History of the city of Hadamar
The history of the small Hessian town of Hadamar dates back to before it was first mentioned in a document in 832 ( in Hatimero marca ). Its function as the residence of the short-lived Principality of Nassau-Hadamar in the 17th and early 18th centuries and as the location of the Nazi killing center in Hadamar was of particular importance .
chronology
Prehistory and early history
One of the oldest evidence of settlement in the Hadamar region is the stone box grave in the Niederzeuzheim district , which originated from the Wartberg culture and is around 5000 years old . Another grave was found in Oberzeuzheim, but it was dismantled and rebuilt in the castle garden of Hachenburg .
Early and High Middle Ages
Of the current districts, Oberweyer and Niederweyer 772 were the first to be mentioned in a document; the name of the city itself as "Hatimer" 832 in a Carolingian exchange document. It is said to be derived from Germanic, the words "hadu" and "mar", which means something like "contested waterhole". Presumably the name refers to the settlement core of Niederhadamar, as it is older than today's core city. To distinguish, today's core city was also called "Upper" or "Mönchhadamar" in the Middle Ages.
The settlement belonged to the Franconian Niederlahngau in the early Middle Ages . The place of jurisdiction for the high level of jurisdiction remained Dietkirchen beyond this phase . Hadamar also initially belonged to the Dietkirchen district court in terms of lower jurisdiction and administration . This connection is probably related to the importance of the later Lubentiusstift in Dietkirchen for the Christianization of the region. Hadamar only became the capital of its own center when it was granted city rights .
Hadamar belonged to this territory when County Diez was formed in the 11th century. Today's Mönchberg probably had a castle, which, together with parts of the settlement, was owned by the Leiningen family . The Aegidia Chapel was built next to it in 1190 at the latest. Below the castle, but still free of floods on the castle hill, the core of the settlement was to the right of the Elbe stream. Presumably, the settlement was supposed to monitor an old road running from east to west , which came from the direction of Hundsangen, crossed the Elbbach via a ford and later via the stone bridge and continued towards Faulbach. This is indicated by the elongated shape of the old town boundary. To the east of the village, the Aulnstrasse or Ulenstrasse ran in a north-south direction, which met the Ost-West-Strasse at Faulbach. In the west, a north-south route stretched from Niederhadamar to Niederzeuzheim and even further west ran the road between Cologne and Frankfurt through Hundsangen (today Bundesstraße 8 ).
In 1190 the Cistercians of the Rheingau monastery Eberbach in Hadamar built a model yard. It was located to the left of the Elbe stream, i.e. opposite the original settlement core. The land, a previously existing farm on the Elbbach and two mills, were given to them by a knight of the Dehrn family. In the following years, the Cistercians acquired lands in the surrounding area from numerous low-nobility families. Among other things, the monks planted vineyards on Mönchberg and Herzenberg. Around this time, the tower castle on the Mönchberg was given up and a permanent house was built next to the monastery courtyard . A sharp dispute between the Cistercians and several lower nobility in the region began as early as the early 13th century. Most of the time, descendants of donors tried to get back goods that had been donated to the monastery courtyard. On December 18, 1320, the Cistercians sold their farm with extensive estates and the Aegidia Church, but retained possessions, especially in Niederhadamar, Faulbach and Niederzeuzheim.
Under the older Nassau-Hadamar line
The buyer of the Cistercian court was Count Emich I of Nassau-Hadamar . He converted the facility into a moated castle. In 1324 Emich received Frankfurt city rights for his residence from the later Emperor Ludwig IV . The city got its own judicial district and a coat of arms that showed two crossed court bars. The reason for this acquisition was probably the fact that Emich's daughter Jutta, Count Gerhard VI. von Diez married. In the course of the marriage negotiations, Emich had been granted extensive guardianship rights over the declining county of Diez. In addition, the Diezer were heavily indebted to the Nassau counts. The formation of the dominance in Hadamar presumably served to better control Emich's interests in the County of Diez and the continued takeover of lands and rulership rights of the House of Diez. The Count's rights over Hadamar himself were handed over to Emich by the Diezer in 1332.
Numerous families of lower nobility settled in the city as castle men . The Stroß von Schönborn , the Waldbot and the Sprikast von Waldmannshausen , the von Rheinberg , the von Nassau, the von Langenau , the von Hoenberg, the Waldbot von Pfaffendorf, the von Irmtraut and the von Hof called Bell had larger estates in the city . The families von Allendorf, von Brambach, von Bubenheim, von Dehrn , von Dernbach, von Diez, Klüppel, von Elkerhausen , von Fetzberg , von Hohenstein , von Hunsbach, von Liebenstein , von Mudersbach, von Nesselrode and von Seelbach were also represented. In addition, there were nobility families from Hadamar (see below).
Presumably shortly after the city charter was granted, a city wall was built that enclosed the newer part of the city to the left of the Elbe stream. The castle was roughly in the center of the western flank of the wall. The bridge gate tower was located on the Elbbach bridge north of it. From this point the wall turned in an arc to the east. The forest messenger tower was at the apex of this wall arch. Shortly after a sharp bend to the south, the Obertor joined in today's Brückengasse. A short section of the wall to the east followed farther south, in the middle of which was the Siegener Tor, which was still there around 1700. Outside the gate was the first Hadamar market square. Immediately to the east of the Siegener Tor followed the Witches Tower, demolished in 1817, which served as a prison and where the wall bent to the south and ran to the Limburg Gate, which is still preserved today. From there the wall led along the Faulbach to its confluence with the Elbbach, from where it ran back towards the castle.
The first town hall, which is no longer preserved today, was located together with the bakery on Lindenplatz (today Melanderplatz), directly on the bridge tower. The sovereign appointed a mayor , whom the bourgeoisie elected a six- to seven-member aldermen to assist. Together they formed the city court. From around 1600 the lay judges elected two mayors. A fair in Hadamar is guaranteed for 1430.
Dispute over succession
With the death of Emich's grandson Emich III. the older line of the House of Nassau-Hadamar died out in 1394. Since Emich III. was idiotic, disputes over the expected inheritance began as early as 1368 after the death of his older brother Heinrich . The main opponents were Ruprecht VII von Nassau-Sonnenberg , who was married to Emich's sister Anna, and Johann I von Nassau-Dillenburg . In this context there was also the attack by the Sternerbund , an alliance of knights, on the city of Hadamar in 1372. After the Sterner had already overcome the city walls, they were repulsed by the city's residents. In 1394, a distribution agreement for the county of Hadamar was concluded between Anna's second husband Diether VIII von Katzenelnbogen and the Dillenburgers, which laid down joint rule over the city. A few more disputes about the Hadamari property followed, but in 1405 they were settled with a second contract between Katzenelnbogen and Dillenburg (modified again in 1408 with an arbitration award). Two thirds of the city belonged to Katzenelnbogen and one third to Nassau-Dillenburg. In 1450 both agreed on a half division.
