Westphalian Hellweg
The Westphalian Hellweg , often just called Hellweg , is the most famous Hellweg in North Rhine-Westphalia. It describes the western part of the medieval route connection between the Rhine and Elbe along the northern German low mountain range threshold . In particular, the term describes the section between Duisburg and Paderborn up to the Weser crossing at Corvey on the road between Aachen and Goslar . It is the street that u. a. connected the core cities of the Ruhr area with each other and thus created the Ruhr area. Today's A40 was created from Hellweg.
The meaning and age of the term " Hellweg " have repeatedly been the subject of scholarly discussions. It is often viewed as ancient, but initially refers to the Middle Ages. The term Hellweg is prominent in the Westphalian region as the name for the route (s) in question and is in common use today. From the history of the name, the special historical significance of the route (s) known today as Hellweg must be distinguished.
Hellwegzone
The row of towns along the Hellweg is made up of towns that already flourished in the Middle Ages. From Duisburg to Unna they form the Hellwegzone, which in the Middle Ages saw a flourishing agriculture including the production of textiles due to the loess soils. With the introduction of the Schachtzechen and the railway, the main focus of population density in the Ruhr area was formed. The Ruhr zone joins in the south, the Emscher zone in the north, the Rhine zone in the west and the Paderborner Land in the east .
course
 
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Cities on Hellweg |
Cities on Hellweg
From west to east:
- Duisburg
- Mülheim an der Ruhr
- eat
- Wattenscheid
- Bochum
- Dortmund
- Unna
- Werl
- Soest
- Erwitte
- Geseke
- Salzkotten
- Paderborn
- Bad Driburg
- Corvey
history
It is a flood-free connection from the Rhine near Alt-Homberg via Duisburg , Essen , Dortmund , Unna , Werl , Soest , Erwitte , Geseke , Salzkotten , Paderborn to Corvey , which is over 5,000 years old and dates back to pre-Roman-Germanic (early neo-political) times . It was part of a via regia from Aachen to Goslar , was about three meters wide until it was expanded into a road in 1788 . The Hellwegzone runs directly north of the Rhenish Slate Mountains and south of the Lippe , it is characterized by good soils and abundance of springs and has therefore been densely populated for a long time.
The Hellweg started at a crossing over the Rhine, after leaving Duisburg it crossed the Lower Rhine lowland to the east through the stacking gate and then led over the historic Ruhrfurt near Broich Castle to Mülheim , over the year-round accessible Ruhr heights as a watershed between the Ruhr and Emscher / Lippe and then north of the Ardeys and over the strand of hair , on the northern slope of which it continued. The course is typical of old streets : some of the streams sprang from below the Hellweg and did not need to be crossed, the ones to be crossed could also be crossed without bridges.
In Bochum, the Westfälische Hellweg branched off to the northeast via the Bongardstrasse and the Große Beckstrasse to cross the Castroper plateau as a high route , still known today as "Castroper Hellweg", thus bypassing the Oelbach valley to the north. During construction work in the Bongardstrasse were corduroy roads discovered.
The distance to the above-mentioned places corresponds to a day trip of a larger group with heavy vehicles and on foot of about 15 to 30 km. Older and, in the course of their historical development, larger and more important cities such as Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund, Soest and Paderborn were located at a greater distance from one another. Places in between, such as Bochum, Unna or Werl, were usually granted city rights by the respective territorial lords in the High and Late Middle Ages. In Roman times there was a Rhine crossing further south, across from Krefeld-Gellep , then Gelduba . There was another transition from today's Alt-Homberg , located in the county of Moers , to Duisburg and finally, after the Rhine was moved, to a settlement founded in the 13th century, today's Duisburg district of Ruhrort .
