History of the city of Koblenz

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Coat of arms of Koblenz

The history of the city of Koblenz was marked by armed conflicts in numerous border conflicts as well as a major structural change. The area of Koblenz has been settled since the Stone Age . The Romans built a fortified urban settlement here for the first time, which was continued to be used by the Franks after the withdrawal of the Roman troops in the 5th century. The city is one of the oldest cities in Germany . During the rule of the Archbishops and Electors of Trier, Koblenz continued to flourish and a multitude of cultural treasures arose in the form of churches, castles and fortifications. After a short but formative period in France, the Prussians made their mark on Koblenz in the 19th century. The city, now the capital of the Prussian Rhine Province , was developed as one of the most powerful fortress systems in Europe. The 20th century was marked by renewed structural changes and the considerable expansion of the settlement area. The total destruction of Koblenz in World War II was decisive . The city recovered only slowly, but the historic cityscape was lost forever. In 1992 the city of Koblenz celebrated its 2000th anniversary.

Affiliation of Koblenz:

View from Ehrenbreitstein Fortress to Koblenz and the Deutsches Eck

Early history

Information board on prehistory behind the St. Kastor basilica

Stone Age people lived in the Koblenz area as early as 800,000 years ago, which is proven by finds in Güls and Bisholder . The eruption of the Laacher See volcano around 10,930 BC. Chr. Changed the landscape so drastically that only much younger finds can be made.

The fertile and easily accessible area at the confluence of the Moselle and Rhine has been continuously populated since the Middle Stone Age (approx. 9000 BC). Today's city center lay in the delta area of the Moselle and was more like an island landscape that could easily be crossed on foot in the summer months when the water was low. In the entire city area there are finds of settlement remains and graves from the time of the Rössen culture to the Celts . The oldest finds in the Moselle delta include an antler hoe around 10,000 years old and a stone ax from the 3rd millennium BC. The people of the Middle and New Stone Age set up hunting stations in the island world, later agriculture and cattle breeding were added. With this, the first pit and half-timbered houses were also built.

In City Forest on the Dommelberg a fixed height prehistoric settlement was around 1900 urnfield culture discovered. The Fliehburg from the 11th to 10th century BC, the structure of which can still be clearly seen, served as a place of refuge for the people around. In 2005, the Koblenz Office for Archaeological Monument Preservation came across an early palisade during excavations on the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress , which was reinforced at the rear with an excavation and was around 1000 BC. Can be dated BC. Thus, 250 years before the founding of Rome, there was verifiably a fortification on the Ehrenbreitstein plateau .

It was the Celts of the younger Hallstatt period up to the La Tène period who finally established an extensive trading and craft settlement in the area of ​​today's inner city. When the Romans approached the Rhine, they found the highly developed Treveri civilization , a tribe of the Celts, in Koblenz . Near Koblenz is the Goloring , a Celtic earthwork that dates back to approx. 1000 BC. BC and was probably used as a kind of solar calendar , similar to Stonehenge . The chariot grave of Bell is another testimony to the Celtic high culture, all of which point to pronounced long-distance trade and suggest that the Moselle delta played an important role on the trade routes.

Roman time

Site of the Roman fort from the time of Emperor Augustus at the Castor Church in 2008
Partial excavation and partial reconstruction of a Roman farm on Remsteck in the city ​​forest

In the Gallic War against the Teutons , Roman troops under Julius Caesar reached 55 BC. The Rhine and built a first Rhine crossing between Koblenz and Andernach . In Koblenz itself, the remains of settlements near today's Münzplatz , at the Kastorkirche and at the Electoral Palace go back to the end of the first century BC. A first fort was built in 9 BC. Built at the confluence of the Moselle and Rhine to secure the Rhine Valley Road Mainz - Cologne - Xanten . The first evidence of this early Roman fort was made in November 2008 when a sensational find was made during construction work for the 2011 Federal Horticultural Show at the Kastor Church and an ancient moat was discovered. The four meter wide and still 2.5 meter deep moat of the 100 by 100 meter large fort is the missing evidence of the early Roman settlement of Koblenz, which was previously searched in vain for 150 years in the area of ​​the old town . Koblenz is one of the oldest cities in Germany . The Romans called their settlements " Castellum apud Confluentes ", which means something like "Fort at the confluent". At that time, the Treveri settled here , who ruled the entire Moselle region. The settlement belonged to the newly founded Roman province " Germania superior " since around 85 AD .

Roman bridges were built over the Rhine and Moselle. An approx. 350 meter long pile bridge over the Rhine was built around 49 AD between today's Ehrenbreitstein and the Koblenz side of the Rhine. It consisted of approx. 650–750 oak trunks with iron tips, so-called pile shoes, 51 of which have been preserved to this day. The Moselle Bridge, 50 m from today's Balduin Bridge , was built as part of the Roman Rhine Valley Road.

Probably under Emperor Domitian (81–96) the Niederberg fort was built for auxiliary troops in Niederberg to protect the Roman Upper German Limes . The Roman troops were moved from Koblenz to the right bank of the Rhine. Around 259/260 the area on the right bank of the Rhine was cleared again after a devastating Franconian offensive. After the fall of the Limes, Emperor Constantine (306–337) had the area of ​​today's old town provided with a mighty wall ring with 19 round towers and a fixed gate. The foundations of the old castle still consist of the remains of one of the round towers.

A temple complex for the Roman Mercury and the Gallic / Celtic Rosmerta was built above Koblenz in today's city ​​forest not far from the Roman road . Roman coins found there prove that the facility was used until the 5th century. At Remsteck there are remains of a Roman farm ( villa rustica ), which has been partially excavated and partially reconstructed.

It is likely that the Rhine and Moselle bridges were destroyed when the Roman troops withdrew in the 5th century . The Roman city wall was preserved until the early Middle Ages . Remnants of the wall and streets in Koblenz's old town still bear witness to the late Roman fortifications.

Franconian time

St. Kastor Basilica and Kastorbrunnen

With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the middle of the 5th century, Koblenz was conquered by the Franks and a Franconian royal court was founded. There is evidence that Austrasian kings stayed in Koblenz several times . King Childebert II received an embassy from Guntram I in the Koblenz royal court in 585, to which the bishop and historian Gregor von Tours also belonged. An oratorio was excavated under the Liebfrauenkirche , which probably belonged to the palatine chapel of the royal court.

As a result of Charlemagne's law on dividing the empire of February 6, 806, Koblenz fell to his son Karl the Younger . But he died early, so that after the death of Charlemagne in 814, Koblenz passed to his son Ludwig the Pious . In 817 he supported Archbishop Hetti of Trier in founding the St. Kastor Abbey outside the city fortifications.

