History of the city of Pirmasens

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The history of the city of Pirmasens describes the development of a small settlement on the western edge of the Palatinate Forest into a garrison town and a center of the German shoe industry . The area around the Wedebrunnen in Pirmasens is considered the origin of the settlement . The name of the city goes back to St. Pirminius , who founded a monastery in nearby Hornbach in 742 , when the settlement in the area of ​​today's Pirmasens was created around 750 as the " forest marrow ". Landgrave Ludwig IX. expanded the small village into a town in the 18th century by building a garrison. The “ era of the shoe industry ” began in the 19th century and lasted until the late 1970s.

Coat of arms of the city of Pirmasens

First settlement

Bronze Age and Celtic settlement

The oldest traces of settlement in Pirmasens are a field of ten burial mounds discovered in 1930 between Erlenbrunn and Kettrichhof . Local researcher Oskar Schäfer opened four of the mounds during excavations. Skeletal, stone and cremation graves were found in them, which in addition to skeletons or bone fragments also contained jewelry and weapons from various eras. The oldest finds date back to the Early Bronze Age (2000–1900 BC), others from the Hallstatt (700–550 BC) and La Tène period (5th – 1st century BC) assigned. The finds were handed over to the Heimatmuseum in Pirmasens, the remaining burial mounds remained unopened.

Celtic traces can be found near today's districts of Gersbach and Windsberg . They were discovered in 1830 and contained by former interpretation also remains of sacrificial altars, which originally Celtic, later taken over by the Romans forest god Vosegus (also Vosagus , Vosacius ), named after the Vosges ( Vosges ) and Wasgau were dedicated. The site is about three kilometers from the historical origin of the settlement Wedebrunnen .

Pirminius and the Hornbach Monastery

Statue of Saint Pirminius at Murbach Monastery

Patron of Pirmasens is the Holy Pirminius which to 741 his last monastery in Hornbach founded, 753 died there and was buried in the monastery church. During this time the Widonen Count Warnharius transferred the very densely wooded Hornbacher Waldmark to him. It included a land area with the developed later settlements Pirmasens, Ruhbank , Simten, Winzeln , Gersbach , Fehrenbach , the submerged village Hunscheid on the Husterhöhe, that on the left bank of the Rodalb the village located part Münchweiler , Ruppertsweiler and the submerged village Gutenbach northwest of Lemberg , whose spell was combined with that of Lemberg. The extension of the Waldmark thus roughly corresponded to today's urban area of ​​Pirmasens.

The Hornbach monastery promoted the settlement, and around 820 the monks founded a monastery courtyard near the later Wedebrunnens. The oldest surviving mention of the settlement in the Waldmark comes from around 860 in the older Pirminsvita as "Pirminiseusna". At first it was a lonely forest settlement in which the monastic cattle, mainly pigs, were kept. The more recent Pirminsvita names the settlement around 1000 as "Pirminishusna". Despite different attempts at interpretation, the word history and etymology remain unclear. One approach brings the later names "Bermesesne" and "Birmasesse" in connection with a "Bermann". In the middle of the small settlement a first chapel or small church was built, which was later built over with a larger building.

The settlement was connected to the long existing salt road.

Transition to Speyer and second church

The protective function of the Hornbach Monastery, which can also be referred to as the Vogtei , was initially in the hands of the Bishop of Metz . In 1100 Hornbach became an own monastery of the Speyer diocese . In 1150 the village of Pirmasens received a second, larger, Gothic church of St. Juliana , which was built a little higher in the village center and replaced the first church from the time the village was founded between the Wedebrunnen and Pirminiusstraße. Saint Juliana of Nicomedia (285–304) served as the namesake of the church, which was probably built as a separate church .

County of Saarbrücken

The beginnings

The village came with the Hornbach monastery at the beginning of the 12th century under the bailiwick of the Counts of Saarbrücken . From 1182 to 1190 the county of Saarbrücken was divided between the two count brothers Simon and Heinrich . Simon received the western part, which was still called the county of Saarbrücken , Heinrich received all the lands east of the Blies and thus also the Hornbacher Waldmark and the Lorraine fiefs, the new county of Zweibrücken . He had a moated castle built in Zweibrücken and from then on called himself Count Heinrich von Zweibrücken . He was also awarded the bailiwick of the Hornbach monastery, with which Pirmasens belonged to the County of Zweibrücken.

A document from the year 1202 shows that the village of Pirmasens was a parish with a church and its own pastor , although it was dependent on the Hornbach monastery. The church was the center of pastoral care and worship for the faithful from the surrounding villages, farms and mills . In 1225 an infirmary was built at the Church of St. Juliana. In the same year, Bishop Johann von Metz confirmed the transfer of the parish administration from Pirmasens to the Hornbach monastery. This meant that all income from the parish had to be transferred to the monastery for the establishment and maintenance of health care .

Under Zweibrücken-Bitsch

Count Heinrich I was succeeded by his son Count Heinrich II around 1237 . The latter's sons, Eberhard I and Walram I , initially jointly took over the government of the county, but after 1286 decided to split it up. Eberhard received the "lower" part of Birmesessen (Pirmasens) with the Lemberg office in 1295 , Walram got the "upper" part of the Zweibrücken office . The division was primarily related to income, the jurisdiction remained linked. As before, the subjects had the right to move freely.

Pirmasens was subsequently in the Lemberg office of the County of Zweibrücken-Bitsch and there in the Pirmasens official school of the same name . Administration and jurisdiction were carried out by an official school appointed by the sovereign .

In 1297 Count Eberhard I exchanged some places for Duke Friedrich III. of Lorraine and received from this in return the castle and the lordship of Bitsch as a fief. He founded the line of the Counts of Zweibrücken-Bitsch .

The church in Pirmasens burned down between 1322 and 1326/1327 and should be rebuilt. There was a dispute between the monastery and the inhabitants of Pirmasens who should bear the costs. The widow of Eberhard, who died in 1321, Agnes von Zweibrücken, settled the dispute together with the archpriest Gerhard von Hornbach in 1327: The abbot had to contribute 24 pounds of Heller to the construction and to provide the necessary timber . But the farmers should take this timber out of the forest themselves. The new church was built on the site of today's Luther Church . Since 1360/1361 the parish was independent of the Hornbach monastery, which still had a monastery courtyard in the village.

If the place is mentioned in 1369 as "Birmesense", different sources appear between 1468 and 1490 with the spelling "Pirmeseß" and "Pirmansens". The forest area around the village was first referred to in 1489 as the "great Hornbachs forest" and "St. Pirminsland ”.