When the Counts of Katzenelnbogen died out in 1479, there was a renewed dispute over what was left of the old Hadamar County between Nassau-Dillenburg and the Landgraves of Hesse and the House of Eppstein . It was not until 1557 that the parties reached an agreement in Frankfurt am Main . The city of Hadamar was awarded in full to Nassau-Dillenburg. Until 1866, the city remained undivided in Nassau ownership, albeit in changing lines of the house.
City fire and witch trials
On May 14, 1540 there was a devastating fire disaster. With the exception of three houses at the Limburg gate, the entire city burned down. The castle was also severely damaged. Three arsonists were caught and sentenced to death at the stake. For 1547 42 rebuilt houses and ten barns are occupied. Information on the size of the population is available for the first time in 1566: there were 54 house-owning and tax-paying citizens. In 1577 there was the first witch trial in Hadamar. In the late 1580s, the wave of witch trials in Hadamar peaked. The last "witches" were beheaded in 1699 in Hadamar.
Under the younger line Nassau-Hadamar
A comprehensive urban redevelopment followed under the count, later prince, Johann Ludwig von Nassau-Hadamar (1590-1653), who founded the younger line of the House of Nassau-Hadamar. As part of the Nassau-Orange brotherhood, he received the castle and town of Hadamar and the associated office of Oberhadamar in 1607. Johann Ludwig had the old moated castle expanded into a residence and a Renaissance castle from 1612 to 1629. In addition, he bought a large part of the urban area around the castle and had the baroque Neustadt there laid out in a checkerboard shape with three large marketplaces and public fountains. The catchment area for this and the later running fountain was the “Bruchborn” district east of the city at the foot of the Galgenberg. Of the previous streets in the city, only Brücken- and Schlossgasse and Kirchgasse outside the city wall remained. In addition to the old stone bridge over the Elbbach, the castle bridge with stone pillars and a wooden roadway was built south of the castle. The old town hall also fell victim to the urban redevelopment. In 1693 the new council and guild house was completed, which closed off Neumarkt to the east. In several places the city began to grow beyond its old wall. Andreas von Meuser, Count's secretary and Landschultheiß der Dehrner Cent, had a representative building complex built in 1639, which divided the former market square in front of the Siegener Tor into two halves and which today serves as Hadamar town hall. The eastern part, still called "Alter Markt" today, was completely built over. The western part was retained as the “sub-market”. Today's Borngasse, which was built on from 1648, was outside the old city wall and had previously been garden land. In 1630 a spring with healing water was discovered there.
Johann Ludwig von Nassau-Hadamar gained importance beyond his sphere of rule when he was appointed by the Emperor as Plenipotentiary General for the Peace Negotiations of the Peace of Westphalia , which finally ended the Thirty Years War . He was the first to sign the peace treaty document. In 1650 he was prince, which made Hadamar the royal seat. After several conversions, Johann Ludwig became a Catholic again in 1629 and settled Jesuits in Hadamar, who set up a grammar school in 1652. Prince Johann Ludwig is the namesake of the comprehensive school that developed from this Jesuit grammar school and that still exists in Hadamar today. In 1635 a Franciscan monastery was built at Johann Ludwig's instigation . A little later, Dominican women also settled in Hadamar. The prince donated foundations to the religious branches as well as the girls' school founded in 1627.
Under Johann Ludwig's successors, the expansion of the city and castle as well as the territory continued at a slower pace. In 1663 his son and successor Moritz Heinrich founded a hospital for poor old women, which stood on the site of today's house at 20 Nonnengasse. A splendid half-timbered house was built in 1676 by the royal chamberlain, Jakob d'Avina, and his brother-in-law, the court cook Johann Jakob Heftrich, opposite the Meuserchen Hof, on today's Schulstrasse. The rich carvings can no longer be seen on the western half of the semi-detached house, but the eastern half is one of the most impressive half-timbered buildings in the region. For the first time a guild-like neighborhood community was guaranteed for Hadamar in 1683 , which mainly provided mutual help in the event of illness and was supposed to settle disputes among neighbors.
In the second half of the 17th century, an execution site was built on the Galgenberg north of Faulbach. The location of the previous place of jurisdiction is unknown. However, Walter Rudersdorf mentions witch trials for the office of Ellar in Hadamar Castle in the 16th century with subsequent executions on the Witches Mountain in Hadamar. In 1700 a publicly accessible postal connection was put into operation.
With Johann Ludwig's grandson Franz Alexander, the younger Nassau-Hadamar line died out in 1711. A dispute over inheritance ensued between the numerous branches of the House of Nassau. The city of Hadamar fell to Prince Wilhelm-Hyacinth von Nassau-Siegen in a partition agreement from 1717 , who made it his main residence at the end of 1741. However, Wilhelm Hyacinth died in February 1743, which finally ended the history of Hadamar's residence.
18th century and Napoleonic era
The extinct principality of Nassau-Hadamar fell to Nassau-Diez like all territories of the Ottonian line of the House of Nassau . The seat of government was Dillenburg . However, the ruling house was already concentrating on its interests in the Netherlands, whose governor-general was Prince Wilhelm IV . The castle only remained the seat of the Hadamar Office , which included the city, the parish Niederzeuzheim and the former Dehrner Cent. In 1757 the wooden parts of the castle bridge were replaced by a stone structure.
In the southern part of the Hadamar office there was a syringe association of 17 municipalities from 1760, which took over fire-fighting duties. The fire engine was in the Oberzeuzheim syringe house , which was jointly owned. Only the city of Hadamar had its own syringe for its urban area. In 1855 this fire fighting association disbanded and sold the common property.
In 1773 the Jesuits were expelled from the city and the grammar school closed, which reopened in 1792. From 1795 to 1797, during the First Coalition War , the city was repeatedly looted by French troops.
When the two principalities of Nassau-Weilburg and Nassau-Usingen joined the Rhine Confederation in 1806 , they were united to form the Duchy of Nassau . Hadamar belonged to the Nassau-Orange line, whose dominance was mainly in the Netherlands. However, in 1803 Nassau-Orange combined numerous administrative tasks with the two other Nassau principalities. In 1804, the former royal seat was designated as the seat of the Higher Appeal Court , the highest judicial appellate instance of the unified Nassau domain. It was housed in the former administration building next to the castle. Its first president was Karl Friedrich August von Dalwigk .
Also in 1803 the monasteries of the Franciscans and the Dominican Sisters with the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss were abolished. The two small houses in Hadamar existed until around 1815 when they were finally confiscated from the duchy.
