History of the city of Dortmund
The history of the city of Dortmund goes back over 1100 years. The city experienced two heydays during which it was of European-wide importance: once in the 14th century as a suburb of the Westphalian Hanseatic cities during the heyday of the Städtehanse and for the second time in the 19th and 20th centuries as the center of industrialization in the Ruhr area during the founding period and then until the steel crisis as an important location for the coal and steel industry .
Prehistory, Early History and Antiquity
The first traces of settlement in what is now Dortmund's urban area go back to the Neolithic Age . The excavation of a Neolithic village between the districts of Oespel and Marten proves this. The important gold treasure of Dortmund is known from the site of the former Dortmund knight brewery . Furthermore, early medieval cemeteries were found in Wickede and Asseln .
middle Ages
Early middle ages
When the Saxon Wars began in 772 , today's Dortmund area slowly moved into the focus of political events. On his second campaign against the Saxons in 775, the Frankish King Charlemagne came from Düren on the road that led from the Cologne Bay through the Bergisches Land and the Westphalian Bay in the direction of Northern Germany and the Baltic Sea region into the Saxon area. The Franconian Reichsannalen report on the conquest of the Sigiburg (today's Hohensyburg ), an important refuge of the Saxons over the confluence of the Ruhr and Lenne rivers .
Charlemagne moved from the Hohensyburg further east; for this he probably used the Hellweg . Under Charlemagne Paderborn became the center of Frankish rule on Saxon territory . As a result, the Hellweg, a strategically important road, was expanded by the Franks into a military road secured by castles. Moreover lands were as apart marches imperial confiscated and on these goods empire courtyards created to supply the troops. In the Dortmund area these were Brackel am Hellweg, Westhofen an der Ruhr and Elmenhorst an der Lippe . Due to its location at the intersection of Hellweg and Nord-Süd-Straße from Cologne to northern Germany, Dortmund was the most important royal court between Duisburg and Paderborn and probably also the administrative center for the surrounding imperial property that extended beyond the aforementioned imperial estates.
The Dortmund tradition has therefore led the city back to Charlemagne since the late Middle Ages, even if this is ultimately not documented. Traces of such a castle - due to the typically square structure, can be seen as founded by Charlemagne - can still be found in Dortmund's inner city north of the Reinoldikirche . The name of today's Brückstrasse (which together with Wißstrasse represents the course of the north-south road that can still be seen today in the cityscape) is probably not derived from a bridge, but this was the road leading to the castle (i.e. to today's Dortmund) led. The location should have been ideal from a strategic point of view, as it was close enough to both streets to control them, but also offered the necessary safety distance. The farmyard , which is about 500 meters away, is to be separated from this castle complex. The Franconian castles only offered simple huts inside and were only occupied in case of defense. The location of the farmyard is unknown, but it is generally assumed that it was located around St. Martin's Chapel, which was demolished in 1662 (on today's Martinstrasse, west of the former Thier brewery) and is therefore identical to the later Grafenhof. Accordingly, the St. Martin's Chapel would have been the oldest sacred building in Dortmund. Late medieval chroniclers then referred to two villages, the "alde" and the "new Dorp" , which are both said to have been near the castle "Munda" and for which there should have been fights between Saxons and Romans (or Franks). Even if these reports have a rather legendary character and primarily served to explain the place name in terms of folk etymology , they still refer to the separation between the settlement of the farmyard and the settlement around the actual castle, which was newly established in Ottonian times. The open question is whether the settlement around the farm yard is based on an older pre-Franconian settlement.
The further development of the royal court in Carolingian times is in the dark due to the lack of written sources. The oldest mention of Dortmund so far can be found in the land register of the Werden monastery, which was laid out between 880 and 884 . The short Latin entry is:
- In throtmanni liber homo arnold [us] viii den [arios] nob [is] soluit [solvit].
(German: "In Throtmanni pays us free man Arnold 8 pennies .") The next recorded mention was made then in 899, as a noble woman named Wich castle and her four sons probably important possessions in Methler and Aplerbeck the pen St. Gereon in Cologne gave. The handover took place on May 14th of the same year in Trutmania , which is taken as an indication of the central local function of the Dortmund royal court for a larger region at that time. This was probably based not only on the elevated legal position as a royal court, but also on Dortmund's role as an important trading point between the Franconian and Saxon parts of the empire .
When the Carolingian Empire gradually fell in the second half of the 9th century, the system of fortifications established by Charlemagne also slowly declined. With King Ludwig the child , the last East Franconian ruler of the Carolingian dynasty died , and with the election of Henry I as king in 919, the royal dignity changed from the Franks to the Saxons. The resulting relocation of the Reich Center was to be of great importance for Dortmund and the entire Hellweg region. Heinrich I also renewed the castle system. The separation of the castle and the farm yard is not up to the incursions of the Magyars and those of the Normans . Therefore permanent houses were built within the castle complex. Assemblies and gatherings also took place there and no longer in the farm yard from this time on. In addition, had Burgmannen their residence in the castle embarrassed. This also happened in Dortmund. The question that remains to be answered is whether the farmyard was completely abandoned or whether part of the population remained behind. In any case, a large part of the traders and craftsmen probably followed the castle men.
Since the Hellweg became the preferred route of the kings between the West Franconian part of the empire and the Saxon ancestral land, there was also the need to create Falzes along the route . Even if the name Pfalz (“palatium”) has not been passed down directly for Dortmund (only the name “curtis regia” which was later used synonymously ), one can assume that the city became the most important Palatinate in Westphalia and the Hellweg region in the 10th century rise. An important indication of this are the numerous stays of the kings and emperors in Dortmund. During the first documented stay of Heinrich I on April 13, 928, i.e. at Easter, Dortmund served as the festival venue. The kings used to celebrate this highest festival of the church year only in special places with corresponding palace buildings and, above all, in a church appropriate to the demands of the solemn festival. However, the sources also show that Dortmund was still an up-and-coming Palatinate at that time and was not yet generally known.
This soon changed under the son and successor of Heinrich I, Otto I. He first came to Dortmund in 939 to put down the uprising of his brother Heinrich and his half-brother Thankmar , who was murdered in 938 . The Dortmund Burgmannen under their leader Agina had initially joined Heinrich (or had been appointed by him), but immediately opened the gates to the advancing king and his army, and Otto I then pardoned Agina. This event is of interest for the history of the city because in the history of Saxony by Widukind von Corvey, an “urbs Trotmanni” is mentioned for the first time . The Latin term "urbs" denotes a fortified town-like settlement. The upturn in Dortmund in the following years is once again evident in Otto I's third stay in Dortmund on April 3, 953. Again he was in combat, this time with his son Liudolf and his son-in-law Konrad . Otto I. originally planned to spend the Easter holidays in Ingelheim am Rhein , but since the surrounding area was occupied by his enemies, Otto I. moved to Mainz . But the Archbishop of Mainz, Friedrich , also joined the rebels. So Otto I went by ship via Cologne in the direction of Aachen , but learned in Cologne that the city was not equipped for a royal Easter Palatinate. Thereupon Otto I. decided to celebrate Easter in the closest Palatinate in Saxony and moved to Dortmund. The uncertain situation of Aachen within Lorraine may also prompted him to take this step.
The fact that Dortmund was able to keep up with such important imperial palaces as Aachen illustrates the advanced stage of expansion of the Palatinate city at that time. From Otto I's fifth and last stay in Dortmund on June 13, 960, the above-mentioned designation as “curtis regia” has been handed down. The construction of the oldest part of the Reinoldikirche as a Palatinate Church is dated between 950 and 1000. The church was not consecrated to Saint Reinoldus from the beginning ; presumably it was previously a St. Mary's Church . The date of the reliquary translation of the later city patron is unknown; Assumptions are aimed at the term of office of Annos II (1056-1075) or the second half of the 12th century. At around the same time as the Reinoldikirche, the Richthaus, which was demolished in 1906, was built as a palace building. This building stood on the north side of Ostenhellweg and formed the western end of the so-called Reinoldi Island. In this building who practiced Count (or any agent appointed by him judge) in conjunction with a aldermen quorum, the high court made.
The imperial Palatinate is likely to have attracted numerous traders and craftsmen who were necessary for the maintenance of the Palatinate on the one hand and who also benefited from the favorable location and the increased traffic volume of the royal administrative center, which in turn contributed to the gradual development of Dortmund. The area has probably expanded to the area south of the Hellweg since the end of the 9th century. A new marketplace was also built here, which, in contrast to the still existing old market on the northern side of the Hellweg, served long-distance trade.
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Under Otto I's successor, Otto II , Dortmund retained its importance as an important palace. Documented sources show that the emperor stayed in Dortmund three times. After staying in January 974, he even called an imperial assembly in Dortmund in July 978 , at which a campaign against King Lothar of France was decided. The following year he also stayed in town over Easter. Under the reign of Adelheid of Burgundy , the grandmother of the underage King Otto III. , from January 20 to 27, 993, another imperial assembly took place in Dortmund. Further stays of Otto III. date to the years 986 and 997. Otto III. In 997 donated the "Reichsort Dortmund in Westfalengau" to the Marienstift in Aachen . This donation, which lasted only for a short time, was intended to enable the monastery to restore its destroyed church.
Under Otto III's successor, Heinrich II , the focus of royal rule in Westphalia shifted from Dortmund back to Paderborn; however, he also held on to Dortmund's imperial property and visited the city five more times. The most important stay was that of July 6th and 7th, 1005, during which he convened a large synod in Dortmund, in which 13 other predominantly Saxon bishops and the Duke of Saxony took part in addition to the archbishops of Cologne , Bremen and Magdeburg . In response to the famine of the same year, the “pactum Trotmundense” (“Dortmund Pact”) was concluded, which provided for, among other things, a prayer fraternity , fasting on certain feast days and generous alms . The synod also served to prepare for the second campaign against Duke Boleslaw of Poland . A further large synod took place under Henry's reign from 10 to 14 January 1016 in Dortmund.
A total of 15 stays by Saxon emperors in Dortmund are documented; the itineraries suggest just as many other stays. This made Dortmund, alongside Paderborn (34 documented stays), the political center of the region. But also economically Dortmund should have been one of the leading cities of this time. For example, in 990 the Gandersheim merchants received the same rights as the Dortmund merchants and ten years later the Helmarshausen merchants received the same rights as the Mainz, Cologne and Dortmund merchants. The exact law itself has not been handed down; but it can be seen as a kind of early market or city law . Dortmund was thus one of the first cities in the Holy Roman Empire that did not go back to a Roman city. Coin finds indicate that from 983 at the latest Dortmund was also an important minting location . Dortmund was probably a main hub for ore trade between the Flemish cities around Liège , Huy and Dinant on the one hand and Goslar in Saxony on the other. The ore was traded via Flanders to England and probably even to Sweden and Norway .
High Middle Ages
Since Heinrich II left no children behind, the Saxon royal family died out with his death in 1024, and the crown passed back to the Franks, which again reduced the importance of the Saxon part of the empire. Konrad II became the new king . Since, among other things, the Saxon part of the empire had not paid homage to him after his election , Konrad went on a royal ride , which took him to Dortmund at the beginning of December 1024, where the decisive negotiations for his later recognition took place. In the years 1028 and 1030, Konrad, who has meanwhile been crowned emperor, visited Dortmund again. In 1033 he renewed the rights of Helmarshausen, referring to the Dortmunds like Otto II.