The result of the uprisings from 830 to 833 between the sons of Ludwig the Pious ( Lothar I , Karl der Kahle , Ludwig the German ) and against himself was a second division of the empire. Charles the Bald received now in 837 a. a. Koblenz. The subsequent unrest in the empire could only be ended with the Treaty of Verdun in 843 and the partition of the Frankish Empire . Preliminary negotiations for this partition contract took place from October 19 to 24, 842 between the envoys of Charlemagne's three grandchildren in the Castor Church, consecrated in 836. So Koblenz fell to the I. by Lothar called Middle Kingdom Lotharingien .

In the year 855, the kingdom of Lothar I in the division of Prüm was divided among his three sons, Koblenz came to Lothar II. After his death, the Middle Kingdom was under the Treaty of Mersen in 870 under the brothers Lothar I (Ludwig the German and Charles the Bald) split again. The eastern part of the empire with Koblenz was now ruled by Ludwig the German. The St. Kastor Abbey was an important meeting place for emperors and kings as well as their descendants and a place of arbitration, where disputes between the ruling emperors and kings were negotiated and settled. In June 860 the Carolingians met to settle disputes within the family and negotiated the peace of Koblenz .

Norman raids did not spare Koblenz either, the city was devastated in April 882. After a short break, from 925 Koblenz belonged entirely to the East Franconian Empire , later the Holy Roman Empire .

Electoral time

Map of the Roman and medieval city ​​walls of Koblenz

In 1018, Emperor Heinrich II gave Trier Archbishop Poppo von Babenberg the Franconian royal court in Koblenz with all its accessories (including a market , coins and customs ). The archbishops of Trier, who belonged to the electoral college from 1198 , now assumed both ecclesiastical and secular rule over the city. Kurtrier was one of the original seven electoral principalities of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation . The secular territory of the Archbishop of Trier had belonged to the Kurheinische Reichskreis since 1512 and essentially comprised the areas to the left and right of the lower reaches of the Moselle and Lahn . Its capital was Trier , and Koblenz became the royal seat in the 17th century.

The Ehrenbreitstein came to the Archbishops of Trier in 1020 with the newly built castle. It was their bridgehead for the electorate's property on the right bank of the Rhine and was considered their safest castle. The largest sanctuaries in the country were kept here in endangered times, e. B. the head of St. Matthias (diocese patron) from 1380 to 1422 and the holy skirt from 1657 to 1794. The city of Koblenz protected the still existing Roman city ​​wall .

Today's Protestant Florins Church was built around 1100 under Archbishop Bruno von Lauffen as a Romanesque three-aisled church of the St. Florin Monastery. In the 16th century it was changed in the Gothic style. The construction of the Romanesque Church of Our Lady began around 1180 . A previous building of the church from the 5th century was based on a late antique hall from the time of Emperor Valentinian I (364–375). The Catholic Church of Our Lady was expanded in the 15th century. The baroque hoods, visible from afar, date from 1688 after being destroyed in the war.

Emperor Heinrich IV met with his son Heinrich V in Koblenz in December 1105 . The result was the imprisonment and abdication of the father and the seizure of power by the son. On March 7, 1138, the Staufer Konrad III. elected king in Koblenz. In the 19th century, historians like Philipp Jaffé argued that the election was held in St. Peter's Church in Lützelkoblenz . The meeting of princes took place "apud Confluentiam in Cathedra St. Petri". But that was a time ( Kathedra Petri ) and not a place. In addition, the church, which was first mentioned in a document in 1218, probably didn't even exist. Caused by the German controversy for the throne , the battle between King Philip of Swabia and King Otto IV took place in the dry Moselle bed near Koblenz in October 1198 . Philip's opponents, especially the Archbishop of Cologne Adolf von Altena , the Archbishop of Trier Johann I and Duke Heinrich I of Brabant , swore the oath of allegiance in the city on November 11, 1204 . In the late Middle Ages , Koblenz was granted city rights. The oldest known city ​​seal dates from 1214.

Archbishop Theoderich von Wied called the knights of the Teutonic Order to Koblenz in 1216 and gave them part of the grounds of the Castor Church, including the St. Nicholas Hospital located there. A motivation for the settlement of the order was to be seen in its suitability for nursing. Immediately on the corner where the Moselle flows into the Rhine, the Teutonic Order Coming came into being soon afterwards . This ball was directly subordinate to the Grand Master of the entire order. Since the establishment of the Teutonic Order, this site was initially called "Deutscher Ordt" and then " Deutsches Eck ". At the beginning of the 13th century two other religious orders settled in Koblenz and founded the Dominican and the Franciscan monastery .

Between 1242 and 1259, Stolzenfels Castle was built by Archbishop Arnold II of Isenburg as an Electorate of Trier customs castle opposite Lahneck Castle in Mainz . The five-sided keep , which is still preserved today, was built in 1248. The castle was expanded by the Archbishops Kuno and Werner von Falkenstein in the years 1388 to 1418 with a residential tower and a palace building on the Rhine side. In 1632 Stolzenfels Castle was occupied first by the Swedes and then twice for two years each (1634 and 1646) by the French. After their destruction in the Palatinate War of Succession by the French in 1688, the ruins lay fallow for 150 years.

Archbishop Arnold II of Isenburg acquired the Vogtei of Koblenz in 1253 . The city was now fully owned by the Archbishops of Trier. Isenburg began to expand and strengthen the city ​​wall around 1250 . The administration of Koblenz was subordinate to the mayor , who in turn was appointed by the archbishop. The Koblenz city ​​council, first mentioned in 1272, however, opposed the archbishop. From 1277 onwards , Heinrich II. Von Finstingen had the old castle built as a fortress against the citizens striving for more independence. From 1281 the citizens prevented the further construction of the city wall and castle. Heinrich II von Finstingen was thus forced to subdue the city and in 1283 launched an armed counter-attack. Archbishop Diether von Nassau finally subjugated the city in 1304 after fierce fighting. Koblenz had to forego the formation of a city council in the future. The castle and city wall have now been completed. The formation of a city council was able to prevail from 1332 onwards. The Adelshof Monreal (today the "Old Brewery") functioned as the town hall . The Koblenz Charterhouse was founded in 1331 after the Carthusian Order took over the monastery on Beatusberg, founded by Benedictines in the 12th century at the latest . The Carthusian monks were characterized above all by strict moral standards, nursing care and good economic management and thus shaped religious life in Koblenz for almost 500 years.

Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian held in 1338 in the presence of the English King Eduard III. a court day in the Kastorkirche . The construction of the Balduin Bridge began under Elector Balduin of Luxembourg around 1342 and took 85 years to complete. In the Grenzau feud in 1347, Kurtrier troops from Koblenz near Grenzau were defeated. The Jews were after 100 years of banishment from Kurtrier 1518 by Elector Richard von Greiffenklau to Vollrads readmitted in Koblenz. The anger of the population over the supposed usury of the Jews turned into pogrom-like excesses on March 13, 1531 .