However, as early as 1806 with the fall of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, another territorial reshuffle took place at the instigation of Napoleon . Hadamar was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Berg . The city became the seat of a canton with the Mairien Hadamar, Offheim, Zeuzheim, Lahr and Frickhofen. The Higher Appeal Court was temporarily responsible for Nassau and Berg in parallel.
As early as 1810, Nassau withdrew the Higher Appeal Court from Hadamar. During the collapse of the Napoleonic order in Germany from 1812 to 1814, Hadamar was again looted, both by the French and by Russian troops. A Prussian hospital, which was billeted in the city at the end of 1813, caused an outbreak of typhus with around 50 deaths from the citizenry. Around 500 soldiers died in the hospital and were buried at the Hohenholz chapel between Hadamar and Hundsangen.
In the Duchy of Nassau
The house of Nassau was reinstated in full in 1813 under his ducal rule. Hadamar initially belonged to Nassau-Orange. On June 1, 1815, the Hadamar office and part of the Nassau-Orange ancestral lands fell to the Duchy after the Orange had accepted the Dutch royal crown. On July 1, 1816, the municipal regulations were changed. The newly tailored office Hadamar included the city, 28 villages and four courtyards. Both in the city and in the office, mayors were installed by the ducal administration. The citizens were only allowed to elect an advisory body in the city. In Hadamar several authorities were housed in the following decades: a tax office for the district, a forestry office, a building authority and road inspection with responsibility for eight offices, a medical officer, a school inspector and a peeling station of the Dillenburg stud , which was built in 1860 from a side wing of the castle in a newly constructed building on the road to Hundsangen moved.
In 1812 the dilapidated hospital for old women was demolished. The foundation remained in existence, however, and was paid out to the beneficiaries in cash and used to support the girls' school. In 1816 high school students tore down the gallows at the place of execution. Also in 1816, the first permanent post office of the Thurn und Taxis post office was set up in Hadamar . Before that, the post consisted of a postman who walked to Limburg several times a week. The post office, which was owned by various innkeepers, was part of the postal connection between Limburg and Dillenburg, which was extended to Wiesbaden in 1848. In the beginning there were weekly mail trips on this route and the rural post office to Limburg was also continued. The frequency of connections has increased over time. From 1854, in addition to the daily express car on the Limburg-Dillenburg route, there was also one on the Limburg-Selters-Hachenburg route that stopped in Hadamar. The post office in Hadamar was of particular importance for the numerous residents of the surrounding area, who secured the family income as traveling merchants during the Westerwald pauperism .
In 1818 the city sold the old town hall and bought the larger von Meusersche building on Untermarkt, which from that point on also served as a school and which is still home to the city administration today. The clock and bell tower was moved from the old to the new town hall. In 1840 a branch of the Nassauische Landeskreditkasse was established, which in 1868 became a branch of the Nassauische Landesbank .
In 1824 part of the castle bridge was swept away by the flood. It was not until 1851 that the entire bridge was renewed higher and wider. It was thus part of the changed overland connection that had previously led from Niederzeuzheim to the left of the Lahn through the city and at the Hammelburger Tor in the direction of Limburg. As the road from Niederhadamar via Elz to Limburg was being expanded at that time, traffic soon took this route, which initially made Borngasse and the old Elbbach bridge the main traffic routes in the city. After the castle bridge was expanded, Borngasse was extended up to it. For this purpose, the moats were filled in, part of the palace garden was converted into street space, and the buildings south and east of the palace yard were demolished. The remainder of the palace gardens were sold as private building plots.
A special feature of the Hadamar development is the midwifery training there. Even before the duchy existed, there was a central training center for (Orange) Nassau midwives in the high school in Herborn. After it was closed, there was no longer a central training facility for several years. On the basis of a ducal ordinance (June 12, 1828), a midwifery teaching and maternity facility was established in the buildings of the former Franciscan monastery in 1829. It outlived the end of the duchy, but was then wound up. It was the central training center for midwives for work in the Nassau communities. The midwives were trained by the director of the institution, a doctor. Treatment and childbirth were free. Unmarried women could give birth there without penalty.
At the beginning of the March Revolution in 1848 , the citizens of Hadamar deposed the mayors and elected mayors. A vigilante group was formed and tax payments were largely stopped. There were also riots and rallies among the high school students. From July 1 to December 31, 1848, the newspaper "Nassauischer spectators" appeared in Hadamar. In the wave of club founding in the context of the revolution, mainly Catholic groups formed in Hadamar, including a reading club. In February 1849 the local Piusverein was one of the largest in the entire duchy with five branches.
Few of the revolutionary achievements remained in the reaction era. The result of the revolution was an administrative reform that separated the administration and the judiciary. Hadamar became the seat of one of eleven (administrative) circles in the duchy as well as a judicial office. However, this reform was reversed in 1854. The Hadamar Office published an official gazette, which in the following decades was also the publication organ for the neighboring offices. Before it was included in the Wiesbaden Official Gazette in 1870, the exact area of responsibility of the Official Gazette changed several times.
In the Kingdom of Prussia, in the German Empire and in the 20th century
On September 20, 1866 , Prussia annexed the Duchy of Nassau and with it Hadamar. The city initially remained the seat of an office that formed the Oberlahnkreis with the offices of Weilburg and Runkel , as well as the seat of a regional court. In 1885 the town and office were assigned to the Limburg district .
The Hadamar volunteer fire brigade was founded on September 26, 1869 in the Nassauer Hof restaurant under Commandant Huth. After Huth left, the police attorney Adolf Mathi was elected as his successor on July 21, 1877. He reorganized the 60-man fire brigade, divided into five corps (riser, rescue, syringe corps, water feeder and guard). After two years, the fire brigade had expanded to 93 members, 85 of whom were active. In addition to the volunteer fire brigade, there was also a compulsory fire brigade to which anyone could be transferred as a punishment if he did not fulfill his obligations in the volunteer fire brigade. The committed commander Mathi and his Hadamar fire brigade also supported the Beselich-Obertiefenbach volunteer fire brigade, which was newly founded at the beginning of 1880, with a large fire brigade exercise that took place in this village on October 3, 1880.
The railway operation in Hadamar as a stop for the Oberwesterwaldbahn began on January 1, 1870. In 1886 the entire line was completed. A pleasure garden belonging to the castle and the riding meadow of the former stables at the castle fell victim to the construction of the railway line. The expansion of Gymnasiumstraße led to the demolition of part of the castle farm buildings and the laying down of the castle gardens in 1858. In the second half of the 19th century, a phase of growth began, during which the core city of Hadamar and the neighboring Niederhadamar grew together along the connecting Mainzer Landstrasse. Already in the early 20th century, no borders were recognizable in the settlement.
On December 20, 1911, the Hartmannsbrücke, named after Mayor Hartmann at the time, was built, a footbridge over the Elbbach to the cemetery at the Liebfrauenkirche.