Even under the Salians , Dortmund remained an important imperial palace. First, Heinrich III. At the end of February 1046 Dortmund and invested the monk Rudhard as Abbot of Corvey . Further stays are documented from the years 1051 and 1052. His son and successor Heinrich IV also visited the city after his assumption of rule in 1066 and again on May 14, 1068. In 1073 the Saxon princes revolted against the king. Heinrich defeated the rebels in the battle of Homburg an der Unstrut , but he avoided the Saxon area and no longer visited Dortmund. This probably also played a role that the investiture dispute with Pope Gregory VII broke out at the same time . The fact that he clearly retained dominion over Dortmund despite everything is exemplified by the granting of exemption from customs duties in Dortmund to the Jews of Worms in 1074. As a result, the first Jews are likely to have settled in Dortmund under Heinrich's rule.
His son Heinrich V tried to improve his power base by relying on the imperial estates and the emerging cities. This policy met with considerable resistance, particularly from the Saxon princes. Dortmund, as the most important imperial property in western Saxony, came to the center of this dispute. Heinrich first visited Dortmund on August 15, 1113 on the Assumption of Mary, where the rebellious Landgrave Ludwig I submitted to him. In August of the following year Dortmund, like Andernach and Sinzig before, was pillaged and robbed by Count Friedrich I von Schwarzenburg and other princes . Then Heinrich marched into Westphalia with an army from Bavaria , Swabia , Franconia and Thuringia , fortified Dortmund again and left behind a strong imperial garrison. The rest of Westphalia was burned and looted ; only the city of Soest was able to buy its way out. In the Battle of Welfesholz on February 11, 1115, however, Heinrich was defeated by his opponents, who then moved to Dortmund under the leadership of Lothar von Süpplingenburg and destroyed the fortification again. It is assumed that the palace complex was also destroyed, or at least unusable. It is true that the Itineraries indicate that Lothar once again traveled through Dortmund in March 1129 after his coronation; however, a stay is not occupied. In the following years Dortmund probably no longer had a major political function.
Economically and as a city, Dortmund is likely to have continued to grow. The Germanization of the northeast under Lothar also contributed to this. This eastern colonization was accompanied by an expansion of trade, in the course of which cities were founded on the Baltic Sea. In turn, Dortmund also benefited from this as an important transport hub. Coin finds from the period between 983 and 1106 indicate that long-distance trading was much older, and merchants from Dortmund were also involved in the “ pax Gotlandie ” (“ Gotland Peace”). Presumably from the first Hohenstaufen king Konrad III. the city was granted a privilege in August 1145 . This was lost in the town fire in 1232, and so the content can only be reconstructed from the confirmation of 1236. In this privilege, Dortmund citizens and merchants were guaranteed freedom from customs duties throughout the empire (initially only at the royal customs posts, it was only under Frederick II that this became a general exemption from duties), they were not allowed to be challenged illegally to duels when traveling overland, and their exclusive place of jurisdiction was in front of the Dortmund court. On the one hand, this privilege supported the supra-regional long-distance trade, which was already important for Dortmund at that time, and, on the other hand, promoted the development from a palatinate town to a palatinate town by attracting new citizens.
Only under Friedrich Barbarossa did the city slowly regain political importance. The palace complexes are likely to have been rebuilt under his rule. The Marienkirche in Dortmund is also likely to have been built during this time , presumably as a palatine chapel, as the Reinoldi church had received an independent function as a parish church. Overall, Friedrich rarely stayed in northwest Germany, two stays in Dortmund are documented. (For comparison: only in Cologne, Aachen, Utrecht and Nijmegen did he stay more often; on the other hand, he only visited other large Westphalian cities such as Soest, Paderborn, Münster or Osnabrück once). During his royal ride in 1152, after his Easter stay in Cologne, he moved directly to Dortmund, where he held a first court day. Present were among others Archbishop Arnold II. , Heinrich the Lion , Welf VI. and Albrecht the Bear . On this court day, Frederick I presented himself for the first time as ruler in the Saxon part of the empire. This stay is particularly important for the history of Dortmund because the Latin term “ in burgo Tremonia ” is found in a certificate issued the following year that refers to this stay . The term burgus describes a settlement that has the character of a town both in outward form and in legal terms. This was the first designation of Dortmund as Tremonia ; the name cannot be derived directly from the previously used forms . It is particularly noticeable that from this point in time until the beginning of the 14th century, when German-language sources reappeared, only Tremonia appears in the sources as the name for Dortmund. It is therefore assumed that this change goes back directly to a decree by Friedrich. If he wanted to make Dortmund the center of the Westphalian part of Saxony, a clear and unmistakable name would certainly have been essential for reasons of legal certainty. Friedrich's second stay in Dortmund was also of a longer duration. In 1154 Friedrich's trip to Rome was due, in the run-up to which he developed an enormous travel activity. Two documents have been preserved from his stay in Dortmund, one from June 17th and one from June 23rd. In view of the fact that many princes such as the Archbishops of Cologne and Mainz , Heinrich the Lion and the Counts of Berg , Arnsberg , Kleve and Tecklenburg also stayed, it can be assumed that a court day was held here. Frederick close personal relationship to the nearby Premonstratensian - Cappenberg Castle it like for the Palatinate city of Dortmund beneficial been his. In this context, the handover of the Cappenberg Barbarossa head to Friedrich's godfather Otto von Cappenberg is particularly worth mentioning . In the period that followed, Friedrich Barbarossa only rarely stayed in Westphalia. From 1180 he was in conflict with Henry the Lion in Saxony. Sources from later centuries report further stays and even the relocation of the court to Dortmund for two years. Although these processes would fit into the course of time, they cannot be substantiated by contemporary sources.
Friedrich's son and successor Heinrich VI. never stayed in the Hellweg region and therefore never in Dortmund. The center of royal rule increasingly shifted to southern Germany; the Hellweg lost importance as a royal road , but also as a trade route. The first documentary mention of the Counts of Dortmund in 1189 underlines the development towards a less direct rule of the German kings over the city. But the city remained an important imperial property and developed in the direction of an imperial city just under Henry's rule . On March 25, 1190 , Heinrich promised the Archbishop of Cologne that he would only have royal coins minted in Duisburg and Dortmund within the Archdiocese of Cologne . The most significant intervention of Heinrich in the development of the city is the foundation of the Katharinenkloster on March 23, 1193. Such a direct royal foundation was very unusual for the time; the Dortmund process is unique overall. In addition to the royal foundation, it was not clear whether men or women should move into the monastery or which order they should belong to. It was not until 1219 that it was determined that it should be a women's convent living according to the Augustine rule; It was not until 1224 that the premonstratensic observance was prescribed. The fact that Dortmund did not have a monastery, which was unusual for the circumstances at the time and for such a large and important city as Dortmund, may have contributed to this unusual event. The foundation is the first major cession of the Dortmund imperial property, but even then the emperor insisted on rule over the monastery vogtei .
The history of Dortmund was certainly royal history until the beginning of the 13th century. Although no documents have been received that could provide information about urban life before this time, what is described above shows how much the German emperors and kings shaped the fate of the city. However, with the relocation of the royal center to southern Germany and the growth of the city, this changed. Although the representative of the king, the count, was still the most important political figure, the influence of the citizens and in particular of the long-distance traders, who were mainly active in the cloth and wine trade, grew steadily. According to recent research, the court of lay judges already mentioned above, which at that time already performed more than mere judicial functions and represented the city internally and externally and can thus be regarded as an early forerunner of a city council, still mainly belonged to Reich people at that time on, but the consecration of the Nicolaikirche donated by the long-distance traders in 1198 already illustrates their prosperity and influence. The long-distance traders are likely to have formed the leadership class among the traders who settled around the Palatinate at an early stage. In the second half of the eleventh century, in any case after the transfer of the Reinoldi relics, the merchants of long-distance merchants formed the so-called Reinoldigilde , which in the following centuries played an important role, initially in trade, but quickly also in politics , estimated. Only in later centuries did the Reinoldigilde merge with that of the imperial people. Around 1200, the youngest city wall, which can still be seen today through the Wallring, was built. The walled area covered 81 hectares, making Dortmund one of the largest cities in north-west Germany in terms of area at that time (only Cologne (401 ha), Aachen (175 ha), Münster (104 ha) and Soest (101 ha) were larger in area; Duisburg and Essen with 33 ha and 37 ha, respectively, significantly smaller). The fortification consisted of two walls separated by a moat, was about 3300 meters long and secured by 14 towers. The reconstructed eagle tower gives a clear impression of how powerful this fortification was. It should not be overlooked, however, that this walling of the city was planned with great foresight. Much of the area within the wall is believed to have been undeveloped initially, and in fact the city never expanded beyond this area until the onset of industrialization. The population is estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 inhabitants; Thus, in the 13th century, Dortmund was the largest Westphalian city alongside Soest and was one of the largest cities in the Holy Roman Empire. Another building from this period was the two-storey old town hall on the Alter Markt . This two-storey building was probably originally the seat of the Count of Dortmund and did not become part of the city until 1241. It was the oldest stone town hall in Germany until it was demolished after the Second World War .
Heinrich's sudden death in 1197 triggered the throne dispute between Philip of Swabia and Otto IV . The pledging of Dortmund to the Archbishop of Cologne Adolf I by Otto (but this had no consequences), his avoidance of the Hellweg on his travels from Cologne to Saxony and back, as well as the exclusive stay in church-owned places in Westphalia are taken as evidence that that Dortmund was on Philip's side. Dortmund was only subject to direct imperial influence again under Frederick II. In a document dated June 20, 1218, he confirmed the foundation of the Katharinenkloster, but also underlined his claim to Dortmund as royal court. Two years later, on April 16, 1220, he asked Archbishop Engelbert I of Cologne to take the St. Catherine's Monastery under his protection; the rights associated with the bailiwick should remain with the king. A few days later, on May 1st, Friedrich also renewed Dortmund's privileges. The document was lost in the town fire in 1232, but the full wording can be reconstructed from a copy. It is particularly interesting that the privileges were given to the universitas Tremoniensium civium , the entirety of Dortmund's citizens. It is unclear whether this was the first address of this kind to the Dortmund citizens; However, the document proves that by this point in time at the latest, the citizens of Dortmund formed a legal entity or cooperative with members of the same law.
Since Friedrich stayed mainly in Italy, he made his son Heinrich co-king and gave him rulership over Germany. Heinrich, who was still a minor, was initially under the tutelage of Archbishop Engelbert, with whom he traveled to northern Germany in 1224. Like many of his predecessors, he also used the north-south road via Dortmund. Heinrich's stay on September 4th, during which, in addition to the Archbishop of Cologne, Friedrich of Austria , Friedrich von Isenberg , Adolf von der Mark and Konrad von Dortmund were also present, represented the last royal stay in Dortmund for more than 150 years.
