History of the city of Iserlohn
The history of the town of Iserlohn describes the change of Iserlohn from a small settlement in the northwestern Sauerland to a fortress town in the Middle Ages to the largest town in the Sauerland. The first settlement finds are around 1500 years old, the town charter was granted almost 800 years ago. The city in its current size has existed since 1975, when numerous areas were incorporated and the population roughly doubled.
In the Middle Ages, Iserlohn was a border town of the County of Mark and was therefore expanded into a fortress. Metal finds in the surrounding area led to industrial advances in modern times. In the 19th century in particular, industry was the region's engine of growth and brought Iserlohn to the top of the Westphalian cities.
General historical development
Prehistory of the area
The oldest human traces come from the Middle Paleolithic about 42,000 years ago. Devices made of flint and gravel slate were discovered on the Oestricher Burgberg and in the Martin's cave below . On the Grürmannsheide there were finds from the end of the Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic in large numbers. However, these finds do not yet indicate permanent settlement in the area during this period. The Iserlohn Caves provided protection for people and animals for thousands of years, and excavations found bones of ancient animals in many caves, and human bones in the no longer accessible Martins Cave. Human traces in the form of microliths were also found in the Grürmannshöhle .
The Iserlohn area was settled from the Neolithic Age (from 4,500 BC). In addition to the most important site in Iserlohn, the Burgberg in Oestrich and on the Grürmannsheide, finds in Dröschede, Sümmern, Hennen and on the Honsel, the Schälk and the Stübbeken can also be assigned to this era. Agricultural tools, axes made of greywackle quartzite and broad wedges were among these finds. From the Bronze Age, discoveries in Sümmern (a flint dagger), von der Seiler (bronze weapons), in the crevasse and in the Martinshöhle (cup) are to be highlighted. Some jewelry finds from the Germanic times are to be mentioned on the Burgberg (5th century) and the Dröscheder Hardt (6th / 7th century). A large part of the finds from Grürmannsheide, the castle hill and the crevasse cave can be viewed in the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in the Werdringen moated castle in Hagen .
Traces of settlement in the Lägertal indicate permanent settlement in the inner city area from the 6th century AD. The oldest building in the city, the Pankratiuskirche, was built in the late 10th century and probably consecrated in 985. In 1059, a settlement was mentioned in a document from the Liesborn monastery , possibly referring to today's Iserlohn. In 1124 a settlement called Yslo is mentioned in a papal property book. The first unequivocal documented mention of Iserlohn dates back to 1150 as Lon . Some of today's districts are even a bit older: the district of Genna was first mentioned in 980, Dröschede around 1030, Letmathe in 1036, Rheinen around 1050 and Hennen around 1150.
The name Lon comes from the Old High German term Lôh , which means forest. The combination with the term Isen = iron soon appeared , which points to the early knowledge of the rich iron ore deposits in the area. The city name can therefore be translated as Eisenwald . Lôh is also part of the name of the northern desert Ortlohn , which arose from Nortlon .
City development and growth (12th-18th centuries)
At the turn of the millennium, the Iserlohn area was under the influence of the Archdiocese of Cologne , which had many fiefs in the Sauerland in order to Christianize the people . Secular rulers included the Counts of Werl , who lost territory to the Dukes of Berg in the 11th century , who soon ruled a large contiguous area in the western Sauerland up to the Rhine. In 1160/1161 the Counts of Altena split off from the Dukes of Berg and at the beginning of the 13th century divided into the Counties of Mark and Limburg . The settlement of Lon was since then in the Brandenburg area. From 1180 the Archbishops of Cologne were also sovereigns in the area and owned the northeastern Duchy of Westphalia , which reached as far as Menden .
Iserlohn was therefore close to the borders of the county of Mark to the county of Limburg near Letmathe and the Electoral Cologne Duchy of Westphalia near Menden. Since the Duchy of Westphalia expanded Menden into a fortress, the Brandenburg counts also endeavored to build a strong border fortification in this area, which could also assert itself against the counties of Arnsberg and Limburg. Although the dukes of Westphalia resisted, the Brandenburg counts, who had no right to fortify a city, tried again and again to build a fortress on the Bilstein, a bare limestone rock above the old settlement of Iserlohn, and to surround it with a city wall and moat.