In 1896 the first water pipeline was put into operation. In the 1960s, the city was connected to the sewer system and the central sewage treatment plant near Limburg.
In Hadamar there is also the " Musische Internat ", the rehearsal seat of the Limburger Domsingknaben since 1969 and the seat of the church music department of the Limburg diocese since 1998 .
Economic history
Agriculture and Mills
Unlike in the higher areas of the Westerwald, agriculture around Hadamar was characterized early on by arable farming and less by pasture farming. After the end of the last major clearing period in the late Middle Ages, the forest area in the Hadamar city area was also comparatively small. There were only larger contiguous forest areas around the Hoheholz west of the city and around the Galgenberg to the northeast.
The main product of agriculture was grain. Large fields were laid out on various flat sections of land on the outskirts of the city and several manors were built over the centuries. The largest of these goods was the Schnepfenhäuser Hof west of the village on the road towards Hundsangen. This farm was in the middle of the Kirchfeld north of the Landstraße and the Damfeld south of the street. Its origin is unclear, the part of the name '-hausen' indicates that it was founded before the year 1000. The Schnepfenhäuser Hof was first documented in 1334 when it came into the possession of Emich I. As a Fronhof, it was provided with workers from the surrounding towns. In the early 17th century, Count Johann Ludwig had the court complex, which is still in the hands of a man, expanded. In addition to the goods, almost all of the residents of the medieval and early modern city operated agriculture, at least as an ancillary trade.
Tobacco cultivation prevailed as a special crop , which was practiced until around 1800. Viticulture was practiced on Mönchberg and Herzberg until the beginning of the 19th century. At the end of the 20th century, small vineyards were again planted on both elevations, but they are no longer of economic importance.
A mill in Hadamar is first recorded for 1203. The plant, later known as the “town mill”, had the mill ban on the town itself and Hadamar and was in operation until 1964, most recently as a lime mill. The older castle mill on the same Mühlgraben, mentioned for the first time in 1215, had the ban on Steinbach and was integrated into the castle's newly built farm buildings at the beginning of the 17th century. In 1705 this mill was relocated as the "new castle mill" at the mouth of the Faulbach and the Elbbach. Most recently, this mill housed a small electricity company in addition to a land trade until 1951. In addition to these two mills, there were several mostly short-lived oil, lime and fulling mills in Hadamar. On the road to Niederzeuzheim, the so-called “hammer” was in operation from the middle of the 17th century. At the site of the former Rödchen manor, this plant processed pig iron into nails and other iron goods. Wire production began there in 1805. In 1908 the first Hadamar gas works was built next to this mill and in 1924 an electricity works.
Mining
In particular, different types of rock were mined in Hadamar. The abundant Devonian limestone was used as a building block and burned to lime in the Middle Ages. In the second half of the 19th century, a large, industrially operated limestone quarry with several kilns was built south of the city, which later also produced cement and had up to a hundred workers. In 1958 the company was closed. In the Hexenschlucht area, Schalstein and basalt at Galgenberg were quarried for building purposes. In 1930 the basalt quarry ceased operations. In the 18th and perhaps even in the 19th century, black marble was mined on the border to Niederhadamar, pink in the Hallschlag district and a small amount of white, red and yellow marble north of the Herzenberg.
Iron ore mining was carried out sporadically from the end of the 16th century at the latest. In 1769 copper ore and sulfur pyrites were mined at the Herzenberg . Various types of ore, in particular noteworthy manganese reserves, were mined in the Hadamar district from 1827, and from the middle of the century also the low-grade brown iron stone on a larger scale . Iron ore mining ended in 1899 at the latest.
In 1783, a lignite seam came to light on the Galgenberg , but it was exhausted after a short period of mining. During the First World War, a small deposit of oily clays was mined on the Galgenberg.
Markets
The first marketplace in Hadamar for the weekly market was probably Lindenplatz at the eastern head of the old Elbbachbrücke. The location of the fair was probably already in the Middle Ages, today's Untermarkt, at that time it was still in front of the walls. The stand area could have extended to the Old Market. The Unter- and Alter Markt were only separated after the city redevelopment under Johann Ludwig around 1620. In addition, he had the Neumarkt built north of the Lower Market.
A fair in Hadamar is documented for the first time for 1430. At times there were up to eight annual fairs on changing dates. The Hadamar wool markets, which were held twice a year at least until 1776, as well as the fruit market held until the 20th century, at which grain and other crops were traded on a large scale, are likely to have been of national importance. There are also two annual general markets for the 17th century. The weekly markets with their food trade only became more important when a larger group of the population formed in the 17th century who no longer ran agriculture themselves, at least on the side. In the 18th century there was an association of market traders called "Hänse".
Another business
In the Middle Ages and modern times, trade and handicrafts were primarily geared towards the needs of small towns. Some of the craftsmen formed guild-like associations, which in modern times also accepted members from surrounding villages, but remained small overall. Through the keeping of the court and the concentration of administrative facilities, some unusual trades for small towns were added, including bookbinding.
A specific branch of industry only emerged after the Second World War. Aided by the settlement of some German-speaking refugee families from the Sudetenland who brought the glass craft to the city and founded businesses, the emergence of the Erwin Stein Glass Technical School can be explained in which glass craftsmen and glass painters from all over Germany are trained. At times, Hadamar was also an important location for glass production. This branch of the economy largely died out in the last decades of the 20th century.
History of religion
middle Ages
Probably Hadamar was originally also part of the Dietkirchen parish . By 1195 at the latest, however, it belonged to the Niederzeuzheim parish until it got its own parish in the second half of the 13th century.
The earliest evidence of the Aegidia chapel on the Burgberg, the later Mönchberg, dates back to 1190. It may have been built together with or shortly after the Leininger tower castle. The chapel's cemetery remained the burial place for the residents of Hadamar and Faulbach throughout the Middle Ages. After the founding of the Cistercian court, the local monks used the Aegidia chapel, which led to a dispute with the pastor of Niederzeuzheim. In 1231 the monks received the chapel and the property belonging to it, while the Niederzeuzheim pastor kept the practice of the sacraments and the associated income. In 1320, the Aegidia Church belonged to the acquisition of Count Emich, with which the connection to Niederzeuzheim was finally severed. It is highly likely that the chapel had already been elevated to an independent parish church for Hadamar by 1275 at the latest.