In the year 1232 (or 1231) the city fire mentioned above occurred several times. Probably triggered by arson, it almost completely destroyed the city. The fire probably raged mainly in the densely populated town center north of Hellweg and destroyed not only the wooden houses of the shopkeepers and craftsmen, but also the stone Reinoldi Church. The city's archive was also lost as a result of the fire, and with it all documents from the time before the city fire. The reconstruction of the city began immediately; there was even a new foundation of a Minorite monastery ; But the fire meant a serious setback for economic life, and so the citizens turned to their city lord, King Heinrich, with the request to allow them a second fair. The king complied with this request and on September 30, 1232 issued the Dortmunders a corresponding certificate. The previous market from Ascension Day to Pentecost was not affected by this additional 14-day market, which began on Michaelmas (29 September) . The document is important for the history of the city of Dortmund because it is the first time that Dortmund is referred to as an imperial city (literally: “ civitas nostra Tremoniensis imperalis ” ). The privileges of Dortmund, which had been lost in the city fire, were renewed in 1236 by Friedrich II. The additional and only imperial privileged market in Westphalia contributed significantly to the economic rise of the city. The Dortmund merchants were also very active in long-distance trading at that time. The first overseas agreement between Dortmund traders was handed down from the summer of 1229. Two merchants, Ermbrecht and Albrecht, signed a trade agreement with the Prince of Smolensk with other merchants . The involvement of the Count of Dortmund in the colonization and missionary work of Livonia 1200 is likely to have had a beneficial effect on the long-distance traders. The late Romanesque Madonna and Child in St. Mary's Church from around 1230 may be a testimony to the prosperity associated with the economic rise .
Late Middle Ages
The oldest documents, which deal with the events within the city, come from the time after the city fire. Of course, this goes back to the destruction of older documents by the fire, but this also reflects the strengthening of the Dortmund citizenship. With the decline of the German royal crown and the resulting concentration of the German kings on their southern German tribal areas, the imperial cities lost their importance as bases of the travel kingdom, but gained new weight as important taxpayers through their economic rise. On the other hand, the decline in direct royal influence led to an increase in the power of the imperial princes and ministerials . In the vicinity of Dortmund, the Counts von der Mark and von Berg and the Archbishops of Cologne who ruled Vest Recklinghausen rose to become important territorial rulers . In Dortmund itself, political power was initially in the hands of the royal governor, the Count of Dortmund. This opposed the emerging citizenship. As mentioned above, the lay jury can be seen as a kind of early precursor to a city council.
In 1240 (or shortly before) the Latin name consilium appeared in the documents for the first time . The influence this council already had became apparent a year later, when Count Konrad von Dortmund sold a house on the market, which was called the town hall in a deed dated September 4th, to the citizens and the city. In this document, the 18 Dortmund councilors with the judge at the top are listed by name for the first time. The contract contains further agreements: with the house on the market, the rights to the meat and shoe banks, the bread house and the imperial rights to the building above the tribunal also went to the city. In addition, the Martins and Nicolaikirche were mentioned for the first time in this context. With this contract, the council was also constituted as a self-governing body of the citizenship and recognized by the royal city lord. This is also made clear in the sealing of the contract with the (certainly older) tower seal by the councilors. A document to the Archbishop of Cologne is dated December 15, 1248, in which the city declared itself ready to follow the anti-king Wilhelm of Holland .
This document is signed in the name of the count as well as the civil parish and the councilors - from this point in time at the latest, the influence of the council went beyond self-administration and also aimed at foreign policy. The relationship between the city and Wilhelm von Holland, however, was likely to have been ambivalent, since at that time he had just pledged the city to the Archbishop of Cologne, which posed a threat to Dortmund's sovereignty. On the other hand, the support might have proven to be economically necessary, as it allowed the city to trade with Holland and Zeeland . The wealth the city had attained can be read from a tax list from 1241 . This shows that the four Dortmund royal courts (in addition to Dortmund itself, Brackel, Westhofen and Elmenhorst) together as well as the Dortmund Jews alone had to pay 15 marks in silver and the city of Dortmund 100 marks in silver. At this point in time, Dortmund's influence reached far beyond the north-west of Germany. The Baltic city of Memel was founded around 1252 with the help of Dortmund merchants. The influence of Dortmund was so great that it was initially considered to name the city “New Dortmund”. The city founders asked the city of Dortmund to send them a record of their city rights and customs. This record was created in 1252 with the title About the freedom of our city and is therefore the oldest record of Dortmund's city rights. It is true that Memel ultimately took over the Luebian law ; However, this record is of interest for the history of Dortmund, as it gives not only information about the city law, but also references to a synagogue and the activities of brewers and thus allows a first insight into the conditions of the city.
Another important factor influencing Dortmund's history was the Vote Court in the middle of the 13th century . The first session of the Dortmund free court had probably already taken place in 1227 . This free chair was then merged with the Vote Court, the so-called “Court of the Mirror”. The Dortmund court seems to have assumed a special role as the court of appeal and the highest instance among the Westphalian females courts early on. A council statute of 1250 forbade this court to judge the residents of Dortmund. The origins of the Feme and the meaning of the name are largely obscure; but there are assumptions about a connection with the peace in the country . For the development of the Dortmund Feme, the Peace of Mainz in particular should then be of importance. Despite this peace, there were repeated disputes with the territorial rulers. Against this background, the cities of Dortmund, Soest, Münster and Lippstadt joined forces on July 17, 1253 on a Lippe bridge near Werne to form the so-called Werner Bund , one of the earliest city federations . The situation worsened again when King Conrad IV died in 1254 . Right at the beginning of the interregnum from 1254 to 1273, on June 13, 1254, over 70 cities, including 16 Westphalian and Dortmund, joined together to form the Rhenish City Association . The Rheinische Städtebund ended with the end of the Interregnum, but the Werner Bund continued to exist in a different composition until 1340 and was partly absorbed by the Hanseatic League .
While the sovereignty of the city could be preserved externally, a new force entered the stage in Dortmund's domestic politics. The council election statute of 1260 shows that only the members of the Reinoldigilde could be elected councilors. This patriciate , which confidently called itself rempublicam Tremoniensem gubernantes (about: ruling lords of the State of Dortmund) and consisted of some influential families such as the Kleppings, Sudermanns, von Wickedes, Swartes, Muddepennings, vom Berges, Lembergs, Berswordts , Wales and Brakes, determined six of the 18 electors. The remaining electors determined the six guilds mentioned for the first time in this document, but which only had the right to vote. The guilds of the craftsmen , i.e. the St. John's guild of shoemakers and tanners , those of the bakers , the butchers , the tailors , the shopkeepers and the fat merchants , were united in it. In addition, there were also guilds for other trades , the so-called offices, whose members were not admitted to the council election. In relation to the count, however, the influence of the citizenry increased, from 1267 at the latest the citizens elected the judge themselves; the count merely confirmed this choice. With the strengthening of the patriciate, there was also civic engagement, which is reflected, for example, in the completion of the first, early Gothic building section of the Reinoldikirche in 1260. Three years later there was the first report of a leper house in front of the Ostentor; the Heilig-Geist- Hospital was founded at the end of the 12th century.
This internal upswing was certainly also due to the increasing commercial activity of the Dortmund merchants. The seal of 1257, which again contained the tower symbol, but bore the inscription sigillvm tremonie civitatis westfalie (seal of Dortmund, city of Westphalia) , shows that Dortmund assumed a central local function early on . But the influence was not limited to Westphalia. When the city of Krakow was re-established in the same year , the Dortmund Sudermann family settled there and quickly became one of the leading council families. In any case, this family, like the Kleppings, built up a wide-ranging trade network, which historians have in some cases compared to that of the Augsburg Fuggers in the 16th century. In addition to the events and influences mentioned above, little is known about Dortmund's eastern trade. The fact that Dortmund assumed a dominant position within the developing Hanseatic League in this area is shown by the first office rules of the Peterhof in Novgorod from 1268 (or 1280), which stipulated that two of the eight Aldermans had to be from Dortmund. Much more is known about western trade. In the negotiation of the rights of German merchants in Flanders in the second half of the 13th century, residents of Dortmund were involved, who also played a leading role in the Hansekontor in Bruges . It is documented that the Dortmund merchant Merbode died in London in 1265 . From this it can be concluded that by this time at the latest, Dortmund traders had settled there. Around 1277, the Dortmund merchants handled a seventh of the English wool exports to Germany. In June 1282, the Dortmund merchant Gerhard Merbode signed a contract with the city of London on behalf of the Hanseatic League, in which the Hanseatic League undertook to have a city gate built next to the office, later called the Stalhof , at its own expense . Until 1473 the Dortmunders then provided the London Aldermann.
In the years that followed, Dortmund continued to grow internally, and the influence of the citizenry expanded. The Dortmund beguinage was first mentioned in a document from 1280 . She owned a few houses on the northern edge of the city near the Minorite monastery. On December 5, 1286, the city succeeded in purchasing a third of the count's court rights from Konrad von Dortmund, followed by a further sixth in 1312. With the shift of power in favor of the council, the necessity arose to distribute the tasks within it. In a document dated April 10, 1288, two magistri civium are mentioned for the first time. These mayors have been called proconsules since 1295, and in 1319 the German name borgermestere appeared for the first time . Other offices such as captain or chamberlain only emerged over the years; pending tasks were probably taken over after a specific reason. So while the city was consolidating its position vis-à-vis the count, it was also involved in disputes with the Archbishop of Cologne. This claimed patronage over the Reinoldikirche. But also in this canonical process, the Dortmund citizens were able to enforce them in 1290. The takeover of the royal brewing shelf on August 22, 1293 and the renewal and expansion of the Grutrechts by King Adolf von Nassau in 1296 were again important for economic history . Anyone who wanted to brew in the city had to get the grut, a beer wort, from the city's Grutmeister. (The first reference to a miner among the citizens of Dortmund also dates back to 1296. ) On April 26, 1297 there was another big fire in the city, but this did not have any further effects on the city's history, perhaps also because many citizens acted a pilgrimage to Syburg.
Meanwhile, the Hanseatic League began to change from a merchants' association to an alliance of cities. In 1299, the Dortmund citizen Heinrich Calvus took part in economic and political consultations with Hanseatic cities in Lübeck. In terms of foreign policy, the situation for Dortmund gradually came to a head. Around 1300 the realms of Westhofen, Brackel and Elmenhorst were transferred to the Grafschaft Mark. The Dortmund area was completely enclosed by this and the Vest Recklinghausen. The latter belonged to the Archbishopric of Cologne, and the Archbishop of Cologne also held some liens on the city. For example, King Wilhelm of Holland pledged the Dortmund Jewish shelf to him in 1248. Contradictory double pledging of this shelf in the following period as well as harassment led to the first wave of emigration among Dortmund's Jews around 1300.
Despite the external threat, the city's rise continued. As mentioned above, from 1312 the city had half of the jurisdiction in the county of Dortmund . When the last count from the Dortmund line, Konrad III, died in 1316, there were inheritance disputes. When this lasted, King Ludwig the Bavarian transferred the county to the city in 1320 until the heirs had come to an agreement, and also stipulated that the county should never fall into hands other than the heirs or the city. In the same year, however, Konrad Stecke was established as the heir; but on November 30 of the same year the Dortmunders bought half of the county from him. The private people , the count's house and the Martin's chapel (which, as the Liber valoris shows , however, had no parish rights) were excluded from this trade . The rise was likely accompanied by population growth. An indication of this is the start of construction on St. Peter's Church, presumably towards the end of 1322. Another reason for the construction of a fourth parish church could also have been the disputes over the settlement of the Dominicans in previous years. In 1309, the future Emperor Heinrich VII had given the prior of the Saxon Dominican Province permission to found a convent in Dortmund; the papal by Clement V followed a year later. This decision met with resistance from the Dortmund parish clergy and the patriciate from which the clergy was recruited. After a decision by the Cologne Official Court , they had to leave the city again in 1313. Newly sent monks were expelled from the city in 1315. Although Pope John XXII. the legality of the settlement again in 1319, but the Dominicans were again expelled the following year. The settlement was not made until 1330 with the help of the guilds. The Beguines, on the other hand, fared better. Their possessions expanded, and in 1315 the Kohlgarten Abbey was first mentioned, in which all of Dortmund's beguines were later united.
