Heidelberg is a world-famous city that lies at the transition from
the Odenwald Neckar Valley to the Upper Rhine Plain. The picturesque
scenery of the Neckar, the old town, the castle and the Königsstuhl
attracts 3.5 million visitors from many countries every year.
Heidelberg is not only known for the world-famous castle, Germany's
oldest university and the historical old town streets, but also for a
modern scientific and business location with an international reputation
and a very lively and diverse cultural scene.
The Electors Palatinate from the House of Wittelsbach resided in Heidelberg Castle for five centuries. In 1386, Ruprecht I founded Heidelberg's Ruprecht-Karls University to his fame. The 7 electors chose the German king. Rupert III. was German king from 1400-1410. He was not elected, he raised himself to it, and when he wanted to get absolution from the Pope, he had an accident on the way there.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Heidelberg experienced a second heyday. In 1803 the university was renewed. This new foundation attracted students and lecturers to Heidelberg. The romantic transfiguration was shaped by Heidelberg Castle. The historic, magnificent ruins in the middle of the green mountain slope stimulated the young romantic imagination. Although the castle was never rebuilt, it has experienced a second flourishing since the Romantic period as one of the most famous castle ruins in Europe.
By plane
The nearest international airports are Frankfurt am Main
Airport (IATA: FRA) in the north (approx. 1 hour away) and Stuttgart
Airport (IATA: STR) in the south-east (approx. 1 ½ hours away). A bus
line runs from the main train station to Frankfurt-Hahn Airport (IATA:
HHN) in 2 hours and 20 minutes. From the main train station, you can
take a train or bus via Baden-Baden or Rastatt to Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden
Airport in around 2 hours (IATA: FCB) .
By train
Heidelberg
Central Station is served by ICE trains on the Mannheim - Stuttgart and
Frankfurt am Main - Karlsruhe routes. The station is also an important
hub for regional traffic. All 5 S-Bahn lines of the S-Bahn Rhein-Neckar
go to the main station.
Other train stops:
1
Weststadt-Südstadt is conveniently located in relation to the city
centre
2 Kirchheim-Rohrbach is conveniently located in relation to
the southern districts of Kirchheim and Rohrbach
3 Altstadt is
conveniently located in relation to the city centre
4
Schlierbach-Ziegelhausen are located in the idyllic Neckar valley
5
Pfaffengrund-Wieblingen is conveniently located in relation to the
western parts of the city
Other RNV (overland tram) stops. There
limited bicycle transport!
Other train stations that can be
reached
Mannheim-Friedrichsfeld South, 5 km,
Mannheim main
station, good connection to long-distance traffic, 15km
By bus
long-distance
On the Hamburg - Mannheim route and back, Deutsche
Touring (EUROLINES) serves Heidelberg once a day. The more important
connection here (Mannheim is a neighboring city and can therefore be
easily reached by public transport) from Hamburg departs there in the
evening at 10 p.m. and reaches Heidelberg at 6.35 a.m. the next morning.
In addition, various eurolines international buses depart from here.
Departure is the main station in Heidelberg.
flixbus.de serves
Heidelberg on 4 different lines. More information and the route network
here. For other long-distance bus providers, see: Long-distance buses in
Germany
In the street
In Heidelberg, environmental zones have
been set up in accordance with the Fine Dust Ordinance. If you don't
have the appropriate badge, you risk a fine of €100 when entering an
environmental zone. This also applies to foreign road users.
Heidelberg is easily accessible from the south and north via the A5
motorway. At the Heidelberger Kreuz you change to the A656 in the
direction of Heidelberg. Center and castle are signposted.
Coming
from the east via the A6, change at the Walldorfer Kreuz to the A5
towards Frankfurt, then from the Heidelberger Kreuz continue via the
A656 towards Heidelberg. Coming from the west, leave the A6 at the
Mannheimer Kreuz and take the A656 in the direction of Heidelberg.
By boat
There is a ship connection from Neckarsteinach and from
Worms via Mannheim. See the Excursions section.
Docking with pleasure
boats is possible
By bicycle
Baden Wine Cycle Path
Bike
route The mountain road
Neckar Valley Cycle Path
Heidelberg-Schwarzwald-Bodensee-Weg – BW tourism: route information
local transport
The public transport system in Heidelberg is well
developed. There are 5 tram lines and the Überlandbahn line 5 of the OEG
(Narrow Gauge Railway), all operated by rnv. The interurban train runs
in the Rhine-Neckar triangle from Mannheim via Viernheim, Weinheim and
Schriesheim to Heidelberg's main transport hub Bismarckplatz and from
here directly via the main train station back to Mannheim. In addition,
it is also possible to use the S-Bahn for inner-city transport.