Shortly before 1379, the Hadamar pastor had a wayside shrine, which was initially consecrated to the Holy Cross, at the foot of the Mönchberg and on the banks of the Elbe stream expanded into a Marienkapelle, from which the Church of Our Lady was to emerge 70 years later. With the expansion at the latest, extensive pilgrimages to this church began. In 1637 the Liebfrauenkirche took over the function of the Hadamar parish church from the Aegidienkirche. During the Reformation, the Liebfrauenkirche was largely stripped of its interior fittings, including most of the eight altars. The high altar came to Münstermaifeld . Hardly anything has survived from its original design. It is possible that the statue of Mary that is now in the Herzenberg Chapel is the statue that originally stood in the Church of Our Lady in the center of the devotion to Mary. According to tradition, she was brought to safety from the Hadamarer Land in Koblenz. In 1676 the Jesuits brought them to the Herzenberg. The statue is very similar to the images that can be seen on the bell of the Church of Our Lady, created in 1451.
In the Middle Ages, the Church of Our Lady was the center of a priestly brotherhood , but it never grew into a collegiate monastery . Relatives were the eight altarists of the church and several pastors from the surrounding area. The altarists lived in houses in the town that were owned by the church. It is possible that the first Latin school in Hadamar emerged from this community in the 15th century .
reformation
In 1523, sermons by Pastor Gerhard Lorich based on the teachings of Martin Luther are documented for Hadamar for the first time . Lorich remained a pastor until 1546 and never joined the Evangelical Lutheran denomination. However, when Count Eberhard von Eppstein-Königstein died in 1535, the Protestant Count Ludwig zu Stolberg became his heir and thus co-owner of Hadamar. The nassau-dillenburg counts as further owners had already become Protestants beforehand. The Reformation was gradually introduced from this point onwards, with the Dillenburg court preacher and superintendent Erasmus Sarcerius playing an important role. In 1546 the two rulers issued a new church order, dismissed Gerhard Lorich and installed the previous chaplain, Johann Stein, as a Protestant pastor. The pen-like structure of the Liebfrauenkirche has also been repealed. The sovereigns largely confiscated the goods and valuable church furnishings and converted some of them into foundations for the training of theologians and civil servants. The foundation of an elementary school was anchored in the church ordinance of 1546 . It was also equipped from the altar fund of the Liebfrauenkirche, as was the parish of Oberweyer, which was newly founded in 1566 .
In 1572, Hadamar, which had meanwhile completely passed into Nassau-Dillenburg ownership, changed hands with its ruler, Count Johann VI. to Calvinism . For this reason, most of the interior of the Aegidien and Liebfrauenkirche was removed and sold or destroyed.
Recatholization
In 1629 Count Johann Ludwig converted to Catholicism. Since then, the city has remained mostly Catholic until today. In addition, Johann Ludwig tried to settle several religious orders . In January 1630, the first Jesuits settled in the city to be the first to resume Catholic pastoral care. When a Swedish army approached, they fled to Koblenz at the end of 1631. Pastoral care was provided by three Augustinian canons from Lichtmess in 1632 and, from March 24th, a Franciscan priest . The Jesuits returned at Christmas 1636.
In 1637 Prince Johann Ludwig designated the Church of Our Lady as the parish church for the city and gave the Franciscans the Aegidia Church, where the cemetery was still located. As early as 1624 he had the Liebfrauenkirche rebuilt and a crypt laid out for his family under the choir. With this distribution of the churches, the competition between Augustinian canons, Franciscans and Jesuits for the post of Hadamar pastor was decided in favor of the latter. The Franciscans received the parish of Niederhadamar, to which the neighboring village of Offheim also belonged. From 1639 to 1772 all pastors in Hadamar were Jesuits. The right of the pastor's investiture was de jure with the Archbishop of Trier , but the prince appointed the pastor de facto, to which the archbishopric does not seem to have appealed. Although there were several negotiations about the occupation of pastors in Hadamar, this right remained with the respective sovereign rulers in the following centuries. It was not until 1929 that it returned to the church by contract.
From 1637 the old Aegidia Church was gradually demolished in order to build the Franciscan monastery in its place. In the following years, Johann Ludwig supported the building with multiple grants. In 1658 the construction of the new Aegidia Church, still preserved today, began. The old cemetery was also built over and the occupancy of today's "old cemetery" at the Church of Our Lady was started. The cemetery was surrounded by a wall to protect against the flooding of the Elbe stream. By 1910 it reached its present size. In 1666 the new Aegidia Church was completed and in 1678 it was consecrated. In 1654 the Franciscans gave up the parish of Oberweyer in exchange for the much larger parish of Niederzeuzheim. In 1670 Offheim became an independent parish, which was also occupied by Hadamar Franciscans as from 1752 Höhn in the Westerwald. In 1722 the Franciscans were also given the office of chaplain of the castle church. The Franciscan monastery experienced a steady growth process. The monastery library grew to several thousand volumes by the 19th century.
Johann Ludwig tried several times to provide the Jesuits with the necessary money and sufficient property so that they could build a monastery and revive the Latin school, which had already existed before but ceased operations during the war. However, it was not until 1641 that the Jesuits received a house from the Count as a gift, which bordered on the south of the castle grounds. They had previously lived in the castle itself. In 1650, the count bought the remains of the Beselich monastery and in the following year a larger aristocratic mansion from the Langenbach family on the site of today's parish church. In 1652, the Jesuit branch and the associated grammar school were officially founded from the Beselicher capital as well as substantial endowments and on the purchased city property . Today's parish church and the surrounding Jesuit building complex were built by 1764 . The initially planned establishment of a seminary could not be realized. When the Jesuit order was dissolved in 1773, the two friars who had carried out the duties of the town pastor were allowed to remain in office. The remaining twelve members of the order had to leave the city. After that, Jesuits never settled in Hadamar again.
A girls' school was opened in 1627, and in 1678 the Tonsor sisters, both Dominicans , took over. In 1704 the school was officially recognized as a branch by the Dominican Order. The religious house received a chapel in 1706. From then on the branch was known as “St. Nearly known. Despite a few novices entering the monastery, it remained small and poorly financially equipped. Presumably there were never more than 20 women in the convent. From 1790 to 1798 the nuns had to hand over the school to a Hadamar citizen daughter.
In 1767, 33-year-old Anna Margarete Lorger, a farmer's daughter from Offheim, entered the Hadamar Dominican convent. From June 1775 onwards she had to stay in bed sick almost all the time. In 1780 she had the first lance stigma . In 1782 the four wounds on hands and feet were added. From around 1785, intensive investigations by doctors and the Archdiocese of Trier followed. Anna Margarete Lorger died on February 8, 1806.
Hadamar Catholicism in the 19th and 20th centuries
When the monasteries were abolished within the framework of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803, the Hadamar Franciscan monastery remained as one of the last and was used for the collective accommodation of fathers from already abolished monasteries. In 1816 the Hadamar branch of the Franciscans finally closed. The Duchy of Nassau moved in the building and in 1816 donated it to the Protestant community in the city. However, she sold this back in 1827 because of the high maintenance costs. Later the area on the Mönchberg became the location of various healing institutions and in the Third Reich the Hadamar killing center.
