History of the city of Delitzsch

Timeline

	1166	First documentary mention in a document from Emperor Friedrich I.
	≈ 1200	Granting of town and market rights by the Wettin sovereigns
	1457	Completion of a defense system consisting of a city wall, watchtowers, rampart, moat and kennel
	1539	Introduction of the Reformation by Duke Heinrich of Saxony
	1546	With the reorganization of Elector Moritz von Sachsen, Delitzsch came to the Electorate of Saxony
	1636 / 1637	Swedish troops entering
	1692 - 1734	The baroque palace becomes the widow's seat of the dukes of Saxony-Merseburg
	1815	Delitzsch comes to the Kingdom of Prussia and becomes a district town
	1994	Delitzsch becomes the seat of the district of the same name
	2008	Delitzsch comes to the district of North Saxony

The history of the town of Delitzsch spans more than 845 years since it was founded and can also be traced back to prehistoric settlement areas. The city was first mentioned in a document in 1166 and received city or market rights around 1200. During the settlement of Slavs in the 8th / 9th centuries The castle, built in the 18th century, the predecessor of today's baroque palace , was the starting point for the planned city of Delitzsch and is closely linked to the historical development of the city.

etymology

Like most place names in the region, the name Delitzsch is of Slavic origin. It is derived from the elevation on the castle grounds, also known locally as Spitzberg . The Slavs, who in the 8th / 9th Century settled around this elevation, this elevation was called delč or delčz (Sorbian for hill). The city name has been changed many times over the centuries:

year	1207	1222	1224	1276	1350	1368	1374	1376	1431	1459	1485	1636	1791
Name development	Dieliz	Delcz	Dels	Delz	Deltsch	Delschs	Delczschs	Deltz	Delicz	Delczsch	Delitzsch	Dolitsch	Delitzsch

Prehistory and early history

The oldest evidence of a settlement in the Delitzsch area date from the Neolithic . Around 12,000 years ago, groups of hunters roamed the Lober floodplain forests , which were rich in game and shaped the landscape at that time. Trans-regional importance in the pre- and early historical research , the finding place of a Linear Pottery settlement pit on the outskirts of Zschernitz , about ten kilometers west of the city center, in 2003. After several months of local excavations at the site, with settlement ruins and tombs of the Linear Pottery , the Gaterslebener culture , the Salzmünder culture , the Baalberg culture , the cord ceramics and more recent periods of prehistory, a multi-phase settlement emerged in the central part of the settlement, some of which had stratigraphic overlays of older and more recent Neolithic findings. On August 19, 2003, a sensational find occurred during the investigation at the base of the settlement layers . This was an approximately eight centimeter tall and approximately 5000 year old torso of a male clay figure, which, according to archaeologists, is the oldest small sculpture of the Central European Neolithic .

The first indications of settlement activity within the legal district of the city that was to emerge later existed as early as the late Roman Empire in the 4th century, documented in an archaeological find made in Badergasse. Imperial-era finds of the Elbe-Germanic type in the area in and around Delitzsch are usually interpreted as legacies of the Suebi tribe of the Hermunduren . Until the year 531, the area of what would later become the city belonged to the Kingdom of Thuringia .

middle Ages

North-east facade of the castle with the castle meadows in the foreground, the areas of the first Slavic settlement

Slavic settlement

After the Thuringians were defeated by the Franks , they left the region between the Elbe , Saale and Mulde . From the late 6th century onwards, Slavic population groups settled here, initially coming from Bohemia along the Elbe to the area around Dessau and the mouth of the Saale. In the course of the 7th and 8th centuries they also penetrated south along the Mulde and other rivers. At the time, Delitzsch was in the center of a naturally limited settlement area of around 270 square kilometers on the central Mulde, the inhabitants of which presumably referred to themselves as Siusli . The Slavs between Saale and Mulde joined together at the latest by the end of the 8th century to form the tribal association of the Sorbs (lat. Sorabi sclavi ). The favorable terrain conditions on a mountain spur surrounded by the Lober and a long-distance trade route running from west to east led to the establishment of a Slavic castle complex on the grounds of today's palace gardens in the 9th century .

With the incorporation into Eastern Franconia and the structural coverage of the areas between Saale and Elbe under the kings Heinrich I and Otto I , the area around Delitzsch came to the phase of eastern colonization under the rule of German ministerials, which took place in the middle of the 10th century wooden Slawenburg a stone Burgward built. In the protection of this extended castle, an early urban Slavic settlement was built by craftsmen and merchants in the outer bailey in 1140/50. In addition to the Sorbs who lived there, Flemings , Franks and Hesse also settled there . The reason for this is the exclamation issued by Albrecht the Bear to the Rhineland and the Netherlands in 1157 , when settlers should settle along the poorly populated Elbe / Mulde region.

