History of the city of Bad Salzungen
This article deals with the history of the city of Bad Salzungen in the southwest of Thuringia .
Settlement and prehistory
Long before Bad Salzungen was first mentioned in a document, people who can be assigned to the Celtic culture (Leimbach burial ground) settled in the Werra Valley and the neighboring Rhön . Salzungen or the Salzinge , which is still in use in the dialect, suggests settlement continuity at least since the migration of the peoples (see suffix : -ing ). Around the birth of Christ, the Rhine-Weser-Germanic tribe of Chatten settled in the area between Werra and Fulda , as well as further west. From the 3rd century onwards, archaeological finds as far as the area north of Eisenach can be traced back to an expansion of the Elbe Germanic tribe of the Hermunduren . To what extent one can assume a common settlement and mixing of Chatten, the later Hessians, and Hermunduren, the later Thuringians , is still questionable, at least for this time. It can be assumed that Salzungen received its place name at the latest at that time. During the Franconian eastward expansion, between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Salzungen, located in the Thuringian Westergau , was also included in a network of Franconian fortifications. Triggered by the uprising of a Thuringian count, a wave of banishment began in today's southern Thuringian settlements. But in contrast to the rest of the conquered areas, the Salzung area could only partially be included in a Franconian new settlement, as very strong pre-Franconian settlement associations already existed here. This can be seen u. a. the mixed dialect spoken in the Bad Salzungen area. It is a mixture of Rheinfränkisch ( East Hessian ), Mainfränkisch ( Hennebergisch ) and Thuringian ( West Thuringian ). With the Frankish colonization of the East, the written traditions began.
First mention and settlement centers
On January 5, 775, Charlemagne issued a deed of tithe donation from his Villa Salsunga to the Hersfeld monastery in the royal palace of Quierzy . This is the first documented mention of the town of Salzungen. In 841 the place came to the Fulda monastery . In the early 12th century, the up-and-coming Counts of Henneberg extended their domain to the north as far as the central Werra . The Salzungen area was the border region to Thuringia and Hesse.
In today's urban area of Salzungen, several settlement centers developed around the year 1000: a village settlement was located at the salt springs and is said to have been devastated when the Hungarians invaded in 923. The newly acquired settlement was henceforth secured by a castle complex ( Schnepfenburg ), around 1100 a market settlement with minting rights and the church of St. Simplicius, mentioned from 1112, emerged from it . Only about 1000 meters east of the Werraaue was the old village - today the village district of Allendorf - with a Jakobus chapel, a noble family from Aldendorf sat in the village . To the south lies the Wildsprechtroda settlement, also with an aristocratic clan and a small castle, first recorded in writing in 1232.
To the west of Salzungen was Hausen or Husen with the Husenkirche, already mentioned in 1258, and to the southwest the extensive clearing settlement Langenfeld and other small settlements.
Frankenstein Castle
The construction of the Frankenstein castle , a fortification located by ditches and ramparts in a spur above the Werrafurt near Allendorf , was probably built in the first third of the 12th century. It was the ancestral seat of the Lords of Frankenstein , who descended from a sideline of the Counts of Henneberg . In order to expand their territory, they initiated the expansion of settlements north of the Werra, resulting in numerous farms and small settlements in the moorland and around Marksuhl . Their influence is significant up to the present-day urban area of Eisenach . Two important monasteries emerged in the 13th century: the Lords of Salzungen initiated the foundation of the Frauensee monastery , the Frankensteiners that of the Allendorf monastery (first mentioned in 1272) at the foot of their ancestral castle in what is now the Kloster district . As a result of imperial political developments, the Salzung area was repeatedly devastated by military conflicts; As early as 1212, Emperor Otto IV conquered the city and all the castles, and in 1295 King Adolf von Nassau also succeeded in this on his military campaign to Thuringia. Decisively weakened and heavily in debt, the Lords of Frankenstein then had to sell their possessions in 1330 (Frankenstein sales letter).
Urban development in the high Middle Ages
This shift in power was mainly used by the Wettins who sought to expand their sphere of influence towards the Rhön . The city, attested as civitas since 1306 , was ruled in realpolitical terms as a twin city with a Henneberg and a Saxon administrative seat; the income from the salt trade, from customs duties and trade was shared. The castle and town secured four Burgmannen families as milites burgensis ; these were the lords of Leimbach, von Haun, von Craluck and von Reckrodt ; The latter later acquired extensive estates in the area.