The abolition of the Dominican convent also dragged on for a long time, as it had little property and the care of the remaining residents would have cost the administrations involved a considerable amount. It was not until the end of 1816 that the nunnery was finally closed. In the course of an auction in 1818, the city councilor Franz Gensler acquired the monastery and all of its property on behalf of a citizen consortium.
At his death in 1829 Gensler owned a third of the monastery property as well as a considerable amount of his own fortune that he had acquired as a tanner. He put this capital into a foundation that turned St. Annahaus into a home for six poor old women. The property was to be preserved from the rest of the foundation capital and the residents to be looked after. In 1835 the first beneficiaries moved in. In the following decades, various Hadamar citizens expanded the foundation. On May 1 and 6, 1856, sisters again moved into the former Dominican convent: the poor servants of Jesus Christ from Dernbach in the Westerwald, who had been founded by the church only five years earlier, sent a nurse to Hadamar, who would soon be followed by others. This started the expansion of the nursing home into a hospital. Shortly afterwards, the Dernbacher sisters also took over the housekeeping in the episcopal Konvikt and founded a branch there on March 27, 1899. In 1892 they also took over the management of a “toddler school”, the forerunner of the Hadamar kindergarten. In 1927 the old monastery building was torn down and in the summer of 1928 the hospital building that still exists today was moved into. After state funding had largely ceased in the Third Reich, hospital operations and with it the Gensler Foundation collapsed in 1938. The remaining Dernbach sisters moved to a church owned house on the Herzenberg. On January 31, 1950, the Poor Maid Service of Jesus Christ was finally abolished.
The freedom movement of 1848 meant that the Hadamar Catholics made a pilgrimage to the pilgrimage chapel Maria Hilf Beselich for many decades and impressively proclaimed their faith there. In 1852 the now-extinct Konvikt was renewed by the Limburg diocese, using a donation from the poet Clemens Brentano to Bishop Peter Josef Blum . It was housed in a building on Alte Chaussee, and the following year it moved to Neugasse. From 1903 to 1905, today's building, visible from afar, was built and was named "Collegium Bernardium". On March 2, 1939, the Secret State Police occupied the building, closed the Konvikt and arrested several clergymen working there. In the following years the building served as a school home for prospective teachers and later as a prison camp for Polish and British officers. From 1946 to 1969 the Konvikt was there again, then the boarding school of the Limburger Domsingknaben . In 2008 the last boarding school students left the building. Today it serves as a training center for the Domsingknaben with no overnight accommodation and as the seat of various offices of the Limburg diocese .
Hadamar can be seen as the actual founding place of the Merciful Brothers of Montabaur . Its founder, Peter Lötschert, completed his business apprenticeship in Hadamar and returned to the city in 1856 after turning to Christian-inspired nursing. From a house in Kirchgasse he looked after like-minded people, especially the sick in the city's Josephsspital. In 1862 a new building was built for the hospital on Gymnasiumstraße and expanded in 1912. From 1939, the state organs continued to restrict the operation of the St. Joseph House. At times it was empty, was a camp for wounded prisoners of war, a school home and finally a hospital for sexually ill women. In 1951 the Brothers of Mercy left Hadamar due to a decline in membership. The St. Josephshaus was converted into a state retirement home.
In 1917, the Franciscans (OFM) settled down in Hadamar for the first time in order to build a study home for their offspring in the south wing of the former Jesuit monastery . On March 1, 1939, the Gestapo forced the building to be taken over. The last rector, Father Justus Michel, was taken to a concentration camp. After the three remaining fathers had continued pastoral care in the city for a short time, they left Hadamar before the end of the year. After the Second World War, the order resumed its student accommodation and expanded it in 1965 to include the east wing of the former Jesuit monastery.
After the end of the hospital operations, St. Annahaus was temporarily used as a military hospital, student home, high school, and accommodation for US troops and for displaced persons. On November 26, 1947, the Gensler Foundation was launched again. After the state recognition as a hospital had been granted and the Pallottine Sisters , who have their religious seat in Limburg, had taken on care, the hospital began again on April 1, 1949, which ended in 2008. The building now houses a retirement and nursing home, a nursing school and a health center with various medical practices.
Evangelical community after re-catholicization
Even after Johann Ludwig's conversion, there was at least one small Reformed court community, as Ursula, the count's wife, her daughters and some government servants and officials had remained Reformed with Johann Ludwig's permission. The older castle chapel served this community as a place of worship, while the newer and larger castle church also became Catholic. With Ursula's death in 1638, the last Reformed preacher left the city. With the marriage of Johann Ludwig's last daughter in October 1656, the Reformed church services by pastors from Diez in Hadamar should also have ended.
After the dynasty of Nassau-Hadamar was extinguished, services of this denomination were celebrated again in Hadamar for the first time in 1747 under the rule of the reformed Nassau-Diezer. The participants came from the mostly reformed civil servants of the administrative bodies in Hadamar and the Nassau-Orange battalion stationed in the city. Once again, the parish from Diez provided the clergy. By decree, the Reformed community in Hadamar received its own pastor in November 1752. The place of worship was a room in the east wing of the palace. In 1791 the Nassau-Orange government donated the castle church to the community, which was then rebuilt according to the requirements of the Reformed rite. The few Lutherans in the city also took part in the Reformed church services before the two denominations merged to form the Evangelical Christian Church in 1817. The evangelical community of Hadamar belonged first to the dean's office in Kirberg and later to the dean's office in Runkel. In addition to the city, the Hadamar evangelical parish included more than 20 villages in the Hadamar and Wallmerod offices.
Jewish community
Jewish residents are first recorded for Hadamar in the early 17th century. A permanent Jewish residential area does not seem to have existed. The name of the “Judengässchen” on Neumarkt can only be traced back to the house with prayer room and women's bath that existed there until 1841 and the neighboring Jewish school until 1820. The Jewish cemetery was on the southern edge of the district and has been preserved to this day. The synagogue in Nonnengasse was inaugurated on June 25, 1841. In the pogrom night on November 9, 1938, the interior was largely destroyed. The building has been preserved to this day. The Jewish community in Hadamar was destroyed in the Holocaust . The last 19 Jews were deported on June 10, 1942.
The first detailed denominational statistics for the entire Hadamar office show 12,678 Catholics, 227 Protestants, 160 Jews and seven Mennonites for 1819 .
School history
Modern times
Probably around 1450 a Latin school was built under the altarists of the Liebfrauenkirche , which apparently went out again during the Reformation. The school was rebuilt by 1545 at the latest. It was financed from the assets of the dissolved Liebfrauenstift and from grants from the sovereigns. For the first time in 1590, female students are also recorded and the number of male students is given as 31. The subject matter was shaped by Reformed theology. Pupils who completed further academic training often attended the High School in Herborn .
