History of the city of Bielefeld

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Bielefeld before 1872

The history of the city of Bielefeld describes the development of the East Westphalian city ​​of Bielefeld .

Foundation and development in the Middle Ages

Old Market (1980)

The place was mentioned as early as the middle of the 9th century when a Mansus in Bylanuelde was transferred to the Corvey monastery . The city of Bielefeld was first mentioned in 1214 and can be found in a contract document from Count Hermann II of Ravensberg and the Marienfeld Monastery . Bielefeld was one of the numerous city foundations in the High Middle Ages and was created with the intention of securing the rule of the sovereign, as it was on the southern border of the County of Ravensberg . At the time the city was founded, Bielefeld still belonged to the parish of Heepen . An independent church in Bielefeld was established in 1236, initially with a chapel at the site of the old town of Nicolaikirche . This itself was built in the 14th century.

In addition, Hermann II planned to develop the place as a merchant town and capital of the county in order to improve his financial situation. Due to its location at the intersection of several old trade routes and at an important pass over the Teutoburg Forest, Bielefeld quickly developed into the economic and financial center of the County of Ravensberg and attracted many merchants from the surrounding area and the nearby Münster . As was common at the time, Bielefeld was separated from the surrounding area by moats and walls. The city gates were only open during the day. The medieval townscape was shaped by the most important trading center of the city at the time, today's Old Market , as well as by the town hall and the old town Nicolaikirche.

Construction of the Sparrenburg began around 1240 on the western spur of the Sparrenberg, which was first mentioned in a document in 1256 and after its completion served as the residence of the sovereign and his retinue. In addition, the castle was supposed to protect the city and the pass over the mountains of the Teutoburg Forest. However, at that time the castle had a completely different appearance than it does today and consisted only of a rectangular 45 by 85 meter shield wall , inside of which there was a tower as well as residential buildings, storage rooms and stables. In 1287, the Münster city charter that had been introduced earlier was confirmed.

The new town emerged from 1293 when the craftsmen needed to build the castle settled at the foot of the Sparrenberg at the gates of the town. The Neustadt grew unplanned, but had its own church with the Neustädter Marienkirche , which later became the family church of Count Otto III from Ravensberg . and his wife Hedwig was rebuilt. In addition to its parish function, the church was a collegiate church with twelve canons . During this time, three settlement cores, secured by a city wall, were built: The Marienstift, the craftsmen's settlement on today's Breiten Strasse and the noble houses near today's Kreuzstrasse. The old town and the new town each had their own administration, were independent of each other until the 16th century and were only united into one town in 1520. During this time, both cities had a combined population of around 3,000.

After the male line of the Ravensberg counts died out, the county and with it the city of Bielefeld fell to the county of Berg in 1346 , and from 1423 to the Duchy of Jülich-Berg . Bielefeld was spatially far away from the seat of the new sovereign and could develop relatively freely. In addition, the city was largely spared from the numerous wars of the late Middle Ages. The residents, mostly merchants and craftsmen, grew prosperous, not least because they joined the Hanseatic League in the 15th century.

Reformation and Thirty Years War

The Jostberg Monastery was founded by Franciscans in 1498 , but it was moved to today's monastery square in the old town in 1511 due to difficulties with the water supply and the fact that it was too far from the city. The building on Jostberg, of which only the foundation walls are preserved today, was already derelict in the middle of the 16th century.

From 1542, the Reformation was introduced in the county of Ravensberg and thus also in Bielefeld . Against the resistance of most of the canons of the Marienstift, the pastors of the St. Nicholas Church in Old Town and St. Mary's Church in Neustadt began at about the same time to "preach Protestant" and to sing German songs in church services. The Franciscan monastery remained Catholic, however, and the Franciscans took over pastoral care for the few Catholics in the entire Ravensberger Land, supported from 1696 by a small religious establishment in Stockkämpen . In May 1829, 25 years after the general secularization of the monasteries, the monastery was abolished by the Prussian king. With this, Mayor Ernst Friedrich Delius achieved his goal of using the monastery building to expand the grammar school. The monastery church became a Catholic parish church. The pastoral care of St. Jodokus was then taken over by a diocesan priest. The Marienstift became biconfessional as a result of the Reformation, where Catholic and Protestant canons lived together until it was dissolved as a result of secularization in 1810. The Augustinian monastery, founded in 1491, had already perished at the beginning of the 17th century.

