finds. A total of six larger living spaces and a few smaller resting places from the Mesolithic period were discovered. Finds that belong to the Neolithic Age have been recovered in almost all parts of the district. The large number of finds from the Neolithic period suggests that Mother City was densely populated around 5,000 years ago.
Bronze and Iron Ages
Metal processing started in Mutterstadt around 2000 BC. Jewelry could be made with bronze . But there are also pendants made of gold and amber. Discs, spirals and wheels, which are interpreted as symbols of the sun, testify to the religiosity of the people of the Bronze Age . The tombs were laid out according to certain guidelines and richly furnished. Pure settlement sites were not discovered, however. The original gifts that had been neatly returned to the grave were recovered from a grave that had been disturbed by reburial .
The people of the Iron Age were mostly cattle breeders who lived in simple wooden houses. In the early Iron Age, these were often just shallow pits that hardly offered any space. The walls of the huts were made of light wickerwork covered with clay, the roof of reeds and twigs.
The Hallstatt A period (around 1200 to 750 BC) only left a bronze ax. The later Hallstatt times (around 750 to 450 BC) provided all the richer finds. However, clearing work in the 1770s and 1870s destroyed hundreds of burial mounds. The dead are likely to have been brought in from a wider area.
The first written records come from the Latène period , all of which can be found in Roman sources.
Roman times
The Roman Rhine Valley Road passed as a trunk road from Italy via Basel to Mainz . A Roman Leugenstein stood on the civitas border between Worms (Borbetomagus) and Speyer (Noviomagus) (VIII. Stein).
Roman settlements can be found in several places in the village and in the corridor. On the Medardus hump there was an extensive village from Roman times. Around 1900, the fields there were littered with rocks, fragments of Roman roof tiles and Roman vessels to an extent of 300 by 400 meters. Even in 1966, when drilling a well, fragments of Roman bricks were found. In 1874, a well was uncovered containing Roman roof tiles, fragments of amphorae, weapons and other equipment.
The Palatinate Historical Museum received nine Roman coins from Mutterstadt in 1842, including a gold coin from Valentinian III. , in 1909 it even received 22 Roman coins.
middle Ages
In 450 the Huns invaded the left bank of the Rhine under the leadership of Attila and depopulated it. The Alemanni penetrated from the south and the Franks from the north . Around 500 the decision was made in favor of the Franks.
The places with the name ending “-heim”, which surround the mother city in a large arc to the north, ( Assenheim , Schauernheim , Fußgönheim , Ruchheim , Oggersheim , Maudach = Maudacheim, Mundenheim , Rheingönheim , Waldsee = Walesheim) are witnesses of the first Franconian settlement activity.
At the edge of the forest area there are also a number of settlements whose names end in "-stadt". Mutterstadt and Dannstadt are on the northern edge of the forest, Schifferstadt on the foothills of the ridge that pushes into the forest; Otterstadt indicates the line on which the Frankish settlers circled the forest from the east. These places probably emerged a little later, when the Franconian upper class received reinforcement from new settlers and began to use the forest.
First documentary mention of the Franconian settlement from the 7th / 8th centuries. Century was in the year 767 (or 768) as Mutherstather marca in the Lorsch Codex . There is a donation from the couple Fricho and Hiltrud, who bequeathed a Hube and thirty acres of farmland to the monastery in the "Mutherstather marca" (mother town district) . Since the donation is dated November 26th of the 16th year of the reign of King Pippin the Younger , it should be November 26th, 767 , but cannot be conclusively clarified.
- In the Weißenburg tradition the place name is: Muoterestat, Muoterstat or Muterestat.
- In the Lorsch Codex, however, the place is called Mutherstath and in the Hubenlist Mutherestat as well as 774 Muderstath and 801 Muterstat.
This place name can be traced back to a personal name and means: home of the Muothari (or Muther). An entry from the year 790 reports about a bearer of this name when a certain Meginher donated 5 acres of land in Mutherstath for the salvation of his relative Muther (Latin: " pro remedio animae germani Mutheri "). Christianity had just gained a foothold, so that Muther may have spurned during his lifetime to commit himself to the church through gifts, while his relative (Latin: " germanus ") Meginher made up for what had been neglected after Mother's death.
The mother town remained an imperial estate until 1331 and was finally subject to the Landvogtei Speyer, after which it was pledged to the Count Palatine Rudolf II and Ruprecht I by Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian .
Modern times
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War completely destroyed the place and totally depopulated. The Spaniards quartered in 1621, Tilly came in 1622, the Swedes in 1631 and 1632, the imperial troops returned in 1634, and the French moved in in 1635. The plague raged in 1637. In 1639 the French and Weimar troops returned. Abuse and disease ripped the population away, the hallway was vacant. The disaster began when "the Palatinate went to Bohemia", Elector Friedrich V accepted the Bohemian royal crown and now had the allied Catholic princes as opponents. Few farmers ventured into the fields to collect the harvest. The year 1622 brought the first devastation. Now the residents fled for the first time behind the city walls of Speyer and Frankenthal. In the spring they went home to till their fields. But now they had to deal with Spanish war contributions. Every citizen subject to valuation had to pay half of the annual peacetime valuation every month.