The name of the city of Delitzsch goes back to the language used by the local peoples, especially the Sorbs. They called their planned settlement Delcz or Delc , with their word for hill or small mountain on which it was built. It extended over the area of today's Ritterstrasse, Halleschstrasse, Schlossstrasse and Mühlstrasse, as well as a section of the Mauergasse. This area between Hallesches Turm and Marktplatz is to be seen as the first suburban settlement.

City foundation and development up to the late Middle Ages

With Wikardus de Delce Delitzsch was first in a paper of the Emperor on August 20, 1166 I. Friedrich mentioned. The resulting from formerly unfree state employees largely nobles and spirit of the region were on equipped with certain freedoms interest and tax outdoor leisure farms set. These were located on the grounds of the castle district, in Ritterstrasse and Holzstrasse, as well as a courtyard in each of the streets known today as Münze and Badergasse.

Around 1200 the Burgward developed into the seat of a lower judicial district . For the years 1207, 1222 and 1224 there are documentary records of three days of judicial, Landding and leaning of the Margraves of Meißen and Landgraves of Thuringia . On one of these court days, the Sachsenspiegel clerk Eike von Repgow appears as a witness. Favored by these prerequisites, the city formed a centrally located market place for the rural population in the immediate and wider area, which was granted market and city rights by the Wettin rulers around 1200 . This development became the main impetus for the further expansion of the still small civil parish into an economically strong city, in which handicrafts and trade enjoyed a strong boom. Delitzsch Castle also served as the administrative, bailiff and court seat as well as the Wettiner's travel residence .

Until 1291 the area of the later office and the city of Delitzsch belonged to the territory of the Wettins, in 1328 to the margraviate of Brandenburg , from 1347 to the dukes of Braunschweig and finally again to the margraves of Meißen. In the period that followed, Delitzsch gained further rights and qualities due to its large number of house locations and the growing population. The rights evidenced by the sovereign included not only the Wall Law, but also the covering and brewing rights, as well as the right to a separate shelf size. In 1376, initially on a lease basis, from 1423 onwards the high jurisdiction and the right of escort were finally added. With its own jurisdiction, the municipality was also separated from the sovereign care.

At the head of the city were originally bailiffs as representatives of the sovereign. The development of an independent council elected by the house-owning citizens and the mayor who was recruited from it took place in Delitzsch with high probability between 1364 and 1376. As a sign of urban independence, the city council was able to legally confirm documents and certificates with its own seal as early as the late Middle Ages the city arms later developed from its pictorial representation.

Civil Rights Charter

In the middle of the 14th century, citizenship was also introduced in Delitzsch when the first new town was built. To acquire it, you had to prove that you owned a house in the city, pay taxes and duties, and do military service to defend the city. A distinction was made between full and minor citizenship. Only the owners of brewery houses in the old town, lower owners of stilt houses in the new town, had full citizenship. The first Neustadt stretched from today's Pfortenstrasse over Schulstrasse and Breite Strasse to Zscherngasse.

At that time, as well as handicrafts, the citizens' economic basis was the production and sale of beer. In 1390 the city received the right to the beer mile , so that within a radius of one mile only Delitzscher beer could be served. As a result of this, Delitzsch developed into an economic and financial force that, through the purchase of non-urban communities and even villages next to Leipzig, became the most important urban landlord in northern Saxony. With the growing prosperity of the city in the late Middle Ages, the need for protection against looting and pillage from outside also increased. So far, only a narrow ditch and a hedge have protected the city center from attacks. This was counteracted with the construction of a massive defense system, consisting of a city wall, city towers, kennel, water donations and rampart. Construction began at the end of the 14th century with the erection of the city towers and ended in the middle of the 15th century with the gradual completion of the city wall. Like the town church of St. Peter and Paul (built between 1404 and 1496), the entire complex was built in the style of the north German brick Gothic .

The brothers Marcus , Lucas , Matthäus and Moritz Brandis , born around 1450, came from Delitzsch . They were traveling book printers in Central Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries and made a significant contribution to the spread of printing.

With the division of Leipzig , the city of Delitzsch (former area of the Osterland north of Leipzig) came to the Albertine branch of the Wettins and their residence in Dresden in 1485 .