In the middle of the 13th century a lordly citadel and castle mansion were built near the Marienkirche (“Oberste Stadtkirche”) . The first city wall was a wooden / earth wall. The wall began on the Bilstein and reached east to the mill gate. From the mill gate it reached to the northwest to today's "Old Town Hall Square", where the north gate stood. To the west it then closed in an arch back to the cliff at St. Mary's Church, where the church gate stood. Around 1300 between the mill gate and the western end of the wall including the north gate was abandoned and a partially double stone wall to the north and east was expanded. This quadrupled the fortified urban area. Remains of the wall can still be seen today in the area of the Marienkirche. In addition to the mill and church gates, the Westertor, the Unnaer and the Wermingser Tor were built. To the north was the Jewish quarter, the Jewish cemetery between the two walls.
Iserlohn was the seat of the deanery of the same name as early as 1214 . The town charter was probably granted under Adolf I in 1237, who also made the first coinage around 1240. The confirmation of the town charter by Engelbert I is documented for 1278. The counts further expanded the city administratively. In documents from 1309 there is talk of a fortified city with its own judge and mayor, in 1326 a city council was mentioned for the first time. Iserlohn was one of the six important cities in the county of Mark in addition to the capital and residence of Hamm as well as Kamen , Lünen , Unna and Schwerte . The Counts of the Mark remained sovereigns until 1609, from 1392 in personal union with the Counts of Cleves . In 1447 Kleve became a duchy (Kleve-Mark), and from 1521 the city belonged to the United Duchies of Jülich-Kleve-Berg , which also included the county of Mark.
After the Jülich-Klevischen succession dispute (1609–1614) , the county of Mark was taken over by the Electorate of Brandenburg and has belonged to Prussia ever since . The Brandenburgers later also became the Prussian kings.
With originally around 10 hectares of land, Iserlohn was one of the medieval small towns. It was initially characterized by its fortress character and its relatively poor traffic situation. The separation of the administrative units Alt-Iserlohn around the Pankratius Church and the fortress town and citadel near the Marienkirche (today the highest town church) existed until the beginning of the 19th century.
The development of Iserlohn is closely related to industrial development. In the early days of metalworking in the late Middle Ages, iron ore was mined all around the mountain slopes and melted over wood fires and later in ovens. The surrounding forests provided firewood. From the 14th century, the first water-powered iron hammers were built in the Grüner Tal and Baarbach. Osemund iron of high quality was made. In the inner city area, the zinc mineral calamine was also mined from the 15th to the 19th century .
Like most cities in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, Iserlohn also suffered from several city fires, from which the city only slowly recovered. At least nine major fires have been reported: from 1448, 1510, 1530, 1616, 1635, 1665, 1677, 1685, 1712. One cause of the fires was, in addition to the dense construction of half-timbered houses , the metalworking factories in the city that worked with fire . The businesses gradually moved to the surrounding area, and more merchants, craftsmen and small businesses settled in the city center.
Iserlohn as an industrial metropolis (18th - 19th centuries)
From the 18th century, Iserlohn rose to become one of the most important industrial cities in Prussia . Needles were first produced in 1690, and in the course of the following decades needle and wire manufacture became the most important branches of industry. Products from the bronze and brass industries were also among the city's most important goods. The large metal processing companies were increasingly located on the outskirts, while many merchant houses were built in the city center. The Iserlohn merchants traded with cities throughout Europe and partly beyond.
Around 1800, the Iserlohn area with its wire, needle, brass, bronze and silk industries, together with the neighboring region around Altena and Lüdenscheid, formed one of the world's largest industrial areas. Until well into the 19th century, Iserlohn was the largest industrial city in Westphalia and one of the richest trading cities in Prussia. The production of armaments was also of great importance, as evidenced by a mail shirt made in Iserlohn in the Tower of London . The Iserlohn needles were a global export hit with a market share of approx. 66%.
The economy was negatively affected by Prussia's numerous wars, which led to temporary export losses. The French occupation at the beginning of the 19th century and the associated continental blockade also hampered economic and urban growth. From 1808 to 1813 Iserlohn belonged to the Ruhr department in the Grand Duchy of Berg . Then it fell back to Prussia and now came to the province of Westphalia in the administrative district of Arnsberg . Iserlohn became the seat of what was then the Iserlohn district in 1817 . Another economic boom of about twenty years followed.