The road robber Johann Lutter von Kobern was executed on the plan in 1536 . To this day, the “eye roller” (only attached there in 1724) on the department store and dance house built between 1419 and 1425 reminds of the robber baron . From 1674 to 1794, the building also served as the town hall of Koblenz and is now home to the Middle Rhine Museum . The Jesuit order settled in 1580 in the buildings of the former Cistercian monastery from the 12th century on today's Jesuitenplatz. The aim was to counteract the Reformation , which, however, could hardly gain a foothold in Koblenz. They founded a Jesuit college (today's town hall of Koblenz ) and a Jesuit monastery, where they built the Jesuit church as a three-aisled pillar basilica between 1613 and 1617 .

Elector Philipp Christoph von Sötern Built in 1629 in Ehrenbreitstein the Philippsburg Castle and made it his official residence. From then on, Ehrenbreitstein was the residence of the Trier electors. At the personal request of the elector, the Capuchins settled in Ehrenbreitstein in 1627 and founded a monastery . During the Thirty Years' War , Elector Philipp Christoph von Sötern sided with France . He granted the right of occupation to French troops who immediately occupied the Ehrenbreitstein fortress on June 5, 1632 . Koblenz, on the other hand, was occupied with troops from the imperial general Jean de Merode . The city was then besieged by Swedish troops under Gustaf Horn and finally captured on July 1, 1632. After the elector was captured by imperial troops in 1635 and Trier was conquered, they also liberated Koblenz on May 4, 1636. The French occupation of Ehrenbreitstein only surrendered after a year-long siege on June 27, 1637. The acts of war resulted in half of the city being destroyed towards the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648, and many of the inhabitants perished.

The city was besieged again in October / November 1688 during the War of the Palatinate Succession by the French Marshal Louis-François de Boufflers . The shelling of the French troops caused enormous damage, but the city could not be captured as some of the few in Kurtrier. The many warlike events of the 16th and 17th centuries favored the spread of epidemics , especially plague and typhus , from which many of the city's residents died. Plague epidemics are historically documented for the years 1581, 1597–1598, 1611–1613, 1621–1623 and for the last time 1666–1668. The dead were buried in mass graves outside the city gates. A testimony to this time is the plague cross from 1669 that is still preserved today .

From 1680 to 1819 the so-called “ flying bridge ” operated the ferry across the Rhine between Koblenz and Ehrenbreitstein. This yaw ferry must have been a masterpiece of the technology of the time. It consisted of two large barges coupled together with a decking made of beams and boards, with space for eight carts and a hundred passengers. It was anchored in the Rhine like a ferry, while the ropes and chains on which it was attached ran over nine barges. After the people of Koblenz had already received the beer privilege from Elector Lothar von Metternich in 1608, beer was now brewed independently in the "Old Brewery" from 1689. From this the traditional company Königsbacher Brauerei developed , which in 1885 moved from the "old brewery" to a larger production facility on Königsbach in the Stolzenfels district .

On November 23, 1786, Elector Clemens Wenzeslaus of Saxony moved from Philippsburg Palace in Ehrenbreitstein to the newly built Electoral Palace in Koblenz. The following year the new Koblenz theater was inaugurated. Clemens Wenzeslaus had the first aqueduct built between 1783 and 1786 , which led from Kimmelberg in Metternich over the Balduin Bridge to Koblenz. Three public fountains were connected to it by 1812 . Due to the edict of tolerance issued by the elector in 1784 , Protestants were tolerated in Kurtrier and they now also settled in Koblenz. Frightened by the outbreak of the French Revolution , the elector Clemens Wenzeslaus, who had hitherto been a reformist, stopped all reforms and led a stricter regime. He offered the emigrants and the fugitive members of the French court related to him (Clemens Wenzeslaus was the uncle of the French King Louis XVI. ) A place of refuge , especially in the Schönbornslust Palace at the gates of Koblenz. This made Koblenz a center of the French royalists.

In the First Coalition War , after the victory in the Battle of Fleurus, the way to the Rhine was clear for the French Revolutionary Army . Elector Clemens Wenzeslaus was therefore forced to flee from his territory to Augsburg on October 5, 1794 . Two weeks later, on October 24, 1794, Koblenz was captured by a division of the French Sambre and Maas Army under General François Séverin Marceau . To the delight of the population, the city was surrendered almost without a fight, there was almost no destruction. Most of the imperial troops withdrew to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress on October 22nd. This could last until January 27, 1799, but then had to capitulate to the French. These events marked the end of the Trier electoral state . France extended its dominion to the Rhine.

French time

On October 26, 1794, the French occupying power planted a tree of freedom in front of the Electoral Palace , as a symbol of the symbolic liberation of the city from the electoral rule and immediately began with the provisional reorganization of the administration. After the arrival of the People's Representative Pierre Bourbotte (1763–1795) on October 29, the population was charged a contribution of 1.5 million livres on November 15, 1794 , as a punishment for what was brought to Koblenz by the French emigrants and stolen from France Money. The billeting of French soldiers in the houses of the population and the demands for benefits in kind also represented a great burden. The city council therefore submitted many petitions to alleviate these burdens in Paris .

Joseph Görres from Koblenz campaigned for a republic of its own under the protection of the French in 1797. The creation of this so-called Cisrhenan Republic failed. The French under Commissioner General François Joseph Rudler reorganized the conquered areas on the left bank of the Rhine into departments based on the French model . The capital of the " Département de Rhin-et-Moselle " founded in 1798 became Koblenz under the first prefect appointed in 1800, Philippe Joseph Boucqueau . In the Treaty of Lunéville on February 9, 1801, Koblenz now also formally fell to France . Since the French had to evacuate the areas on the right bank of the Rhine due to the peace treaty, they blew up the old Kurtrier fortress on the Ehrenbreitstein beforehand . The Philippsburg Palace underneath was so damaged by the demolition that it had to be demolished. Most of the city fortifications were also abandoned. Today's parts of the city on the right bank of the Rhine, such as the Ehrenbreitstein, fell to the Duchy of Nassau .

Coat of arms of Koblenz during the French occupation

From 1802 all monasteries and monasteries in Koblenz were secularized . The were German monastery church , the Franciscan church , the cloisters of St. Kastor and St. Florin and equipping of St. Florin, the Dominican church and the castle church destroyed. Only the parish churches remained . With the dissolution of ecclesiastical rule and the change in ownership, a new social order emerged. The city received high-profile visitors from September 17 to 19, 1804, when Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife Joséphine were in Koblenz. After France introduced the Civil Code in the Département from 1804 , a law school (university) was set up on November 1, 1806 in the Metternicher Hof , the birthplace of the Austrian statesman Prince von Metternich . This modern legal system was based on individual freedoms, equality before the law, adherence to the rule of law, the protection of property and the strict separation of church and state . It continued to apply in the areas on the left bank of the Rhine even after the French period until the introduction of the civil code in 1900.