The reason for the rise of Dortmund was probably the excellent trade relations, especially with England. The importance of the wool trade in particular can be seen from a few figures. Between 1328 and 1342 Dortmunders imported 13,206 sacks of wool from England to Germany , which corresponded to almost all wool imports from England and around ten percent of English wool exports.
The Dortmunders wrote not only German economic history about the wool trade , but also a piece of European history. With credit transactions with the English royal family during the Hundred Years War , banking activities by merchants in Germany are documented for the first time, and that on a large scale. The sums involved are not only immeasurably high for the time; At times the entire English kingdom is on the drip of the Dortmund Hanseatic League. Most spectacular of all was probably the pledge of the Great (English) royal crown to a consortium led by Dortmund merchants. The crown first went to Archbishop Balduin of Luxembourg on February 27, 1339 and was to be redeemed for 50,000 guilders in the summer of the same year . When this failed, Dortmund merchants took over the remaining debt of 45,000 guilders and kept the crown “on the mainland” until 1343, before returning it to Konrad Klepping , Tidemann Lemberg , Johann vom Walde and Johann Klepping on December 26th of the same year.
Calculations have shown that Dortmund merchants Eduard III. between 1327 and 1345 loaned a total of about half a million guilders. How enormous this sum was can be seen from the fact that the English king had to surrender all customs duties on wool, the main commodity, to his Dortmund bankers, who in addition to Lemberg and Klepping also included Heinrich Muddepenning and Siegfried Spissenagel, from 1340 onwards. This early “ public-private partnership ” led to political partisanship. Konrad Klepping even visited the English king personally to give him a report on the French fleet off the coast of Flanders - the Dortmunders had also gained a foothold in Bruges, where a street was named after them, and were therefore well informed. Klepping received his travel expenses for this contribution to the victory in the naval battle of Sluis on June 24, 1340 with special thanks.
With the wealth of the city, so did the people's sense of art. The Reinoldus statue in the Reinoldikirche, which was probably built in the first half of the 14th century, provides first evidence of this. This wealth naturally aroused the desire of the surrounding territorial rulers. As early as 1328, the city had been paying the Counts von der Mark an annual protection fee of 60 marks , to which often additional payments were made for various reasons. The situation came to a head when the Hörde settlement in the Brandenburg region was granted city rights in 1340 . Lünen followed a year later . Together with Herdecke , Witten , Bochum , Castrop , Unna and Schwerte , some of which also received city or market rights at this time , the Counts of the Mark now had a dense ring of cities that was supposed to break Dortmund's dominant position in the region . The strategic location of Dortmund was extremely unfavorable, with the cities mentioned above, the Counts of the Mark controlled the access routes to Dortmund, on which the trading city was urgently dependent. On March 18, 1352, in the course of a feud with the Count of Arnsberg, there was even an unsuccessful brief siege and an equally unsuccessful attempt to surprise him at night by Count Engelbert III. from the mark . But Dortmund's influence also extended beyond the city area and the county of Dortmund. In 1335, for example, the free chairs in front of the castle gate in Brechte , Waltrop , Elmenhorst, Rauschenburg , Altlünen and Brackel were mentioned for the first time.
Overall, Dortmund's position was so consolidated that these attacks did not threaten their regional supremacy for the time being. The inner unity certainly contributed to this. On August 25, 1332, Dortmund had already received a privilege from Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian, which von Winterfeld referred to as " Dortmund's Magna Charta ". Even if this document probably only laid down older customary law, it was important insofar as it represented the fundamental constitutional document until the end of Reich freedom. In addition to the previous imperial privileges, such as the legal principle " City air makes you free ", the document mainly contained information on the internal constitution and thus safeguarded this under imperial constitutional law. It was determined that the council consisted of 18 councilors elected for life and that there was a change of council every year. Thus there were to a certain extent two councils, the “early” or “new council”, which conducted the official business, and the “old council”, which remained connected to the official business. Anyone who was born in wedlock, was married and inherited and belonged to the old families of Dortmund was advisable. If the “inheritance” initially referred to property in the city, which in turn was a prerequisite for citizenship , membership in the Reinoldigilde was later also a prerequisite.
When, in addition to these heirs, the cloth merchants trading in woven and milled fabrics, who had also become long-distance traders through the expansion of their trade, increasingly became members of the Reinoldigilde, it split in the middle of the 14th century. In the Junker Society (first mentioned in 1370) the old patrician families were united and in the wall tailoring society (first mentioned in 1346) the aspiring long-distance merchants. The Wandschneidergesellschaft was later allowed (from 1383) to determine six of the 18 electors. The common citizens were still excluded from the passive right to vote , who only provided twelve of the 18 electors above the six guilds (see above). Already the determination of 18 council members in the privilege suggests that the craftsmen increasingly tried to exert influence and possibly even wanted to appoint council members themselves.
Even the imperial privilege did not put an end to this dispute. Rather, the citizens tried to hand over a copy of the document to the emperor without the four paragraphs for council election. The imperial chancellery was to be bribed with a large sum of money. The fraud was discovered, however, and the emperor reprimanded the citizens of Dortmund in a mandate dated May 5, 1333 for their "ridiculous and donkey-like ideas" and withheld the money as a punishment. Nevertheless, the urban ruling class opened up with the split of the Reinoldigilde. When there were disputes over forest and grazing rights with the imperial people and their patron, the Count von der Mark, in addition to the council, the heirs and the six guilds appeared as representatives of the common citizens. From 1354 these three groups acted together in all important city resolutions, even if the development of the hereditary and six guilds into organized colleges was not completed until around 1400.
The Black Death reached Dortmund in 1350, but did not have as devastating consequences here as elsewhere. The Jews were attacked as the alleged culprits. These had just been able to establish themselves in the city, as the purchase of the Jewish cemetery in front of the city wall in 1336 or the purchase of the synagogue ten years later shows. Unlike in other cities, where the pogroms led to the burning and execution of the Jews, the Dortmund Jews were "only" expelled from the city.
In 1358 the previously independent cities of Cologne and Bremen became members of the Hanseatic League, and the change towards the city alliance continued. This alliance soon began to wage wars of its own - a development that Dortmund tried to oppose. So they stayed away from the Hanseatic League in Cologne in 1367 , when the naval war against Denmark was decided. In any case, the relationship with neighboring states was the focus for Dortmund at that time. Dortmund tried to accommodate an open discussion, as already described above, through cooperation and concessions. The first alliance with the Counts of the Mark goes back to February 28, 1364; In 1376 another alliance was concluded that regulated the behavior in the event of a dispute. Nonetheless, there were repeated attacks on the city, for example on July 17, 1377, when it was sieged and bombarded by Count Wilhelm II , a relative of the Brandenburg counts.
The city received a short respite when Emperor Charles IV visited the city on November 23 and 24, 1377, coming from Lübeck. Incidentally, this was the first imperial visit since 1224 and was to remain the last in the only remaining Westphalian imperial city for the rest of the time in the imperial city. It was celebrated accordingly by the city. Around 200 horsemen marched towards the emperor as far as the city limits of Unna, the mayors symbolically handed him the city keys in Körne, the entire clergy and the citizens welcomed him there, and together they went to the Reinoldikirche. In a solemn service, the emperor, an enthusiastic relic collector, was allowed to take two pieces of bone from the Reinoldus relic. In return, the emperor renewed the privilege of 1332, issued a document in which it was emphasized that the city should never be pledged or sold to a foreign sovereign without the consent of the Dortmund citizens, and demanded the Counts of Mark and von Berg as well as the Archbishop of Cologne in defense of this status.
Only a few weeks later, from January 16 to 18, Empress Elisabeth visited the city again. The imperial visit was seen by contemporaries as a great diplomatic success due to the issuing of the documents; However, there were also doubts as to whether these privileges could be maintained against the surrounding territorial rulers and under Charles' son Wenceslaus . These doubts should turn out to be justified. On October 4, 1378, the city was betrayed by Agnes von der Vierbecke , the widow of a Dortmund Sudermann, but who was closer to her relatives in Brandenburg. As in the Trojan horse , a band of soldiers from the Brandenburg region, hidden in two hay wagons, was to be led into the city. As soon as the outer gate was opened, she sent the porter to buy a Potthast (incidentally one of the earliest mentions of this Dortmund court) and gave the other soldiers lurking in the ambush the agreed signal. However, the inner gate was still locked, and so this attack could be repelled. The Dortmunders recognized Engelbert III's handwriting in this attack. von der Mark and subsequently had ridiculous poems circulating about him - a sign of how safe the Dortmunders felt in their city. The defensive measures taken by the city had certainly also led to this. As early as 1367, the city had bought the Dortmund royal court from the Counts of the Mark. In 1387 she bought the lordship and the Mengede court from the Count of Limburg and handed it over to Ernst von Bodelschwingh as a man's fief . In addition, the city walls were reinforced again in the same year. The fact that the city continued to develop despite this external threat is shown by the foundation of the inn in 1358, the return of the Jews in 1373, the first mention of a goldsmith's guild in 1378 and that of an arm plaque in 1382.
The situation changed when the Grafschaft Mark allied with Kurköln. The Archbishop of Cologne Friedrich III. von Saar Werden had received liens on Dortmund from Charles IV in 1346 as well as from Wenzel in 1375, but could not allow them to take effect. Nevertheless, due to internal disputes, there was never an alliance with the Brandenburg counts. When these were overcome, they tried to submit Dortmund to their rule. On February 21, 1388, the archbishop of Cologne's feud reached the Dortmund council, and the next day that of Count von der Mark. This started the great Dortmund feud . More and more sovereigns joined the coalition against Dortmund, among them the archbishops and electors of Mainz and Trier , the bishops of Augsburg , Bamberg , Münster , Paderborn and Osnabrück , the count palatine near Rhine and the dukes and counts of Jülich - Berg - Ravensberg , Württemberg , Moers , Sponheim , Braunschweig-Lüneburg , Tecklenburg , Rietberg and Holstein-Pinneberg . There were also some smaller Westphalian towns and around 1,200 members of the rural lower nobility .