The economic boom brought social problems with it. Production in the 18th and 19th centuries took place in factories under poor working conditions. As an early industrialized community, Iserlohn was therefore one of the core locations of the early labor movement. One of the first strikes in the metal industry occurred in the city in 1840. After the failure of the revolution of 1848/49 , there were increased protests by the population, and so in May 1849 the rebels were to be kept in check with the help of the Landwehr. These plans by the Prussian government enraged the population, and the Iserlohn uprising broke out with the occupation of the armory . In 1865 a local organization of the General German Workers' Association (ADAV) was founded.
From the middle of the 19th century, the metal industry stagnated for several reasons. The Iserlohner Metallbetriebe were heavily dependent on hydropower, which the brooks in the city area could hardly raise due to the large number of businesses, so that as a result, some businesses migrated to the Lenne or Ruhr. In the Ruhr area , better steel and better products could also be manufactured using modern methods. A number of Iserlohn entrepreneurs put their capital into companies in the Ruhr area, for example there was a colliery called "Neu-Iserlohn" in what is now Bochum 's Langendreer district (operating 1866–1968).
The main railway lines (e.g. the Ruhr-Sieg line ) were not led directly through Iserlohn, but only two secondary lines were built. In 1860 the Letmathe train station was opened on the main line Hagen-Siegen, the Letmathe-Fröndenberg and Ardey-Bahn (Iserlohn-Dortmund) were added in 1864 and 1910 respectively.
Despite the economic problems, many medium-sized companies in the metal industry remained in Iserlohn. Even today, some street names in the city center are reminiscent of the great times of ore mining and processing (including Galmeistraße, Bergwerkstraße, Stahlschmiede).
In the 1830s the optical telegraph line Berlin – Koblenz was built, which also touched the Sauerland, and in 1833 a station of the telegraph line was built on the Iserlohner Fröndenberg. Because of the new electric telegraph , operations were stopped almost twenty years later. In 1909, the Danzturm , today's landmark of the city , was built on the building of the station . A replica of the optical telegraph station is located there today.
During the expansion of the railway line from Iserlohn to Letmathe, the Dechen cave was discovered in 1868 , which is still one of the most important sights today as a show cave.
The city in the 20th and 21st centuries
The population growth as a result of industrialization was reflected in the rapid expansion of the built-up urban area. New residential areas were created around the city, for example in the areas of Bömberg and Läger, which were also funded with public funds. In the 1930s, extensions were added in Wermingsen and in the west of the city. This development went hand in hand with the district freedom from 1907, when the city was detached from the Iserlohn district , but remained the seat of the district until 1974 .
In the 1930s, the NSDAP also gained strength in Iserlohn. In the local elections in 1929 the NSDAP achieved 2.4%, in the Reichstag elections on March 5, 1933 40.4% and in the local elections in March 1933 42.5%. On April 27, 1933, the Lord Mayor Richard Gertenbach was "on leave" without giving any reason and the business was temporarily continued by Government Secretary Walter Riedel. Influential local politician of the NSDAP was Willy Kölker .
After an assassination attempt on the leading National Socialist Hans Bernsau in front of the train station on January 16, 1933, smear campaigns against communists broke out. A suspect from Iserlohn was sentenced to death in September 1933. In the attacks against Jewish citizens in 1938 , the synagogue on Mendener Strasse and numerous Jewish shops were destroyed.
During the Second World War, the city was largely spared from destruction. In April 1945 remaining Wehrmacht troops withdrew from the Ruhr basin to Iserlohn. On the evening of April 13, the bombing by American troops began, which lasted almost three days but caused little damage. The Wehrmacht commander Albert Ernst recognized the hopelessness and was ready to surrender within the American ultimatum. The surrender took place at noon on April 16, 1945.
As early as the 1950s, the city was growing rapidly again. The Iserlohner Heide was incorporated by Oestrich in 1956 and designated industrial areas there. New residential areas were created or expanded in Gerlingsen, on Nussberg and on Brandkopf.