County of Hanau-Lichtenberg

The transition

In 1560, the only daughter of Count Jakob von Zweibrücken-Bitsch (* 1510, † 1570), the last male member of the Count von Zweibrücken-Bitsch family , married Count Philipp V of Hanau-Lichtenberg . When Count Jakob died in 1570, Philip V claimed the office of Lemberg and the rule of Bitsch as his legal heir. Count Philip I of Leiningen-Westerburg contested this inheritance because he was married to Amalia, Count Jacob's niece. Duke Karl of Lorraine enfeoffed both Philip I of Leiningen-Westerburg and Philip V of Hanau-Lichtenberg with the rule of Bitsch.

The father of Count Philipp V von Hanau-Lichtenberg, Count Philipp IV , immediately introduced the Lutheran creed in the inherited areas. Pirmasens and its Roman Catholic Church became Protestant in 1575 under Pastor Frölig . That gave the strict Roman Catholic Duke Charles III. Opportunity to intervene militarily, as he had suzerainty over the Bitsch rule, which was also part of the inheritance. In July 1572 Lorraine troops occupied the office of Lemberg, the rule Bitsch and both castles of the same name. Since Philip IV was unable to cope with the overwhelming power of Lorraine, he chose the legal route. This resulted in a 34-year legal dispute before the Reich Chamber of Commerce . During the occupation of Pirmasens by the troops of the Roman Catholic Duke Karl, the church was used in parallel by Protestant and Catholic Christians as a simultaneum . The dispute was finally ended by a settlement with the successor to Count Philipp V, Count Johann Reinhard I. In the end, Lorraine was able to prevail as far as possible with regard to the lordship of Bitsch, of which the Duke of Lorraine was the feudal lord, while the Lemberg office - and thus also Pirmasens - was awarded to the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg . In 1606 the Duke of Lorraine's troops left the Lemberg office. The settlement agreement also contained a passage that guaranteed the Catholics free exercise of their faith in the towns of Eppenbrunn, Hilst, Schweix, Trulben, Kröppen and Obersteinbach.

Thirty Years' War

In 1620 there were 59 families and around 235 residents in Pirmasens. In 1622 the Thirty Years' War , which broke out in 1618, also reached Pirmasens: Spaniards and Croatian riders from the imperial troops marched through the Palatinate. The population suffered from billeting, arson and other war loads. The imperial army partially set fire to the village, and the church also fell victim to the fire. After the troops withdrew, the Pirmasens began to rebuild. In 1634 imperial troops again crossed the Palatinate under General Gallas and devastated the country. They also looted Lviv Castle , which was burned down in 1636.

After the Lutheran pastor Johann Georg Fiedler left Lemberg, the citizens of this parish asked the rulers, " You shouldn't send them a new pastor because they couldn't pay the same ". The main seat of the Lutheran parish was then moved from Lemberg to Pirmasens. In the Lutheran church registers, which were kept from 1640, the mayor Ebert Faul is also mentioned, who left Pirmasens around 1635 and did not venture back until 1640. The reconstruction of the Pirmasens Church was not completed until 1648 with the hanging of two bells.

Repopulation

After the Thirty Years War, the village administration was reformed. The village chief was the Heimburger elected by the residents . In 1657, according to the church accounts, only 9 families, around 40 residents, lived in Pirmasens. Almost all the farms and mills had burned down and fell into disrepair, the fields were overgrown. However, this offered immigrants from areas not or less affected by the war a chance: The population slowly increased again thanks to Reformed Swiss, Roman Catholic Tyroleans and families from Main Franconia and Württemberg, so that in 1661 there were 21 families (around 87 inhabitants) in Pirmasens . In 1666 the plague decimated the population again, so that in 1667 only 18 families with around 74 people were resident in Pirmasens. The French war of expansion (1672–1679) hampered reconstruction of the country. In order to relieve the French fortress of Landau and to strengthen it against imperial troops, Louis XIV increasingly sent his Marshal Turenne to the Palatinate in the period after 1672 , which in turn devastated and plundered the area around Pirmasens. In 1677 Pirmasens was burned down, four years later it had 14 inhabited houses (14 families with around 56 inhabitants).

Immigrant carpenters were commissioned in 1683 to repair the damaged roof of the third Pirmasens church. Since there was no Roman Catholic church building in Pirmasens at that time, there were repeated disputes between Lutherans and Catholics over the use of the only one that existed.

1685 joined Johann Reinhard III. took over the government of the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg after his uncle, Friedrich Casimir , died without leaving any children. Johann Reinhard III. could lead his country to new bloom. The area around Pirmasens, however, was initially unable to benefit from this upswing, as another war was to shake the region.

Administrative headquarters and hunting lodge

In 1691 the tasks, rights and duties of the Heimburgers and the residents of the community were determined. At that time only 16 people lived in the village. Many had fled because French troops under General Ezéchiel de Mélac devastated the Palatinate during the War of the Palatinate Succession (1688–1697). The part of Lviv Castle that was still habitable after it was destroyed in the Thirty Years War was also destroyed. Since the castle and the village were now without residents, the official seat of the Lemberg Office was moved to Pirmasens in 1697. As a result, the village of Pirmasens was significantly upgraded. The Amtshaus, the residence of the bailiff, stood in the Amtsstrasse, today's Bahnhofstrasse. The Pirmasens official school and the Gersbach official school and the villages assigned to them were subdivisions of the Lemberg office.

After the end of the war, many refugees settled in the sparsely populated area around Pirmasens, so that in 1698/1699 there were 100-115 residents again. In 1713 the church had to be renovated and some sacred paintings were acquired. For the first time an inn and the "Hirschwirth" are mentioned in Pirmasens; two years later two more hosts were added.

As a lover of the hunt, Count Johann Reinhard III visited. often the densely wooded district of Lemberg, whose forests were his preferred hunting ground. For this purpose, the count had a spacious hunting lodge built by the Tyrolean master builder Leonhard Jennewein above the village of Pirmasens from 1720–1725 as a place to stay during the hunt. Next to the castle, two large courtyards and pavilions and a garden were built below the current Pirminius Church. The village of Pirmasens around the Wedebrunnen was much lower and consisted of 21 one-story and 22 two-story houses. In 1722 Pirmasens already had a town hall; 56 families with around 245 people were resident.

In addition to agriculture, fish farming was an essential food source at that time. In the Pirmasens area there were a total of 13 fish wooge , all of which were located in the valley on today's Landauer Strasse and in the side valleys.