The network is supplemented by buses from Rhein-Neckar-Verkehr GmbH
(rnv) and Rhein-Neckar-Bus GmbH (BRN), which serve the city and some
suburbs.
Heidelberg is part of the Rhein-Neckar transport
association (VRN). All local transport services (trains and buses) can
be used with uniform tickets from the Rhein-Neckar transport
association, even if they are provided by different companies. It is
also possible to change trains across providers with one ticket.
Within the city, price level 2 tickets are required, and there is a
reduced short-distance fare for certain inner-city connections.
A
child's ticket must be purchased for dogs or the group ticket must be
extended to include one person.
Bicycles can be taken on the OEG,
trams and city buses from Monday to Friday before 6 a.m. and after 9
a.m., on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays all day long. Bikes can
be taken on the S-Bahn trains free of charge every day from 9 a.m. and
all day on weekends.
The mountain railways are not integrated
into the transport association and have their own prices.
Public
transport operates from 5:00 a.m. to 0:00 a.m., there are also early
buses and a very good night bus network (Moonliner) on weekends.
The HeidelbergCard includes all trips on trams and buses in the city
area, as well as a trip on the Heidelberg cable car to the castle and
admission to the castle with a large barrel. It also offers many
discounts to other attractions and museums as well as at numerous
retailers. The ticket costs €13.00 for 1 day, €15.00 for 2 days and
€17.00 for 4 days. There is a 2-day ticket for families for €32.00. ·
(as of 2015)
With own vehicle
Due to its historical, crooked
architectural style and the long pedestrian zone, Heidelberg's city
center should be avoided by non-resident drivers. The one-way system is
complicated, and some streets and most car parks are residents-only.
Illegal parkers will be rigorously towed away. When visiting the old
town, it is therefore advisable to follow the parking guidance system
and head for one of the numerous multi-storey car parks. However, these
are busy on Saturdays during the day when shopping and on Saturdays in
the early evening when cinemas are open and may require a little waiting
time.
You can also drive to the castle. However, when traffic is
high, the entire Schlossberg is often closed. The few parking spaces and
authorized parking spaces are above the castle and are subject to a fee
during the day. A walk of approx. 10 minutes through the castle garden
including climbing stairs must then be accepted. Recommended:
Alternatively, you can park your car in one of the multi-storey car
parks in the city center and climb the castle with the mountain railway
(included in the entrance fee for the castle) or on foot (in good
condition, > 300 steps).
The Castle Road leads through the town.
Heidelberg is one of the few major German cities that were not destroyed in World War II. A special feature is the baroque old town, which - after being destroyed in 1689 and 1693 - was rebuilt on a medieval plan. Most of the important buildings are located in the old town, which has one of the longest pedestrian zones in Europe at 1.6 km. Around 2,830 buildings are listed throughout the city (as of April 2017).
The Heidelberg Castle is one of the most famous ruins in Germany and the symbol of the city. The building was originally built as a fortified castle in a strategically favorable location above a narrowing of the Neckar valley and was later expanded into the magnificent residence of the Electors Palatinate. Since the destruction in 1689 and 1693 in the Palatinate War of Succession, the palace has only been partially restored. In 1764, another fire after a lightning strike sealed the fate of the castle, which had just been renovated at the time. It was abandoned and the ruins used as a quarry (building material) for the new Schwetzingen summer palace and later for the citizens of Heidelberg, before it was discovered by writers at the end of the 18th century and used as a symbol of transience, but also as a symbol of transience during the Napoleonic Wars patriotic monument. The castle ruins rise 80 meters above the valley floor on the northern slope of the Königstuhl and dominate the picture of the old town from there. The Ottheinrichsbau, one of the palace buildings of the castle, is one of the most important Renaissance buildings north of the Alps.
The official name of the Old Bridge is Karl Theodor Bridge. It is one of Germany's oldest bridge structures and was first mentioned in a document in 1284. There were many previous wooden buildings, but they were repeatedly destroyed by ice. It was built in its current form in 1788, but towards the end of the Second World War two pillars were blown up by the Wehrmacht to stop the advancing Allied troops. In 1947 the bridge was completely reconstructed.