It is not certain whether the Romans used the Westphalian Hellweg parallel to the Lippe to conquer Germania ; for example, there is no Latin name for the Hellweg. There is only one local legend in Dortmund , according to which the Romans are said to have had a fortification on the castle wall. However, this has not been proven, and due to the dense development in later times, no evidence from this time is to be expected. In the period after 16 AD, according to Tacitus (Annales II), the route between the (not yet localized) legion camp Aliso and the Rhine was fortified with paths and dams. There was the Aliso legionary camp (this was where the Roman troops that had dispersed after the Varus Battle fled) either near Anreppen (Delbrück, Paderborn district), near Oberaden (Bergkamen), near Elsen (Paderborn), on the Ilse (in the Harz Mountains) or near Hildesheim is suspected, i.e. in any case east of today's Ruhr area, due to the lack of any other paved route from that time in Westphalia in this direction, it can be concluded that the now known Hellweg was expanded. After the Roman occupation of the Hellweg zone from 11 BC. BC and the departure of the Romans, however, the old traffic route lost its importance. The more primitive forms of Germanic agriculture led to a decline in long-distance trade.
It is certain and well documented that Charlemagne significantly expanded the road and secured it with castles or imperial courts. In particularly busy areas, such as intersections with other paths, the Hellweg was paved as early as the Middle Ages, otherwise it was a "natural road" without actual paving until the time of the stagecoach. Goods on the street included salt from the area around Soest, Werl and Unna, as well as iron goods such as knives and scissors from the Sauerland, which were traded via Dortmund. Goods from Hellweg were distributed throughout the Hanseatic region.
The location on Hellweg turned out to be particularly disadvantageous in times of war, especially during the Thirty Years' War , because the foreign troops passing through extorted free board and lodging from the towns there.
Since 1788, about 500 m south of the old Hellweg in the Prussian area in the county of Mark, the connection was expanded as a road and led south of the imperial city of Dortmund via Hörde . The course of the new Chaussee largely corresponds to that of the later Reichstrasse or Bundesstrasse 1 .
Within the historical city center of Dortmund, the old Hellweg has been preserved as a shopping street to this day. There the street, which was so important in the Middle Ages, bears the name Osten- und Westenhellweg as an axis between the historic Ostentor and the Westentor. The same street names can also be found in Soest . In both cases, the names reflect the geographical orientation of the street from the city centers. While in Dortmund this is how the directions from the central point inside the historic city to the Reinoldikirche are characterized, in Soest it is first the course of the street in front of the gates of the medieval city, the Westenhellweg in front of the old ramparts at the Jakobitor and the Ostenhellweg in front of the Thomätor. The geographical name of the gates or the street can also be found in Paderborn (western gate) and Geseke (eastern gate and western gate) as well as in Salzkotten (western gate and departed eastern gate). In Geseke the Hellweg runs almost completely straight and south of the Geseke women's monastery (founded in 846) through the city.
In front of the gates of old Dortmund, the street can easily be followed by its name. Depending on the district, it has appeared since the 14th century as a combination of the place and the historical name of the path, in Dorstfeld therefore Dorstfelder Hellweg, mentioned in a document as Dorstfelder Helewege as early as 1345. East of the city center, the old Hellweg route is now called Kaiserstraße in the first section, in memory of the splendid entry of Emperor Charles IV into the imperial city in 1377. In the further course the connection between Ort and Hellweg is found again, in Körne Körner Hellweg, Wambeler , 1376 called Hylewege bi Wanemale , Brackeler , Asselner and then Wickeder Hellweg further east, finally, beyond today's Dortmund border, Massener Hellweg the urban area of Unna . The Dortmund districts mentioned were formerly small, more or less independent places along the street. Korn and Wambel were still on the territory of the county of Dortmund , Brackel and Asseln outside. But also in Bergkamen , leading through the districts of Rünthe and Overberge, there is the name Westen- and Ostenhellweg. The combinations of place names and Hellweg - coined in the 19th century - can also be found in other names along the street, such as Büdericher Hellweg (Werl-Büderich), Westönner Hellweg (Werl-Westönnen), Ostönner Hellweg (Soest-Ostönnen) and others .
Along the Teutoburg Forest (historical name Osning) there are branches of the Hellweg on both sides from both ends of the Dörenschlucht gorge that the Hellweg uses, northwards to the Bielefelder Pass . It was not until the 1970s that the additional names Senner Hellweg (west side) and Lipper Hellweg (east side) became established for them.