The Heritage

Louis IX from Hessen-Darmstadt

Count Johann Reinhard III. had only one daughter, Charlotte . She was married to Hereditary Prince Ludwig VIII of Hesse Darmstadt . Their son was Landgrave Ludwig IX.

Since the offices of the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg in Alsace had been under the feudal sovereignty of France since 1681 due to the reunion policy , the Count of Hanau-Lichtenberg had to swear allegiance to the French king. Johann Reinhard III. Conversely, he was privileged by the French king to be able to transfer this fiefdom to female descendants with inheritance rights. So his daughter (who died in 1726) and her son were entitled to inheritance.

In 1735 Louis IX came. for the first time to Pirmasens. When Count Johann Reinhard III. Died in 1736, he was still a minor. For this reason, a Regency Council was appointed at the seat of the government in Buchsweiler . When he came of age in 1741, he took over the reign of the county himself. In the same year he married Princess Henriette Karoline Christine of Pfalz-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld .

Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt

Founding of a garrison

Louis IX wanted to have its own military force and built a garrison . He had soldiers recruited mainly in the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt and initially moved them together in Baerenthal in Alsace (now in Lorraine ). Because of the French sovereignty over the Alsatian offices of the county of Hessen-Darmstadt, Ludwig was not allowed to station armed soldiers in Buchsweiler. Pirmasens, however, was outside the area that was subject to French sovereignty. At that time there were 20 one-story and 18 two-story houses in Pirmasens, in which about 200-250 inhabitants lived. Due to the grenadiers, the population increased relatively quickly. He never used the grenadiers for military service, in contrast to the Landgraves of Hessen-Kassel , who rented their soldiers abroad, for example to America.

In 1742 Pirmasens consisted of six streets:

  • Pfarrgasse, named after the parish church.
  • Kümmelgasse, whose name comes from a brandy distillery in which a lot of caraway was used.
  • Allmendegässel, it led to the community property , the common land .
  • Untergasse, the later sand road, was at a lower point. When it rained heavily, a lot of sand was washed up there from the height of the Blocksberg.
  • Alte Strasse, which later became Alleestrasse, was outside the village at the time.
  • Landstrasse, today's main road, was the main thoroughfare from the direction of Zweibrücken, but it was not in the middle of the village, but a little above it. The mayor, the pastor and the Hanau-Lichtenberg officials of the Lemberg office also lived in this street.

From 1757 to 1758 the Hereditary Prince had a court and garrison church built, the later Lower Church and today's Luther Church . Also in 1758, today's Johanneskirche - also Upper Church - was completed for the Reformed Congregation and named after Johannes Calvin . This happened, however, without the support of the landgrave through his own church building association .

Construction of the wall and parade hall

Preserved landgrave signpost in Lemberger Strasse

In 1758 Pirmasens was surrounded by a fence made of piles, so-called palisades , to make it more difficult for the grenadiers to desert . It was built on it for 14 days, day and night, from August 22nd to September 4th. When the fence was erected, the street along its inner edge was named An der Mauer . It was the longest street in Pirmasens and was later divided into individual streets; its course can still be reconstructed . The oval, flattened on one side, is clearly visible on a card. From Zweibrücker gate on the way Spider Zweibrücker-, Rodalber-, Dankelsbach-, lock and Gärtnerstraße the fence about Gärtnerstraße, Fröhnstraße, Arch Street, Höhstraße, mountain road and went Dankelsbachstraße. The Buchsweiler Tor stood on the southern part of the oval, at the intersection of Hauptstrasse and Bergstrasse. Stone signposts had been erected far in front of the two gates, as they still exist at the fork in Lemberger Strasse / Volksgartenstrasse and at the junction at Zweibrücker Strasse / Hügelstrasse.

Ludwig built barracks for his grenadiers and - opposite his castle - the second largest parade hall in Europe in 1770 ; only that of the Russian tsar in Saint Petersburg was greater . He also had an armory , stables, military hospitals and guard houses built. The Landgrave allowed his grenadiers, whom he called "tall guys" because of their height, to marry in order to bind them even more to his garrison. Any soldier could serve as long as possible, but at least six years. In his free time he was allowed to practice a craft. He built a “grenadier house” for particularly deserving soldiers. From 1758 onwards, every grenadier who wanted to marry and build was given a building site , lumber and two acres of wasteland free of charge in the Lemberg office , which he could clear . In this way, entire streets with grenadier houses quickly emerged in Pirmasens. As a rule, the grenadier houses were one-story, but there were also two-story. In 1759 the garrison had grown to five companies with 755 soldiers.

Awarded city rights

Hereditary Prince Ludwig IX. elevated his residence to a town on August 25, 1763, his name day; on this day the town charter began. As an external feature, he had the palisade fence replaced by a four meter high stone wall. Residential and service houses for military posts were built behind the wall at regular intervals. Around 30 hussars patrolled day and night to arrest escapees. In the area of ​​the two city gates, the street was paved after the stone wall was built . All other main and secondary roads were still unpaved at that time. The Hereditary Prince wanted to support their paving if the city requested it, because the maintenance of the streets and the wall was the responsibility of the city ​​council . Ludwig had only taken over the maintenance of the gates. The Landgrave encouraged the immigration of craftsmen and traders, so from 1767 the first Jewish immigrants came to the city.

Only on July 22nd, 1769 - after completion of the document - Louis IX signed. the city charter surkunde with eleven articles, the town privileges , and appointed the first mayor. The citizenry was freed from serfdom. When a citizen moved out of the community, which was only allowed with the permission of the Princely Rent-Cammer, a deduction schilling had to be paid. The forced labor obligations attached persisted. The hereditary prince reserved the appointment of the eight city council members and the mayor. The selection should be based on the official proposal from the “most capable subjects”. Since the city council had to exercise the lowest court level , court officials should also be represented in it. To finance municipal tasks such as the maintenance of the wells, the city wall and the pavement, the city received one eighth of the Accis (a consumption tax ), the income from the flour scales and the demurrage of the markets.

During the time of Louis IX. Several new streets were built in Pirmasens, such as Hauptstraße, Schloßstraße and Alleestraße. His plan to create a wide avenue between Hauptstrasse and Alleestrasse, which should run dead straight from Zweibrücker Tor to the other end of the city, failed due to lack of funds. In addition to the weakness for his soldiers, Ludwig IX. a tolerant personality for the time . He promoted the construction of roads and schools in the city and in the villages. The Hereditary Prince valued the dignity of human beings and their rights and devoted particular care to protecting subjects against attacks by his officials and officers .