The expansion of the city proceeded rapidly. As early as 1330 125 houses were counted. The city fortifications with towers, walls and moat had four gates (Nappentor, Obertor, Lindentor and New Gate). The streets and alleys mentioned are Silge, Steinweg, Johannesstraße, Ratsgasse, Unterratsgasse, Bäckergasse, Borngasse, Bauersgasse, Kirchhof, Markt and Marktstraße. With the discovery of more salt springs at Nappenplatz , tax income rose, but so did the desires of the neighbors.
Office Salzungen
The Salzungen Office was formed from the surrounding villages , including Witzelroda , Möhra , Leimbach , Langenfeld with Hohleborn , the Sorghöfe , Wildsprechtroda , Übelroda , Immelborn and later also Oberellen and Dietlas . The area of Allendorf Monastery was excluded; in 1366 it included Allendorf Monastery , Village Allendorf , Ettmarshausen , Kaltenborn , Hermannsroda , Graefendorf , Nitzendorf , Neuendorf , Moorhof, Hüttenhof , Röhrigshöfe , the Rohnhöfe ( Oberrohn and Mittelrohn) and the Grundhof. Over the centuries that followed, until the end of the Holy Roman Empire, the sale of fulden property was repeatedly the cause of disputes and changing power relations. The Saxons had to share their rule with Mainz, Würzburg, Henneberg-Aschach and from 1433 with Henneberg-Römhild.
Reformation and Peasants' War
The Reformation was introduced in 1524, and a year later, during the Peasants' War , the townspeople joined the Werrahaufen , an 8,000-strong troop from the upper Werra region, under massive threats . The revolutionary ideas spread with the revolting peasants were particularly popular with the salt miners , and the other small-scale artisans and farmers living in the city also hoped to improve their social situation . The uprising in the Salzunger Amt was aimed at the elimination of monastic rule, in this case the monasteries in Allendorf and Frauensee were devastated and the Pfänerschaft (owners of the saltworks huts) was disempowered. The army of peasants then moved via Vacha , Heringen , Eisenach , Creuzburg and Mühlhausen to the decisive battle near Bad Frankenhausen . The Cistercian convent Allendorf, founded in 1237, was destroyed in 1525 and secularized in 1528.
After the defeat of the rebellious peasants, the old power structures in Salzungen had been restored, but the extensive monastery property was now confiscated by the sovereign. The city also benefited from the end of the monastery rule, taxes were dropped, and profitable lands could be bought at low prices. The construction of two wooden Werra bridges near the village of Allendorf (1527) and the Grundhof (1535) served to improve the traffic routes. In the same year a brewery and the municipal scales were built. The looming wood shortage in the Salzunger area countered the city council in 1534 with the purchase of a 246 hectare large forest around the Wackenhof near Eckardtshausen. The mountain cries that began in the 16th century also caught the Salzung patricians. In 1557 they joined Nuremberg investors in the risky mine foundations around Saalfeld and Steinheid. After the death of the Countess von Henneberg-Schwarza (branch line of Henneberg-Römhild), who came from the Stollberg family, Saxony took the Henneberg half of Salzungen in Sequest in 1577 . Epidemics also threatened the population time and again, and a bathhouse and hospital were created for health care.
Modern times
Salzungen (with the district of Kloster Allendorf) was hit by the persecution of witches in 1615 . Five people got into witch trials , two women were burned. During the Thirty Years War , Salzungen was captured by the Swedes on June 10, 1640 and looted for days, a fire destroyed large parts of the old town. In the same year the city came to Saxe-Gotha . With the reconstruction of the city, the newly built city church was built in 1643 and was completed in 1653 after ten years of construction. The end of the war was celebrated on September 8, 1650 with a peace festival lasting several days. Thanks to the bubbling salt springs, Salzungen was able to rebuild the city quickly. The new sovereigns also noticed this: from 1680 to 1918/1920 Salzungen was part of the Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen . Until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Salzungen remained the northernmost periphery of the Franconian Empire, founded in 1500 . Due to a change in the previous tax rates and the collection of new taxes and charges, the Salzunger Pfänner were financially heavily burdened, in 1718 the ducal administration also enforced the introduction of a real estate cadastre, which involved mapping and measuring the town and the Salzungen area.
In addition to the salt production and trade, the inhabitants were engaged in flax cultivation and linen weaving. Cattle breeding preferred the frugal sheep and goats. The numerous fish pastures in the Werra, in lakes and ponds were mostly owned by the noble families. In the 19th century, a sugar factory was founded and fruit growing was important; in addition to beets, potatoes and fodder crops were also preferred.
