Obernai

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Obernai
Coat of arms of Obernai
Obernai (France)
Obernai
region Grand Est
Department Bas-Rhin
Arrondissement Sélestat-Erstein
Canton Obernai
Community association Pays de Sainte-Odile
Coordinates 48 ° 28 ′  N , 7 ° 29 ′  E Coordinates: 48 ° 28 ′  N , 7 ° 29 ′  E
height 156-572 m
surface 25.74 km 2
Residents 11,279 (January 1, 2017)
Population density 438 inhabitants / km 2
Post Code 67210
INSEE code 67348
Website http://www.obernai.fr/

Center Obernai: market square and Kappelturm

Obernai (German Oberehnheim ) is a French commune with 11,279 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) in the Bas-Rhin department in the Grand Est region (until 2015 Alsace ). The municipality is located in the arrondissement of Sélestat-Erstein . The name comes (as with the neighboring Niedernai) from the location on the Vosges river and Ill river Ehn . The inhabitants of Obernai and the surrounding area call the place Ewer'nahn , but other Alsatian names such as Ewer'nah , Ower'nah , Ower'nahn or (in Strasbourg) Ower'näh are known. The nickname for the residents is Zanefbieche ( German "Senfbäuche" ). Until the end of the Thirty Years' War, Oberehnheim was an independent imperial city in the Holy Roman Empire , which is reflected in the local coat of arms.  

geography

Obernai is located in the Upper Rhine Plain, about 25 kilometers southwest of Strasbourg at the foot of the Odilienberg .

Neighboring communities are Bernardswiller , Goxwiller , Krautergersheim , Meistratzheim , Niedernai , Heiligenstein , Bischoffsheim , Bœrsch and Ottrott .

history

The place was first mentioned in 778 under the name Ehinheim and is said to have been the seat of the Merovingian Athich (also Eticho, Etih or Adalricus), Duke of Alsace, as an originally Franconian settlement in the 7th century . His daughter, St. Odilia, was born here, whose abbey on the nearby mountain was later subordinated to the city. The legend reports: Since instead of the desired son Odilia, also blind, was born, Athich wanted to have her killed. But her mother had Odilia taken to the Baume-les-Dames monastery in Burgundy and baptized there. Then, according to tradition, Odilia gained sight. Brother and mother brought them back to Ehnheim. Athich then killed the son in his fury. When Athich tried to marry Odilia to a powerful candidate, she, who had consecrated her life to God, fled across the Rhine. A huge rock, allegedly near what is now Freiburg im Breisgau , saved them from their pursuers. Athich is said to have given her the nearby Hohenburg as a token of his repentance; founded here Odilia the monastery on the Mont Sainte-Odile (French Mont Sainte-Odile ) in place of a more than 1,000-year-older Celtic sanctuary whose enclosure, the "pagan wall" (French Mur Païen ), today more than 10 km around the slopes of the mountain.

In the 12th century the city came into the possession of the Holy Roman Empire , at which time it was surrounded by a double, fortified city wall. In 1242 the modern name Oberehnheim ("Oberhehenheim") was mentioned for the first time to differentiate it from Niederehnheim . Oberehnheim was a free imperial city from 1240 to 1648 . In 1354 it joined the Alsatian League of Ten Cities . As a result, in 1444 the city played an important role in the defense against the Armagnacs and the siege attempts of Charles the Bold in the 15th century. The city flourished in the 16th century despite the unrest as a result of the Reformation , which found supporters in the city thanks to the Oberkirch family, but was pushed back after 1587. During the Thirty Years' War Oberehnheim was badly damaged by fire and fire. In 1679 Louis XIV annexed the city. The French form of the name Obernai ("Oberné") was first used in 1693, but then quickly caught on with the local population, so that both names were in use between 1871 and 1918, when it was part of the German Empire.

During the German occupation, an SS Reichsschule was set up in Oberkirch Castle in 1942 for the training of SS helper corps by forced laborers from the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp , which also used other confiscated buildings in the area. On 15 December 1942, the first was then sub-camp of the Natzweiler-Struthof officially established in Obernai and lasted until the 1945th

Population development

Obernai is a rapidly growing city, the population of which was 6,304 in 1968 and 10,803 in 2009. The Obernai area had a population of 12,369 in 2009 (compared to 7,293 in 1968).

year 1962 1968 1975 1982 1990 1999 2007 2009 2017
Residents 4534 6304 7902 8907 9610 10,472 11.009 10,803 11,279

coat of arms

Blazon : Above the shield, which is split in red and black, lies an entire golden eagle .

economy

Landmarks and monuments

  • Obernai has a typical Alsatian Renaissance - Six-Bucket Fountain of the 1579th
  • The former granary ( Halle aux blés ) from 1554 , which was converted into a restaurant, stands on the market square .
  • After the Gothic church was demolished in 1873, the 60 m high tower next to the 16th century town hall ( Hôtel de ville ) was left as a chapel tower ( Tour de la chapelle ). Above the fifth floor it was given a tracery parapet and a slate-covered helmet , so that from then on it served the city as a belfry .
  • Obernais neo-Gothic church of Saints-Pierre-et-Paul was built between 1867 and 1872 and is one of the largest neo-Gothic churches in all of Alsace. In the lavishly designed and richly decorated interior there are, among other things, medieval altars from the previous church and an important organ by Joseph Merklin . To the east of the choir is the Virgin Chapel with a mount of olives from 1517.
  • The city once had 20 towers in the inner city ​​wall ring , which is still largely preserved.
  • Of the Capuchin monastery in Obernai , only the Capuchin Church survived
  • Above the town stands the monument to the Malgré-nous - the Alsatians from the canton of Obernai who were forcibly enlisted in the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War .

  • Marketplace

  • Kappelturm

  • Church of St. Peter and Paul

  • Place de l'Étoile

  • Roofs worth seeing in the center of Obernai

  • Monument to the Malgré-nous

Town twinning

Obernai has had a partnership with the German city of Gengenbach in Baden-Württemberg since 1958 . Since 1986, the city has also had a partnership with Pully in the Swiss canton of Vaud on Lake Geneva . A lycée in Obernai has a partnership with the Auguste-Pattberg-Gymnasium in Mosbach - Neckarelz and the Anne-Frank-Gymnasium in Erding .

Personalities

literature

  • Le Patrimoine des Communes du Bas-Rhin. Flohic Editions, Volume 2, Charenton-le-Pont 1999, ISBN 2-84234-055-8 , pp. 920-934.

Web links

Wiktionary: Obernai  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Commons : Obernai  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Obernai in the Topographia Alsatiae (M. Merian)  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jutta Mühlenberg: Das SS Helferinnenkorps: Training, deployment and denazification of female members of the Waffen-SS 1942-1949 , BoD - Books on Demand, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86854-239-4 , pp. 183 ff.
  2. ↑ Commune: Obernai (67348). (No longer available online.) Recensement.insee.fr, archived from the original on April 29, 2012 ; Retrieved November 25, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.recensement.insee.fr
  3. ^ Unité urbaine 2010: Obernai (67303). (No longer available online.) Recensement.insee.fr, formerly in the original ; Retrieved November 25, 2012 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.recensement.insee.fr