Old Town Hall

As a clear sign of the new rights of the city, today's "Old Town Hall" was built as an elaborate mansard roof building from 1770 to 1771 . For this, the Tyrolean foreman Rochus Pfeiffer was won over, who used plans by the Saarbrücken master builder Friedrich Joachim Stengel . The town hall was built exactly opposite the landgrave's castle. In 1771 Ludwig initiated the city's first Latin school .

Louis IX as a landgrave

Landgrave Ludwig VIII died in 1768. His son, Hereditary Prince Ludwig IX, became Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. Contrary to the expectations of the Darmstadt citizens, the new ruler stayed in his garrison town of Pirmasens. His wife Karoline, the great landgrave, resided in Darmstadt and Buchsweiler and only made brief visits to Pirmasens. Karoline died on March 30, 1774, shortly after her 53rd birthday, in Darmstadt. For the Jewish community, which had grown considerably with the city and which had five families in 1772, a prayer room was initially sufficient for the service. From 1778 the community planned to build a synagogue for around 100 Jews. In 1780/1781 this was completed in Judengässel and only replaced by a new building in 1880.

In 1784 there were 1576 soldiers in Pirmasens, 240 officers and 1336 grenadiers and NCOs. At the beginning of 1790 the garrison consisted of two regiments with a total of 2,400 soldiers, and there were 51 alleys, streets and paths. At that time the city had 9,000 inhabitants. In Darmstadt, the official seat of government, just as many citizens were registered in the same year. The landgrave died on April 6, 1790 in Pirmasens and was buried in the Luther Church. His son Ludwig X. visited the city for the funeral and confirmed their privileges on April 24th. However, in the same year he dissolved the Hereditary Prince and Landgrave regiments and reduced the garrison to 400 men; this ended the city's brief heyday. The population decreased to about 5000 by the end of the year. On July 20, 1792, the garrison period finally ended when the remaining Second Leibgrenadier Battalion with 4 companies of 90 men each left the city.

French time

At the end of 1792 the foothills of the French Revolution reached the outskirts of the city; The first freedom trees were erected in Obersteinbach , Eppenbrunn and Trulben in November . In February 1793, a French commissioner from Bitsch, accompanied by armed horsemen and several hundred revolutionary supporters from the area, appeared in the city, had a freedom tree erected and asked the city to join the French Republic . The city council rejected the request, and the freedom tree also disappeared shortly after the commissioner left. The Hesse-Darmstadt communities south of Pirmasens, on the other hand, voluntarily joined France at this time; Because of the guillotine sent to them from Bitsch as a thank you, the area was later called the chopping knife side .

In the spring of 1793 the war against revolutionary France also approached the city. Prussian and French troops requisitioned supplies throughout the region, adding to the plight of the population, which in the town of Pirmasens fell to about 3,300. In August Prussian associations advanced under the Duke of Braunschweig and captured a French camp on the nearby Kettrichhof . Duke Carl August von Weimar , who with a daughter of Landgrave Ludwig IX. was married, moved into his late father-in-law's castle as the Prussian regimental commander. Carl August's brother Constantin fell ill with dysentery in Pirmasens and died shortly afterwards. The Prussian troops were able to repel an attack by the French Moselle Army from the direction of Fehrbach on September 14 at the Battle of Pirmasens . The French had to withdraw with heavy losses, while the coalition troops subsequently advanced into Alsace . However, the disagreement between Austria and Prussia prevented the success from being exploited in the long term. On October 25th, Duke Carl August left the city, on November 22nd the last Prussian troops withdrew towards Weißenburg . Already on 25./26. On November 17th, Pirmasens was occupied by French troops who looted the landgrave's castle and took away all the possessions that had remained there since the residence was abandoned.

The city and the left bank of the Rhine fell to France from 1798 to 1814. In 1798 the administration of the Left Bank of the Rhine was reorganized by the French directorate based on the French model. Pirmasens became the capital of the canton of Pirmasens in the Donnersberg department . The Treaty of Lunéville legalized annexation in 1801 . Pirmasens had 3921 inhabitants that year. In 1803, the city's Catholic community petitioned the Bishop of Mainz, Joseph Ludwig Colmar , so that he could stand up for Napoleon's own church building on their behalf. As a result, at the end of 1804, Napoleon issued a decree that the parade hall should be given to the community as a gift. After a part of the hall was initially used for church services, it was demolished in 1806 to build a new church. In the same year, the residential palace and the city wall were sold for demolition. In 1808 the new Catholic church was completed on the mighty foundation walls of the old drill hall and consecrated to St. Anthony of Padua . The first cemetery for the Jewish community was laid out on Zeppelinstrasse in 1813 , of which 95 tombstones have survived.

At the turn of the year 1813/14, the imperial baron von und zum Stein was given provisional control over the recaptured areas on the left bank of the Rhine.

In Bavaria

The Palatinate falls to Bavaria

"Silver Shoe"

Due to the agreements made at the Congress of Vienna , the territorially newly determined Palatinate (region) on the left bank of the Rhine came to the Austrian Empire in June 1815 . In the Treaty of Munich (1816), an exchange between different national territories was agreed between Austria and Bavaria . The Austrian areas on the left bank of the Rhine were ceded to the Kingdom of Bavaria on May 1, 1816 . In return, Bavarian areas to the right of the Inn and the city of Salzburg were given to Austria.

Speyer became the capital of the newly established Rhine district , Pirmasens in 1818 the seat of a land commissioner . In the early 19th century, Pirmasens began to develop into an industrial city before and after the dissolution of the garrison. Initially, small shoe companies and the corresponding supplier companies such as tanneries emerged . The first significant improvement in the traffic connection brought the completion of an artificial road between Landau and Zweibrücken via Pirmasens in 1841 after 15 years of construction .

Development of the shoe industry

After the death of Landgrave Ludwig IX. in 1790 and the early dissolution of the garrison, the grenadiers and their families remaining in Pirmasens were unemployed. Out of necessity, they made Schlabbe , simple shoes, from the remains of the uniforms . The families moved around selling the shoes they had made, while the men made new ones at home. Over time, the shoes made in Pirmasens gained a good reputation and a considerable shoe industry developed. Since leather and tools, and later machines, adhesives and paints were required to manufacture shoes, an appropriate infrastructure had to be built for these goods. At that time, companies like Kömmerling emerged as suppliers of the necessary shoe chemistry .

The increasing industrialization in the 19th century favored the development of large companies; Shoe factories such as Neuffer , Rheinberger and the still existing company Peter Kaiser emerged from small family businesses . Also in the immediate vicinity, such as For example, in Waldfischbach or Hauenstein , large companies such as Mattil and Seibel developed .