In 1969 Iserlohn became a garrison town . Three barracks were built: the Winkelmann, Corunna and Bernhard Hülsmann barracks. In addition to paratrooper battalions, the “Air Force Technical College” as an educational facility for all of Germany and the British Military Hospital were housed. After 1990 the troops were reduced and all Iserlohn barracks were closed. Today the buildings and facilities of the military hospital are used by the Business and Information Technology School and the boarding school on the Seilersee . A commercial center was set up in the Corunna barracks, the center for gerontology technology in the Bernhard Hülsmann barracks and the "Buchenwäldchen residential park" in the Winkelmann barracks.
In the course of the municipal reorganization in North Rhine-Westphalia ( Sauerland / Paderborn law ), Iserlohn lost its district freedom in 1975 and became a large city in the Märkisches Kreis . The city only kept a few branch offices of the district's facilities (including the road traffic department and health department), and it was also designated as the seat of the district police authority for the Märkische Kreis.
From 1967 the entire city center was renovated and restructured into the 1980s. In addition to establishing the pedestrian zone, the new town hall on Schillerplatz was inaugurated as a striking building in 1974. Remaining medieval structures outside the city center were removed and for the most part had to give way to traffic areas. At the beginning of the 2000s, some of these “building sins” were revised. Among other things, the pedestrian zone was redesigned.
With the organization of the German Hiking Day 2001 and the Campus Symposium , which has been held annually since 2005 , Iserlohn attracted national attention.
Incorporations
Since the end of the 19th century, the Iserlohn city area has been expanded again and again. On January 17, 1883 and December 1, 1890 parts of Lössel were added. Parts of Calle and Oestrich were incorporated on August 1, 1929, the Kuhlo and western Dröscheder Feld as further Oestricher areas on April 1, 1941. Iserlohner Heide, Gerlingsen and Hombruch, which have been part of the town of Iserlohn since October 1st, 1956, also belonged to Oestrich. On April 1, 1971, the area was enlarged by a forest area north of Hombruch / east of the Refflingser Bach and a piece of land in the "Vorm Heu" area (both from Letmathe).
As a result of the regional reform on January 1, 1975, the urban area with Hennen and Letmathe , parts of Hemer (Griesenbrauck and Bilveringsen), Ihmert , Kesbern and Sümmern (except Ostsümmern , which came to the city of Menden ) were merged to form the new city of Iserlohn.
Population development
With the beginning of industrialization , the population growth in Iserlohn accelerated. In 1820 only 5,000 people lived in the city, by 1900 there were already 27,000. Due to the merger with the city of Letmathe (28,718 inhabitants 1974) and other places, the population increased from 56,000 in 1974 to 97,000 on January 1, 1975.
In 1996, the population peaked at 99,802 as of December 31st. On June 30, 2005, the " official population " for Iserlohn was 97,478 according to updates by the State Office for Data Processing and Statistics North Rhine-Westphalia (only main residences and after comparison with the other state offices).
The following overview shows the number of inhabitants according to the respective territorial status. Until 1820 it is mostly an estimate, then census results (¹) or official updates from the State Statistical Office. From 1871, the information relates to the “local population”, from 1925 to the resident population and since 1987 to the “population at the location of the main residence”. Before 1871, the number of inhabitants was determined according to inconsistent survey procedures.
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¹ Population census
results ² Update by the State Office for Data Processing and Statistics North Rhine-Westphalia
Religions
Iserlohn is the seat of the Iserlohn parish of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia . The denomination status of the Protestant parishes of Iserlohn has been united since 1931 . The Catholic parishes are affiliated to the Märkisches Sauerland deanery. At the end of 2005, Iserlohn had 37,479 Protestant and 34,194 Catholic residents. 29,574 belonged to another or no religious community.
Iserlohn's old parish church with the patron Saint Pankratius ("Farmer's Church ") was originally a daughter church of Menden. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the pastors of Iserlohn were often deans of the Attendorn deanery, to which they belonged. The Andreasstift in Cologne was entitled to fill the pastoral position. The parish of Iserlohn had two branches in Oestrich and Altena. Within the city wall, the Supreme City Church was built around 1330 , which was first dedicated to Saints Cosmas and Damianus, and later to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the 16th century it received full parish rights and thus became the main church of the city.
