History of the city of Witten

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Witten before industrialization

The history of the city of Witten is closely linked to the history of the Ruhr area . The Wittener Muttental is generally regarded in research as the cradle of Ruhr mining and is considered to be the nucleus of the Ruhr area.

Early middle ages

Today's Herbede district was first mentioned in a document in 851. It is assumed that a chapel was built in the upper village as early as the 9th century . The first hard coal excavations on the Ruhr must have taken place around the year 1000.

High Middle Ages

House Witten

With the documentary mention of a clergyman, "Antonius, decanus in Wittene", Witten was first mentioned in a document in 1214. The castle Steinhausen finds its first documentary mention 1297th At the end of the 13th century, the kötter from the region began to sell their goods on an area next to the Witten church. In its place was the Witten bus station for many years until the beginning of 2012. The area is named Kornmarkt in reference to the fact that grain was traded on this square until 1884.

Late Middle Ages

The two Ruhr mills are first mentioned in 1321. At the foot of the church, a store called Steynghademe was built around 1375 . Various goods are traded there.

Between 1350 and around 1400 Witten was hit by the plague . In contrast to the nearby Hattingen , where the outbreak and course of the plague were kept very precisely, precise data from Witten have not survived. From the records of the court lords of Witten, however, it emerges that in the second half of the 14th century the population of Witten decreased massively.

Early modern age

With the death of Rötger von Witten in 1505, the jurisdiction transferred from the Counts of the Mark to the Lords of Witten ends . Probably around 1510 the first coal mining takes place on the banks of the Ruhr . The first officially certified coal mining sites were built in Muttental in 1552 and 1578 .

Pastor Heinrich Heitmann began his service as a Catholic clergyman in St. John's Church in 1557 , but later turned away from the Catholic Church. 1582 is considered to be the year in which Witten joined the Reformation , although Heitmann presumably accepted the Protestant creed as early as 1575. Heitmann dies on September 3, 1602.

From the years 1580–1647 about 30 witch trials are known in the court of Witten , of which there are written records. The defendants became victims of the clashes over the rule of law in Witten. With the executions, the authorities demonstrated that the judiciary was in their hands. The witch trial against Arndt Bottermann became particularly well known . On September 15, 2014, the city of Witten decided to rehabilitate the victims of the witch persecution in Witten in a moral and socio-ethical manner.

During the Dutch War , Witten was occupied by the French from 1672 to 1675.

On April 22 / May 2, 1675 Witten gets into Kleve the market law by the Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg . According to the document brought by the government, judiciary and court judge Mordio von der Reck , Thursday was set as market day. In addition, the rebuilding of the Ruhr Bridge to Bommern, which was destroyed by extreme ice drift in 1503, was made a condition.

The first Ascension Fair takes place in Witten in 1693.

18th century

In 1722, three hammer mills were founded in Witten.

During the Seven Years' War , Witten was occupied by the French for the second time from 1757 to 1763.

Four years before the entire Ruhr was made navigable on the initiative of Friedrich II , this was done in Witten in 1776.

The road from Wittener Crengeldanz to Bochum , begun in 1789, is completed in 1790.

19th century - industrial revolution

House Witten as the seat of a steel mill

With the third French occupation from 1806 to 1813 by the Napoleonic troops, Witten's membership of the Prussian county of Mark ends. Witten becomes part of the Ruhr department founded by the Grand Duchy of Berg . In the course of the reorganization, Mairie Witten was founded in 1809 and a mayor was installed.

As a result, Witten was temporarily part of the Prussian governorate between the Weser and the Rhine and, from 1815, finally part of the Prussian province of Westphalia. In addition to Witten, the mayor's office of Witten includes the communities of Langendreer , Stockum , Düren , Somborn and Werne . It is assigned to the Bochum district . On November 14, 1825, Witten was granted city rights. With the introduction of the provincial constitution, the municipality of Witten is allowed to vote in the 4th (Märkischen) electoral district. The village of Witten is officially declared a city of Witten.

The Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (BME) opens the Elberfeld – Dortmund railway on December 20, 1848 , initially only for freight traffic. On March 9, 1849, the newly built Witten BME station was opened.