The oldest preserved secular building is the Haunsche Hof from the 17th century. Salzungen's urban development was hampered several times by devastating major fires, for example in 1786, when the town hall with the city archive was also destroyed by flames. Today's town hall was built in 1790 as a sober, three-story building with a turret on the roof. The last houses from the heyday of half-timbered architecture in the 17th century can still be found in Braugasse.
In 1868 the office of Salzungen was opened in the Meiningen district and, with this legacy, is also part of the historic Henneberger Land . The creation of jobs resulted in a sharp influx from the rural communities of the Rhön, the number of inhabitants and the importance of Salzungen increased rapidly. However, this led to new problems, in 1847 the Salzung City Council paid 97 citizens in need to leave the United States. The social upheavals and the uneven development in the Salzung population could not be resolved in this way. Salzungen also experienced a revolt in the spring of 1848. Under the motto: “To you citizens! Down with the big ones! ”The upset mob marched in front of the residential quarters and offices of the pawns and manufacturers. On March 14th, the mine’s military entered the city and arrested the ringleaders and other denounced citizens. The social climate was poisoned for years, because the mostly justified demands of the rebels brought them years of imprisonment (Untermaßfeld). The bourgeois upper class, however, had to bear the costs of the military action; it was seen as a warning to preserve the social balance in the city. In the second half of the 19th century the situation eased due to new economic impulses. Bad Salzungen was already connected to the railway network in 1858. This happened through the Werra Railway from Eisenach in the north to Coburg and Lichtenfels in the south. The industrialization of the city was made possible with the railway connection, the first factories (brewery, wood and metal processing) were founded and many branches of handicraft settled in the city. This also resulted in the construction of the Kurhaus (1851) and the first sophisticated villas and townhouses, department stores, cafes, fashion and grocery stores in the city center, and traditional market operations were reduced to trading in food and household goods.
Since the middle of the 19th century, there has also been a lively club activity in Salzungen. The Salzung church choir was founded in December 1860, followed by the rifle club, reading circles and a spa club, sports clubs, dance and social centers enriched everyday life in the city. On the initiative of a hiking club with a large number of members, the Pleßberg was equipped with a viewing tower, a piece of land on the Frankenstein was procured and provided with the art ruin, which was also operated as an excursion restaurant.
The year 1866 went down in the city chronicle as a terrible year. Salzungen was involved in the events of the war between Prussia and the southern German federal troops, with the battle of the Nebelberg near Roßdorf on July 4, 1866, two technically highly armed armies met near the city. After the "meeting", the uninvolved citizens of Salzung were forced to take care of the numerous wounded.
The Salzunger Saline
In 1872 the Salzunger Saline went bankrupt, it was subject to foreign competition, but especially to its own, outdated production techniques. The history of salt production goes back a long way: the technology, which was documented in prehistoric times, consisted of the evaporation of salty spring water in specially made clay pots in an open fire. In ancient times it was developing the Pfannensiedetechnik, this type of salt production was that it was one in Salzungen of the 14th century in use and so profitable since 1321 privileged wealthy Pfännerschaft was. This was headed by so-called salt counts , who were elected annually. Since 1590 the the much more productive over the earlier method was used to salt production Gradierverfahren used. In the 17th century there were 23 grader houses, in 1801 there were 5 brine wells with 21 graduation houses and 13 nubs. The wood consumption for salt production was enormous and prompted the people of Salzung to buy entire forest districts in the hinterland, which from then on were referred to as the "Salzunger Berg".
As early as the 16th century, the salt springs were also used as medicinal products and these places were called Sauerbrunnen . In the 19th century the healing properties of the brine were used . The first bathhouse was built in 1821, from which an increasing spa business developed. The healing success helped the town to find a new source of income. In 1858 there were 258 spa guests. New representative buildings (bathhouse, spa house) were erected for maintenance and accommodation. Small mineral springs were now also being used, and a “Sauerborn” near the Grundhof was touted as a healing spring. In 1911 the city already had 5,000 spa guests. On May 31, 1923, the responsible Thuringian ministry granted the city's application to use the name Bad Salzungen .