When the city's centenary was celebrated on August 25, 1863 under Mayor Gustav Diehl, Pirmasens had a population of 7,097 again.

Industrialization and changes in the 19th century

At the end of 1875 there was a connection to the railway network with a branch line that branched off from the Landau – Zweibrücken connection , and the first Pirmasens station was opened on the northern outskirts with a rather small reception building. From 1876 the German-British engineer and entrepreneur Adolf Friedrich Lindemann created a modern drinking water network with the “Pirmasens Water Company”. In the same year the Jewish community began to bury their dead in the Old Cemetery. In 1880 a new synagogue in Judengässel replaced the old building from 1780/1781.

Between 1863 and 1896, the population of the shoe metropolis quadrupled to 30,194. So that the school infrastructure could do justice to the sharp increase in the number of pupils, numerous new buildings were built over the next few decades. As the first new school building in over 100 years, the parade ground school with 24 classrooms and a gym was built on the parade ground by the city building attorney M. Elle from 1878 to 1879 - the later New Town Hall . The Germaniaschule on Matzenberg followed as early as 1886/1887, followed by the Oberrealschule on Luisenstrasse in 1892 , the Luitpoldschulhaus on Nagelschmiedsberg in 1895/96, the Kaiserschulhaus on Landauer Tor around 1900 and the Horebschule in 1904/1905. The Jewish elementary school, which has existed since 1860, was initially housed on the synagogue grounds, moved to the newly built parade ground school around 1878 and was located in the school building on Matzenberg from 1894.

End of the early days

View of the city around 1910

In 1905 the city councilor brought Otto Strobel from Bayreuth and elected him as the first full-time mayor. Strobel recognized the importance of the shoe industry for the community and ensured the creation of a better infrastructure. In 1907 he initiated the construction of an electricity station at Biebermühle and the “higher girls' school” in Alleestrasse (today's secondary school) and in 1911 the establishment of a branch of the Royal Bavarian Bank in the city. By 1913, the Biebermühlbahn in the direction of Kaiserslautern was completed. At the beginning of the First World War there were 240 shoe factories with 14,000 employees in the city of Pirmasens.

First World War

During the First World War, Pirmasens became a garrison town in 1915 due to its proximity to the French border. The first air raids on the city took place in 1916. Like almost everywhere in Germany, most church bells were melted down in 1917. On October 30, 1917, the city was again the target of an air raid. On January 26, 1918, on Strobel's initiative, some city entrepreneurs founded the Pirmasens construction aid to create cheap living space for the factory workers.

Weimar Republic and separatism

After the First World War, the areas of the Palatinate on the left bank of the Rhine were occupied by the French. Against this background, the idea of ​​finally separating the Palatinate from Bavaria developed. However, such attempts at autonomy were not well received by the population.

Commemorative plaque for February 12, 1924

In 1923/24 Palatine separatists tried to gain a permanent foothold in Pirmasens, but failed on February 12, 1924. The district office , the seat of the separatist city government , was violently stormed by citizens and several people died. The memorial plaque (see picture) was created during the Nazi era, which is reflected in the choice of words. Only the victims on the part of the citizens are thought of. It was removed by the occupying forces after the Second World War and hung up again in the 1960s following a controversial city council decision after the swastika was removed.

In 1924, the forest cemetery outside the city was created when the old cemetery was no longer sufficient. In 1925 the city had 42,996 inhabitants.

Rise of National Socialism and the persecution of Jews in Pirmasens

In the 1920s, 800 of the 40,000 Pirmasens were of Jewish faith. From 1921 at the latest, the Jewish elementary school was located in the school building on Nagelschmiedsberg. After the NSDAP was founded in Munich in 1920 , a local group was formed in Pirmasens in 1922, which in 1924 was the largest in the Palatinate. Local group leader Richard Mann and Gauleiter Josef Bürckel from Rodalben were at least regionally influential party functionaries. With the "Eisenhammer" a National Socialist fighting paper was published in Pirmasens.

Although Jewish associations disrupted party events on several occasions, they could not prevent the Nazis from winning elections. While they remained below six percent in the Reichstag elections in May 1924, 23% of the Pirmasens and 26% of the Zweibrücken voters voted for the National Socialist Freedom Party , a substitute organization for the then banned NSDAP. During this time an increasingly anti-Jewish climate established itself. From 1927 there was a Jewish part in the new forest cemetery, which replaced the Jewish part of the old cemetery . Joseph Goebbels spoke in Pirmasens in 1928, as did Julius Streicher , the editor of the propaganda paper “ Der Stürmer ”. In 1929 NSDAP members marched through the streets with signs like “The Jews are our misfortune” or shouted “Juda verrecke” without doing anything about it, as the synagogue council criticized in an open letter to the population. In 1930 the election result in Pirmasens rose to 38%, in 1933 to 50%. In 1932, Adolf Hitler spoke to 60,000 people at a fairground on Winzler Strasse. Enlightenment writings of the German resistance against National Socialism, however, could only reach very few people due to their limited circulation and distribution. In Pirmasens in 1933 there was an offshoot of the left-wing socialist resistance group Red Shock Troop, which had been founded in Berlin in 1932 . The local group was headed by Arthur Schweitzer and his then fiancée Elfriede Zimmermann . By the end of 1933 the Gestapo succeeded in breaking up the local group with around a dozen arrests.

In March 1933 there were first acts of violence against Jews. The shop windows of the Baer and Katz department stores were destroyed. Other shops such as the Dreyfus shoe store and the Görlich grocery store were damaged. While the NSDAP initially publicly disapproved of these acts, on April 1, 1933, a nationwide boycott of Jewish shops, medical practices and law firms was issued. The population was initially induced by marched SA men to heed the boycott. In 1934, however, Gauleiter Bürkel had to warn his party friends to remind their wives of the boycott.

Between 1933 and January 1936, 67 Jewish residents left Pirmasens because of the increasing pressure on Jews in Germany, mostly for the USA , France or Israel . In 1937 there were still 444 Jews living in Pirmasens. The last service took place on November 5, 1938, four days later the synagogue and many Jewish shops and apartments were destroyed during the November pogroms : in the presence of the district leadership, the windows were broken and the building, which had been used as a Jewish prayer room since 1780, burned down with petrol. The fire brigade that had moved in only protected the neighboring buildings. That same night all male Jews were herded together at the Volksgarten and finally taken across the French border, but sent back by the local authorities. As a result, 82 Jews were transported to the Dachau concentration camp and only released weeks later. A memorial plaque in Synagogengasse today commemorates the pogrom night in Pirmasens.

