History of the city of Ilmenau
This article deals with the history of the city of Ilmenau in Thuringia .
Before the first mention
The area was probably first settled in the 6th century by the Sorbs . When Ilmenau was founded has not yet been established exactly. A theory put forward by local history researcher Paul Bleisch in 1910 states that the first settlement to exist in the east of the city in what is now the Ilmenau pond area , which was called Sachsenrod , was built around 750 and roughly corresponds to today's Neuhaus . In a second wave of settlements, which began around 900 from the Saalfeld monastery , Ilmenau at the foot of the Sturmheide is supposed to behave been established. This assumption is supported by a mention in a Saalfeld monastery directory from 937, which speaks of a village Ilmena in the west, although this could also mean the nearby Stadtilm . In general, it is difficult to assign documents from the time before 1400 to Ilmenau or Stadtilm, as both places were referred to with extremely similar names at that time. During excavation work under the town church at the end of the 1990s, the remains of a Romanesque predecessor building from the 10th century were found, with which Bleisch's theory from 1910 found a late confirmation.
middle Ages
The first written mention is dated to the year 1273 and refers to the right of coinage in connection with the silver and copper mining in the region. In the 13th century, the moated castle in Ilmenau was the starting point for raids into the near and far surroundings, which particularly affected the trading class of the city of Erfurt . King Rudolf I (HRR) , who was in Erfurt around 1289, agreed to destroy the "robbery castle". The moated castle was then completely destroyed; 29 muggers were arrested and beheaded in Erfurt. In 1341 Ilmenau received town charter and at that time had 800 inhabitants. At that time Mr. von Ilmenau was Count Günther von Käfernburg , who with Lorette, nee. Mrs. von Eppstein was married. In addition to the local mining, the fact that the former Erfurt- Nuremberg trade route touched the place was important for the decision . In 1343 the Counts of Käfernburg sold the city to the Count of Henneberg . The town also owned the three kitchen villages Unterpörlitz , Oberpörlitz and Roda . In the following centuries the rulership of Ilmenau changed several times until it fell back to the Hennebergers. As a fortification, the city had a castle (Wasserburg Ilmenau) in the northeast near the town hall, built on the ruins of the first moated castle, as well as a "city fence" (a low wall or palisade) with 6 gates: the Obertor (towards Roda ), the Jüdentor (towards Stadtilm ), the Mühltor (towards Langewiesen ), the Endleichtor (towards Manebach ) as well as the city gate and the Güldene gate in the west of the Sturmheide . Neither the castle nor the city fortifications are preserved today. There were two bridges over the Ilm; the Tannenbrücke in the west (Handelsstrasse Erfurt – Nürnberg) and the Kienrußbrücke in the east (Oehrenstöcker Strasse). Today's Tannenbrücke dates from the 1960s, the Kienrußbrücke from the 1990s. After the extinction of Henneberger in 1583 Ilmenau was the Duchy of Saxony and in the inheritance 1660 / 61 the Duchy of Saxony-Weimar awarded (from 1815 Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach ). The city then belonged to Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach until April 30, 1920 , and on May 1, 1920 it became part of the newly founded state of Thuringia.
Modern times
Ilmenau with the districts of Manebach and Unterpörlitz was affected by the persecution of witches from 1603 to 1676. 13 women and three men got into witch trials , three women died in dungeon, one of them as a result of torture. Two men and six women were executed, one was expelled from the country.
Mining has long been an important economic factor in Ilmenau . Above all silver , copper and fluorspar were mined in the area. At the beginning of the 18th century the number of miners was around 500. During the entire period of operation, 40,842 thalers were minted in the coin . However, the middle of the 18th century brought severe setbacks. The raw materials dried up and the Saxon competition was overwhelming. In 1739 a water inrush stopped the production. Between 1730 and 1746 a rococo- style castle was built in Ilmenau . It was located near today's Wetzlarer Platz. In 1752 a devastating fire ravaged the city. The official buildings and 284 residential buildings fell victim to him. While the population was totally impoverished, the officials of the city administration put the meager aid money that flowed from Weimar into their own pockets. Complaints were rejected by the Duchess Anna Amalia von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach . The bourgeoisie fought back, among other things, with a process before the Reich Chamber of Commerce, which they won in 1771. The reconstruction of the city after the fire of 1752 was planned and managed by the Weimar master builder Gottfried Heinrich Krohne .