The Heiliggeistkirche is the most famous church in Heidelberg. It is
in the center of the city, not far from Heidelberg Castle. Its façade,
together with the castle, characterizes the silhouette of the
Neckarstadt. It once served as the repository of the famous Bibliotheca
Palatina, but during the Thirty Years' War the collection of manuscripts
and early prints was stolen by Elector Maximilian I and presented to the
Pope as a gift.
The oldest church in Heidelberg's old town is the
Peterskirche. It is believed that St. Peter's Church was built before
Heidelberg was founded. Its age is estimated at around 900 years. In the
late Middle Ages it became the university chapel. It serves as the final
resting place for around 150 professors and electoral courtiers. Among
others, Marsilius von Inghen, the founding rector of the University of
Heidelberg, is buried here. The Luther oak was planted on the east side
in 1883 for Martin Luther's 400th birthday.
The Jesuit Church,
completed in 1749, is not far away. It is the landmark of the
Counter-Reformation in Heidelberg and once formed the center of the
former Jesuit quarter.
Representative historicist church
buildings were erected at the beginning of the 20th century in the
western part of the city: the Protestant Christ Church (1904) and the
Catholic Bonifatius Church (1903).
Historical buildings
One of the oldest surviving buildings in
Heidelberg's old town is the Hotel "Zum Ritter". It was built in 1592 by
a cloth merchant family. With its location in the old town opposite the
Heiliggeistkirche, it is one of the most visited sights in Heidelberg.
On the eastern edge of the old town is the Karlstor, a free-standing
archway that was a gift from the citizens of Heidelberg to the Elector
Karl Theodor. Construction work lasted six years and was completed in
1781. The Karlstor is decorated, including the Elector's coat of arms
and portraits of him and his wife on the archway.
In the old town
there are other historic buildings of the University of Heidelberg. One
of the most important is the university library, which houses the
university's central library and a museum with old manuscripts and
codices, also part of the university's book collection. One of them is
the Codex Manesse, the most extensive and most famous German song
manuscript of the Middle Ages. The entire library is housed in a
neoclassical red sandstone building.
See also
Ancient anatomy
Old University
Badischer Hof
Friedrichsbau
Grand Ducal Palace
house to the giant
Dutch court
State Observatory
Heidelberg-Königstuhl
royal stables
Palais Boisseree
Palais
Morass
Palais Weimar
City hall
Villa Bosch
Wormser Hof
Mittemaier house
The Thingstätte on the Heiligenberg dates back to the National
Socialist era. The Thingstätte is an open-air stage in the style of a
Greek theater. It was built by the National Socialist Reich Labor
Service and inaugurated in 1935 by Joseph Goebbels. The Thingstätte was
primarily intended as a propaganda platform. Today it serves as an
open-air stage for all kinds of cultural performances.
Also worth
mentioning is the new synagogue in Weststadt. After the Jewish places of
worship in Heidelberg were burned down during the pogrom night of
November 9/10, 1938, there were no fixed prayer rooms for Jewish
citizens until the Jewish community was reestablished at the end of the
war in 1945. After a series of moves, the congregation found its current
home in the new synagogue, inaugurated in 1994.
The municipal
cleaning and swimming pool in Bergheim, which is one of the last
surviving Art Nouveau indoor swimming pools (old indoor pool), has not
been used as a bath since 1981. Since 2013 it has been used as a market
hall with shops, restaurants and cultural offerings.
The
television tower in Heidelberg, the telecommunications tower in
Heidelberg and the telecommunications tower of the US armed forces in
Heidelberg make it clear that Heidelberg also plays an important role in
telecommunications for the entire region. All three transmission towers
are located on the Königstuhl.
The Stadthalle is the 1901-1903
built congress and cultural center on the banks of the Neckar in the old
town with a rich red sandstone facade (Gründerzeit, Neo-Renaissance and
Art Nouveau architecture).
The fire station of the Heidelberg
fire brigade, built as a passive house, was planned by Peter Kulka and
has been in use since 2007. It is considered one of the most modern and
innovative fire stations in Germany and is therefore also a destination
for architectural tourism.
One has a famous and often depicted view of Heidelberg's old town
from the Philosophenweg. The path begins in the Neuenheim district,
leads halfway to the Heiligenberg, which is on the opposite bank of the
Neckar from Heidelberg Castle, and then runs above the Neckar through
the valley to Ziegelhausen.
The Bergfriedhof is one of the most
famous final resting places in Germany. Many important personalities
such as the first Reich President Friedrich Ebert or the scientists Carl
Bosch and Robert Bunsen are buried here. Numerous memorials commemorate
the victims of past wars and the Holocaust.