As a result of the Jülich-Klevischen succession dispute , the Grafschaft Ravensberg with Bielefeld fell provisionally in 1609 through a recess signed in Bielefeld to the Mark Brandenburg . On October 30, 1612, a severe earthquake struck the city that caused great damage. Before and during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), the Sparrenburg was successively occupied by Dutch, Spanish, Swedish and French troops. During the Spanish occupation around 1623, the city was bombarded with cannons from the rafter castle. In 1636, Sweden and Hesse besieged the Spanish occupation troops in the castle for almost a year before they handed over the fortress in 1637. Also in 1636 and 1637 the plague raged in Bielefeld and claimed around 350 victims. Due to the Peace of Westphalia , which was concluded in Münster in 1648, the county of Ravensberg with Bielefeld, Minden and Kleve fell to the Mark Brandenburg and thus to the House of Hohenzollern , but not finally until 1666. The Great Elector gave the Evangelical Reformed community founded in 1657 as a gift in 1671 the small Süsterkirche , which until 1616 had been the monastery church of the Augustinian convent Mariental. From 1648/1666 until 1947 Bielefeld belonged to Brandenburg-Prussia .

In the 17th century, Bielefeld began to develop into a "linen city" , which at that time mainly meant the linen trade . The farmers of the Ravensberger Land prefer to cultivate the state-subsidized flax instead of grain on their arable land and process it as linen weavers in the home industry into linen or linen. This linen was collected and traded in the legge , a kind of linen exchange. The Legge was also a testing institute in which the linen was measured, checked for perfect workmanship and given a seal of quality. The linen trade led to a certain prosperity in the city, which the patrician houses on the old market and the linen weaver monument erected in 1909 still bear witness to today .

Industrialization and Empire

The first street lighting was introduced in Bielefeld in 1717. From 1722 the city lost important administrative functions to Minden with the establishment of Minden-Ravensberg . In 1775, Frederick the Great had barracks built for the Bielefeld garrison from the stones of the partially demolished Sparrenburg, which was only used as a prison. In the reign of Napoleon Bielefeld belonged as a separate district and canton to the French vassal state Kingdom of Westphalia and the Schwarzbach , Johannisbach and the Aa formed the border to the French Empire from 1810 to 1813, which at that time also included the north-west German coastal region. From 1813 to 1815 Bielefeld was provisionally part of the civil government between the Weser and the Rhine . In 1815 the province of Westphalia was founded and formed part of the Kingdom of Prussia. At that time the urban area was much smaller than it is today and the surrounding area belonged to the Bielefeld district .

Bielefeld around 1840

Around 1830, the Bielefeld linen trade got into a serious crisis, as machine-woven fabrics began to be produced in Ireland , England and Belgium. The hand-woven and -spun linen could neither qualitatively nor quantitatively compete. The situation of Bielefeld's residents was aggravated by a food crisis in 1844. The economic hardship of many Bielefeld residents led to unrest during the revolution of 1848 . In addition, many people left their homes in East Westphalia and emigrated to America.

Tobacco production developed in the Ravensberger Land around 1860 . The tobacco factory Crüwell in Bielefeld, one of the most important of its kind in Germany, awarded certain jobs in home production so that the rural population found new sources of income. The center of tobacco production, however, was in Bünde .