Goethe came to the city for the first time in 1776 . Some time later he was commissioned by Duke Carl August to promote mining . He devoted himself energetically to this task, but also took care of the needs of the population and, after a revision, achieved the condemnation of the corrupted city administration. The revival of the mining industry was not lucky after another flood in 1796 , but Goethe promoted glass and porcelain production ( first porcelain factory in 1777 ), which became an important economic component of Ilmenau. Goethe himself remained closely connected to Ilmenau not only through his official duties, but also through his literary and scientific work. He celebrated his 82nd birthday , which was his last, in Ilmenau.
| Nominal | Silver fine weight | Minting time | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 thaler | 25.98 g | 1693-1703 | 40,842 |
| 2/3 thalers | 12.99 g | 1691-1694 | with 1/3 thalers with a total value of 143,761 thalers |
| 1/3 thaler | 6.49 g | 1692-1694 | s. O. |
| 1/2 thaler | 12.99 g | 1693-1702 | unknown |
| 1/4 thaler | 6.49 g | 1693-1702 | unknown |
| 2 groschen | Billon | 1692 | 1,309,326 |
| 3 pfennigs | Billon | 1692/1693 | 573,500 |
| 1 lighter | copper | 1693/1694 | unknown |
(Source: Booklet for the 4th district coin exhibition in Ilmenau 1973)
industrialization
In the middle of the 19th century, Ilmenau developed into a climatic health resort and bathing resort, although it was mostly overshadowed by the then more famous Friedrichroda . The final end was initiated by a fire in the bathing establishments in 1920. The industrialization that took place at the same time was more successful: in 1852 a glassworks was built again after the first Ilmenau glassworks had already closed in the 17th century. From 1864 there were porcelain painting companies until the thermometer and glass instrument manufacture was established in Ilmenau in 1870 . The railway line (Erfurt–) Plaue – Ilmenau , opened in 1879, promoted this upswing as well as the population development of the city. The next railway line was opened in 1881 to Gehren-Großbreitenbach . In 1904 the Rennsteigbahn to Schleusingen followed . In 1894 the Thuringian technical center was opened, from which today's TU Ilmenau emerged over several stages . Five years later the city was connected to the electricity grid.
Between the world wars
In 1923 the Arnstadt district was formed, to which Ilmenau belonged in the following years. In the same year the Grenzhammer was incorporated. The Ilmenau industries were hit hard by inflation in 1923 and the Great Depression in 1929. The situation particularly worsened in 1930 in the toy industry. Many factory workers lost their jobs. The toy industry was unable to recover from this slump.
In the course of the advancing industrialization of the city, it also became a center of political disputes in the 1920s. The First Socialist Work Week , which can be seen as the anticipated founding event of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main , met here around Pentecost weekend 1923 . In 1925, 3,000 people took part in the opening event of the children's home of the Red Aid in Elgersburg on the Ilmenau market square , which the district administrator of the Arnstadt district wanted to prevent. On the other hand, the later Gauleiter of Thuringia, Fritz Sauckel, and the later Prime Minister of Thuringia, Willy Marschler, began their political careers here in 1923 in the local NSDAP group they founded . Sauckel studied in Ilmenau, while Marschler worked in the city as an assistant to an iron trader. With the völkisch fighting newspaper "Der Deutsche Aar" published by Sauckel in Ilmenau, he tried from 1924 to hold together the supporters of the NSDAP , which had been weakened by the failed Hitler-Ludendorff putsch of 1923 .
After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, municipal housing construction was promoted in Ilmenau . At that time, the residential areas north of the train station were built. But there was also political resistance in the group around Karl Zink , who was executed in 1940 in the Plötzensee prison for this reason . During the GDR era, a street and a school in Ilmenau were named after him. On May 1, 1936, a Reich Finance School was founded in Ilmenau . This took place at the urging of Fritz Reinhardt , a State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Finance, who was born in Ilmenau. At times it trained over 1,200 students. On February 29, 1952 the financial school in Ilmenau was closed to avoid an excessive concentration of university education in Ilmenau (in addition to the financial school, there was also the technical center and the glass technical school). During the Reichspogromnacht in 1938, the Jewish prayer room in Ilmenauer Burggasse was looted and desecrated. Two Torah scriptures were burned in the market square. Many of the former 100 Jewish residents emigrated to the USA and Brazil. The last 14 Ilmenau Jews were deported to the Bełżyce Ghetto near Lublin on May 10, 1942 .
During the Second World War , 1,440 forced laborers had to work in various companies in the city, but also in local government. 78 victims of forced labor rest in the Ilmenau cemetery . Five prisoners from Buchenwald concentration camp were absurdly reburied in the military cemetery and their memorial plaque was given a misleading inscription in 1990 ( five unknown soldiers ).
GDR time
The Second World War brought no destruction in Ilmenau, among other things because there were no air raids on the city. On April 10, 1945, the US troops from Ilmenau-Roda marched across the Sturmheide . The city surrendered immediately, so there was no fighting. At the beginning of July 1945, the American soldiers were withdrawn in accordance with the Yalta declaration of the victorious powers of World War II and Ilmenau became part of the Soviet occupation zone , from which the GDR emerged in 1949 . In the following years there were also expropriations and collectivizations in Ilmenau , with most of the industrial companies being nationalized.
The new district of Ilmenau was formed in 1952 from the southern part of the former district of Arnstadt and Ilmenau became a district town in the newly formed district of Suhl . In 1953, the Thuringian Technical Center was elevated to a university and construction work began on the new campus on the Ehrenberg .