Early modern age

Hospital Church

reformation

After the construction of the St. Peter and Paul Church in the 15th century, the foundation stone of the St. Georg Hospital Church was laid on August 15, 1516 on the former Salzstrasse , which led from Halle via Delitzsch to the east. It served as a replacement for the hospital chapel of St. Fabian and Sebastian built in the 14th century. From around 1525, construction work began on today's St. Mary's Church.

Supported by the Saxon electors , the Reformation was introduced in 1539 by Heinrich the Pious in the Duchy of Saxony and thus also in Delitzsch. With the reorganization of Albertine territory by Elector Moritz in 1546 and 1547, the city became part of the Leipzig district of the Electorate of Saxony . In 1582 the plague raged in the Delitzsch office and claimed 848 victims. Because of this, the suburb of Grünstraße had to be completely cordoned off at times, so that food and medication could only be supplied through a crack in the wooden fence.

Two other buildings from the time of the German Renaissance are the town clerk's house and the knight's house. The two buildings on Ritterstrasse were built in the mid-16th century. The town clerk's house was built from 1568 to 1572 and served until 1829 as the town archive, apartment and place of work for the town clerk. The knight's house was built in 1558 by Christoph Lotter from the stones of the wall on the northern Schlossberg.

Thirty Years' War

Delitzsch with the district of Poßdorf was affected by witch persecution from 1607 to 1684. Two women and a man got into witch trials . In 1607 Margaretha, daughter of Matthäus Korb, was sentenced to expulsion from the country.

The Thirty Years' War also left its mark on Delitzsch and marked a turning point in the development of the city. As early as 1623, coins began to deteriorate , steadily reducing the value of the Saxon thaler and increasing the price of staple food. If the city was initially spared combat operations, from 1636 the economic and destructive effects of the war had to be accepted. So they had to sell agricultural property and their own property in order to meet the demands of the billeted war people for money and food. Although the old town was largely spared looting , the new town was almost completely burned down by Swedish mercenary associations. In addition, troops moving through and billeted dragged deadly diseases into the city, which was overpopulated by refugees. In 1637 alone, around 881 people died, 300 of them of starvation. It took decades for the city to recover from the war damage.

According to legend, the city Delitzsch in 1637 by the former watchman's daughter, by blowing is Sweden signals warned the Swedes were:

“In 1637 a tower keeper watched over the town of Delitzsch. His daughter was very lonely as her acquaintances avoided the high tower. One day she asked her father to teach her to blow the trumpet so that she could take away the boredom. She was a docile student and enjoyed the sounds of the signals she had learned. One day she stood in for her father as a guard. When she peered around at the lookout, she noticed a cloud of dust in the distance that was rolling towards the city. When she distinguished many riders, she suspected disaster for the city and called the citizens to the ramparts with a warning signal. In arms they awaited the enemy in bloody reception. When the Swedish riders found the citizens ready to defend and there was no booty to be fetched, they hurriedly turned around and ran away. "

Duchy of Saxony-Merseburg

After the peace agreement of 1648 , Electoral Saxony was economically and socially ailing. It took a great deal of effort to reorganize administration and finance mainly at the regional level. In 1653 there were still around 260 houses and almost all barns in ruins.

When the Saxon Elector Johann Georg I died in 1656 , a de facto division of Saxony was carried out according to his will from 1652. In addition to the remaining electoral principality, there were also three so-called secondogenitures , which also included the duchy of Saxony-Merseburg with the area around Delitzsch. This duchy came under the rule of Duke Christian I , who had the old bishop's palace in Merseburg expanded into his residence and the Delitzsch palace into the future widow's seat of his wife. The beginning of the reconstruction of the castle brought many trades in the city an economic boom.

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Delitzsch around 1650, engraving by Matthäus Merian , published in the Topographia Superioris Saxoniae

In contrast to most of the lordly palaces of the Electorate of Saxony, the Delitzscher Schoss survived the Thirty Years War largely unscathed, but its appearance was damaged due to the billeting of Swedish mercenary associations. The conversion from the Renaissance to the Baroque palace began on June 24, 1689 and was completed on May 13, 1696. However, the already widowed Duchess Christiana von Sachsen-Merseburg and her court of 28 people moved into the palace on May 31, 1692 and in the same year had the palace garden based on French models, laid out southwest of the palace by the court gardener Andreas Gotthard Carl . Of great importance during the presence of the dukes was the establishment of a privileged pharmacy in 1699 and a court book printer in 1701.