Witten synagogue , 1911

On November 7, 1858, a Catholic hospital was inaugurated as the first hospital in Witten . The statutes say that “ all curable sick people will be admitted regardless of the Confession ”. The Munte bell foundry was founded in 1864. In 1865, the municipality bought the main traffic axis that had been private until then, today's Ruhr and Hauptstraße. In 1866 there is a cholera outbreak in Witten. The new Ruhr bridge between Witten and Bommern is built in 1881. On November 27, 1885, the Witten synagogue was opened . After the transport of goods shifted to the railroad, the transport on the Ruhr became economically uninteresting, so that the Ruhr shipping in Witten was discontinued in 1890.

In March 1872, the later co-founder of the Rheinmetall Group and inventor Heinrich Ehrhardt met the French steel technician Pierre-Émile Martin for the first time in Annen as a production engineer at the König und Reunert steel foundry . Ehrhardt then succeeds in giving the company a financial advantage by modifying the manufacturing technology for railway axles.

On December 13, 1892 the Gedächtniskirche (Lage) was consecrated. She fell victim to bombs in World War II . The building was 49.5 m long, 24.1 m wide and 71.5 m high and was built for 792,085.65 marks, of which 419,222.25 was attributable to the property alone. In 1923 it had to be temporarily closed due to subsidence . After the subsoil had calmed down, restoration work began in 1927. The memorial church had four bronze bells that were cast in the former Munte bell foundry in Witten. During the First World War, the parish only had to hand in one bell. The other three bells were smashed in the tower during World War II and then melted down.

Witten left the Bochum district in 1899 and became an independent city .

20th century

Consequences of the Roburite explosion
Witten Kornmarkt 1951
Witten / Herdecke University campus

The Helenenberg elevated water tank goes into operation in 1900. Because of its castle-like design and its exposed location, it became one of the city's landmarks for six decades under the popular name Wasserschloss . As the concept of the industrial monument had not yet been defined, in contrast to today, it was completely demolished in 1960 when a larger water tank was built. Today's main train station opens in 1901.

On November 28, 1906, an industrial catastrophe in Witten briefly attracted international attention: around 7.45 p.m. a fire broke out in the engine room of the Roburit factory in Witten ad Ruhr GmbH . The company manufactured the weather explosive Roburit. The cause could never be clarified, but a spontaneous spontaneous combustion is possible . The fire could not be contained with the existing extinguishing equipment. At 8:17 p.m., the first explosion occurred, which spread burning debris over the company premises. The explosion attracted thousands of onlookers who could not be held back by the fire brigade and police. At 9:13 p.m. the raw material store , in which large quantities of trinitrotoluene (TNT) and ammonium nitrate ( ammonium nitrate ) were stored, exploded . A total of 41 people died as a result of the explosions, including 7 factory employees, 4 firefighters and mostly young onlookers. There were also around 60 seriously injured, around 200 slightly injured and around 2,000 temporarily homeless.

On the initiative of Konrad-Maria Krug , Germany's largest open-air theater was built in Witten for three summers in the second half of the 1920s. On July 1, 1921, the municipality of Heven becomes part of the Herbede district and on August 1, 1929, the municipalities of Annen (with Rüdinghausen , which was incorporated on April 1, 1922 ), Stockum , Düren , parts of Bommern and parts of Langendreer ( Krone ) are replaced Witten incorporated. During the occupation of the Ruhr , Witten experienced its fourth French occupation from 1923 to 1925.

The Witten town hall is inaugurated in 1926. As part of the municipal reform of 1929, the Annen office was dissolved and Annen, together with its Rüdinghausen district , became a Witten district. Due to the dissolution of the Langendreer office , Stockum and Düren are also included as districts.

The Witten synagogue is destroyed in the November pogroms in 1938 . In September 1944, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp was set up in the Annen district . The prisoners had to work in the Annen cast steelworks . On November 12, 1944, 409 people were killed in an air raid and around 20,000 were left homeless. Another major attack on the night of March 18-19, 1945 claimed around 500 lives and left another 20,000 homeless. Towards the end of the war, Walter Model , commander-in-chief of the German troops in the west, briefly had his headquarters in the village school in Heven. The entire urban area, especially the area around the Ruhr bridges, became the scene of a bitter defensive battle between US troops and Wehrmacht units, which, however, soon had to evacuate the place little by little.