The Reformation reached Iserlohn in 1524, when Conrad Varnhagen spread the Lutheran doctrine and Iserlohn was reformed. In 1745, by order of the Prussian state, the Catholic community of Iserlohn was (re) founded. Initially, services were held in a private house, from 1755 in a small church. In the second half of the 18th century, many Catholics came to work, especially in the needle factories. The church became too small and therefore demolished in 1825. 1831–1873 there was a church at the Lehmkuhle, which was closed due to mining damage. The oldest existing Catholic church in Iserlohn's inner city is the Aloysius Church from 1894. At the time of its construction, Protestant Christians were still in the majority, but the Catholic refugees after the Second World War created an almost balanced relationship between these faiths in the entire city area a. The services of the two major denominations take place in 14 Protestant and 13 Catholic churches.
The New Apostolic Church (NAK) in Iserlohn has had a strong congregation since 1886 . Its founder was the later Apostle Bornemann. From this community, which is today a district community for the elders district of Iserlohn, many communities were founded in the vicinity, but also as far as Hesse. Today there are three municipalities in the urban area. In the second half of the 20th century, numerous guest workers of different nationalities and faiths came to Iserlohn. Today, in addition to an Italian, a Portuguese and a Greek Orthodox community, there is also a larger Muslim community that built a mosque in the 1990s .
literature
- Götz Bettge: Iserlohn Lexicon . Hans-Herbert Mönnig Verlag, Iserlohn 1987, ISBN 3-922885-37-3 .
- Margret Kirchhoff: The pulse of a city. The Supreme City Church of Iserlohn - time images and snapshots . Self-published by Dr. Margret Kirchhoff, 2003.
- Fritz Kühn: Dear old Iserlohn . Verlag Buchhandlung Alfred Potthoff Iserlohn, Iserlohn 1967 (new edition).
- Peter Müller, Günter Stalp: Our good old tram. A trip into the past . Iserlohn 1995, ISBN 3-922885-78-0 .
- Paul Hermann Schieber, Reinhard Kirste: The farmer's church in Iserlohn . 2nd Edition. Iserlohn 1984, ISBN 3-922885-00-4 .
- Willi Brasse, Arno Herzig , Ulrich Schenck: Iserlohn . Weidlich-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1971, ISBN 3-8035-0444-9 .
- City of Iserlohn (ed.): Fritz Kühn zum Gedächtnis, contributions to the history of Iserlohn (= series of publications from the Haus der Heimat . No. 12 ). Iserlohn 1968.
- Wilhelm Schulte: Iserlohn - The History of a City, Volume 1 . Ed .: City of Iserlohn supported by the Historical Commission of the Province of Westphalia and the District of Iserlohn. Iserlohn 1937 ( sammlungen.ulb.uni-muenster.de [accessed on March 30, 2020]).
- Wilhelm Schulte: Iserlohn - The history of a city, Volume 2: Iserlohner Urkundenbuch . Ed .: City of Iserlohn supported by the Historical Commission of the Province of Westphalia and the District of Iserlohn. Iserlohn 1938 ( sammlungen.ulb.uni-muenster.de [accessed on March 30, 2020]).
- Walter Vollmer: Westphalian city pictures . Gütersloh 1963, section Iserlohn, p. 268 ff .
Web links
Wikinews: Iserlohn - in the news- Link catalog on Iserlohn at curlie.org (formerly DMOZ )
swell
- ^ Contributions to local history for Iserlohn and the Brandenburg area. Volume 10, pp. 219f.
- ^ Carl Haase: The emergence of the Westphalian cities. 4th edition. Münster 1984, p. 87.
- ^ City history of Iserlohn 1800 to 1900.
- ↑ Götz Bettge: Iserlohn Lexicon. 1987, p. 255.
- ↑ Götz Bettge: Iserlohn Lexicon. 1987, p. 237.
- ^ Michael Rademacher: German administrative history from the unification of the empire in 1871 to the reunification in 1990. iserlohn.html. (Online material for the dissertation, Osnabrück 2006).
- ↑ § 2 Sauerland / Paderborn law
- ↑ State database NRW
- ^ A b Udo Wiedemeyer: History of the 2nd IBSV Company.
- ↑ Deanery Märkisches Sauerland
- ↑ Population data Märkischer Kreis ( Memento from October 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Albert Hömberg : Ecclesiastical and secular regional organization of Westphalia. P. 43.
- ↑ a b Paul Löer: History of the cath. Parish Iserlohn 1745–1970. Zimmermann-Verlag, Balve 1969.