This coalition initially appears to be overpowering, but most of the coalition members only took part in this war pro forma. Accordingly, there was no formation of an otherwise usual mercenary army. On the other hand, Dortmund could rely on its strong city walls. In addition, the city recruited 70 knights , 49 pikemen and 29 English archers and was able to rely on the support of four noble helpers, who also provided another 79 riders at their own expense. In contrast, support from the allied cities was rather weak. A request from Dortmund, after all one of the leading Hanseatic cities of the time, to grant loans, the other Hanseatic cities hardly complied. Only Lübeck, Stralsund , Deventer and Zwolle granted loans totaling a rather modest 2,000 guilders. Apparently the scope of the attack, which, together with the war against the South German Association of Cities, formed the prelude to a series of clashes between a city and a coalition of princes, was not recognized. The city returned the feud on February 22nd, and immediately afterwards the first acts of war broke out. The people of Cologne set up their camp north of the castle gate and built the Rovenburg. The Brandenburg troops settled in the west of the city on the Emscher near the city mill and tore it down to build a tower with the stones. So the city should be cut off from the outside world and starved. The first shelling occurred on February 24; the actual bombardment of the city by the Brandenburg troops did not begin until April 17th. Dortmund returned the canon and probably caused considerable damage to the attackers. On May 29, there was a first failure of Dortmund. These failures continued throughout the feud; based on old chronicles, their number is estimated at 110.
The first attempts at mediation were made early on. The Cologne and Märker first presented their demands on June 24; but these were flatly rejected by the Dortmunders. There were further mediation attempts throughout the feud. After the first failed negotiations, the bombardment was intensified on June 30; the 238 stone balls destroyed only a few buildings and killed a cow and two pigs. On July 10th, there was then a violent counterfire from Dortmund, in which a modern powder gun was probably used. This weapon terrified the attackers to such an extent that they loosened the siege ring - an important step for the outcome of the war, as the Dortmunders could now again cultivate the fields in front of the city wall. Since the city had also stocked up even larger grain stores before the feud, starvation of the city now seemed hopeless. Despite appropriate provocations, Dortmund did not allow itself to be tempted into an open field battle, but instead concentrated on the abovementioned failures, which were probably also necessary to secure supplies. On October 3rd, one of these succeeded in destroying the Rovesburg; On December 12th, the defenders set fire to Schüren in order to lure the garrison castle out of it. The Dortmunders then wanted to take the city with a force of around 600 men. But this attack failed.
The feud now continued with no victory for either side or an amicable settlement in sight. Dortmund tried to end the feud by placing Count von der Mark in front of the Dortmund Freigericht on April 27, 1389. But when the latter invited Dortmund in front of the Märkischen free chair in Kamen , the city withdrew the indictment. Instead she called the Royal Court of Justice ; King Wenceslas only wrote a letter to the besiegers, in which he asked them to refrain from their request. Worn down by the long siege, serious negotiations began on November 4th with Soest's mediation. Dortmund was not yet ready to make concessions on this either; only after pressure from the conduct of negotiations in Soest did the city agree to a “voluntary payment” of 7,000 guilders each to Kurköln and the county of Mark. However, this voluntary payment was not recorded in the peace treaty; evidently the Dortmunders wanted to avoid even the appearance of defeat. Immediately after the peace treaty on November 22nd, the siege was lifted, the prisoners exchanged and the previous status legally restored. Overall, Dortmund emerged as the clear winner from the feud. How important this victory was can also be seen from the fact that in the 18th century, looking back on these events and the steadfastness of their ancestors, the people of Dortmund used the eloquent expression "So fast as Düörpm" (German: As firm as Dortmund) summarized.
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Despite the military victory, the cost of the feud, around 60,000 guilders, was so high that it was widely assumed that this event triggered the downfall of Dortmund. According to this point of view, the following period would only have been a “cultural re-bloom”. Recent research contradicts this and attributes the city's loss of importance to structural problems. Indeed, the city's burden of war costs was heavy, especially as it encountered a financial administration unprepared for such events. Taxes and duties were decided on a situational basis; there was no forward-looking financial policy that also built reserves. Accordingly, the city struggled to repay its loans and interest, and the city's finances were repeatedly on the verge of collapse throughout the 1390s. For this reason, new excise duties , for example on wine, beer, meat and salt, a property tax and a sales tax ("Opkome") were introduced. In addition to the financial burden, diseases also plagued the city, such as a smallpox epidemic from June to August 1394 and an epidemic known as the plague in 1400 .
Meanwhile, the financial situation deteriorated increasingly. On September 16, 1399, the council presented a report on the financial situation, in which grievances came to light. When no solution to the problem was in sight, a revolution took place in 1400 against the patrician council, about whose supposedly wasteful and careless behavior the guilds had already complained before. The old council was dismissed and forced to approve a new one. The councilors were locked in twos in the city towers. On February 24, however, an agreement was reached between the two parties, which was to have far-reaching consequences. The claims of the Dortmund creditors against the city were dropped - a step that led to some wealthy families giving up their citizenship in order to be able to maintain the claims against the city. The conflict continued to smolder and only came to a standstill on December 5th, when this was officially announced by exclamation.
This also confirmed the constitutional amendment regarding the composition of the Council. From then on, each of the six guilds had one councilor and the patricians only twelve. The composition of the electors also changed: the six guilds still made up twelve of the electors and the heirs six, but these six so-called guild heirs no longer came from the patriciate (they were members of the wall tailoring society) and were elected by the six guilds. The twelve guild electors in turn formed the so-called twenty-four class with another twelve so-called predecessors, who were directly elected by the six guilds. The choice of the other members of this college was in the hands of the predecessors. On the other hand, the heirs were also organized in a college to which, in addition to the guild heirs, six other heirs belonged. From the 15th century onwards, only the members of this college were referred to as heirs. The twenty-four class and the council of heirs initially had an advisory role in addition to the election of the council, but then gained in importance as additional organs alongside the council. There were repeated disputes before the Reichshofrat about their precise constitutional competencies . It is true that the council was the supreme body before the college of peasants and the twenty-four class; but the principle has become established that the decision of two bodies overruled that of a third. The other citizens and their guilds were just as unaffected as guests, clergymen, residents and Jews. From 1403 the six guild law regulated the relationship among the craft guilds. The main features of this constitution were valid until the dissolution of imperial immediacy in 1803.
Despite these changes, the city's debt burden remained enormous. In the years after 1400 Dortmund fell in eight and spell because the city could not pay their debts. The seriousness of this can perhaps be seen from the fact that the Dortmund Jews were expelled from the city on November 12, 1403 for this reason. It was not until the 1420s that the city was able to free itself from this worry. A prerequisite for this was certainly the reduced external threat from the merger of Kleve and Mark in 1391 and the resulting concentration on the Lower Rhine area. The support of King Siegmund , to whom the city turned in 1417 with a request for support, probably also contributed . The king complied with this request, for example by confirming the Dortmund mint in 1418/19 . The fact that Dortmund was gaining influence again at this time can be seen, for example, from the fact that it took second place to the left of Lübeck behind Hamburg at the Hanseatic Congress in 1418 . Nevertheless, the suburb of Dortmund in the west, if not yet in Westphalia, was increasingly endangered by Cologne. Numerous works of art also bear witness to the new bloom during this period. The Berswordt Altar in St. Mary's Church was built shortly before 1400 ; The eagle's desk in the Reinoldikirche dates from the first half of the 15th century , and in 1421 construction work began on the Ratschor of the Reinoldikirche (with which the council effectively took over the right of patronage over the church). The most important Dortmund work of art from this period is likely to be the Marien Altar by the painter Conrad von Soest , created around 1420 .
Another indicator of Dortmund's renewed rise is probably the outstanding position of the Dortmund Feme among the females courts. Dortmund had been a court of appeal since 1418 and was considered the first and highest free chair in the empire. On September 2, 1430, an important meeting of the general count took place in front of it. This supremacy ended abruptly when the Archbishop of Cologne Dietrich II von Moers set up a new free chair in Arnsberg in 1437 and declared it to be the highest. The Dortmund free chair "to the mirror" came to a virtual standstill.
During this time, several outbreaks of disease occurred that severely affected the city. In June / July 1429 a quarter of the residents died of the plague; on September 20, 1436 another epidemic broke out, and three years later there was another outbreak of the plague.
Just when the city had recovered financially from the consequences of the Great Feud, it had to make contributions to the Hussite campaign again in 1422 . However, this contribution is also an indication of the city's financial recovery. The fact that the city had not yet fully regained its old power can be seen from the events during the Soest feud from 1444 to 1449. This dispute began when Soest, which belongs to Cologne, renounced allegiance to its sovereign and joined the Duchy of Kleve-Mark. Dortmund was too weak to be neutral on this issue and was also internally split into two camps. The Soestisch-Klevisch-minded party invoked the renewed alliances with Soest in 1443. Their opponents pointed out that the emperor had imposed the eight on the renegade city. Other arguments, such as sympathy with a city rebelling against the territorial rule of Cologne or the threat to Dortmund's increase in power from Kleve-Mark, also played a role. Violent arguments broke out between these parties, each headed by Kleppings, at the end of which the Cologne side gained the upper hand. As a result of the defeat of Cologne, which caused unrest in the city, Dortmund had to endure devastation and attacks. Around 1,446,318 citizens of Dortmund were taken prisoner in Kleve.
In 1453 the last of the Dortmund counts from the Lindenhorst family died. Dortmund would actually have granted the remaining half of the county now, but at this point the city was too weak to assert its claim, and so half of the county went to the Stecke house.
At the same time, however, the city continued to develop. Evidence for this are the mentions of new guilds (1437 Pelzer and Weißgerber guild , 1448 wool weaver guild , 1450 Schröder guild ), the start of philosophy and theology studies in the Minorite monastery in 1444, the beginning of the sacristy extension to the Reinoldikirche two years later and also the completion of the Dominican church today's Propsteikirche St. Johann, 1458, whose high altar shows the oldest city view of Dortmund in a painting by Derick Baegert .
The external threat to the city also persisted. On November 23, 1457, the attempt by Cracht Steckes , the father of the Count of Dortmund, to conquer the city by betrayal, was repulsed. In the following years, however, the internal disasters were of greater danger. In 1459 a fire destroyed a large part of the Brückstrasse. In 1483 there was a bad harvest, as a result of which 2000 people had to be provided with food in the inn. In the same year the plague broke out. The French disease reached the city in 1508 , and the plague also kept Dortmund under control for 20 years from then on (peak: 1513). Overall, Dortmund's star sank significantly, especially due to the realignment of trade towards sea trade. A statue of Charlemagne was completed in 1460 (or 1470) in the Reinoldikirche and a high altar was completed in 1470 (or 1480) in the Dominican Church (which, by the way, shows the first city view of Dortmund), but from 1473, for example, the Dortmunders no longer made it Aldermann in London. Although were at the attack of Ivan III. At the Peterhof in 1494 there were still three Dortmund merchants among the twelve Westphalian prisoners, but in the same year Dortmund had to relinquish its suburb function to Münster. The establishment of the Reich Chamber Court in 1495 represented a further loss of power .
The only bright spot during this time was the enfeoffment of the city with the entire county of Dortmund after the death of Johann Steckes on October 12, 1504. Thus, at the end of the Middle Ages, Dortmund stood as a completely free, but now insignificant city , which was now part of the Westphalian Empire .