The Hohenstein experienced in the 1950s, a second golden age as a recreation area for the surrounding towns. The Ruhrhof, located in the immediate vicinity, is developing into an important dance hall in the region. On September 6, 1953, Alma Kettig was elected to the Bundestag as the first woman from Witten. In 1955, the Jewish Trust Corporation came to the decision to sell the property on which the Witten synagogue was located to a Witten building contractor, since only a few Jewish citizens who survived the Holocaust returned to Witten after the war .

In 1956, a citizens' initiative initiated the construction of a public swimming pool . The initiative raised 318,000 DM through donations and several lotteries. Because of this massive citizen movement, politicians also supported the project, so that the new building could be opened in 1958 on the site of the city baths destroyed in World War II. At the beginning of the 21st century, partly due to a lack of money, partly in order not to compete with the nearby RVR leisure pool, the pool fell into such disrepair that it had to be closed in 2004 for reasons of building regulations. It was finally demolished in 2005. A residential complex for senior citizens was built on the property at Voss'schen Garten.

In the 1960s, the Lindemann house in Annen became the preferred dance hall of that time. The development of the urban wasteland and green space between Humboldtplatz and Bahnhofstrasse begins. As a result, the main post office, the Kempfhaus and the city center are being built here as striking new buildings.

In the 1970s, the Treppchen cellar restaurant in the city center became an important meeting point for the German Dixieland scene . Thanks to the personal commitment of Hildegard Doebner , the founder of the Witten Folk Club , Witten has become a contact point for international folk musicians .

Population development of Witten from 1871 to 2018 for the respective territorial status. The incorporations in 1921, 1929 and 1975 are clearly visible

As part of the local government reform in North Rhine-Westphalia, Witten lost its district freedom on January 1, 1975 and was assigned to the Ennepe-Ruhr district . At the same time, the city of Herbede is incorporated. The municipal event center in Saalbau opens on September 19, 1975. The closure of the last West German small mine Egbert in Kämpen in 1976 marked the end of coal mining in Witten.

In the 1980s, a second cultural center was built on the outskirts of the city center with the tax-funded Wittener Werkstadt. The University of Witten / Herdecke was founded in 1983 as the first fully privately funded university in Germany. In 1993 the cities of Bochum , Hattingen , Herne and Witten merged to form the Central Ruhr Area . In 1999 the Ruhrbühne Witten built its own theater with 99 seats.

21st century

one of the last three half-timbered houses in the city center, demolished in 2009

September 2009: Demolition of one of the last three half-timbered houses in the city center, whose image had been dominated by half-timbered houses until the destruction of large parts of the city center in the Allied bombing in November 1944. The urban development committee approved the demolition of the house in August 2006, even though it was a listed building. The reason given was the poor condition of the house, which made renovation impossible.

In 2005 the Witten municipal swimming pool is demolished. Citizen protests could not prevent the closure and demolition.

Stadtgalerie Witten, opened in 2009

September 24, 2009: Opening of the Stadtgalerie Witten shopping center (new building after the main post office and the economically less successful City Center were demolished).