After the death of Duchess Christiana in 1701, the Merseburg ducal house rarely used the castle as a travel residence. It was only used regularly from 1731 to 1734 when Duchess Henriette Charlotte , widow of Duke Moritz Wilhelm von Sachsen-Merseburg, moved in again. Moritz Wilhelm died on April 21, 1731 in Merseburg. Duchess Henriette Charlotte died in the palace on April 8, 1734 and was buried on May 4 at her request in front of the altar of the town church of St. Peter and Paul. Since the couple had no descendants, the Sachsen-Merseburg secondary school reverted to the Electorate of Saxony in 1738 .

From 1728 to 1810 Delitzsch was also one of the Saxon garrison towns . Despite the limited independence of the Duchy of Saxony-Merseburg, in military terms this territory was always subject to the Electorate and its seat in Dresden . As early as 1676 Delitzsch was confronted for the first time with billeting of troops of the Electoral Saxon Army , in which the citizens also had to serve in the troops. As a result, various army units were stationed for longer periods and were housed in the houses of the citizens. During the Seven Years' War Delitzsch was occupied alternately by the Austrians and Prussians from 1756 to 1763.

In 1789, around 2500 people lived in 389 houses in the town of Delitzsch. The economic branches of the city in the late 18th century included the classic guild craft as well as the production of woolen stockings, which were mainly sold at trade fairs in Naumburg and Leipzig, but were also used in the military. With cigar manufacturing, a new branch of industry emerged, which reached its peak at the beginning of the 19th century with 13 urban cigar and tobacco factories.

Modern times

Delitzsch as a Prussian provincial town

Battle of Nations 1813

After Saxony had been allied with France since 1806, the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig took place in 1813 , in which, in the course of the wars of liberation, the armies of Austria , Prussia , the Russian Empire , Sweden and German patriots, Napoleonic France and its allies, allied against Napoleon the Kingdom of Saxony , brought a decisive defeat. Due to the heavy loss of land in Saxony after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the area around Delitzsch became part of the Prussian province of Saxony in 1816. By belonging to the progressive and modern Prussia, Delitzsch became the district town of the new district of the same name. With the elimination of the official titles, Delitzsch remained the administrative seat , but belonged to the seat of government in Merseburg, at the head of which was a collegially organized government.

Delitzsch's economic developments progressed slowly during the industrial revolution . With industrialization , many of the handicraft trades inherited from the Middle Ages lost their existence. The growing competition of the factory-organized production of goods was subject to many small craftsmen and tradesmen such as linen weavers, tanners and white tanners or potters, who lost their livelihood and thus completely disappeared from the townscape of Delitzsch. The production of stockings alone began to establish itself from production in the family business in newly established factories . In this new form of production with free wage laborers , tobacco processing was added, which developed into the determining economic power of the city.

The castle meadows around 1839

Delitzsch around 1864

Seal of the magistrate

In 1824, the news sheet for the Delitzscher and Bitterfeld district was published regularly, a weekly newspaper for the region. From 1828 to 1835, other companies, such as a cloth, stocking and calico factory, settled in the city. Completely new branches of production opened up in the 19th century with the spread of knowledge from chemistry . In 1839 the pharmacist Rudolf Schulze built a chemical factory on the Schlossstrasse 23 property. The city's industrial successes meant that in 1841 there were already 4,533 residents in Delitzsch. The upheavals in the first half of the 19th century led to considerable economic and social tensions. The breakdown of the traditional guild craft, several bad harvests and political contradictions resulted in revolutionary unrest in Central Germany in 1848.

After the introduction of the freedom of trade in the Kingdom of Prussia, various companies were also founded in Delitzsch. So in 1842 a lignite factory was built on a leased property next to the Gasthof zur Weintraube in Bitterfelder Strasse, which obtained the raw lignite from Bitterfeld . After a delay of several years, the technical revolution found its way into the city. At the same time, the home brewing right for beer was abolished, as a result of which the last brewery on the market ceased operations. In 1853, Friedrich Offenhauer, the tenant of the manor brewery in Klein-Krostitz, built a modern steam brewery that produced beer until 1913. Only a few years after this establishment, the master brewer Gottlob Fritzsche opened another brewery in 1859.