After the re-Catholicization, the Latin school was also closed in 1630. Initially, attempts at a Catholic re-establishment led by Jesuits failed. In 1638 a Jesuit school began on a very small scale for the prince's children and a few students from the city in the castle. In 1651 the new Jesuit school started its work and it was expanded to a five-class business by 1664. The institution was quickly visited by middle-class and noble students from the far surrounding area, including students of the Reformed denomination. In 1685 Johann Ludwig had a dormitory built for students from less wealthy families (still preserved today next to the Hammelburger Tor). In 1765, the Jesuits expanded their school to include the so-called “New Aula” (today the city library). Around a hundred students were being taught at the school at that time. In 1773, with the dissolution of the Jesuit order, schools also went out.
Hadamar citizens immediately began to urge the Nassau-Orange government to reopen a secondary school. This was delayed, among other things, by legal disputes by the government over goods from the Jesuit property. It was not until 1792 that William V of Orange issued a decree that rebuilt the school and entrusted the city's four Catholic secular clergy with teaching duties. The number of students remained very low in the following years.
Around 1550 the "German School" was established, in which Reformed clergymen taught at a lower level than in the Latin school. In 1601 at the latest, a room in the town hall was the school hall, later a house at the Liebfrauenkirche, which the primary school probably took over from the Latin school after 1630. The school was already accepting girls before 1600. For the middle of the 17th century, numerous foreign students at the elementary school are recorded, including sons of the lower nobility.
A special girls' school was founded in 1627 by Count Johann Ludwig. At the instigation of the princely government, the townspeople were obliged to finance the girls' school. This, like the school attendance of the Hadamar girls, had to be enforced with considerable pressure from the administration. In 1678 the Dominican Sisters took over the running of the school. In the following years, school operations were briefly suspended several times or handed over to laypeople. In 1817 the Dominican convent was closed and the girls' school was integrated into the operation of the municipal school, the previous elementary school. In the 19th and early 20th centuries there were several attempts to set up private girls' schools in Hadamar in order to enable girls to continue their education beyond elementary school. However, these facilities ceased operations after a few years. Only from 1894 to 1929 was the lidmeyer institute, which was a little more durable and accepted girls and boys in the lower grades.
After a Protestant parish was established again in Hadamar in 1752, a Protestant elementary school was established in a building in the south courtyard in 1772. Shortly after 1784 a schoolmaster's school was set up in Hadamar for the teachers of the surrounding village schools.
19th and 20th centuries
With the school reform in the Duchy of Nassau in 1817, the school system in Hadamar was also redesigned. This created simultaneous schools in which Protestant and Catholic children were taught together. Hadamar primary school was equipped with three teachers, had around 250 pupils and in 1818 moved from Schlossgasse to a building next to the town hall that the city had bought. The children from Faulbach, which was still independent at the time, also attended the Hadamar school. It was supervised by a school board, which included the pastors of both denominations as well as the mayor and several local politicians. In 1836 the number of students reached 310, after which a fourth teacher was hired. After the high of 411 students in 1850, the number fell significantly, only to rise above this value again after the Second World War. In 1906 the elementary school was expanded to include an additional building on Neugasse. In 1919 school supervision was assigned to the district administration in Limburg. On May 21, 1953, the foundation stone was laid for the school building, which is still used today for the elementary school and is now a listed building. Teaching began there on May 16 of the following year. In 1971 the main and secondary school branches were spun off from the elementary school and moved together with the grammar school to the newly built Fürst-Johann-Ludwig-Schule on the Wingertsberg in the Niederhadamar district.
The Nassau school reform made Hadamar in 1817 the location for one of four educational institutions in the duchy. In four classes that followed the elementary school, these institutions were supposed to prepare for the higher civil service and for attending the grammar school in Weilburg, which was the only school in the duchy to provide university entrance qualifications. It was initially located in the Jesuit Hall, and from 1823 on the east wing of the palace. The number of students was usually a little under a hundred. The catchment area extended far across the Westerwald and Taunus to the Rheingau. In 1844, the Hadamar school was supplemented by an upper secondary school and was thus able to prepare for attending a university. The grammar school always retained its Catholic character.
In 1937 the grammar school was converted into a high school for boys. In 1939 the school was initially to be completely closed. However, the city of Hadamar managed to be allowed to continue the school as a municipal school, but without an upper level. From this point on, the institution also accepted girls. After an interruption in the final phase of the Second World War, school operations began again as a grammar school on December 6, 1945, partly in the castle and partly in neighboring barracks. In the decades that followed, there was increasing overcrowding. When the school became the new Fürst-Johann-Ludwig-Schule in 1971, it had 1,100 students.
A Sunday school for young craftsmen began work in 1836 as a private initiative. German, arithmetic and geometric drawing were the subjects of the training institute, which expanded its range in the following years and was taken over by the newly founded Hadamar trade association in 1849 . From around 40, the number of students grew to almost a hundred by the end of the century, who also came from the surrounding area. In 1890, the initially voluntary attendance became compulsory in certain training and further education courses. There were three teachers at the time. The trade school was located in the district court. After the First World War their importance declined. Individual courses were still offered in the Konvikt until after 1945.
In 1891 a kindergarten was founded by the poor servants of Jesus Christ in Nonnengasse. In 1962 it moved to a location in Nonnengasse, today it is in Kreuzweg.
From 1939 to 1945 there was a teacher training institute in the premises of the former grammar school.
On July 19, 1949, the glass school, later named Erwin Stein School, opened in the Niederhadamar district. The reason for this was the fact that among the expellees settled in Hadamar there were numerous former teachers from the glass schools in Nový Bor (Haida) and Kamenický Šenov (Steinschönau).
Hadamar Baroque
The "Hadamar Baroque" was a regionally significant school of sculpture, which gained importance in the field of altar architecture. Their most important representatives were Martin Volk, Johann Valentin Neudecker the Elder, Johann Neudecker the Younger and Johann Theodor Thüringer (also: Düringer); streets in the city center have been named after them since around the year 2000. Prince Franz Bernhard (1637–1695) laid the foundation stone for the Hadamar Baroque with his extensive building program, in the course of which, among other things, the palace was expanded to include the “new building” to the north. Between 1689 and 1692 he brought Johann Neudecker the Elder from Miltenberg to Hadamar. Even after the Princely House died out in 1711 and the city of Hadamar entered a phase of crisis, numerous orders from the wider area were received in Neudeckersche and the various other workshops that had been formed in the meantime. Special features of the Hadamar style, which was influenced by Neudecker, were a flat-cut folds, an elongated head shape and particularly lush locks of hair on the figures. Figures that Johann Neudecker the Elder made for clients there have been documented as far as Marburg and Fulda.