Early modern age
At the beginning of the 16th century, the events within the city of Dortmund were also dominated by the beginning church division . As early as the second half of the 15th century, there were pre-Reformation efforts by individual citizens in Dortmund; so in 1478 and 1488 the Dortmund Inquisition Court proceeded against one citizen each. In 1515 the jubilee indulgence was also sold in Dortmund , first in the Dominican monastery, later also in the Petri and finally in the Reinoldikirche. In addition, there were conflicts between the city clergy and the citizenry in the years 1518/1519 and 1523–1525. The anger of the citizens was initially directed against the special tax position of the clergy. The council therefore forbade the clergy around 1518 to engage in trade and industry; in response, the clergy imposed an interdict on the city, which was only lifted by Cardinal Cajetan after more than six months . In 1523 there was severe criticism of the cleric Johann von Berchem for excessive monetary advantages at funerals. The actual reformatory endeavors in Dortmund also came from individual clergymen. The vicar of the Reinoldikirche married around 1523, and the rector of the prestigious Reinoldischule is said to have taught his students Evangelical from 1526. The ideas of the Reformation then spread throughout the city; A first settlement was made in 1525, and after the Reich adoption of Speyer in 1526, the Six Guilds demanded Protestant preachers instead of Catholic pastors from the council in 1527 on behalf of the citizens. However, since there was no perfect unity within the guilds, the council was initially able to continue its old-believing policy. The sharp anti-Protestant mandate of the emperor of 1529 may have contributed to this. Six years later, however, the pressure from the citizens became so great that the council, together with the twelve and twenty-four booths, allowed the evangelical sermon in Dortmund. In the context of the Münster Anabaptist unrest in 1532/1533, the reaction in the council initially gained the upper hand again, but in the long term this position could no longer prevail in the citizenship. There were also a few Anabaptists in Dortmund; however, if they were citizens of Dortmund, the council took sharp action against them; In 1538 a member of the Anabaptist movement was beheaded.
The increasing internal division was not without its dangers for the city's independence. Johann der Friedfertige , who came from Count House Mark, had been Duke of Kleve and Berg since 1511 (ten years later he even succeeded in uniting Jülich, Kleve and Berg ); he had taken a look at Dortmund early on. In 1513 the city entered into a pseudo-friendship agreement with him by undertaking to pay 1500 guilders protection money annually and to recognize him as their bailiff and patron for life. She also promised to personally ask the emperor for consent to this patronage. As expected, Emperor Maximilian disagreed and made it clear that, as the Roman Emperor, he alone was the legitimate patron of the city. At the same time he urged the duke not to take action against the city. This was a double success for the city; Not only had a limit been set for the expansion of the dukes of Klevian-Brandenburg, but also the claims of the Archbishop of Cologne, who still acted as patron of the city, were now opposed by a clear statement by the emperor. The loan from Gerd von Bodelschwingh to the Bodelschwingh house in the county of Mark also served to secure the outside world . Dortmund retained a central location function in the following period; on March 30, 1517, the district assembly of the Lower Rhine-Westphalian Empire met in Dortmund. (Further district days took place on September 1, 1556, December 8, 1587, August 1, 1589, April 28, 1597, September 26, 1598, August 15, 1600, October 20, 1603, August 1605, August 21, 1606, February 1607 and July 4, 1701 in Dortmund.)
The city continued to flourish culturally. The Reinoldikirche received a new tower on April 4, 1519, and in 1521 the Dortmund Franciscans commissioned Jan Gillisz Wrage in Antwerp for an altarpiece , which is now known as the Golden Miracle of Westphalia and is located in the Petrikirche. Nevertheless, Dortmund's star overall sank during this time; von Winterfeld states that with the rise of Hamm and Unna to principal cities in 1540, the city was only in third place within the Westphalian quarter of the Hanseatic League.
In 1529, the English sweat swept 497 Dortmund citizens.
Internally, the Reformation continued to advance since the 1540s. The schools in the city churches were reformed in line with humanism ; The most important event was the re-establishment of the Archigymnasium in 1543 . This was the first school in Dortmund that was not a church institution but was directly subordinate to the city. It was through them that the school's teachers, who, humanistically shaped, strived for a middle ground between the Catholic and the Protestant positions, gained some influence on the city's church policy. They included personalities such as Johann Lambach and Jakob Schöpper . In the following years, the Archigymnasium quickly rose to become one of the leading schools for scholars in West Germany. An important impetus for the further Reformation in the city came in 1555: the Augsburg Religious Peace granted the imperial estates freedom of religion, but also guaranteed protection for the Catholic institutions in the imperial cities. A year later, denominationalization began in Dortmund. The disputes seem to have been carried into the city primarily from outside; so primarily the Cologne Jesuits and the preacher Johann Heitfeld (who had been dismissed as chaplain of St. Mary's in 1557) and Hermann Hamelmann faced each other. The dispute lasted into the 1570s, with the Lutheran party eventually gaining the upper hand.
The positioning to the old or new belief was essentially related to the social position. As mentioned above, the guilds and the common bourgeoisie sided with Protestantism, while the patrician families still largely clung to the old faith. The change to the Lutheran faith took place gradually in Dortmund. In 1562 the council ordered free election of the Lord's Supper in all parish churches; a year later the majority of pastors were Protestant; a year later, German chants were allowed in the churches. In 1570 the citizenship was finally obliged to a uniform (Lutheran) creed, and in the same year the preachers presented the Confessio Praedicantium Tremoniensium (which follows the Confessio Augustana ). With their acceptance at the parish churches of Sankt Reinoldi, Sankt Marien and Sankt Nicolai and in 1572 at Sankt Petri, the Reformation prevailed in Dortmund, although the remaining Catholic minority continued to seek re-Catholicization of the city and support in the monasteries and those that were actually Catholic under canon law Organization of the parish churches under Cologne influence took place. In 1604 the emperor demanded restitution of the churches. At the latest with the transfer of the Reinoldus relics to Toledo on May 11, 1614, the evangelical position in the city was consolidated. All in all, it can be said that the Reformation in Dortmund was very peaceful, although there were repeated internal tensions. For example, Johann Lambach was no longer considered in the council election in 1568.
In 1581 there was a first wave of witch hunts in Dortmund. As early as 1451 a woman was buried alive under the gallows for sorcery, and in 1514 three women were accused of sorcery and captured, but were finally released again; 1567 was a woman of Brechten as " molkentoversche " denounced, but acquitted in court. The persecutions of 1581 began when Anna Coesters was accused of sorcery on April 19th. The " Examination of the Water " on June 5th and the sentencing to death by burning on June 7th led to a veritable witch craze. More than a month later, on July 23, Gertrud Nevelings was also beheaded as a witch, and finally on August 17, Bernd Badde was beheaded with two women for sorcery. An even worse wave of witch persecution began again in 1593. A total of 15 women were executed in Dortmund during this time, many other people had to leave the city, only two accused were acquitted. The last person to be executed was Cathrina Peters on December 11 ; after that the persecution broke off abruptly and convicts were allowed to return to the city. Although denunciations continued in the following period, they no longer led to executions. On October 2, 2014, the City Council of Dortmund passed a resolution on the socio-ethical and moral rehabilitation of the victims of the witch trials.
The final decline of Dortmund began with the Thirty Years War . In previous years, trade had already been threatened by armed conflict; so quartierten to Spanish troops 1598/99 of the course Dutch Freedom War one in the county Dortmund; In the course of the Jülich-Klevischen succession dispute over the area jointly administered by Pfalz-Neuburg and Brandenburg (-Prussia) since the Dortmund recession of 1609 , the city was also attacked by Spanish troops on January 31, 1616, but different from Soest and Lippstadt not taken. As a result, and probably also in view of the impending great conflict, the city increased the guard and even carried out a general inspection in 1618. During the Thirty Years War Dortmund, as the Protestant imperial city of the Catholic Emperor, initially tried to adopt a neutral stance. For example, in 1625 the citizens were forbidden to be recruited for foreign military service. Troop moves, billeting and raids were initially prevented by salvagardia and "voluntary" payments; but already in 1622 the city had to accept a first, unsuccessful siege. The situation came to a head after the Catholic League had succeeded in recatholizing the Münsterland . In 1627 the emperor renewed the mandate from 1604. In 1628 an occupation by Tilly could be prevented by clever negotiation; in the county, however, his troops quartered themselves for ten months, which in fact amounted to a siege of the city. During this time the city had to pay a contribution of 80,000 Reichstaler . On March 6, 1629, Emperor Ferdinand II issued the edict of restitution , and Dortmund was one of the first cities in which it was to be enforced. Negotiations prevented the return of the now Protestant church property until King Gustav Adolf finally intervened in the war on June 26, 1630 , which pushed the re-Catholicization of Dortmund into the background.
But this success did not last long. In 1632 the neutral city refused entry into the city for Gottfried Heinrich zu Pappenheim's troops on their way from Magdeburg to Maastricht . At first one wanted to defy a siege; But when Pappenheim had Dortmund shelled on July 21, 1632 and some houses caught fire, they surrendered. Pappenheim demanded a contribution of 50,000 thalers as a waiver for the burning down, which could be reduced to 17,000 thalers in negotiations, but still represented an enormous burden for the imperial city. Some of the troops remained in the city, and it was not until January 17, 1633 that the city was able to buy itself out with 20,000 Reichstalers. But just a few weeks later, on February 6th, the Protestant Landgrave Wilhelm of Hesse entered the city without resistance. This led to violent clashes in the city. The two rich mayors and a councilor could not be re-elected; a guild master was elected second councilor for the first time. The decision in favor of Wilhelm von Hessen was devastating for the city; the occupation lasted four years and residents were severely harassed, according to contemporary reports.
In 1635 and 1636, an epidemic of plague raged in the city, killing 910 people. In the same year imperial troops succeeded in taking the city after a week of siege and shelling; the Hessian troops left the city at the urging of the Dortmund citizens, who even paid them a contribution of 29,000 thalers. The advancing soldiers completely disarmed the city, confiscated all grain stores to supply the troops of the Catholic League and demanded weekly contributions of 625 Reichstalers. In addition, there was the usual catering for the billeted troops under the previous occupations, continued looting in town and county, despite contribution payments, as well as a slowdown in economic life. As a result of these burdens, many middle-class families left the city after it was captured by the imperial troops. When the Emperor demanded 150 Roman months (14,400 guilders) in 1638 , Dortmund could no longer provide this service. The city's complaint shows that by that time 500 houses had already been destroyed by the war. So misery and hardship continued in the city; even the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 did not mean the end of the occupation of Dortmund. Although the city was co-signatory as a free imperial city, imperial freedom could be secured and the Reformation enforced, but since the city still owed 120 Roman months and 7,000 Reichstaler in compensation for Sweden, the imperial troops stayed in the city and moved two and a half Swedish equestrian companies entered the county. The city took out a loan and paid the Swedish troops a total of over 90,000 Reichstaler for the occupation of the county, so that on April 4, 1650 they finally withdrew from the county. The city paid the last installment of 2000 Reichstalers on July 27, 1650 to the imperial troops, who then withdrew from the city.
The consequences of the war were devastating for Dortmund, as for many other places. The population had shrunk to around a third (around 2000 inhabitants); there were hardly 300 houses left (according to the city's exaggerated information); the city was overindebted with 130,000 Reichstalers, a sum that could only be paid off from the middle of the 18th century; trade had partially come to a standstill and with that the old trade relations had fallen asleep, the fields and forests were devastated. The merchants had died, moved away from Dortmund or had lost a lot of their wealth. The characteristic case of Wilhelm Mallinckrodt is documented, whose fortune comprised 4,000 thaler in 1628 and only 2,500 in 1636.