When the connection to the Cöln-Mindener Railway was completed in 1847 , factories soon developed, as the delivery and removal of raw materials and finished goods could now take place in large quantities. With the Ravensberger spinning mill , a company emerged that developed into the largest flax spinning mill in Europe. As early as 1870, Bielefeld was the center of the textile industry in Germany, where around eleven percent of all spindles and looms in the entire national territory were located. The connection of industrialization with rural home production and the origin of most industrial workers from rural part-time business was reflected in the urban structure. In contrast to many industrial cities, the population lived neither in tenements nor in regular settlements laid out according to plan, but preferably in detached houses, which, similar to the Westfalenhaus, consisted of an apartment, stable room and harvest store. The urban sprawl in and around Bielefeld began long before mass motorization.

In 1867 the Von Bodelschwinghschen Anstalten Bethel were founded in what is now the Gadderbaum district. In addition to the textile industry, mechanical engineering developed, so that by the end of the 19th century hardly any more machines had to be imported. Today Bielefeld is the fifth largest mechanical engineering location in Germany. At the end of the 19th century, the food industry became important for Bielefeld. With the Oetker Group , one of the largest food manufacturers in Europe was created. August Oetker started selling and developing baking powder in his pharmacy on Niedernstrasse in 1891 .

Bielefeld around 1895

On October 1, 1878, the municipality of Bielefeld was spun off from the Bielefeld district and became an independent city. The infrastructure was further expanded. In 1900 the first electric tram ran and in 1901 the Bielefeld district railways to Schildesche , Werther and Enger were opened (closed in February 1954). In 1904 the branch line to Hameln was added.

Thanks to the prosperous industry, the number of inhabitants rose sharply, and the First World War could not change that. The population grew from 8,150 in 1848 after the incorporation of parts of Quelle and Gadderbaum to 82,580 in 1914. In August 1914, many volunteers signed up for military service in the First World War (1914-1918) and at the end of 1914 around 10,000 Bielefeld people were under arms. preferably in the 55th Infantry Regiment , which was deployed on the Western Front. After the end of the war in November 1918, people's and soldiers' councils met under the leadership of Carl Severing to support the parliamentary government that had just been formed and to establish self-government.

Weimar Republic and National Socialism

Bielefeld linen emergency money. Published by the Stadt-Sparkasse on November 8, 1923
Burial of the victims of a bomb attack on the Von Bodelschwinghsche Anstalten Bethel on September 25, 1940

In view of the economic hardship of broad sections of the population, riots broke out in 1919 and hungry people stormed the Bielefeld weekly market, which led to an exchange of fire between the Reichswehr and demonstrators. In 1920 Bielefeld was temporarily under siege and 10,000 citizens protested against the critical social situation at a large demonstration. From the end of the First World War until 1923 , the Stadt-Sparkasse Bielefeld issued emergency money banknotes in linen, silk and velvet .

Bielefeld's Lord Mayor Rudolf Stapenhorst conducted negotiations with the neighboring independent communities, which finally agreed to an incorporation, so that the city became the 50th major German city on October 1, 1930 with around 130,000 inhabitants . When the National Socialists came to power in 1933 , all other parties in Bielefeld were forcibly dissolved as part of the so-called Gleichschaltung . At the beginning of the "Third Reich" resistance was organized in the city. For example, the left-wing socialist newspaper " The Red Shock Troop " was distributed in the city with the help of Emil Gross and Artur Ladebeck, among others . The Nazis responded to the resistance of communists and social democrats with the arrest of 260 people for political crimes and sentenced them to long prison terms. In 1935, Friedrich Budde, a member of the NSDAP , took over the office of mayor .

In 1938 around 900 citizens of the Jewish faith lived in Bielefeld . The Jewish community had a splendid synagogue on Turnerstrasse , inaugurated in 1905 , which was burned down by Nazi Germans on November 9-10, 1938 , during the Reichspogromnacht . The fire brigade did not arrive until four hours later, but only protected the neighboring houses from the spread of flames, as instructed. While the private apartments of the Jews were largely spared, 17 shops, most of them located in downtown Bielefeld, were devastated and some were looted. Many Jews fled abroad when the Nazi Germans forbade them to run businesses and handicrafts and their property was confiscated. The first deportation of Bielefeld Jews to Riga on December 13, 1941 was followed by eight more to Auschwitz , Warsaw and Theresienstadt . Of the total of 460 Jews deported, only around 60 survived the Holocaust .