Prefect Adrien de Lezay-Marnésia was unexpectedly transferred to Strasbourg on March 1, 1810 . His successor Jean Marie Thérèse Doazan gave Koblenz a unique monument. In 1812 he left before Kastorkirche a classical fountain of basalt blocks building whose (also orthographic wrong) French inscription on the successful Russian campaign should remember Napoleon. In the Sixth Coalition War , however, on New Year's Eve in 1814, the predominantly Russian army corps under General Saint-Priest , which formed the right wing of Blücher's Silesian Army , crossed the Rhine across the width from Neuwied to the mouth of the Lahn, with a focus on Koblenz. The French had evacuated the city shortly before and left it to the Russians without a fight. Their commander, however, showed humor and had neither Doazan's fountain nor the first inscription removed, but a second placed under it. It is:

"Vu et approuvé par nous commandant / russe de la ville de Coblentz / le 1er janvier 1814."
(German: Seen and approved by us, Russian commander of the city of Koblenz, on January 1st, 1814.)

During this time of belonging to France, the term Schangels was created , which is still used to describe everyone who was born in Koblenz. It is derived from the nickname of the French Schang (after the French name Jean ). Schängel is the diminutive that was used to describe the children who emerged from the relationship between the people of Koblenz and the French.

Prussian time

City panorama by Jakob Becker 1833

After the dissolution of the French departments on the left bank of the Rhine, the area was provisionally administered jointly by Prussians and Austrians as the Generalgouvernement Mittelrhein . As a result of the Congress of Vienna of 1814/15, the Rhenish properties of the Trier electoral state and thus Koblenz were transferred to the Kingdom of Prussia . On April 23, 1815, the occupation patent of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III was in Koblenz . on April 5, 1815 by Johann Josef Mazza to the residents. Koblenz became the capital of the Prussian province of the Grand Duchy of Lower Rhine in 1815 , and from 1822 the capital of the Rhine province (until 1947). In addition to the state administrative authorities for this province, the VIII. Prussian Army Corps and the consistory of the Evangelical Church (until 1934) were located here. On January 23, 1814, Joseph Görres began to publish the Rheinischer Merkur , which attracted Europe-wide attention. However, the newspaper was soon censored and banned because of its liberal attitude and criticism of the German rulers.

On March 11, 1815, King Friedrich Wilhelm III. the "Order to re-fortify the city of Coblenz and the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress". In the years that followed, the Koblenz Fortress , one of the most extensive fortress systems in Europe, was built according to the latest findings, the so-called "New Prussian" or " New German fortification manner ". The city received a new city ​​wall , the ridges around the city were provided with massive fortresses. On the site of the old electoral fortress on the Ehrenbreitstein , which was larger in area than the successor building, the military engineers Gustav von Rauch and Ernst Ludwig von Aster built a spacious citadel that still dominates the cityscape today. With the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, the largest military bulwark on the Rhine was built , one of the strongest bastions that is still almost completely preserved today.

Fort Asterstein in what is now the Asterstein district , the Kaiser Franz fortress in Lützel and the Kaiser Alexander fortress with the Fort Konstantin in front of the Karthaus were built as further fortifications in Koblenz . Of belonging to the fortresses Fleschen today only a part of which is Neuendorfer Flesche in Neuendorf and the Mosel Flesche in Lützel survived.

With the construction of the fortress Koblenz with its fortresses and forts that were far apart, especially on the left bank of the Rhine, the only crossing of the Rhine by means of the old "flying bridge" no longer met the requirements. In 1819 a curved ship bridge was built between Koblenz and Ehrenbreitstein. The carriageway spanned the Rhine over a length of 325 meters on 36 wooden barges. Two or three yokes were extended to allow ships to pass through. In 1841 it was converted into a straight ship bridge, which spanned the Rhine until it was destroyed in World War II in 1945.

The city of Koblenz donated the ruins of Stolzenfels Castle to Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm IV in 1815 , but he did not accept them until 1823. Three years later he had the classicist-neo-Romanesque parish church built by the architect Johann Claudius von Lassaulx . He rebuilt the castle as a summer residence. Today's palace was built by 1842 with the help of Karl Friedrich Schinkel . The influences of English neo-Gothic and Schinkel's romantic style are unmistakable . On September 14, 1842, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV finally moved into the palace.

From 1823 to 1911 the Electoral Palace on the banks of the Rhine was the seat of the High President of the Prussian Rhine Province and the Court of Justice. From 1850 to 1858 the Prince of Prussia , who later became Emperor Wilhelm I , served as Prussian military governor here with his wife Augusta . From 1856 onwards, Augusta had the Rhine facilities later named after her laid out as a park. She was also the patroness of the Catholic pastor Johann Baptist Kraus and actively supported his efforts to establish a place of pilgrimage in Arenberg . This brought in the liberal Augusta in Berlin a lot of criticism. In Arenberg, a pilgrimage church was built between 1845 and 1872 and the Pfarrer-Kraus-Anlagen , named after its founder , a landscape bible laid out as a nature park. Every year until a few weeks before her death in January 1890, Empress Augusta visited the palace and the city of Koblenz, her "Rhenish Potsdam ".

Koblenz from the right bank of the Rhine, in the foreground the Pfaffendorfer railway bridge , 1890

The first railway of the Rheinische Eisenbahngesellschaft drove on November 11, 1858 over the newly built Moselle railway bridge on the left Rhine route in the Rheinbahnhof in Fischelstrasse. From 1864 the railway network was further expanded and the Pfaffendorfer Bridge over the Rhine inaugurated in the presence of the Prussian royal couple. It was initially a pure railway bridge and connected the left with the right Rhine route . During the construction period of the Pfaffendorfer Bridge, the Stolzenfels – Oberlahnstein trajectory was used as an interim solution for the early connection of the left and right Rhine route . The last railway trains crossed the Pfaffendorfer Bridge at the beginning of the First World War in August 1914. In 1932, the complete renovation of the Pfaffendorfer Bridge began, which developed into a completely new building. In October 1878 the Gülser Moselle railway bridge was inaugurated . In the following year, with the completion of the Horchheimer railway bridge over the Rhine, the expansion of the Koblenz railway network was completed. The first tram of the Coblenz tram company operated in the city from 1887. At first it was a horse-drawn tram , but was then electrified from 1899 and was given the opportunity to expand its transport network over the Pfaffendorfer Bridge on the right bank of the Rhine.

With the population growing and typhoid fever in the city, it was time to reorganize hygiene in the city. The water supply in Koblenz was ensured via draw wells until the 19th century . The first gas works in the Rauental was put into operation as early as 1847 . The triumph of gas - and later also diesel engines - spurred this project on. The development of the sewerage system in the 1880s also went hand in hand. Lord Mayor Karl Heinrich Lottner commissioned the engineer Ernst Grahn to build the first waterworks on the Oberwerth . The first gas-powered pumping station was built between 1885 and 1886 and supplied the city's 27 km long pipe network with a mix of groundwater and bank filtrate .