The first Dortmund newspaper appeared on January 14, 1769. Gottschalk Diedrich Baedeker published the first edition of the Dortmund mixed newspapers .
19th century: Industrial revolution and rise to the big city
Dortmund was a free imperial city until 1803; then the city came to Nassau-Dillenburg as a result of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss . In 1808, Dortmund became a prefecture of the Ruhr department as part of the Napoleonic Grand Duchy of Berg . The Ruhr-Département consisted of the three arrondissements Dortmund, Hamm and Hagen. At its head was the prefect, Baron Gisbert von Romberg zu Brünninghausen. Dortmund was designated the capital of the Ruhr department. Because it had a more favorable location and more suitable administrative buildings than Hamm, the former imperial city became the seat of the numerous administrative and judicial authorities.
After the Prussian victory over Napoleon, Dortmund became part of the Prussian civil government between Weser and Rhine in 1813 and was finally incorporated into the Prussian province of Westphalia in 1815 . Here Dortmund became the seat of a district within the administrative district of Arnsberg in 1817 . In 1875 Dortmund left the district and became an independent city. The revised urban order had already been introduced in 1835.
The suburbs that now belong to Dortmund belonged to the County of Dortmund and the Imperial Monastery of Essen until 1803 and to the County of Mark (offices of Bochum, Castrop, Hörde, Lünen, Schwerte / Westhofen and Unna) until 1803 , and until 1813 - like Dortmund itself - to the Ruhr Department of the Grand Duchy Berg and from 1815 also to the province of Westphalia . Within the district of Dortmund , today's suburbs belonged to the offices of Aplerbeck, Castrop, Hörde (from 1859 city and office Hörde, from 1874 city Hörde and offices Barop and Brackel), Lünen, Lütgendortmund (from 1874 separation of the office Annen, from 1886 offices Lütgendortmund and Dorstfeld) and Schwerte.
From the middle of the 19th century, the renewed rise of Dortmund and the change to an industrial city began with coal mining and steel processing . Since the opening of the Cologne-Mindener Railway in 1847, Dortmund has become an important transport hub in the Ruhr area. Another significant contribution to economic development was made in 1899 when the Dortmund-Ems Canal and with it the port were opened .
Dortmund's industrial history is closely linked to entrepreneurial personalities. The Iserlohn factory owner Hermann Dietrich Piepenstock founded the Hermannshütte in 1839 in the east of the (today's) Dortmund district of Hörde. This later resulted in the Hörder Bergwerks- und Hütten-Verein . In April 1871 the foundation stone of the Westfalenhütte was laid by the Düren entrepreneur Leopold Hoesch . The "father of the Ruhr area", the entrepreneur Friedrich Harkort , also founded industrial companies in Dortmund.
Industrialization paved Dortmund's way to becoming a big city. The city grew beyond the narrow borders of the medieval ramparts. After the opening of the Cologne-Minden Railway, it initially expanded to the north. From 1858, the city architect Ludwig built a right-angled street network with decorative squares (Steinplatz, Nordmarkt , Borsigplatz ) in Dortmund's northern part of the city.
After the opening of the railway line of the Rheinische Eisenbahngesellschaft to the Dortmund Südbahnhof in 1874, the area south of it was developed for urban planning purposes. Initially, industrial companies such as the guild brewery, the Fley factory and a brick factory settled here. But also municipal facilities such as the orphanage, the Luisenkrankenhaus and, in 1896, the royal master craftsman's school for mechanical engineers, the forerunner of today's Dortmund University of Applied Sciences , settled in the area, which at that time was mainly characterized by extensive gardens. Between 1902 and 1908, the civil servants' housing association began extensive construction work and built extensive housing developments in the immediate vicinity of the foremen's school.
On October 1st, 1901, the Dortmund fire brigade was founded, which in the following years grew together with the urban development and became bigger and bigger. Today the Dortmund fire brigade operates eight fire and rescue stations, a port base, an airport fire brigade , 19 fire engines from the volunteer fire brigade and a municipal rescue station as well as 14 rescue stations and emergency doctor locations, some of which are manned by the aid organizations .
20th century
The Hörde district was separated from the Dortmund district as early as 1887. In the district of Dortmund, the offices of Brackel, Castrop (from 1889 divided into the offices of Castrop and Mengede), Dorstfeld (from 1914 of Marten), Lünen (from 1905 to the city of Lünen and offices of Eving and Derne, from 1914 to the office of Brambauer) and Lütgendortmund. The newly formed district of Hörde comprised the towns of Hörde and Schwerte as well as the offices of Annen, Aplerbeck, Barop (from 1888 offices of Barop, Kirchhörde and Wellinghofen) and Westhofen. Hörde left the district of Hörde in 1911 and became an independent city.
As early as 1905, with the incorporation of Körne, a wave of incorporations began, which culminated in the 1928 law on the municipal reorganization of the Ruhr area .
The following municipalities were incorporated into the city of Dortmund:
- 1905: Municipality of Körne
- 1914: Municipalities of Deusen , Dorstfeld , Eving , Huckarde , Kemminghausen , Lindenhorst , Rahm and Wischlingen
- 1918: Brackel and Wambel parishes
- 1928: City district (since 1911) Hörde and communities of Asseln , Bodelschwingh , Bövinghausen , Brechte , Brüninghausen , Ellinghausen , Grevel , Holthausen , Kirchderne , Kirchlinde , Kley , Kurl , Lanstrop , Lütgendortmund , Marten , Mengede , Nette , Oespel , Schwieringhausen , Westerfilde , Wickede and parts of Derne (all district of Dortmund )
- 1929: Municipalities of Aplerbeck , Barop , Berghofen , Kirchhörde , Schüren , Sölde , Syburg and Wellinghofen (all districts of Hörde) and parts of Somborn
From 1906, the Dortmund General-Anzeiger was the largest German daily newspaper outside of Berlin.
The Dortmund gold find of late Roman coins was discovered in 1907.
Weimar Republic
The architect and town planner Hans Strobel , who initiated important building projects as town planning officer between 1915 and 1927, was important for the town's urban development . Under his leadership, the Volkspark Dortmund , the Rote Erde stadium , the Dortmund main cemetery and the Westfalenhalle were built.
As early as 1920, Wilhelm Ohnesorge founded one of the first local NSDAP groups outside of Bavaria in Dortmund . According to the membership list of May 1, 1920, it had 23 members. The local group very soon used the DNVP- affiliated weekly newspaper Rote Erde for their ethnic and anti-Semitic propaganda. On November 15, the party was banned by the Prussian Interior Minister. However, the party continued to work underground, disguised as the “reading community of the Deutsche Zeitung”.
The commissioning of Dortmund Airport at the Brackel location began on April 27, 1925 with the integration into the Copenhagen-Hamburg-Bremen-Dortmund-Frankfurt (M) -Stuttgart-Zurich airline.
In the city council elections in November 1929, the first National Socialist entered the city parliament. In 1930 the Westerfild teacher Rudolf Knoop founded the National Socialist Teachers Association of Westphalia under a false name .
Before the National Socialist seizure of power, there were frequent clashes between the communist workers of Dortmund's northern part of the city and the National Socialists on the Dortmund North Market . In the “Battle of the North Market” on October 16, 1932, two people died and 14 others were injured.
National Socialism and World War II
Hitler's first appearance in the city took place on February 18, 1933. In the run-up to the Reichstag elections, he spoke at a rally of the NSDAP in the Westfalenhalle.
The Reichstag election in March 1933 resulted in the following picture for Dortmund:
- NSDAP 27.0%
- KPD 23.1%
- SPD 20.8%
- German Center Party 18.4%
- DNVP 6.7%
- Protestant People's Service 1.9%
- DVP 1.4%
- DDP 0.7%
The synchronization of the press began in Dortmund immediately after the victory of the National Socialists. The Westfälische Allgemeine Volkszeitung , which was coined by Fritz Henßler since 1911, was banned. The last issue appeared on April 8, 1933 under the title Westfälische Post . Due to the publication of a critical Hitler caricature of the known press draftsman Emil Stumpp was Dortmund's General-Anzeiger , the largest appearing outside of Berlin German daily newspaper , in 1933 by the Nazis into line (see also: Press history ).
On April 20, 1933, Adolf Hitler became an honorary citizen of Dortmund. (The revocation of honorary citizenship took place immediately after the war in one of the first council meetings.)
On June 20, social democracy was banned, and on May 1, 1933, the unions were brought into line. Some supporters of the KPD, the SPD and the trade unions formed illegal resistance groups; also Edelweißpiraten as Kurt Piehl are guaranteed in Dortmund. On August 1, 1933, Lord Mayor Ernst Eichhoff retired under pressure from the NSDAP.
In September 1933, 60 communists, including 10 functionaries of the KPD district leadership, were transferred from the Dortmund police prison to the Papenburg concentration camp.
From 1935 onwards, large barracks were built on Westfalendamm, then Reichsstrasse 1.
In 1938 the Dortmund synagogue was torn down before the “ Reichspogromnacht ”, supposedly for urban planning reasons. Today the opera house stands on their premises ; a plaque commemorates the events.
The synagogues in the suburbs of Hörde and Dorstfeld were set on fire by the National Socialists during the Reichspogromnacht and later demolished. Numerous shops and apartments were devastated and looted in front of the police, and Jewish citizens were mistreated. The male wealthy Jewish citizens were then deported to concentration camps in order to force them to emigrate and to Aryanize their assets .
On January 27, 1942, around 1,000 Jews from the Arnsberg administrative district were deported to Riga from Dortmund . The deportations usually took place from Dortmund's Südbahnhof. In another seven transports, 4,000 Jews, Sinti and Roma and other undesirable persons were taken to concentration camps. In the psychiatric state hospital Dortmund-Aplerbeck in this time great atrocities took place. About 340 forced sterilizations were carried out. On July 1, 1941, 95 patients were first transported to Herborn , then transferred to the Hadamar killing center and killed there within a few days. A second deportation of 77 sick people was carried out on July 24, 1941 from Aplerbeck to Eichberg .
Between May 5, 1943 and March 12, 1945, the British Royal Air Force carried out a total of 105 air raids on the city.
Eight major attacks destroyed 70% of the existing living space and more than 90% of downtown Dortmund:
- May 5, 1943: around 100,000 bombs dropped
- May 24, 1943: 2248 t bomb load
- May 23, 1944: 140,814 bombs dropped
- October 6, 1944: around 165,000 bombs dropped
- November 11, 1944: bomb load 1659 t
- November 29, 1944: around 53,520 bombs dropped
- February 21, 1945: 2249 t bomb load
- March 12, 1945: bomb load 4851 t (Royal Air Force; according to another source 4,899 t)
The last attack on Dortmund on March 12, 1945 was the heaviest conventional air raid ever carried out against a city in Europe during the entire course of World War II. Dortmund was the most severely damaged city in Germany.
According to official statistics, only 6,341 people died in the nights of bombing. The reason for the relatively low number of victims given the extent of the attacks was the many air raid shelters that were built during the war. A tunnel several kilometers long and with a capacity of almost 100,000 people ran through the entire inner city. Many years later, fragments of this tunnel were rediscovered during the construction of the Dortmund Stadtbahn .