With the beginning of the Second World War , the city's industry switched to the manufacture of armaments. As more and more men were drafted into the Wehrmacht , there was soon a shortage of workers. This led to the deployment of a total of 14,721 forced laborers, mostly Ukrainians, who were deported to the Bielefeld region and committed to forced labor .

The first bombing raids on Bielefeld took place in June 1940, but did not cause any major damage. The heaviest air raid on the city took place on September 30, 1944, killing 649 people and destroying most of the old town and many historical buildings. In March 1945, the Schildescher Viaduct was nearly destroyed by a Grand Slam bomb . During the war, more than 1,300 people were killed in bombs in Bielefeld, and around 15,600 apartments were destroyed or badly damaged.

On April 4, 1945, the 3rd US Armored Division approached the city from the south. You could take Bielefeld almost without a fight. In accordance with the Potsdam Agreement , the Americans were followed just under a week later by the British. They assumed, as all the Allies, their zone of a military government .

Reconstruction and development to the present

Cityscape 1961. Among other things, the tower stumps of the old town Nicolaikirche (center) and the Neustädter Marienkirche (front right) can be seen. In the 1960s, the spiers were rebuilt.

The time after the war was characterized by a general mood of optimism. Much destroyed historical building stock was replaced by modern buildings that gave the city a completely new face. The shattered industry was rebuilt within a few years and a brisk economic boom began. However, the textile industry lost more and more importance, while the city, like many other large cities, developed into a service center. Bielefeld also became a garrison town of the British Army on the Rhine .

The Reichsbahn General Directorate was founded in Bielefeld in 1945 to manage the railways in the British zone. In 1945/46 the Allied occupation authorities also had the collection point for messages about drivers of motor vehicles and the collection point for messages about motor vehicles relocated from Berlin and Peine to Bielefeld. In 1951/52 the collection point for news about motor vehicles and motor vehicle drivers moved to the Bonte barracks in Flensburg - Mürwik under the new name of the Federal Motor Transport Authority .

The population rose sharply due to the influx of refugees and displaced persons and in 1955 was already 155,000. The proportion of Catholics in the population increased, so that around ten new Catholic parish churches were built in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Sennestadt is a special urban development . The housing shortage in the post-war years forced the city planners to find a quick solution. From 1956 onwards, a residential town without intersections was built on the drawing board in the area of ​​the municipality of Senne II, which was initially primarily occupied by refugees and displaced persons and today has around 21,500 inhabitants.

Since the 1960s, the city council has been planning large-scale urban redevelopment , especially in the western part of the city. The Ostwestfalendamm , among other things, was to be built here as an important traffic route . Many old houses were threatened with demolition. Citizens of the city opposed this and were able to prevent some changes with democratic commitment.

Bielefeld University was founded in 1969 . The building for a campus university was built in the west of the city at the foot of the Teutoburg Forest. It is one of the few universities that unites almost all faculties under one roof, and today with more than 20,000 students it enjoys an excellent reputation among German universities.