After the end of the war, the place was populated by former residents and immigrants of various nationalities. Few of the families who lived in the village before the war reappear. Some of the new families come from Germany. Others come from Holland, France, Switzerland and Italy. From 1670 it is reported that the French community of Mutterstadt consists of 27 families.
The reconstruction after the Thirty Years War was initially delayed by the wild-catching dispute.
War of the Palatinate Succession
The Palatinate War of Succession (1688–1697) brought further calamity. New immigrants come to the once again depopulated village. This time they are French. Immigration from France was given a further boost by the repeal of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 , which had assured Protestants in France that they would be tolerated. Now over 500,000 Huguenots fled, many of them to the Electoral Palatinate. Mother City, however, was saved from the worst. Although the population had halved, the place was still habitable and even offered refuge for refugees from Ruchheim .
War of the Spanish Succession
During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), the mother city was “not only cruelly fortified, but also totally plundered”. In addition, the troops stay in the village for winter quarters. Part of the population is again fleeing. In 1714 a French foraging brought the mother city to the brink of ruin.
The reconstruction of the 18th century was delayed three times by acts of war without being overly inhibited. When the quieter times came after 1710, new immigration began. French (Walloon) immigrants appeared again (du Jardin, translated into Gärtner, Magin, Tabernie and others). From the Netherlands (Flory). Many immigrants indicated Switzerland as their home country. Other immigrants came from various German domains. Carpenters were found among the immigrants; Bricklayer; Wagner and carpenter. There were also linen weavers, shoemakers, tailors and a surgeon. The Catholic priest of Dannstadt gives the population for the year 1719 as follows:
- 57 reformed families
- 9 Lutheran families
- 6 mixed families
- 3 "Anabaptist" families
- 30 Catholic families
- 1 Jewish family
In total there were 106 families, which will have corresponded to a population of around 600 to 700 people. In the following decade of immigration, the population increased in 1731 to 714 Protestants, 280 Catholics and 7 Jews (1001 inhabitants). The next decade brought no further growth, because emigration to America began. Their decision was probably based on their disappointment in the devastated country. Around the middle of the 18th century, emigration to the European East began.
French rule
Mutterstadt remained in the possession of the Electoral Palatinate and under the administration of the Neustadt Regional Office until France took over power in 1797. In 1798, Mutterstadt became the chief town ( chef-lieu ) of the canton of the same name in the Donnersberg department .
The only evidence of this time is the former canton prison in the former "Arrestegässel".
Bavarian Palatinate
After the end of French rule and the reorganization in 1817, Mutterstadt also remained the canton's capital within the Bavarian Land Commissioner Speyer . Due to the dynamic development of the young industrial city of Ludwigshafen, the canton was elevated to a separate Ludwigshafen district office in 1886 . From this, the district of Ludwigshafen am Rhein , part of today's Rhein-Pfalz-Kreis , emerged in 1939 .
First World War
From the contested withdrawal of the last French troops in 1814 to the First World War, a hundred years passed without any serious acts of war in the Mutterstadt area. During the World War, 1,378 men from Mutterstadt were drafted into military service. As a substitute for their labor, 188 prisoners of war were used in the village for all kinds of work.
Weimar Republic
French occupation
After the armistice came into force in 1918, the German armed forces had to withdraw behind the Rhine as quickly as possible. In their place, French soldiers moved into the village, occupied the Pestalozzi School, set up their office in the parish hall and their main guard in the local train station. The village now resembled an army camp . The relationship between the population and the crew was tense and there were repeated acts of violence. It was not until October 16, 1919 that the village was finally cleared by the foreign soldiers.
Passive resistance
In March 1923, the French military authorities shut down the Palatinate railway network in order to force reparation payments and took over operations on their own. However, the population refused to use the French regional railway. So many walked or rode bicycles, others were brought into town by the farmers in horse-drawn vehicles.
- separatism
In the same year some people from the Rhineland and Palatinate tried to detach the area on the left bank of the Rhine from the Reich and proclaimed “the free Palatinate”. On November 24, 1923, a French military car brought separatists to Mutterstadt, who disarmed the police, the gendarmerie and the field guards in the name of the “ Autonomous Palatinate ”. A list of 25 citizens was drawn up who were stubborn opponents of the Autonomous Palatinate. But it was not expelled.
Economic crisis
In the winter of 1928/29 the world economic crisis took effect . The number of unemployed rose alarmingly. To feed the children, a people's kitchen was set up in 1929, which was obtained from public collections and had to feed 40 children when it was founded. In 1930, additional meals had to be set up for around 400 children.
While the number of NSDAP voters in Mutterstadt in 1924 and 1928 was only a few dozen, it jumped from 603 in 1930 to almost 1,500 in 1932.