The destroyed property totaled over 6 billion Reichsmarks. All important authorities, administrations and shops as well as a large part of the existing industrial facilities fell victim to the destruction.
From March 7 to April 12, 1945, around 300 people were murdered in a clearing in the Bittermark city forest , in Rombergpark and on the railway site between Hörde and Berghofen. One day later, on April 13, 1945, Dortmund was occupied by US troops. On April 19, 1945, the exhumation of the bodies in the Bittermark began. Those killed were forced laborers from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Poland and Russia and German resistance fighters who were abducted from the Hörder Gestapokeller and the Steinwache to Rombergpark and Bittermark and murdered there. The Bittermark Memorial, erected in 1960, commemorates these crimes in the final stages .
Reconstruction, economic miracle and structural change
Since Dortmund lost almost 70% of its living space after the war, contemporary reports suggest that it was initially considered not to rebuild the city center. Overall, however, the reconstruction proceeded quickly.
By June 1945, all mines in the Dortmund city area were able to resume operations and start mining coal. On December 31, 1945, the first blast furnace at Hoesch after the war was put into operation.
The Westfälische Rundschau appeared on March 20, 1946 as the first Dortmund local newspaper after the war. The Westdeutsche Tageblatt followed later and the Ruhr-Nachrichten in 1949.
In 1946, the SPD emerged victorious in the first local election after the war with 46% of the vote.
The worldwide demand for steel and iron meant that Dortmund became the largest industrial city in North Rhine-Westphalia as early as 1951. The level of crude steel production in Dortmund was only exceeded by Duisburg. With an unemployment rate of 2.3%, full employment prevailed in 1952 and the excellent economic conditions increasingly attracted immigrants, especially refugees from the eastern regions. Dortmund already had 624,000 inhabitants in 1956. In 1965 the city reached an all-time high with 658,075 inhabitants.
At the end of the 1950s, as part of the reorganization of the energy supply, another colliery began to die out . Unprofitable mines were closed, which led to massive protests by the population anchored in the mining community. On "Black Saturday", October 21, 1967, more than 15,000 people demonstrated in Huckarde against the closure of the Hansa colliery . In 1975 the global steel crisis set in. Of the 38,000 people who were still working in the iron and steel industry in 1964, only 18,000 remained in 1986. The final end came in 2001.
In 1952, after the destruction of the first in World War II, the Dortmund Westfalenhalle was rebuilt in its current form. The inauguration took place in the presence of Federal President Theodor Heuss.
On July 28, 1962, the DFB decided to found the Bundesliga in the gold hall of the Westfalenhalle.
In 1966, the BV 09 Borussia Dortmund team became the first German team to win the European Cup Winners' Cup with a 2-1 victory over Liverpool FC in Glasgow, Scotland.
On December 16, 1968, the University of Dortmund was officially opened by the North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Heinz Kühn in the presence of Federal President Heinrich Lübke and many other guests of honor .
The planning of a light rail network in Dortmund began as early as the 1960s . Due to the increasing car traffic, the decision was made to move public transport underground. In addition, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia was planning to set up a joint light rail network in the eleven large cities of the Ruhr area. In September 1969 the city council decided to start building an underground light rail system. Construction work began on October 22, 1969.
The Westfalenstadion was built for the 1974 World Cup (officially Signal Iduna Park since December 2005 ).
The Dortmund Technology Park was opened in 1988 in the immediate vicinity of the university.
At the beginning of 1989 the first German Internet connections were put into operation. The EUnet project of the University of Dortmund is playing a leading role . The domain uni-dortmund.de was registered as the first of the now more than 10 million .de domains.
Also in 1989 the new Dortmund town hall and the Friedensplatz were opened.
21st century
The first decade of the new millennium was characterized by structural change.
In April 2001 the Westfalenhütte and Phoenix steelworks were shut down.
In June 2002, with the section of the U 42 between the municipal clinics and Hombruch, another section of the tram went into operation. With that, all north-south routes of the light rail network were completed.
The Dortmund Concert Hall was opened in September 2002 . It was seen as an important source of inspiration for the revitalization of the Brückstrasse district , which had run down in the 1990s and was considered a meeting point for the drug and red light scene. After the extensive renovation and colorful design of numerous houses, many fashion shops and international snack bars settled there, making the district particularly attractive for young people.
On August 24, 2005, the RWE Tower was opened at Amiens Square, at 91 meters (100 meters with antenna) one of the tallest buildings in Dortmund.
In 2006 Dortmund hosted the soccer world championship . In the semifinals, Germany lost 2-0 against Italy in Dortmund. Football fans were also able to watch all of the World Cup matches on a large screen on Friedensplatz. Many guests from home and abroad celebrated a big football festival throughout the city center.
On April 27, 2008, the opening of the east-west tunnel was celebrated. The entire Dortmund light rail network was thus considered complete.
The opening of the east-west tunnel also marked the start of the conversion of Kampstrasse into a boulevard. The first construction phase, the so-called “Westentorallee”, was completed in 2009. With the renovation of the Brüderweg and the Petrikirchplatz, further construction phases are to be realized from 2011.
On April 24, 2009, Dortmund was awarded the contract to build the German Football Museum . It was opened on October 23, 2015 on the site of the former bus station opposite Dortmund's main train station on Königswall.
On May 25, 2009, the city received the title “ Place of Diversity ” awarded by the federal government .
In 2010, Dortmund was a co-host of the Ruhr 2010 Capital of Culture .
On May 28, 2010, the Dortmunder U was partially opened after being converted into a center for creative industries. The largest screen in Germany with the "Flying Pictures" by director Adolf Winkelmann on the roof of the Dortmunder U is unique .
On July 18, 2010, Dortmund took part in the Still-Leben Ruhrschnellweg project . The A40 motorway between Dortmund Märkische Strasse and Duisburg Häfen was closed to motorized traffic and opened to visitors. In the direction of Duisburg, on the night of July 17-18, 2010, the THW set up around 20,000 beer sets, where groups, clubs, families, neighborhoods, institutions, etc. were allowed to present themselves with their own program. On this side, visitors were only allowed to move around on foot. For all types of non-motorized vehicles (bicycles, scooters, inline skates, etc.), the lanes in the opposite direction (direction Dortmund) were released as mobility lanes. Access to or exit from the expressway was only permitted at the connection points, as was a change between mobility and table lanes. Three million visitors took advantage of this extraordinary opportunity to stroll on the closed motorway or to explore it by bike.
On October 1, 2010, the flooding of Lake Phoenix began with a big festival in Hörde . The approximately 24 hectare lake with a capacity of approximately 600,000 m³ was created on the site of the former Phoenix Ost steelworks ( Hermannshütte ). The lake was also a component in the renaturation of the Emscher . On May 9, 2011, all footpaths, cycle paths and places around the lake were opened to the public.
On September 15, 2011, the Thier Gallery opened on the site of the former Thier Brewery . The first large shopping center in Dortmund offers over 33,000 square meters of sales area with more than 150 different specialty shops from various industries.
See also
literature
- Monographs
- Luise von Winterfeld : History of the free imperial and Hanseatic city of Dortmund . 7th edition. Ruhfus, Dortmund 1981, ISBN 3-7932-3034-1 .
- Gustav Luntowski, Thomas Schilp, Norbert Reimann , Günther Högl: History of the city of Dortmund . In: Stadtarchiv Dortmund (Hrsg.): Dortmund services . tape 2 . Harenberg, Dortmund 1994, ISBN 3-611-00397-2 .
- Norbert Reimann, Hanneliese Palm, Hannelore Neufeld: Dortmund - a historical number table . 1000 dates on the city's history. 2nd Edition. Ruhfus, Dortmund 1982, ISBN 3-7932-4081-9 .
- Georg Galle: Citizenship under the Imperial Eagle. Constitution and constitutional conflicts in the imperial city of Dortmund 1648–1802 . Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2016, ISBN 978-3-402-15065-8 .
- Periodicals
- Stadtarchiv Dortmund (Hrsg.): Contributions to the history of Dortmund and the county of Mark . Plain text, ISSN 0405-2021 .
- City Archives Dortmund (Ed.): Home Dortmund . City history in pictures and reports. Plain text, ISSN 0932-9757 .
Web links
- Private page on the history of the city of Dortmund with excerpts from the books by Luise von Winterfeld, Norbert Reimann u. a. as well as Karl Neuhoff: Dortmund's art of fortification and its limits. C. L. Krüger, Dortmund 1994, ISBN 3-927827-04-5 and Christiane Althoff: The fortification of the city of Dortmund. P + R-Verlag, Dortmund 1996, ISBN 3-930504-05-7 .
- Self-presentation of history by the city of Dortmund. Excerpts from Günther Högl, Thomas Schilp: City history . Dortmund and its past. Ed .: City of Dortmund. Dortmund Agency, Dortmund 2003.
- Website of the historical association for Dortmund and the Grafschaft Mark e. V. with an overview of the periodicals published by the association.
- Website of the Dortmund City Archives with an overview of the holdings.
- Website of the Dortmund faculty of the Bochumer Bunker e. V. with detailed information on the air raids and defense measures in Dortmund.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Certificate No. 18 in: Theodor Sickel (Ed.): Diplomata 12: The documents Konrad I., Heinrich I. and Otto I. (Conradi I., Heinrici I. et Ottonis I. Diplomata). Hanover 1879, pp. 53-54 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version ).
- ↑ Theodor Joseph Lacomblet, in: Document book for the history of the Lower Rhine or the Archbishopric of Cologne, document no. 129 , volume 1. 1840, p. [96] 80 ( digitized edition ULB Bonn ).
- ↑ Beate Fleck: Sources on inmates of Westphalian hospitals. In: Gisela Drossbach (ed.): Hospitals in the Middle Ages and early modern times: France, Germany and Italy: a comparative history. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2007, p. 27.
- ↑ Public Record Office - Close Rolls C66 220 m8. The Patent Rolls and the Close Rolls contain a multitude of references to the close relationship between the English crown and the Dortmund merchants. Unfortunately, there are only shortened evaluations from the 19th and early 20th centuries: [1]
- ↑ August Döring: Mulher, Detmar . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 489 f.
- ^ Wilhelm Heinrich Neuser : Evangelical Church History of Westphalia in the ground plan . Bielefeld 2002, ISBN 3-7858-0443-1 , p. 93ff.
- ↑ Names of the victims of the witch trials / witch persecution in Dortmund (PDF; 21 KB), accessed on June 17, 2016.
- ↑ Hellweger Anzeiger October 7, 2014, p. 28, and Ruhrnachrichten Dortmund October 7, 2014
- ↑ See main conclusion of the extraordinary Reichsdeputation § 12, Paragraph 3, on Wikisource
- ↑ Official Gazette for the administrative district of Arnsberg 1875, p. 202
- ^ The night when the synagogues burned , State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg, accessed December 28, 2014
- ↑ Will never forget the day , Westfälische Rundschau, November 7, 2008, accessed January 4, 2015
- ^ Bomb war in Dortmund: Gallery of Destruction , Ruhr Nachrichten
- ↑ a b page 324 above Heavies of the Royal Air Force also continued their destructive campaign; At one point, on March 12, they established a new record for tonnage in a single strategic attack by dropping 4,899 tons from 1,107 aircraft on Dortmund.