The city ​​fortifications were abandoned and completely demolished in 1890 due to the advancing military technology. The fortresses in Koblenz lost their military importance, but remained in function until the First World War. After that, some of them were razed or neglected. Only the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress was completely preserved. The city's settlement area was now able to break out of the narrow city limits for the first time. The urban development of the next few years was largely shaped by the Stübben plan of 1889. The important Prussian town planner envisaged in his plan an expansion of the city of Koblenz to the west ( gold mine , Rauental ) and to the south ( southern suburb ). Large parts of his plan, especially the generous traffic axes in the west, were not implemented.

A few weeks after the death of Kaiser Wilhelm I in 1888, the idea was born in Koblenz and at the same time in the Prussian provincial administration to erect a monument to the "immortalized Prince" as a special thank you. The final decision on the location of the monument was left to the young Kaiser Wilhelm II , who in 1891 decided on the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle rivers as the site of the monument. The small island in the estuary, with the help of which a small security harbor with a pier connection to the mainland was built in the middle of the 19th century, was designated as an area for the foundation of a monument. The necessary terrain was created by filling in this port. In the period from 1893 to 1897, after one million marks was available, the monument was erected according to designs by Professor Emil Hundrieser and the architect Bruno Schmitz . The total height is 37 meters and is therefore even one meter higher than the Niederwald monument in Rüdesheim . On August 31, 1897, the Kaiser Wilhelm Monument of the Rhine Province at the Deutsches Eck was handed over to its destination in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm II. From now on, the name Deutsches Eck in common usage shifted from the Deutschordensballei to the new monument.

  • Löhrrondell around 1850, one of the oldest photographs of Koblenz

  • Construction of the Pfaffendorfer Bridge over the Rhine in 1863, with the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress behind it

  • Koblenz around 1875

  • Ehrenbreitstein and Koblenz 1888

  • The "Mainzer Tor" of the Prussian city ​​fortifications around 1880

  • Arrival of Kaiser Wilhelm II at the Rheinbahnhof in 1893

  • Kaiser Wilhelm Monument of the Rhine Province at the Deutsches Eck

20th century

Right at the beginning of the 20th century there were major structural changes in Koblenz. After the Prussian city fortifications were abandoned, two large rings were built in place of the ramparts, the Kaiserin-Augusta-Ring (today Moselring) and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ring (today Friedrich-Ebert-Ring). The Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was built in the neo-Romanesque style directly at the former Löhrtor from 1900 to 1903 according to plans by the later Mainz cathedral master builder Ludwig Becker . A new settlement area quickly grew south of the former ramparts. Around the Catholic St. Joseph Church , built in 1897, and the city's first new Protestant church, the Christ Church , built in 1904 , ornate town houses from the Wilhelminian era were built . The small Rheinbahnhof in Fischelstrasse was abandoned and a splendid central station was built in the new southern suburb from 1899 to 1902 according to plans by Fritz Klingholz . The banks of the Rhine between the Electoral Palace and the Deutsches Eck were built on with representative buildings from 1902 to 1913. This is how the Upper Presidium of the Rhine Province , the Prussian government building for the Koblenz administrative district and the Hotel Koblenzer Hof, built in neoclassical style, came into being .

The fire took one since 1852 volunteer fire department in Koblenz. The first professional fire brigade was set up on October 1, 1911 in the old town hall Am Plan. The fire station stayed there until it moved to a modern building in Rauental in 1973 . On October 7, 1909, the Parseval 3, the first airship in Koblenz, landed on the huge parade ground south of the Kaiser Alexander festival, which was abandoned in 1903 . This is where the Koblenz-Karthaus airfield , which opened in 1913, was built , which was in operation until 1965 and was replaced by the opening of the Koblenz-Winningen airfield in 1971.

and display information about the image
View from Ehrenbreitstein to the Rhine and the mouth of the Moselle at the Deutsches Eck (1919), the flag of the USA flies over the fortress

At the beginning of World War I , Koblenz was a traffic junction for soldiers to march on the Western Front . But ammunition and food were also transported by rail to France via Koblenz. Up to 40,000 soldiers were temporarily in the city. In August 1914 the first wounded and mutilated soldiers came back on hospital trains to be treated in Koblenz hospitals. On July 31, 1914, the state of siege was imposed on the Koblenz Fortress . Kaiser Wilhelm II and his generals commanded the German armies in the main headquarters , which was set up in the Kaiser Wilhelm Realgymnasium from August 16 to 30, 1914 . The supply situation for the population of Koblenz deteriorated during the war. The winter of 1916/17 went down in history as the turnip winter . The first air raids on Koblenz took place, 12 people were killed in the attack of March 12, 1918.

On November 9, 1918, the Coblenzer Volkszeitung published appeals from the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council and reported that the end of the war was near

Immediately before the end of the First World War, on November 8, 1918, a workers 'and soldiers' council took control of the military and civil administration in Koblenz as part of the November Revolution . In December 1918, American troops of the 3rd US Army marched into the city as part of the occupation of the Rhineland . General Henry Tureman Allen , commander of the American troops in Germany, was based in the Hotel Coblenzer Hof in Koblenz. After 1919, many fortress structures were demolished in accordance with the provisions of the Versailles Treaty . General Allen, who in Koblenz did his best to support the starving population, was very committed to the preservation of the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress . The transfer of military command from the Americans to the French took place on January 27, 1923, who then moved into the city. The Rhineland Commission of the four allied occupying powers already moved into its seat in the High Presidium of the Rhine Province in Koblenz in 1920.

After the introduction of active and passive women's suffrage , women were elected to the Koblenz city council for the first time in 1919. Because of the inflation of 1923 , emergency money was also issued in Koblenz .

In Koblenz, separatists tried since October 21, 1923 to take power in order to found a Rhenish Republic . In the following days there were numerous fights with the local police and the citizens. On the night of October 23, the separatists, with the support of the French military, occupied the electoral palace , first had to vacate it under pressure from Lord Mayor Karl Russell and the local police, and occupied it again the following night. As a result, Russell had to leave the occupied Rhineland for ten months on the instructions of the French occupation . The French High Commissioner and President of the Rhineland Commission, Paul Tirard , recognized the rule of the separatists under the designated Prime Minister Josef Friedrich Matthes on October 26th as the legitimate government. The separatists' direct rule ended after the French withdrew their support, with the resignation of Matthes on November 27, 1923.

In 1924 originated in Wallersheim the substation of the RWE of as part of a north-south line , the world's first high-voltage line . In 1925 the "Reich Exhibition of German Wine" took place in Koblenz. The event area stretched from the Rheinanlagen to the municipal festival hall built in 1898–1901 . The wine village has been preserved as part of the site to this day. On May 26, 1926, the spelling of the name of the city was changed from "Coblenz" to "Koblenz".