Benefiting from a dense urban, road and water network, the raw material deposits of coal, clay, salt and ore as well as the relatively high population density, the region continued to offer good starting conditions for investments. The emergence of a very dense railway network around the middle of the 19th century stands for this. The commissioning of the Berlin - Magdeburg - Leipzig railway with the Unterer Bahnhof stop in 1858 and the Halle - Eilenburg - Sorau railway with the Oberer Bahnhof stop in 1872 gave Delitzsch a connection to the national railway network.

The baroque palace at the north-western end of the old town was used after a very eventful history in the 18th and 19th centuries. Century the Prussian military until 1849 as a garrison of a Prussian Landwehr regiment and until 1860 as an artillery school , but most of the building was empty. The government in Merseburg decided in 1855 to convert it to a prison . The prison existed until it was closed in 1926. In the meantime, the castle served as a hospital for several months for wounded soldiers from the German-Austrian war . In Delitzsch, in the second half of the 19th century, innovations on a larger scale were introduced, which led to an improvement in the quality of living and the hygienic conditions. From 1865 this included gas lighting. The construction of a sewerage system was aimed at by the mayor of the time as early as 1867, but it was not implemented until 1872. After the German victory over the French in 1871, economic life continued to improve due to the reparations payable by France. In 1873 the Delitzscher Braunkohlen Aktien-Gesellschaft was founded , with the financial basis of which, in the western urban area of the Kertitz district, brown coal should be promoted. In 1875, who built Brothers Schaaf OHG on a plot near the railway line Halle - Sorau a modern engine driven roller mill until the Great Depression was in operation.

Initiated by farmers from the district, a joint-stock company founded for this purpose built the Delitzsch sugar factory in 1890 , which was shut down by 2001 due to the sugar production quotas decided by the EU. The decisive factor for this was the convenient location with a siding and the excellent growing conditions for sugar beet. The entrepreneur Albert Böhme founded a confectionery and chocolate factory in 1894, which was taken over by Halloren Schokoladenfabrik AG in 2008 . Infrastructural and social measures could also participate in this advancing economic development. The end of the 19th century was the period when, for the first time, numerous public educational and social institutions could emerge comprehensively within a few decades. The upper secondary school built on the Gerberplan had already started its courses in 1858. One of the current buildings of the Ehrenberg-Gymnasium was put into operation in December 1871 as a newly built boys' elementary school. On June 22, 1873, a royal teachers' college was founded in Delitzsch and, in 1898, an elementary school for girls. The city also expanded its facilities in the social field. As early as 1872, a small park-like area began to be planted, which then became part of a park designed by Leipzig city gardeners in 1885. In 1895 the construction of a new city hospital began, which was supposed to replace the old hospital and from then on it was used as a poor house. The first bathing establishment was built in 1891/92 as a spa on the moat promenade south of the old town.

20th century

After the construction of a waterworks began in 1902 , in 1903 the first plots in the city were connected to an extensive, central water supply network. With the electrification of the city in 1907, electricity increasingly replaced city gas and petroleum as a source of light. Initiated from the headquarters in Halle, a newly built main railway workshop was put into operation in 1908 . In the following year, the company, which specialized in the maintenance of freight, passenger, mail and baggage cars, became the city's most important employer.

First World War and Weimar Republic

The First World War also stagnated the city's development. At that time, over 13,000 people were already living in Delitzsch. Most of the men fit for military service were drafted into the imperial army. The city itself was largely spared from the effects of the war. After the end of the war, the city was once again a garrison location for a short time from November 1918. In 1928 she negotiated with the government in Merseburg about the purchase of the castle and the surrounding area. Despite the conclusion of the sales contract in 1929, the global economic crisis prevented the execution.

Delitzsch around 1936

The general political development in the Weimar Republic at that time was marked by a strong polarization , which was also due to the difficult economic and social conditions. By 1933 the number of unemployed increased, the cost of which held the city financially. After many years of stagnation , there was a slow economic recovery from 1934 onwards. A restrictive economic and labor market policy caused the number of unemployed to fall again. In addition, there were new investment measures by local industry.

National Socialism

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the city was run by the NSDAP . After 24 people of Jewish descent still lived in the city in 1933, there was only one left in 1939. On the day after the Reichskristallnacht there were attacks on Jewish shops and institutions. The burial chapel in the Jewish cemetery in Hainstrasse was completely destroyed. The few Jewish families still living in the city at the beginning of the 1930s fled to Bitterfeld or were able to emigrate to Bolivia . The Jewish residents of the city are remembered today with a plaque and a memorial stone in the Jewish cemetery.