In 1938, the forced transfer of Jewish businesses to non-Jews was also concluded, mostly far below their value, which often meant the ruin of those affected. Some Jewish Pirmasens committed suicide because of the continuing injustice.

When the Pirmasensians were evacuated on September 1, 1939 to prepare for war with France, 200 Jews were still there. Many could not return, but were deported to extermination camps and ghettos, where they were mostly murdered. Only 65 returned home in the summer of 1940 and were deported to the Gurs concentration camp in October . Most of them died on the transport, in Gurs, or later in the Auschwitz concentration camp .

82 Jewish men were deported directly from Pirmasens to a concentration camp between 1933 and 1945. 116 Jews perished in the city between 1933 and 1945.

The Jewish part of the Old Cemetery was almost completely destroyed during the Nazi era; only 17 tombstones are preserved, one memorial stone was erected.

Bombing raids and the end of World War II

Between 1940 and 1945 there were 66 air raids on Pirmasens, including 51 fighter-bomber attacks. The smaller attacks were aimed at individual, locally limited targets such as the train station, the freight yard, barracks or flak positions in the outskirts of the city. The first major Allied attack on August 9, 1944 claimed numerous deaths among the population; the attack had been diverted to Pirmasens because the planes could not reach their original destinations Stuttgart and Munich due to the weather. Another heavy bombing followed on March 15, 1945, with the almost complete destruction of the city center; a week later, on March 22, 1945, American troops marched into the city, which ended the Second World War for the population. At the end of the war two thirds of the urban area were destroyed.

The bombings destroyed a large part of the urban infrastructure, the most heavily bombed targets included the passenger and freight stations and the municipal gas works. However, a large part of the residential development was also destroyed: While the first major attack in August 1944 concentrated almost exclusively on the western Horeb between Herzogstrasse and Dankelsbachstrasse and the area around the Luther Church in the center, the second heavy attack in March 1945 caused extensive damage in large parts of the city. The focus of the second major attack was the city center along Hauptstrasse and Alleestrasse, the southern Winzler district around the St. Anton church and the Kaiserschule at the eastern beginning of Kaiserstrasse.

The attacks destroyed the four churches in the city center, all three higher and five of the seven elementary schools (except for the Husterhöh and Wittelsbach schools), the old town hall and most of the administrative buildings, including the tax office , the forestry office and the district court . The post offices (main post and Kraftpost), the district office, the shoe school and the hospital grounds remained undamaged. Overall, the city center was hardest hit by the damage, it was almost completely destroyed: After the last attack, there were only several buildings in the Bahnhofstrasse, slightly damaged or not at all, with the House of Crafts and the Bavarian State Bank and a single building on the parade ground at Schlossplatz. In contrast, the old building district below the inner city around Schäfer- and Kaffeegasse was hardly destroyed. The outskirts of the city were least affected by the attacks; the areas with only sporadic destruction included the east of the Horeb, the Landauer-Tor district in the south between Kirchberg and Horeb, the station district with the exception of the station itself, the northern Winzler district and the new development areas of Kirchberg and Sommerwald (with the neighboring Wehrmacht barracks) outside of the core city .

Until the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, Pirmasens belonged to the French zone of occupation , but mostly the US military was stationed. After the arrival of the American troops, the city was provisionally governed by the mayor Helmut Stempel, who had been a member of the city administration since Otto Strobel's time and had already led it temporarily during the separatist rule in 1923/24. On June 23, 1945, the American military government appointed Jakob Schunk provisionally as the new mayor.

Rhineland-Palatinate

In 1946 Pirmasens became part of Rhineland-Palatinate . In 1950 there were 49,676 people in Pirmasens.

The shoe industry after 1945

When a large part of the city center was destroyed after two air raids after the Second World War, the factories were rebuilt and some were enlarged. In 1970, 22,000 people worked in the shoe industry. In the years after 1970, the production of many companies was relocated abroad, while the model development and administration remained in Pirmasens. Gradually, however, more and more factories had to close because production was initially no longer profitable in Germany and later in countries such as Spain and Portugal or in Eastern Europe due to the great distance.

Currently, around 1200 people still work for shoe companies, 500 of them for Peter Kaiser alone. The largest employer in the city, Kömmerling ( profine GmbH ), founded in 1897, was also created as a supplier to the shoe industry. One of the former shoe factories was converted into an industrial park in Neuffer am Park ; in another ( Bleiching ) part of the tax office has been housed for many years. At what was once Europe's largest shoe factory, Rheinberger, the conversion process into a service center and science center Dynamikum was completed in 2008.

American Armed Forces (1946–1997)

The military area on the Husterhöhe

The American forces occupied from 1945, the scale of the army barracks on the Husterhöhe. The Husterhoeh barracks contained the housing area "Bunker Hill" (residential complexes), the actual Husterhöh barracks, a large lattice mast for radio relay of the US armed forces (Defense Message System Transition Hub), an Army Airfield (helicopter base of the Air Force ) and several Other facilities.

Around Pirmasens and in the district of Südwestpfalz there were more than 20 tunnels that were built by the Wehrmacht during World War II and then used by the US Army for storage purposes. Most of the so-called “C rations” and later “MREs” ( Meals Ready to Eat ) were stored in the tunnels , but also medical supplies and vehicle spare parts. In the 1980s, a POMCUS depot ( Prepositioning Of Materiel Configured in Unit Sets ) was built in the rear area of ​​the Husterhöhe , where tanks and other vehicles for REFORGER troops were stored in fully air-conditioned warehouses . These halls were taken over by the German Armed Forces after the US Army withdrew in 1997, and today the “Central Long-Term Camp Pirmasens” is located there.

Around 5,000 Americans and Germans lived or worked in the barracks around 1995, after around 10,000 soldiers had been withdrawn between 1991 and 1994. The base was part of the Pirmasens Military Community ( PMC ). In 1995 the PMC covered an area of ​​4,629 acres (~ 1,875  hectares ) with 17 locations, in addition to Pirmasens Böllenborn , Dahn , Fischbach bei Dahn , Höhmühlbach , Leimen , Lemberg , Merzalben , Münchweiler , Ruppertsweiler , Schmalenberg , Schopp , Spirkelbach and Wilgartswiesen . The community provided homes, businesses, schools, and other support facilities for approximately 6,000 Americans; a total of exactly 8,881 Americans and Germans were employed in 1995.