The French occupation army left Koblenz on November 30, 1929 and the rest of the Rhineland by June 30, 1930. On July 22, 1930, President Paul von Hindenburg visited the city on the occasion of the liberation celebrations. A tragic event, the bridge disaster in Koblenz , made Lützel known in one fell swoop throughout Germany for a short time. In the evening, after a fireworks display with which the celebrations for the withdrawal of the French from the Rhineland were concluded, a serious accident occurred at the security harbor. Overloaded by the people streaming back, a narrow makeshift bridge collapsed in the dark, killing 38 people.

National Socialism

Shortly after the seizure of power of the NSDAP end of January 1933, the mayor was on March 8 Hugo Rosendahl of Charles Carius deposed and by the Nazi party member Otto Wittgenstein replaced. Only a short time later, on April 1st, the first incitement and boycott campaigns against Jewish citizens took place in Koblenz. The Koblenz police and Gestapo carried out a series of raids against SPD and KPD members, and pastors were also subjected to repression. On August 31, 1934, Adolf Hitler was declared an "honorary citizen" of the city of Koblenz, which had been the capital of the " Gau Koblenz-Trier" (from 1941 "Gau Moselland") under Gauleiter Gustav Simon since 1931 . A high point of the persecution of Jews was the Reichspogromnacht of 1938, during which the synagogue in the Bürresheimer Hof on Florinsmarkt in Koblenz was damaged and the interior was destroyed. The Jewish cemetery in the Rauental district was also devastated. In addition, Jewish homes and businesses were destroyed and numerous Jews were mistreated.

Until recently, the historic Balduin Bridge was the only connection across the Moselle . In the long run, it could no longer cope with the growing volume of traffic. The increasing use of motor vehicles, but also better traffic routes on the left bank of the Rhine, finally posed the question of an additional crossing of the Moselle by building a new bridge for the city of Koblenz in the 1930s. After two years of construction, the second Moselle bridge was ready. The inauguration and handover of the New Moselle Bridge (today Europabrücke ) took place on April 22, 1934 under the name Adolf-Hitler-Brücke . On the forecourt of the Electoral Palace , a thing site was inaugurated on March 24, 1935 , which was destroyed in an air raid in 1944. In the same year, the Koblenz radio transmission system went into operation, which until 1965 used a 107 meter high wooden tower as an antenna carrier. As a result of the reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936, German troops were again stationed in Koblenz. On June 15, 1941, the Schängelbrunnen was inaugurated on the Rathausplatz. It thus became the city's new landmark .

In the years 1938 to 1940, the Nazi government promoted the making of the Moselle navigable. For this purpose, the construction of the Koblenz barrage began in 1941 . After the project was discontinued due to the war, construction continued from 1948 and finally completed in 1951. After the Moselle Treaty between Germany, France and Luxembourg concluded in 1956 , the final navigation was carried out between 1958 and 1964. The Balduin Bridge was changed by demolishing parts and replacing the northern half with a modern construction via the shipping canal.

As part of the deportation of Jews from Germany in 1942, 870 Jews from the region were transported to the extermination camps via the Koblenz-Lützel train station . A year later, 149 Koblenz Sinti followed , who were transported from the main train station to Auschwitz-Birkenau and murdered in gas chambers . Of the 600 Jews in Koblenz (1933), only 22 had survived the Holocaust by the end of World War II . Some escaped the deportations by fleeing abroad. The few survivors of the Holocaust used the mourning hall at the Jewish cemetery in Rauental as a synagogue from 1947 .

Two USAAF B-17 bombers during the air raid on Koblenz on September 19, 1944

In the aerial warfare of the Second World War , Koblenz was initially spared, as the city was only run as a target with subordinate priority by the Allies . When the Allies landed in France ( Operation Overlord ) in June 1944, the bomber fleets also targeted Koblenz, especially when the railway network in the region gained in importance. On November 6, 1944, at 7:28 p.m., a task force of Lancaster bombers of the British Royal Air Force approached and laid the center of Koblenz in ruins. The city center, hit by 153,392 stick incendiary bombs , 456 flame jet bombs and 130 air mines , burned down. The firestorm made all attempts to extinguish the fire hopeless. The city as an orderly community no longer existed after this heaviest air raid. The air raids on Koblenz in 1944 and 1945 destroyed the city to 87%. The historical cityscape has been lost forever. The aerial warfare on Koblenz left 1,016 dead and 2,925 wounded. Of the former 23,700 apartments, only 1,500 remained undamaged. Two million cubic meters of rubble and rubble shaped the cityscape. From the Rhine you had an unobstructed view as far as Moselweiß .

Of the 94,417 inhabitants (1943), around 9,000 people lived in the entire city at the end of the war. These people, who had to stay in the city for war reasons, lived for weeks in the large concrete bunkers in the city center. The rest of the Koblenz population was evacuated to Thuringia by the end of 1944 . All Rhine and Moselle bridges were blown up on March 7, 1945 by the retreating units of the Wehrmacht . A day later, the artillery bombardment began by American troops approaching the city from the Eifel . The districts north of the Moselle were occupied by the 4th US Armored Division on March 9th. Parts of the 87th US Infantry Division crossed the Moselle at the Güls railway bridge on March 17th . Other troops of the 3rd US Army under General George S. Patton approached the southern suburb from Waldesch . On March 19, 1945, the city center was conquered by American soldiers and the stars and stripes were hoisted on the town hall. Eight days later, on March 27, the parts of the city on the right bank of the Rhine were also occupied. Before the official end of the war, American pioneers built a pontoon bridge over the Rhine in place of the destroyed ship bridge , which could only be used with a permit and prior delousing. The delousing was also the first hurdle for the returning Koblenz population, who mostly returned to Koblenz on foot because public transport and the railroad were destroyed or there was no fuel. The American pontoon bridge sank a little later during a flood. The French army repeated the construction, but abandoned the pontoon bridge in 1947.

post war period

In accordance with the resolutions of the Berlin Declaration , on July 5, 1945, occupation sovereignty passed from the Americans to the French. This also abolished delousing. After the city was handed over to the French military administration under General Marie-Pierre Kœnig , General Charles de Gaulle visited Koblenz on October 3, 1945 and declared in the town hall: “France will especially support the Koblenz region”; because “there are reasons that we will get along very well.” The French took over four DP camps set up by the US military administration to accommodate so-called displaced persons .

Prime Minister Peter Altmeier at the Rittersturz Conference in 1948

On August 30, 1946, the state of Rhineland-Palatinate was created by decree No. 57 of the French military government , and Mainz was designated as the capital. The “Mixed Commission”, which was set up when the state was founded , as the highest state body responsible for securing the administration and preparation of the advisory state assembly , met for the first time on September 12, 1946 in the state capital of Mainz during the celebration of the state's founding . Since Mainz did not have enough administrative buildings at that time due to war damage and destruction, the seat of the state government and state parliament was initially set up in Koblenz : on November 22, 1946, the constituent meeting of the " Advisory State Assembly " took place in the Koblenz Theater . The constituent session of the first Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament followed on June 4, 1947 in the large town hall of Koblenz . The city of Koblenz was now the country's first seat of government. However, although all official documents only refer to the seat of government , some authors incorrectly referred to the city as the state capital . Wilhelm Boden was elected the first Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate here. A month later, however, he was succeeded by Peter Altmeier in this office. The state government moved into the upper presidium of the former Rhine province, the state parliament used the Koblenz town hall until August 1948 and then set up in the Görreshaus in Koblenz's old town. At the Rittersturz conference from July 8 to 10, 1948 in Koblenz, one of the fundamental decisions for the merger of the three western occupation zones and thus for the temporary separation from the Soviet zone was made. The Koblenz resolutions passed there paved the way for the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany .

The capital issue came back on the agenda in 1949/1950. A tug-of-war began between Koblenz and Mainz, both of which highlighted their suitability as state capital in the public discussion, because a lot was at stake for both cities. Prime Minister Peter Altmeier, who grew up in Koblenz himself, campaigned for Mainz as the capital from the start because he was aware that the south of the country, especially the Palatinate, would only accept Mainz as a state metropolis. The Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament therefore decided on May 16, 1950, after the repeal of ordinance No. 57, to move its seat and that of the state government from Koblenz to Mainz. However, many state authorities and courts remained in Koblenz, such as the Constitutional Court of Rhineland-Palatinate , the Higher Regional Court and the Koblenz State Main Archive . To compensate for this, the Federal Archives and the Federal Institute for Hydrology were also established in Koblenz in 1952 .

In 1953, Federal President Theodor Heuss declared the monument at the Deutsches Eck to be a “memorial to German unity”. Instead of the equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I, which was destroyed by American artillery fire in 1945, the national flag was on the memorial . In 1957, German soldiers again moved into Koblenz barracks and made Koblenz the largest garrison town of the Bundeswehr during the Cold War . There was among other things the command of the III. Corps of the Bundeswehr. Until today Koblenz is the most important troop base of the army .

Koblenz passed the 100,000 mark in 1962, making it a major city . On October 28, 1962, the Rhineland-Palatinate State Fire Brigade Association was founded with its headquarters in Koblenz. The Koblenz war crimes trial began in October 1962 . The main defendant was the deputy head of the Rhineland-Palatinate LKA, Georg Heuser . He and ten other defendants were sentenced to prison terms in May 1963. On September 17, 1969, the last French troops were withdrawn from Koblenz. The south bridge over the Rhine was built from 1969 to 1975 . Two serious accidents occurred during the construction work. On November 10, 1971, one half of the bridge buckled into the Rhine and killed 13 workers. The second accident occurred on September 21, 1972 at the slope bridge in the Laubach Valley and cost six lives. In this Laubach valley on the left bank of the Rhine was the Bad Laubach cold water healing facility, founded by a stock corporation in 1840 .

Special stamp "2000 years Koblenz" from 1992

A spectacular bank robbery on a branch of the Sparkasse Koblenz occurred on October 5th, 1982. During the 15-hour hostage-taking, a bank employee was shot and died two weeks later as a result. With the opening of the Löhr Center in 1984, a large gap caused by the Second World War was closed and the center of Koblenz was revitalized. The inauguration of the youngest bridge over the Moselle, the Kurt Schumacher Bridge , took place on August 20, 1990.

In 1992 the city of Koblenz celebrated its 2000th anniversary. On this occasion, the state of Rhineland-Palatinate donated the history column to the city , which was unveiled in 2000 on Josef-Görres-Platz. The Roermond earthquake of April 13, 1992 with a magnitude of 5.9 on the Richter scale was also more than clearly felt in Koblenz. On September 25, 1993, after years of controversial discussions, the cast-in equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I was unveiled at the Deutsches Eck . Today only the three concrete elements of the Berlin Wall , which were erected next to the memorial and are intended to commemorate the victims of division , are reminiscent of the “Memorial to German Unity” .

Due to the city's location on two rivers, floods are not uncommon in Koblenz. Almost every year snowmelt leads to extensive floods. The Rhine level in Koblenz reached the mark of 9.52 meters on December 23, 1993, the highest level since 1784 (10.20 m). This so-called flood of the century flooded 25 percent of the core city area and caused damage of an estimated 200 million DM . 10,000 apartments were under water, 25,000 residents were affected. In the following years, work was intensified on flood protection for the hardest-hit districts of Koblenz.

In the case of the largest bomb discovery since 1945, a British air mine weighing 1850 kg was found on May 20, 1999 during excavation work for the new central building of the University of Koblenz-Landau . When the aerial bomb was defused four days later, the largest evacuation measure to date took place in Koblenz, during which around a quarter of the city area had to be cleared.

The Scheid printing company founded in 1882 was dissolved in 1999.

21st century

The Upper Middle Rhine Valley cultural landscape was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on June 27, 2002 . This part of the Middle Rhine with its castles, palaces and vineyards extends over a length of about 67 kilometers between Bingen / Rüdesheim and Koblenz. The city of Koblenz and its cultural monuments are only partly part of the world heritage, such as the historic old town with its churches, the Electoral Palace , Stolzenfels Castle , the Old Castle , the German Corner or the former Prussian fortresses . On July 15, 2005, UNESCO added the 550 km long Upper German-Raetian Limes to the list of world cultural heritage. In Koblenz-Niederberg , the auxiliary troop fort from the 1st to 3rd century belongs to this ground monument .

During the attempted bomb attack on July 31, 2006 , a suitcase with an explosive device was discovered in a regional train from Cologne, which was defused a day later in Koblenz main station. Since January 27, 2007, 96 stumbling blocks in memory of those persecuted by National Socialism have been laid by the artist Gunter Demnig in Koblenzer Strasse. On May 25, 2009, the city received the title “ Place of Diversity ” awarded by the federal government .

On January 27, 2005, the city council decided to host the 2011 Federal Horticultural Show in Koblenz. The city experienced extensive construction and renovation measures, especially along the banks of the Rhine and Moselle as well as on the Ehrenbreitstein and at the Electoral Palace. It is estimated that in addition to the actual expenses for the garden show site, a total of around 500 million euros were invested in the development of the city in order to improve the cityscape and service. The city's tourist highlights have been restored and shine in new splendor. The Rheinseilbahn, Germany's largest cable car, has been operating in Koblenz since July 2, 2010. With a total transport capacity of 7600 people per hour, it is unsurpassed worldwide. It was built as an attraction and ecologically sensible transport connection to the 2011 Federal Horticultural Show. According to the state government, the 2011 Federal Horticultural Show was the largest event in the history of Rhineland-Palatinate. With over 3.5 million visitors, it was the most successful federal horticultural show since the electronic counting system was introduced in 1997. It made a profit of 13 million euros.