On January 1, 1930, Mutterstadt ceded parts of the area to form the new Limburgerhof community.
Third Reich
The social democratic mayor Jakob Weber was removed from office in 1933, arrested in March and held for months. On March 22nd, the local group leader of the NSDAP Fritz Hauser became provisional first mayor. The number of supported unemployed in Mutterstadt fell from 661 in 1933 to 500 in 1934, to 295 in 1935, to 277 on January 1, 1936, and finally to 76 on September 1, 1936.
The construction of the west wall brought conscripts from other parts of Germany to Mutterstadt, from where they were taken daily by buses to their workplaces in the southern Palatinate. In the " seated war ", the land on the Siegfried Line had to be evacuated by the civilian population. "Return migrants" now passed Mother City. Several hundred such returnees sought refuge in Mother City. The Easter days of 1940 brought the first acts of war when enemy planes repeatedly flew over Mother City at night.
In the major attack on February 1, 1945, 38 people, including 33 in an air raid shelter, were killed by a direct hit by a heavy bomb. In addition to these civilians, 14 billeted soldiers were also killed.
On March 21, the Americans occupied Fußgönheim and Ruchheim and from there opened fire on the mother city, which was still occupied by German troops. The threat spread by radio that the mother city would be razed to the ground at the slightest resistance prompted many residents to seek shelter in other places. At around 9 p.m., infantry entered the village, with streets, courtyards and house fronts being fired at continuously without any resistance being offered.
The 1,100 foreign workers and prisoners of war who gathered in Mutterstadt were a burden. The residents had to leave their homes within two hours. Soviet prisoners of war looted, slaughtered the cattle and stole food, clothing and all valuables.
When the French took over the Palatinate in July 1945, they requisitioned all possible furnishings for their occupation troops and their family members.
post war period
The French occupation forces long resisted accepting a large number of refugees in their area. However, when the refugee camps in Denmark had to be evacuated, the first displaced people came to Mutterstadt. On January 28, 1949, there were officially 212 displaced persons in Mutterstadt. From 1950 onwards, around 100 families who had previously been housed in Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and Bavaria were assigned to Mutterstadt as part of the refugee compensation scheme. Since 75% of the able-bodied men were construction workers, they quickly found work. Further transports followed. These resettlers were joined by ethnic German expellees from the Southeastern European countries. In 1961 there were 1,057 displaced persons and 295 refugees from the Soviet zone in Mutterstadt.
Residents
The historic house and courtyard form in Mutterstadt was the incomplete three-sided courtyard . Since pure fruit farming predominated over cattle farming in Mutterstadt , the hook-shaped three-sided courtyard was sufficient to accommodate farm equipment and harvest.
The population growth since the Second World War has changed both the population structure and the building structure. The agriculture that was predominant in the past can hardly be seen in the townscape. Agricultural buildings have been replaced by residential or commercial buildings.
Hallway and street names
References to the past of the place are given by old hallway and street names:
- Arrestegässel : after the arrest house; today Jahnstrasse
- In the palm garden : emerged from ban gardens
- Gate : so called as early as 1275; earlier also drop gate
- The great lake : since 1275; Once an open water point in front of today's water tower, which was used as a cattle trough
- Boberlach : since 1325; swampy terrain; Water once filled with boys (young carp)
- Eisenbahnstraße : a much traveled route to the Ludwigsbahn
- In the Hanfrotz : hemp frosts; served the hemp processing
- Hillensheim : Desolation (today Aussiedlerhöfe at Hillensheimer Hof)
- On the Kehrwiesen : originally Gerwiesen after their pointed shape
- On the Kreuzwiesen : a lot of canon property
- Almond ditch: border ditch against the pine forest (mandala = pine)
- Mulberry piece : former mulberry tree culture at Böhlgraben
- Quot ditch : led sewage from the town hall to the village ditch (Quot = excrement / dirt)
literature
- Dieter Birke: Festschrift for the 1200th anniversary of the community of Mutterstadt . Mother city: municipal administration, 1967
- Heinrich Eyselein: Mother City in the Past and Present . Südwestdeutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1967
- Erwin Renner, Wilhelm Heil: mother city . Sutton Verlag, 2000. ISBN 978-3-89702-256-0
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Minst, Karl Josef [transl.]: Lorscher Codex (Volume 4), Certificate 2029 November 26th, 767 or 768 - Reg. 258. In: Heidelberger historical stocks - digital. Heidelberg University Library, p. 23 , accessed on January 18, 2016 .
- ↑ Glöckner, Karl [Hrsg.] Historical Commission for the People's State of Hesse 1929: Lorscher Codex (Volume 1), introduction § 41 ff. In: Heidelberger historical stocks - digital. Heidelberg University Library, p. 48 ff. , Accessed on January 18, 2016 .
- ^ Wilhelm Volkert (ed.): Handbook of Bavarian offices, communities and courts 1799–1980 . CH Beck, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-406-09669-7 , p. 515 .