From 1973 onwards, there were major changes in Ilmenau. The city had largely kept its old face until then, but it has now been restructured. The Karl Marx memorial also fell victim to the demolition work in the city center . The new industrial area at Vogelherd was created. The two large Ilmenau factories were built there: the glass factory and the porcelain factory, the smaller factories from the 19th century in the city center disappeared. Since the new plants also created numerous industrial jobs, it was decided to build two new development areas. Construction work on the tunnel began in 1975 and in 1978 on the Pörlitzer Höhe . Both residential areas were completed in the mid-1980s. In 1981, the previously independent Unterpörlitz was incorporated.
Peaceful revolution and post-reunification time
The first Monday demonstrations took place in Ilmenau in autumn 1989 . When the inner-German border was opened on November 9, 1989, traffic in Ilmenau almost came to a standstill during the following week. A memorial in front of the St. Jakobus Church reminds: “The victims of the dictatorship 1945-1989. Autumn 1989 - Peaceful Revolution ”.
In 1993 the technical university was converted into a technical university . In the following years the campus was expanded and the number of students tripled. At the beginning of the 1990s, a large wave of layoffs took place in Ilmenau. Numerous employees from the glass and porcelain factory became unemployed. In 1994 , as part of the Thuringian municipal reform, the towns of Oberpörlitz , Heyda and Manebach were incorporated, the Ilmenau district dissolved and merged with the Arnstadt district to form the Ilm district . In 2002 production in the porcelain factory was finally stopped.
In further municipal reforms in 2018 and 2019 , the cities of Langewiesen (with Oehrenstock ) and Gehren (with Jesuborn and Möhrenbach ) as well as the communities Pennewitz and Wolfsberg (consisting of Bücheloh , Gräfinau-Angstedt and Wümbach ) were incorporated into Ilmenau on July 6, 2018 . The communities Frauenwald and Stützerbach followed on January 1, 2019 . In addition to the core city, Ilmenau thus consists of a further 16 districts.
The Ilmenau Office
The office of Ilmenau existed from 1661 to 1920. It belonged to the administrative district of Weimar in the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach (red). The official area was the largest enclave of the Grand Duchy. It bordered in the north and south-east on Schwarzburg-Sondershausen (yellow), in the west and north-east on Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (green), in the south on the Albertine Duchy of Saxe-Zeitz (1661–1718), later the Electorate of Saxony (1718–1815) ) and since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 Prussia (dark blue) and in the east and northwest to Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt (brown). At Dreiherrenstein touched the administrative area of Saxony-Meiningen (light blue). The area of the official area was 89.87 km², of which 10.81 km² were Ilmenau city area. The area used in the administrative area consisted of 58% forest, 24% fields and 12% pasture areas. In addition to the city, the office also included the places Cammerberg (= Manebach on the right of the Ilm), Stützerbach on the right of the Lengwitz , Roda , Ober- and Unterpörlitz , Heyda , Martinroda , Wipfra and Neusiß . Presumably these nine official villages are represented in the Ilmenau coat of arms by the nine green leaves.
Political affiliation of the city
| year | State / ruler |
|---|---|
| 1273 | (first documentary mention) Kevernburg |
| 1343 | Henneberg |
| 1351 | Schwarzburg |
| 1420 | Joke life |
| 1434 | Henneberg |
| 1445 | Schwarzburg |
| 1464 | Henneberg |
| 1476 | Schaumberg |
| 1498 | Henneberg |
| 1583 | Ernestine lands |
| 1660 | City is jointly organized by Saxony-Gotha and Saxe-Weimar managed |
| 1661 | Saxe-Weimar (from 1741 Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach ) |
| 1920 | Thuringia |
| 1952 | District of Suhl |
| 1990 | Thuringia |
literature
- AW Fills Bad Ilmenau and its surroundings, in the Thuringian Forest. Kesselring'sche Hofbuchhandlung ( 1873 )
swell
- ↑ a b Karl Friedrich Schwanitz : The two castles in Ilmenau, in; Journal of the Association for Thuringian History and Archeology, Vol. 21 (1902/1903), pp. 357–361.
- ^ Kai Lehmann : Exhibition "Luther and the Witches", Ilmenau area, Library Museum Schloss Wilhelmsburg Schmalkalden, 2012; Ronald Füssel: The persecution of witches in the Thuringian region , publications by the working group for historical witchcraft and crime research in Northern Germany, Volume 2, Hamburg 2003, pp. 235 and 238.
- ↑ Thuringian Association of the Persecuted of the Nazi Regime - Association of Antifascists and Study Group of German Resistance 1933–1945 (Ed.): Heimatgeschichtlicher Wegweiser to places of resistance and persecution 1933-1945, series: Heimatgeschichtliche Wegweiser Volume 8 Thüringen, Erfurt 2003, p. 145 , ISBN 3-88864-343-0
- ↑ Thuringian Law and Ordinance Gazette No. 7 2018 of July 5, 2018. Accessed on September 17, 2018 .
- ^ Thuringian State Office for Statistics. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