After the Americans had almost completely withdrawn from Pirmasens, the federal government got the site back in 1997. 74 hectares of which were developed as part of a conversion project and converted into a business park, which resulted in costs of 31 million euros. The technical college with 500 students also moved to the former barracks in 2005. The entire business park offers (as of June 30, 2007) 1395 jobs, distributed among around 100 companies (2005: 1200 jobs). In 2013 the number of jobs had risen to 2,300.

Recent history

Since October 20, 1956 , the village of Ruhbank, which previously belonged to the municipality of Lemberg , has belonged to the city of Pirmasens according to a public survey. As part of the Rhineland-Palatinate administrative reform, the municipalities of Erlenbrunn , Fehrbach , Hengsberg , Niedersimten and Winzeln were incorporated on June 7, 1969 , and the municipalities of Gersbach and Windsberg on April 22, 1972 . The Pirmasens location of the Kaiserslautern University of Applied Sciences was founded in 1989. In the service center Rheinberger converted former shoe factory, the first was in April 2008 Rhineland-Palatinate Science Center Dynamikum opened. In 2013, the conversion and refurbishment of the Alte Post , the city's first post office from the early days, which had been vacant for a long time, became a cultural forum; The official opening took place in January 2014 by State Interior Minister Roger Lewentz .

Web links

Remarks

  1. The salt road came from the Lorraine Salzgau (Saulnois) near Château-Salins . The small town of Dieuze or Duss , as it used to be called, gave the street the name Duser Straße . It led through Hornbach, on to the Dusenbrücken named after it and south of Höheischweiler , where it joined the road coming from Zweibrücken . This came from the Gallic area, crossed the Blies west of Zweibrücken , led through Zweibrücken, climbed a ridge to the south-east, then continued through today's Bärenhütte near Nünschweiler and merged with the salt road south of Höheischweiler. The common road ran past Fehrbach to the village of Pirmasens and led through the former country road (today's main road) or the old road (today's Alleestraße). This main route did not cross the village, it only grazed it. From Pirmasens the road went to Lemberg and continued there to the east. The Salzbach was crossed over the old salt bridge not far from Salzwoog , the road continued in the direction of Hinterweidenthal and past Hauenstein in the direction of the Rhine plain . At that time this road was not paved, but an ordinary dirt road (Friedrich Sprater: The salt road, which once led from the Salzgau via Pirmasens, the salt bridge, the Salzbach and Salzwoog to the Speyergau . In: Rings um den Horeb. - 1 (1950/51 ), P. 9).
  2. If a serf of one brother moved into the territory of the other, his former master's house, farm and inheritance remained. A virgin, on the other hand, who married a serf of the other brother, followed her husband so that her previous master no longer had any rights over her. Widowers and widows were not allowed to enter into a new marriage without their master's approval.
  3. The census is based on the assumption that at that time a family consisted of four to five people on average.
  4. According to the Buchsweiler church book, four Pirmasens citizens, Hans Seegmüller, Johannes Krämer, Hans Krämer and Jost Jakob, were executed on October 4, 1622, because they had made four imperial soldiers defenseless, shot or killed them. Originally condemned to the wheel and fire, they were turned to their supplications with the sword.
  5. The first grenadiers arrived in Baerental on Corpus Christi day, June 1, 1741. After they had been inspected by the Hereditary Prince on June 15, he gave the order, initially only 46 men, to march towards Pirmasens.