For the medieval pilgrims, the Hellweg was also a feeder from the Way of St. James to Santiago de Compostela .
In 1997/98 the Hellweg cultural region was founded as a marketing association for a number of cities and municipalities in a wide area along the historic Hellweg in Westphalia.
The National Socialists instrumentalized the Hellweg from the times of the Hanseatic League and earlier as a historical west-east line, past the Wewelsburg near Paderborn to Zamość in Poland, in order to forcibly Germanize parts of the Lublin district there ( Aktion Zamość ).
See also
literature
- Hermann Josef Bausch: “West and East on Hellweg” in the city of Dortmund: From the Königsweg to the consumer mile. In: Heimat Dortmund 1/2002. City history in pictures and reports. Journal of the Historical Association for Dortmund and the Grafschaft Mark e. V. in connection with the Dortmund City Archives. Pp. 33-40. ISSN 0932-9757
- Henriette Brink-Kloke: On the Hellweg through Dortmund: An archaeological search for traces. In: Heimat Dortmund 1/2002. City history in pictures and reports. Journal of the Historical Association for Dortmund and the Grafschaft Mark e. V. in connection with the Dortmund City Archives. Pp. 30-32. ISSN 0932-9757
- Gabriele Isenberg: Medieval salt production on Hellweg. Results of an archaeological investigation in the Salzer district in Soest . In: Christian Lamschus (ed.): Salt - work and technology, production and distribution in the Middle Ages and early modern times . German Salt Museum, Lüneburg 1989, pp. 131–135.
- Paul Leidinger: The Westphalian Hellweg as a traffic route and landscape designation. In: Ferdinand Seibt et al. (Ed.): Forgotten times. Middle Ages in the Ruhr area. Volume 2, Essen 1990, p. 72 ff.
- Ferdinand Seibt (Ed.): Transit Bruges – Novgorod: a road through European history. Exhibition catalog, Bottrop / Essen 1997, ISBN 3-89355-148-4 .
- Reinhild Stephan-Maaser (ed.): Hellweg journey through time. Traces of a road through the millennia. Catalog for the exhibition of the city of Unna in the Hellweg Museum Unna from November 5, 2000 to April 1, 2001. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2000, ISBN 3-88474-932-3 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Thomas Mader: The Hellweg - the street on which the Ruhr area arose. August 27, 2019, accessed on June 21, 2020 (German).
- ↑ Quote Hermann Rothert: “It should be mentioned (...) that the name Hellweg in Westphalia can only be documented relatively late. In 1280 the curtis in Selehorst ( Selhorst Kr. Wiedenbrück ) is called quae appellatur Helewech (WUB III 1116), in 1291 bona de Helewech (Helfshof in Stalleiken near Wattenscheid (?) WUB VII 2206) appear. The Hellweg in the city of Soest comes first before 1304 in vico qui dicitur Helewech apud portam beati Jacobi, furthermore in 1338 apud stratam regiam que Heleweg vocatur apud vulgus (Soester Zschr. 44/45 p. 66). ” In: Georg Niemeier and Hermann Rothert : The city map of Soest , in: Westfälische Zeitschrift 103/104, 1954, pp. 30–92, here p. 88 ( https://www.lwl.org/westfaelische-geschichte/txt/wz-9673.pdf )
- ^ Regional studies in the Ruhr area - zonal structure
- ^ Spieker: Articles and reports on regional studies. Provincial Institute for Westphalian Regional and Folklore Studies. Geographical Commission. Issues 15–20, 1967, page 43 [1]
- ^ Klaus Basner: Unna. Historical portrait of a city. Bönen 2014, p. 238.
- ^ A b Bausch, Hermann Josef: "West and East on Hellweg" in the city of Dortmund: From the Königsweg to the consumer mile In: Hermann Josef Bausch: "West and east on the Hellweg" in the city of Dortmund: From the Königsweg to the consumer mile. Home Dortmund 1/2002. City history in pictures and reports. Journal of the Historical Association for Dortmund and the Grafschaft Mark e. V. in connection with the Dortmund City Archives. Pp. 33-40. ISSN 0932-9757