The terms “Hadamar Baroque” and “Hadamar School” are common in the area around the Principality of Nassau-Hadamar, but their origin, distribution, meaning and art-historical contexts remained largely unknown. Ludwig Baron Döry in particular was instrumental in making new discoveries through his publications since the 1970s.
Lower nobility
In addition to the house of Nassau-Hadamar , the city produced several families of lower nobility , two of which gained a certain importance:
Those of Hadamar with the eagle coat of arms are first detectable at the end of the 12th century. Dietrich and Hermann were the leading names of the sex. The family was wealthy in the Hadamar area as well as in Engersgau on the Middle Rhine and on the lower Moselle . As early as the 13th century, however, the family was no longer based in the eponymous city. A prominent representative of those with the eagle coat of arms was the knight Hermann von Hadamar (1264 to 1306), who already had his seat in Andernach . On the side of the Archdiocese of Cologne , he stood out in the Battle of Worringen in 1288 . He later took on ambassadorial missions for King Adolf of Nassau . Several noble families in the Rhine Valley and on the Westerwald (including in Montabaur , Wahnscheid and Kettig ) had a silver eagle in their coat of arms just like those of Hadamar and are therefore attributed to their extended relationship based on documents. Shortly before 1436, the male line died out.
Those of Hadamar with the quartered or squared shield appear for the first time in documents in the early 14th century. Weltersburg may already have been the family headquarters at that time . The main focus of ownership was in Hadamar and the surrounding places and scattered in other places in the southeastern Westerwald. In the 16th century, the impoverished aristocratic family appeared in the retinue of the House of Orange-Nassau . His last representative, Hans Wilhelm, was a Dutch captain and married the daughter of a half-brother of Wilhelm I of Orange-Nassau , which meant a significant upgrade for Hans Wilhelm. In 1603, however, Hans Wilhelm died childless as the last representative of his house.
Those from Hoenberg zu Hadamar and Faulbach are first recorded in writing in 1412 with possession in Hadamar. They are a branch of the von Hoenburg family, which provided office holders mainly in the counties of Isenburg and Wied . They can be traced for the first time in 1252 and came from the western Westerwald, either from the Hümmerich farm or from the fallen Hümmerich farm near Marienhausen . Related branches of the family were located in Hundsangen and Limburg. The von Hoenberg zu Hadamar and Faulbach were close to the Katzenelnbogen family and had received numerous fiefs from them. The probably first member of the branch named Hans (around 1360) moved from there to the Electoral Palatinate , from where his son returned to Hadamar shortly after 1400. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Hoenbergs built a modest property focus around Hadamar with the Faulbacher Hofgut as the center and otherwise had widely scattered properties and occupied various smaller administrative offices, including in Hadamar, Oberlahnstein and Mainz. Friedrich von Hoenberg was prior of the Bleidenstadt monastery from 1465 to 1480 , Jakob von Hoenberg was abbot of the Schönau monastery for a short time in 1467/68 . Hans von Hoenberg was from 1512 to 1515 Hofmeister of Nassau-Dillenburg, Joachim shortly before 1550 Rittmeister and colonel in the army of the Schmalkaldic League as well as a Hessian bailiff in Camberg and Altweilnau . The last recorded member of the family is Judith, who died between 1605 and 1608.
Hardly anything has come down to us from the two families "Schütz von Hadamar", who appeared as brushwood , and "Stroß von Hadamar", a branch of Schönborn . In addition, several individual nobility have survived who had “von Hadamar” in their name, but cannot be clearly assigned to any of the known families.
Psychiatric hospital and killing facility
In 1828, a midwifery teaching and maternity hospital opened in the former Franciscan monastery on Mönchberg, which existed until 1872. In 1883 the building was expanded to become the "Corrigendenanstalt", the predecessor of today's psychiatric clinic. The architect was construction supervisor Eduard Zais, who based this facility clearly on the model of the Eichberg Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy he had planned around 30 years earlier . The facility served as a workhouse for interning and re-educating the traveling people in the Wiesbaden administrative district and provided space for 236 men and 80 women. In the neighboring former monastery at the same time a facility for "land arms" from Hadamar and the surrounding area was set up, which was operated less strictly and rarely had more than a dozen inmates. In 1906 the Corrigendenanstalt was converted into a care facility for the mentally ill. A Red Cross hospital was located there during the First World War.
In the time of National Socialism were in 1941 in the Nazi killing center Hadamar on the Mönchsberg estimated that at least 14,494 disabled, the former Landesheil- and nursing home, the mentally ill, so-called "half-Jews" and "Eastern workers" murdered. Today a memorial commemorates these crimes. The Forensic Psychiatry Clinic is located on the site today. The majority of Hadamar Jews were murdered in extermination camps further away. In 1942 alone, 19 Jewish residents were abducted and murdered. The Gray Buses Memorial was opened on May 29, 2018 .
City arms
The Hadamar city coat of arms comes from a seal that was already in use in the city of Hadamar and the Hadamar region at the end of the 15th century. The crosses in the coat of arms are to be interpreted as symbols of peace and the crossing swords as symbols of power.
literature
- Karl Josef Stahl: Hadamar town and castle. A home story. Hadamar City Council, 1974.
- Michael Wettengel : The democratic association system in the countryside in the Duchy of Nassau . In: Nassau Annals . tape 98 . Wiesbaden 1987, p. 205-227 .
Individual evidence
- ^ A b "Hadamar, Limburg-Weilburg district". Historical local dictionary for Hesse (as of April 4, 2014). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on July 11, 2014 .
- ↑ Bayerische Staatsbibliothek: http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11055308_00397.html , access = 4. January 2016
- ↑ Walter Rudersdorf: In the shadow of Ellar Castle. From the history of the rule, the office, the regional court, the castle and the town of Ellar, including church, cultural and economic history. An investigation, Frankfurt a. M. 1967, p. 122. ( limited preview in Google book search)
- ↑ Hadamar volunteer fire brigade e. V. (Ed.): 125 years of the Hadamar volunteer fire brigade . Hört / Begemann, Hadamar 1994.
- ↑ Franz-Josef Sehr : The founding years of the volunteer fire brigade Obertiefenbach . In: Yearbook for the Limburg-Weilburg district 1995 . The district committee of the district of Limburg-Weilburg, Limburg-Weilburg 1994, p. 170-171 .
- ^ Franz-Josef Sehr : 250 years pilgrimage chapel Maria Hilf Beselich . In: Yearbook for the Limburg-Weilburg district 2017 . The district committee of the district of Limburg-Weilburg, Limburg-Weilburg 2016, ISBN 3-927006-54-8 , p. 137-141 .
- ↑ http://www.katholischeshadamar.de/pfarrei/einrichtungen/kindergarten.php Kindertagesstätte Marienfried
- ↑ Deutschlandfunk, Nazi murders of the disabled - Hadamar opens up to commemoration