20th century
With the beginning of the National Socialist era , committed citizens responded to the political persecution by forming resistance groups. A group around the chairman of the KPD parliamentary group in the Thuringian state parliament, Richard Eyermann , organized itself in the Jung & Dittmar company . Another group in the W. Prox machine factory had connections to forced laborers and the Neubauer-Poser resistance group in Jena . During the Second World War 90 prisoners of war as well as women and men (mainly from the Soviet Union ) had to do forced labor: at the Reichsbahn , at the Jung & Dittmar company and at the Thuringian tin goods factory Allendorf. When underground armament plants for aircraft engine production were set up in January 1945, two external concentration camps under the code names Renntier und Kalb were deployed with 485 and 500 prisoners from Buchenwald concentration camp, respectively . A cemetery of honor was established in Rathenau Park in 1956 for the more than 250 victims of forced labor . The sculpture “Der Mahner” commemorates these victims.
On April 4, 1945, the city was occupied by American troops without a fight, and exactly three months later the Red Army moved in . In 1950, Bad Salzungen became the district town of the newly founded Bad Salzungen district through a territorial reform in the GDR and, after the turnaround in 1998, the Wartburg district .
For the economic development of the city, the interests of spa and recreation were particularly promoted. The Volkssolbad Bad Salzungen had around 10,000 inhabitants around 1960, and in 1985 there were already 21,500 inhabitants in the city. The industrial companies established before the war were continued as state-owned companies, including the cold rolling mill, the monastery brewery, the pump factory and the press works. A dairy specialized in the production of Emmenthal cheese. For the construction of the prefabricated building areas and the district heating supply of the NVA barracks, a thermal power station with a rail connection was built on Immelborner Strasse, and another brown coal thermal power station received a 144 m high chimney. Some of the inhabitants of Salzung were employed in the Merkers and Leimbach -Kaiserroda potash works.
literature
- Salting . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 14, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 248.
- Cyriacus apple; Justus Valentin Fleischhauer: Haligraphia, or simple and short description of the wonderful salt dwarf in salt tongues. Schmalkalden 1674 ( digitized version ).
- Rudi Berkes: Bad Salzungen . In: Our little hiking booklet . No. 113 . Brockhaus-Verlag, Leipzig 1965.
- Harry Gerlach: Bad Liebenstein hiking atlas, Bad Salzungen . In: tourist-hiking atlas . tourist Verlag, Berlin / Leipzig 1988, ISBN 3-350-00218-8 , p. 66 .
- Frankensteingemeinde - Association for Salzung History eV 1992 (Ed.): Salzungen. Historical excursion through the Salzunger Land . Bad Salzungen 1992, p. 64 .
- City administration Bad Salzungen (Ed.): Festschrift for the city anniversary of 1225 years Bad Salzungen . Bauer & Malsch-Druck Immelborn, Bad Salzungen 2000, p. 64 .
- Hartmut Ruck et al: Bad Salzungen with a chronological excerpt from the city's history and city center map, important information about the city and company portraits . ETRO-Verlag, Bad Sooden-Saalmünster, p. 72 (without year probably 2000).
- Tobias Günther, Hartmut Ruck: Bad Salzungen . Stadt-Bild-Verlag, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-937126-13-9 .
- Ernst-Ulrich Hahmann: The knights from Frankenstein . Resch-Verlag, Meiningen 2011, p. 100 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hartmut Ruck: Chronicle Bad Salzungen . Bad Salzungen, S. 9-21 .
- ^ Brückner: Geography of the Duchy of Meiningen. Part two . tape 2 , p. 3-68 .
- ^ Brückner: Geography of the Duchy of Meiningen. Part two . tape 2 , p. 9 .
- ↑ Publications of the Thuringian State Main Archive Weimar: Volume 4 p. 37
- ↑ Ronald Füssel: The witch persecutions in the Thuringian area , publications of the working group for historical witchcraft and crime research in Northern Germany, Volume 2, Hamburg 2003, p. 244
- ^ Ernst Julius Walch Historical, statistical, geographical and topographical description… Duchy of Saxony-Coburg-Meiningen Nuremberg 1831 p. 215
- ↑ Hartmut Ruck Chronicle Bad Salzungen Bad Salzungen (without year) pp. 21–59
- ↑ Hans Joachim Kessler: Healing water and bubbling springs. Encounters with historical baths in Thuringia . Ed .: Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Hessen-Thüringen. E. Reinhold Verlag, Altenburg 2001, ISBN 3-910166-44-X , Bad Salzungen, p. 31-37 .
- ↑ Norbert Moczarski et al .: Thuringian State Archives Meiningen. Department of the Regional Economic Archive South Thuringia in Suhl . A brief inventory overview. Ed .: Thuringian State Archives Meiningen. 1st edition. Druckhaus Offizin Hildburghausen, 1994, Development of traditional industrial areas in South Thuringia until 1990, p. 16-24 .