The rearmament not only made itself felt through the introduction of conscription in 1935, but also had an impact on the expansion of military and armaments factories. In 1939/40 the construction of a military airfield in the Spröda district and a bright steel mill in the Eilenburger Chaussee, which were used to manufacture assembly parts for fighter aircraft, began. Apart from the destruction of both train stations and the military airfield, the city was spared in the Second World War , to the advantage of the historical building fabric in the city center.

Even before the Third Reich had to capitulate under the military superiority of the Allied troops in May 1945, military operations in Delitzsch came to an end on April 18, 1945. On April 20, 1945, the city was occupied by American troops who came from the southwest and to whom the city was surrendered without a fight and without loss for either side. The US Army was replaced by the Red Army in early July 1945 , which remained stationed until the mid-1950s. Numerous factories were dismantled as reparations and transported to the Soviet Union .

Post-war period and GDR

Immediately after the founding of the GDR in 1949, there were structural changes in the administrative affiliation. Due to the territorial reform of the GDR in 1952, the Delitzsch district , which had belonged to the province of Saxony-Anhalt since 1946, was assigned to the newly created Leipzig district . In this context the historical circles were arbitrarily divided. In 1950 the previously independent villages of Gertitz, Kertitz and Werben were incorporated into Delitzsch. The socialist economic policy determined by the planned economy had negative effects on the development of trade and industry. In 1968 the production of tobacco and the manufacture of cigars had to be stopped. The production profile was changed to processing metal goods.

At the same time, there were also far-reaching urban planning changes. From 1958 the new building area Delitzsch-Ost was built with single-family and multi-family houses. From 1974 onwards, replacement apartments were built for residents from the villages in the district that had been demolished due to the expansion and re-opening of large open-cast lignite mines. Several department stores, medical facilities, schools and children's facilities were also created. In 1969 a pet garden was opened in Rosenthal.

Old town 1989 (here Breite Straße with St. Peter and Paul)

In the 1980s, the environmental problems and political tensions reached their peak, especially in the greater Leipzig-Halle area. Due to the lignite mining, parts of the central German cultural landscape had disappeared and eight villages in the Delitzsch district were affected by the devastation . Industrially heavily contaminated waste products went unfiltered into the air or were simply dumped in charred open-cast mines. As a result, the number of inhabitants stagnated and the quality of living was reduced.

Only with the peaceful revolution in late autumn 1989 did a democratization process begin to develop again. In November, the turning point went peacefully with prayers for peace in the town church and subsequent protest demonstrations. A round table was formed in the village , at which regional aspects in particular were discussed. The democratization process was secured in 1990 with the first free municipal and state elections in decades and reached its climax in German unity on October 3, 1990. Those carried out with the restoration of the states on the territory of the former GDR and with the local elections in May 1990 referendum yielded in the district Delitzsch overwhelming support for membership in the newly emerging Saxony .

Reunion and the present

The Peter & Paul City Festival has been an annual cultural event since 1990 . The Peter & Paul Market was one of the three annual markets that were held in Delitzsch as far back as the Middle Ages and can be traced back to the year 1400. With this event, the city commemorates its history and thus keeps this tradition alive.

In the Free State of Saxony , which has existed since 1990 , the new Delitzsch district in the Leipzig administrative district was formed on August 1, 1994 as part of the district reform from the districts of Delitzsch and Eilenburg . The city retained its function as a district seat . In 1995, two commercial and industrial areas with a total area of around 1,057,000 square meters were created to develop the urban area.

On January 1, 1997 Delitzsch received the municipal status of a large district town . As early as 2004, large parts of the inner-city redevelopment program within the scope of monument protection were successfully completed with the reconstruction of town houses, public buildings and the urban infrastructure . This also included the reopening of the baroque palace and garden.

In the course of the Saxon district reform , the district of Delitzsch and the district of Torgau-Oschatz merged on August 1, 2008 to form the current district of North Saxony . Delitzsch lost the status of the district seat and was handed over to Torgau . Since then, the city has been one of four district administrative locations in northern Saxony.

From 20 to 22 September 2013 Delitzsch was the venue for the 16th Saxon Harvest Thanksgiving Festival. Under the motto Foundations of Life , the region's agriculture presented itself to tens of thousands of visitors.

On November 25, 2016, the city received the German Sustainability Award in the category: Germany's Most Sustainable Medium-Sized City 2016 . Decisive for the award was u. a. the intensive communication and cooperation with the residents in various networks, the generation of electricity and heat as well as its use from solar and geothermal energy after new construction and renovation measures, the integrated transport concept and the independent coordination of refugee work.