Individual evidence

  1. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. tape 1 (740-1790) . Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1978, ISBN 3-920558-00-6 , p. 15-17 .
  2. ^ Pirmasens.de: Pirmasens - Windsberg
  3. B. Maier: The Celts. Your story from the beginning to the present. CH Beck, 2000, ISBN 3-406-46094-1
  4. ^ JE Fischer: The introduction of Christianity in what is now the Kingdom of Bavaria , 1863, A. Volkhart'sche Buchdruckerei
  5. Pia Heberer: The Hornbach monastery in the Palatinate. Building history and sacral topography. General Directorate for Cultural Heritage - Rhineland-Palatinate, Mainz 2010, ISBN 978-3-936113-02-0 , p. 11.
  6. H. Schäfer: History of the city of Pirmasens , p. 8, 2000, Wartberg-Verlag
  7. Franz Xaver Kemling: Documentary History of the former abbeys and monasteries in the current Rhein Bayern in Google Book Search. Theil-Verlag, Neustadt ad Haardt, 1836, pp. 56-57.
  8. ^ H. Schäfer: History of the city of Pirmasens , p. 16, 2000, Wartberg-Verlag
  9. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. tape 1 (740-1790) . Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1978, ISBN 3-920558-00-6 , p. 13-15 .
  10. a b c d e f Max Best: From the history of the Catholic Church in Pirmasens. In: Festschrift for the consecration of the Pirmasens Church St. Anton, 1931.
  11. During excavations on the grounds of the König dye works in 1885, the remains of the wall of a small church building with sides 5 and 8 meters long were discovered. These were under a plate floor from the 12th / 13th centuries. Century found.
    Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. tape 1 (740-1790) . Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1978, ISBN 3-920558-00-6 , p. 13 .
  12. Homepage of the Prot. Kirchengemeinden Hornbach and Brenschelbach: The history of the Hornbach Monastery ( Memento from September 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  13. a b c d e f g h Historischer Verein Pirmasens: Settlement and village of Pirmasens around 850 - 1763
  14. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. tape 1 (740-1790) . Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1978, ISBN 3-920558-00-6 , p. 17 .
  15. ^ Announcements of the historical association of the Palatinate , 1882, p. 114
  16. ^ Fritz Claus : Maria Rosenberg. Legend, saga and history. 3rd edition, Edenkoben, 1911, Zweibrücker Volkszeitung publishing house, p. 333
  17. ^ Friedrich Knöpp: Territorial inventory of the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg Hesse-Darmstadt part . [typewritten] Darmstadt 1962. [Available in the Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt , signature: N 282/6], p. 11; Alfred Matt: Bailliages, prévôté et fiefs ayant fait partie de la Seigneurie de Lichtenberg, du Comté de Hanau-Lichtenberg, du Landgraviat de Hesse-Darmstadt . In: Société d'Histoire et d'Archaeologie de Saverne et Environs (Eds.): Cinquième centenaire de la création du Comté de Hanau-Lichtenberg 1480 - 1980 = Pays d'Alsace 111/112 (2, 3/1980), p 9.
  18. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. tape 1 (740-1790) . Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1978, ISBN 3-920558-00-6 , p. 18 .
  19. a b c Fritz Claus : Maria Rosenberg. Legend, saga and history. 3rd edition, Edenkoben, 1911, Zweibrücker Volkszeitung publishing house, p. 334
  20. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. tape 1 (740-1790) . Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1978, ISBN 3-920558-00-6 , p. 19 .
  21. ^ Pirmasens and the elementary school. From the religion lesson in 1575 to the “framework plan” for 1963. In: Pirmasenser Zeitung 133, No. 158, July 12, 1963, special edition
  22. a b c Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. tape 1 (740-1790) . Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1978, ISBN 3-920558-00-6 , p. 23-24 .
  23. ^ Fritz Claus : Maria Rosenberg. Legend, saga and history. 3rd edition, Edenkoben, 1911, Zweibrücker Volkszeitung publishing house, p. 331
  24. a b Helmuth Schäfer: History of the city of Pirmasens . 1st edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Pirmasens 2000, ISBN 978-3-86134-809-2 , p. 17 .
  25. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. tape 1 (740-1790) . Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1978, ISBN 3-920558-00-6 , p. 25 .
  26. The French wars of predation. Entry at Lexikus.de, accessed on December 23, 2010.
  27. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. tape 1 (740-1790) . Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1978, ISBN 3-920558-00-6 , p. 26 .
  28. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. tape 1 (740-1790) . Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1978, ISBN 3-920558-00-6 , p. 27 .
  29. Pirmasens-Land.de: Chronicle of the Obersimten local community ( Memento from September 7, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  30. ^ Oskar Schäfer: The landgraves' crypt in the Luther Church in Pirmasens. Pirmasenser Zeitung from November 4, 1949.
  31. ^ History of the Johanneskirche. ( Memento of July 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved September 16, 2011.
  32. ^ Marion Dilg: City portrait of Pirmasens - stairs and slippers , on SWR.de.
  33. ^ Marita A. Panzer: The great Landgravine Caroline of Hessen-Darmstadt (1721–1774). Pustet, 2005, ISBN 978-3-7917-1965-8 , p. 270
  34. a b c d e Tough struggle for rights and duties: Pirmasens and Landgraves negotiated for six years about city privileges. Die Rheinpfalz , Pirmasenser Rundschau of August 12, 2013, p. 1.
  35. a b c d General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate: Informational directory of cultural monuments, district-free city of Pirmasens (PDF; 1.7 MB), as of February 4, 2009
  36. Immanuel-Kant-Gymnasium Pirmasens: School history
  37. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. Vol. 2 (1790-1840). Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1979, pp. 11, 22-32.
  38. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. Vol. 2 (1790-1840). Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1979, pp. 33-37.
  39. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. Vol. 2 (1790-1840). Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1979, pp. 38-54.
  40. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. Vol. 2 (1790-1840). Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1979, pp. 11, 83-85.
  41. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. Vol. 2 (1790-1840). Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1979, pp. 11, 83-85.
  42. Bavarian State Center for Political Education: The Occupation of the Rhineland after the French Revolution. In: Special issue 02/2006. Insights and Perspectives, Bavarian Journal for Politics and History, archived from the original on August 13, 2007 ; Retrieved April 6, 2008 .
  43. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. Vol. 3 (1840-1875). Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1980, ISBN 3-920558-02-2 , p. 19.
  44. a b c d Historischer Verein Pirmasens: History: The city of Pirmasens from 1763
  45. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. Vol. 3 (1840-1875). Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1980, ISBN 3-920558-02-2 , p. 235.
  46. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. Vol. 5 (1875-1890). Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1983, ISBN 3-920558-04-9 , p. 128.
  47. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens. 1st edition. Vol. 4 (1875-1905). Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1981, ISBN 3-920558-03-0
  48. a b City of Pirmasens: Nagelschmiedsbergschule. Retrieved February 22, 2019 .
  49. Who-to-whom: Peter Kaiser .
  50. Pirmasens construction aid: Housing for thousands of Pirmasens ( Memento from December 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
  51. Gerhard and Evelyn Stumpf: Beloved Pirmasens . 1st edition. Vol. 11 (1919-1929). Komet-Verlag, Pirmasens 1992, ISBN 3-920558-15-4 , p. 147.
  52. a b c d e f Bernhard Kukatzki : Jews in Pirmasens - traces of their history , Ed. Stadt Pirmasens, Pirmasens 2004, ISBN 3-00-012870-0 .
  53. ^ Alemannia Judaica: Jewish cemeteries in Pirmasens
  54. Dennis Egginger-Gonzalez: The Red Assault Troop. An early left-wing socialist resistance group against National Socialism. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3867322744 , pp. 120–125
  55. Working group for research into the history of the Jews in southern Germany and neighboring areas
  56. a b Working group "History of the Jews in Pirmasens"
  57. Alemannia Judaica: The Jewish History / Synagogue in Pirmasens
  58. Meike Frank: Pirmasens: Map helps in the search for duds. In: The Rhine Palatinate. September 24, 2018, accessed January 23, 2019 .
  59. Bomber Soldier: War has no winners. (No longer available online.) Pirmasenser Zeitung, August 11, 2014, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on September 28, 2014 .
  60. http://www.regionalgeschichte.net/pfalz/staedte-doerfer/orte-p/pirmasens/geschichte.html , accessed on September 9, 2017
  61. a b United States Strategic Bombing Survey : Area Survey at Pirmasens, Germany. 1947.
  62. Hundreds of dead and tons of rubble ( memento from March 25, 2018 in the Internet Archive ), Pirmasenser Zeitung , March 21, 2015.
  63. Manfred Geis, Gerhard Nestler (ed.): The Palatinate Social Democracy. Contributions to its history from the beginning to 1948/49. KF Geißler, Edenkoben 1999, ISBN 3-933086-75-2 , p. 625.
  64. LRP.DE: ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Catch the future on quiet feet ) (PDF) Lebendiges Rheinland-Pfalz, Heft III – IV, 2004, ISSN 0934-9294@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / 213.216.16.234  
  65. GIU Society for Innovation and Enterprise Development Corporation: Project sheet ( Memento of 19 July 2011 at the Internet Archive )
  66. Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development: Stadtumbau West ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 723 kB)
  67. a b BICC: Report 4: Restructuring the US Military Bases in Germany Scope, Impacts and Opportunities. ( Memento of December 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) June 1995.
  68. Husterhöhe Business Park ( Memento from May 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  69. Official municipality directory (= State Statistical Office of Rhineland-Palatinate [Hrsg.]: Statistical volumes . Volume 407 ). Bad Ems February 2016, p. 175 f . (PDF; 2.8 MB).
  70. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: visions and realities around the Rheinberger ), Pirmasenser Zeitung , August 31, 2007, p. 12@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.pirmasens.de
  71. ^ Minister Lewentz: Alte Post is a lively cultural center in Pirmasens