After changes in the 1990s, the central square became more and more neglected in the following period, as many commercial areas were fallow, buildings were vacant and there were vacant lots. Therefore, after long controversial discussions, the city council decided to completely redesign the square. Between 2010 and 2013, the Forum Mittelrhein , an inner-city shopping center, and the Forum Confluentes , a cultural building that offers a new home to the Mittelrhein Museum , the Koblenz City Library and the Romanticum, were built on the central square .

Due to the extremely low level of the Rhine, a British air mine weighing 1.8 tons , an American aerial bomb weighing 125 kg and a camouflage barrel near Pfaffendorf were discovered on November 20, 2011 in Koblenz . For the defusing on December 4, 2011 , the largest evacuation in the history of the city after the Second World War had to be carried out. This affected 45,000 city residents, a prison, two hospitals and seven old people's homes within a 1.8 kilometer radius of the site.

In 2013 and 2014, two historical monuments, the Weinbrunnen and the Barbara monument, were rebuilt in a short time, which were dismantled due to the changed reconstruction of the city after the Second World War.

literature

  • Energieversorgung Mittelrhein GmbH (ed.): History of the city of Koblenz. Overall editing: Ingrid Bátori in conjunction with Dieter Kerber and Hans Josef Schmidt
    • Vol. 1: From the beginning to the end of the electoral era. Theiss, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-8062-0876-X
    • Vol. 2: From the French city to the present. Theiss, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-8062-1036-5
  • Max Bär : From the history of the city of Koblenz. 1814-1914. Krabben, Koblenz 1922 ( digitized version )
  • Hans Bellinghausen jun. (Ed.): 2000 years Koblenz. History of the city on the Rhine and Moselle. Boldt, Boppard 1971, ISBN 3-7646-1556-7
  • Hartwig Neumann , Udo Liessem: The classical large fortress Koblenz. A fortress through the ages. Prussian bastion, espionage object, cultural monument . (= Architectura militaris; Vol. 2). Bernard and Graefe, Koblenz 1989, ISBN 3-7637-5853-4
  • Helmut Schnatz : All of Koblenz was a sea of ​​flames! November 6, 1944 . (= German cities in the bombing war). Wartberg Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2004, ISBN 3-8313-1474-8
  • Klaus T. Weber: The Prussian fortifications of Koblenz (1815-1834). (= Art and cultural studies research; Vol. 1). VDG, Weimar 2003, ISBN 3-89739-340-9 (also dissertation, University of Mainz 2000)
  • Axel von Berg: Koblenz is changing. From the early days to the modern city. (Archeology on the Middle Rhine and Moselle, Volume 22) General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate , Koblenz, 2011, ISBN 978-3-929645-15-6
  • Reinhard Kallenbach : Koblenz's story retold. Mittelrhein Verlag, Koblenz, 2012, ISBN 978-3-925180-03-3
  • Petra Weiß: The city administration of Koblenz under National Socialism. Dissertation 2011, ( full text )

Web links

Commons : Koblenz  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : History of the City of Koblenz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ehrenbreitstein Fortress older than assumed. In: Rhein-Zeitung , May 23, 2005
  2. ^ An early Roman fort discovered - the city's history turned upside down - the ancient moat at the St. Castor basilica points to the time of the Emperor Augustus. In: Rhein-Zeitung , November 19, 2008
  3. ↑ Founded in Koblenz am Rhein: BUGA makes history. In: spd-koblenz.de , November 20, 2008
  4. ↑ Hansjörg Groenert: The Roman Rhine Bridge near Koblenz ( Memento from June 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ^ Heinrich Gottfried Gengler: Regesta and documents on the constitutional and legal history of German cities in the Middle Ages , Erlangen 1863, pp. 498–506
  6. ^ Fritz Michel : The history of the city of Koblenz in the Middle Ages. Mushake, Trautheim on Darmstadt 1963, p. 27.
  7. ^ A. Dominicus: Coblenz , p. 230
  8. ↑ a b October 24, 1794. Entry of the French troops into Koblenz. ( Memento from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz online
  9. ↑ Max Bär : From the history of the city of Koblenz: 1814-1914 , Krabben, Koblenz 1922, p. 7 ( dilibri.de )
  10. ↑ Koblenz story retold - Part 42: Gas and water for the city on the move. In: Rhein-Zeitung , July 20, 2012
  11. ↑ Rude awakening: Hunger follows the intoxication of war in: Rhein-Zeitung , November 3, 2014
  12. ↑ On the air raids on Koblenz in the First World War see Beate Dorfey: The air raids on Rhenish cities in the First World War using the example of Koblenz. In: Jahrbuch für Westdeutsche Landesgeschichte 41 (2015), pp. 335–387.
  13. ^ October 23, 1923. The separatists in Koblenz in power. ( Memento from December 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz online
  14. ↑  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) In: Rhein-Zeitung , August 5, 2005.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / rhein-zeitung.de
  15. ^ March 24, 1935. Inauguration of the Thingstätte in Koblenz. ( Memento from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz online
  16. ^ Racial persecution and euthanasia in Koblenz. In: VVN-BdA Kaiserslautern
  17. ↑ Helmut Schnatz: Koblenz in the bombing war. In: historicum.net
  18. ↑ Hans Bellinghausen, jun. (Ed. :): 2000 years Koblenz , p. 342
  19. ^ Ulrich Springorum: Development and structure of the administration in Rhineland-Palatinate after the Second World War . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-05128-9 , pp. 185 .
  20. ^ Energieversorgung Mittelrhein GmbH (ed.): History of the city of Koblenz. Vol. 2: From the French city to the present. P. 200
  21. ↑ May 16, 1950. Mainz becomes the seat of government of Rhineland-Palatinate. ( Memento from May 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz online
  22. ↑ Issue 47 of the series of publications of the Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate, 2010 ( Memento from 30 June 2018 in the Internet Archive )
  23. ^ Statutes of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Fire Brigade Association
  24. ↑ Koblenz: Stadtchronik 1993. In: koblenz.de , December 23, 1993 (PDF; 234 kB)
  25. ↑ 15,000 people evacuated in Koblenz - two-ton bomb defused. In: Rhein-Zeitung , May 24, 1999
  26. ↑ Koblenz train station evacuated - train traffic stopped - explosives found trigger terror alarm. In: Rhein-Zeitung , August 2, 2006
  27. ^ Stumbling blocks in Koblenz. ( Memento from September 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: cjgkoblenz.de
  28. ^ Culture promenade : The Buga transforms Koblenz. In: Rhein-Zeitung , March 18, 2011
  29. ↑ The greatest! Koblenz's Buga cable car now gondolas over the Rhine. In: Rhein-Zeitung , July 2, 2010
  30. ↑ "Bye-bye BUGA": End of the Federal Garden Show Koblenz 2011. ( Memento from October 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: Kulturland Rheinland-Pfalz , October 17, 2011
  31. ↑ The Buga makes a profit of 13 million euros. In: Rhein-Zeitung , October 19, 2011
  32. ^ Bomb found in Koblenz. In: Focus Online , December 2, 2011