History clubs in Witten

See also

Web links

Commons : History of the City of Witten  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Heinrich Schoppmeyer : Witten. History of the village, town and suburbs . VOHM , Witten 2012, ISBN 978-3-00-040266-1 (2 volumes).
  • Heinrich Schoppmeyer: Small studies on the history of Wittens . Ed .: VOHM (=  contributions to the history of Wittens . Volume 7 ). Witten 2018.
  • Bruno J. Sobotka : Witten on the Ruhr. From the past and the present . Ed .: Ostermann furniture store . 2nd Edition. C. L. Krüger, Witten 2001, ISBN 3-9800852-2-8 .
  • Friedrich Wilhelm August Pott: History of the city of Witten . Märkische printing and publishing house, Witten 1924.
  • Gerrit Haren: History of the city of Witten from prehistoric times to the present . In addition to the appendix: Bommern, Steinhausen, Hardenstein. Böduel & Comp. Book printing, Witten 1924.
  • Martina Kliner-Lintzen, Siegfried Pape: "... you can't forget that". Witten Jews under National Socialism . Ed .: City of Witten. Publishing house Dr. Dieter Winkler, Bochum 1991, ISBN 3-924517-44-4 .
  • Paul Brandenburg, Karl-Heinz Hildebrand: Witten. Streets, paths, squares . With a contribution to the history of Witten settlement by Heinrich Schoppmeyer (=  contributions to the history of the city of Witten . Volume 1 ). VOHM, Witten 1989, ISBN 3-920611-13-6 .
  • Erich Keyser (Ed.): Westphalian City Book (=  German City Book . Volume 3.2 ). Kohlhammer Verlag , Stuttgart 1954.
  • Andreas Heinrich Blesken (ed.): Pictures from the history of the city of Witten. A home book for school and home . SCM Bundes-Verlag , Witten 1948.
  • Walther Hubatsch (Ed.): Federal and Reich authorities (=  The Protected Areas of the German Empire 1884–1920. Excerpts from the outline of German administrative history 1815–1945 . Volume 22 ). Johann Gottfried Herder Institute , Marburg 1984, ISBN 3-87969-183-5 .
  • Rüdiger Jordan: Of capitals, pulpits and baptismal fonts. An exciting guide to 67 churches and monasteries in the Ruhr Valley . 1st edition. Klartext Verlag , Essen 2006, ISBN 3-89861-436-0 .
  • Michael Schenk (Ed.): Witten. New pictures from the old days (=  The archive pictures series ). Sutton Verlag , Erfurt 2009, ISBN 978-3-86680-409-8 .
  • Wolfgang Zemter: Witten. From the old days . Meinerzhagener printing and publishing house, Meinerzhagen 1981.
  • Home book for the centenary of the city of Witten. 1825-1925 . C. L. Krüger, Witten 1926.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.anton-praetorius.de/downloads/namenslisten/Namensliste%20der%20Opfer%20der%20Hexenverarbeitung%20in%20Witten.pdf
  2. ↑ Ralf-Peter Fuchs, witch hunt on the Ruhr and Lippe. The use of justice by masters and subjects. Westphalian Institute for Regional History. Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe. Muenster. Forum Regionalgeschichte 8. Ed. By Bernd Walter. Ardey Verlag Münster 2004, pp. 87ff
  3. ^ Resolution of the city council of the city of Witten. (PDF, 363 kB) September 23, 2014, accessed October 7, 2014 .
  4. ^ Heinrich Erhardt: Hammerschlag (autobiography) Leipzig 1927, pp. 36–37.
  5. ↑ Stephanie Reekers: The regional development of the districts and communities of Westphalia 1817-1967 . Aschendorff, Münster Westfalen 1977, ISBN 3-402-05875-8 , p. 297 .
  6. ↑ AC Grayling: The Dead Cities: Were Allied Bombing War Crimes? S. 382. Munich 2009
  7. ↑ AC Grayling: The Dead Cities: Were Allied Bombing War Crimes? S. 388. Munich 2009
  8. ^ Federal Statistical Office (ed.): Historical municipality directory for the Federal Republic of Germany. Name, border and key number changes in municipalities, counties and administrative districts from May 27, 1970 to December 31, 1982 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart / Mainz 1983, ISBN 3-17-003263-1 , p. 330 .
  9. ↑ From development to opening . CityGalerie Witten. Archived from the original on December 17, 2012. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  10. ↑ About us. Buchholzer Heimatverein, accessed on December 28, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Brief outline of the history of the citizens' and homeland association Heven. Citizens' Association and Homeland Association Heven, accessed on December 8, 2012 .
  12. ^ Association for the preservation of the Hardenstein castle ruins. Burgfreunde Hardenstein, accessed December 8, 2012 .
  13. ↑ Witten. History Association Annen e. V. Industrial culture and history of technology in North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on December 8, 2012 .