In 1973, under the Bielefeld Act, Bielefeld was merged with the cities and municipalities of the Bielefeld district, with the exception of a few areas, to form an independent city . At the same time, the Bielefeld district was dissolved. The population of the city rose to over 300,000. In 1991, after a construction period of more than twenty years , the Bielefeld Stadtbahn was put into operation with its inner city tunnels.

literature

  • Reinhard Vogelsang: History of the City of Bielefeld
Volume 1 From the beginning to the middle of the 19th century . Bielefeld 1980, ISBN 3-88049-128-3 .
Volume 2 From the middle of the 19th century to the end of the First World War . Bielefeld 1988, ISBN 3-923830-10-6 .
Volume 3 From the November Revolution of 1918 to the end of the 20th century . Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-923830-11-4 .
  • Gertrud Angermann: Urban-rural relations. Bielefeld and its surrounding area, 1760–1860 with special consideration of brand divisions and house construction. (= Contributions to folk culture in Northwest Germany. Volume 27). F. Coppenrath Verlag, Münster 1982, ISBN 3-88547-175-2 . (Full text ; PDF; 66.8 MB)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reinhard Vogelsang: History of the City of Bielefeld. Volume 1: From the beginning to the middle of the 19th century . Bielefeld 1980, ISBN 3-88049-128-3 , p. 31
  2. ↑ Hans Adolf Kastrup: On the mention of Bielefeld in a Corveyer traditional note from the 9th century . In: 75th Annual Report of the Historical Association for the County of Ravensberg (1984/85), pp. 7-65 digitized
  3. ^ Jochen Rath: 1214: Bielefeld was first mentioned as a city. In: Historical "RückKlick". Bielefeld City Archives , 2014, accessed on July 5, 2019 .
  4. ^ History of the parish of Heepen Heimatverein Heepen, accessed on July 5, 2019
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h Homepage of the city of Bielefeld, history. Retrieved March 16, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Heinrich Gottfried Gengler: Regesten and documents on the constitutional and legal history of German cities in the Middle Ages . Erlangen 1863, pp. 219-223.
  7. ^ Reinhard Vogelsang: History of the City of Bielefeld. Volume 1: From the beginning to the middle of the 19th century . Bielefeld 1980, ISBN 3-88049-128-3 , p. 71.
  8. ^ Reinhard Vogelsang: History of the City of Bielefeld. Volume 1: From the beginning to the middle of the 19th century . Bielefeld 1980, ISBN 3-88049-128-3 , p. 110.
  9. ^ Diodor Henniges: History of the Franciscan Monastery Bielefeld. In: Contributions to the history of the Saxon Franciscan Province of the Holy Cross. Volume II, Düsseldorf 1908, p. 126–151
    Diodor Henniges: On the abolition of the Bielefeld monastery in 1829 (a quote from the Aschaffenburg church newspaper No. 13, year 1835). In: Contributions to the history of the Saxon Franciscan Province of the Holy Cross. Volume IV / V, Düsseldorf 1911/12, p. 206 f.
    Diodor Henniges: A sad day of remembrance (100 years after the dissolution of the Bielefeld monastery). In: Vita Seraphica. 10, 1929, pp. 126-137.
  10. ^ Walter Grasser, Albert Pick: The Bielefelder Stoffgeld 1917–1923 . Erich Pröh, Berlin 1972.
  11. ↑ Dennis Egginger-Gonzalez: The Red Assault Troop. An early left-wing socialist resistance group against National Socialism. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86732-274-4 , pp. 102-113
  12. ↑ Jochen Rath: November 9, 1938, The Pogrom Night in Bielefeld. In: Historical "RückKlick". Bielefeld City Archives , 2008, accessed on July 5, 2019 .
  13. ^ On forced laborers from Poland: Wojciech Kwieciński: Living and working conditions of Polish forced laborers in Germany using the example of the Bielefeld region. In: East-West Dialogue - Dialogue Wschodu i Zachodu: Polish Week - Tydzień polski. Saarbrücken 2015, (full text) , p. 69ff. (also as print)
  14. ↑ 50 years of sentences, points and files. In: Stern July 17, 2001, accessed on: July 25, 2017.
  15. ↑ Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt predecessor authorities ( Memento from May 5, 0171 in the Internet Archive )
  16. ↑ Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt time table ( memento from August 8, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ↑ WebWecker editorial team, It smelled of demolition. ( Memento from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

Coordinates: 52 ° 1 ′ 13.3 "  N , 8 ° 31 ′ 55.8"  E