Not far from the
Drei-Eichen forest car park, north of Gaiberger Weg (K 7908), on Oberer
St.-Nikolaus-Weg, there is a historical wayside shrine from 1747 in
honor of St. Nicholas of Myra. With an inscription, the monument refers
to its builder, the then city forester Leonardo Schreiber. The sculpture
resting on a red sandstone base is visited by devout people on December
6th (Saint Nicholas Day) and decorated with candles and flowers.
See also
Karlsplatz with various palaces
Marketplace/Town Hall
Old Synagogue Square
University Square
Kornmarkt (Heidelberg)
The Kurpfälzisches Museum is dedicated to the history of the city of
Heidelberg and the Electoral Palatinate. The museum owes its existence
to the commitment of the French emigrant Charles de Graimberg, who began
to take an interest in the annals of the Palatinate dynasty in 1810. His
collection of coins, weapons, paintings and other historical pieces
formed the basis of the museum's holdings. The well-known altar of the
twelve messengers by Tilman Riemenschneider was also acquired by
Graimberg. In 1879 the city bought the private collection and in 1908
the museum opened its doors in the Palais Morass. The museum stock has
been greatly expanded since its beginnings, so that today you can find
out about the history of the Electoral Palatinate right up to
prehistoric times.
The German Pharmacy Museum is located in
Heidelberg Castle and has one of the most extensive pharmaceutical
history collections in the world. You can see several valuable pharmacy
furnishings from the Baroque and Biedermeier period, an extensive
historical raw drug collection, tools related to the art of pharmacy and
a unique collection of pharmacy jars. With the help of objects, texts
and guided tours, guests experience 2000 years of cultural and
pharmaceutical history.
A nationwide memorial and museum is the
Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma.
The
Heidelberg Museum of Ethnology houses a collection of works of art and
ethnographic objects from Asia, Africa and Oceania. It offers an insight
into the art, worldview and rituals of the peoples of those areas. The
Ethnological Museum dates back to 1921 and is now housed in the Palais
Weimar. Since it was founded, it has been under the sole sponsorship of
the J. & E. von Portheim Foundation, which was established in 1919 by
Victor Mordechai Goldschmidt. The extensive collection of the Jewish
scholar formed the basic inventory of the museum.
The
Heidelberger Kunstverein, with over 1000 members one of the largest in
Germany, is committed to the promotion and communication of contemporary
art according to its statutes, while the Museum Haus Cajeth is dedicated
to "primitive art".
Five of the fourteen districts maintain local
history museums; they preserve the history of the respective district
and make it accessible to the interested public.
Not far from the
Old Bridge is the birthplace of Friedrich Ebert (1871-1925), the first
democratically elected head of state in German history. There, in the
house at Pfaffengasse 18, in the heart of the old town, the 46 m² small
apartment in which Friedrich Ebert was born on February 4, 1871 as the
seventh of nine children gives an impression of the cramped living
conditions of a small artisan family in the second half of the 19th
century. century. In addition, the permanent exhibition From Labor
Leader to Reich President: Friedrich Ebert (1871-1925) provides
information about the life and political work of Friedrich Ebert against
the background of the German Empire, the First World War, the November
Revolution and the Weimar Republic. The Friedrich-Ebert-Haus is
sponsored by the Reich President Friedrich Ebert Memorial Foundation
established by federal law in 1986.
With its numerous collections
and exhibitions, the University of Heidelberg is a giant in the city's
museum landscape. Many of the university institutes and faculties have
extensive holdings that are open to the public. In this way, completely
different specialist areas such as Egyptology, botany, paleontology or
zoology are also accessible to the layperson. The university even has
its own university museum. Of all these facilities, two stand out in
particular: the student detention center and the Heidelberg University
Library. The prison is part of the student museum in the old university.
When the university still had its own jurisdiction over students, a
detention center served as a prison for overly rebellious fellow
students. Generations of students have sat here and preserved the
frustration of their alma mater for posterity with writing utensils of
all kinds on the walls of the academic detention center. In addition to
a large number of newer books, the university library houses one of the
most well-known collections of old books and writings. The showpiece of
the inventory is the Middle High German song manuscript Codex Manesse.
The "Manessische Liederhandschrift" is the most extensive and most
famous German collection of poetic works from the Middle Ages. A
facsimile can always be seen in the university library.
The
German Tuberculosis Archive, which includes a museum, has been in the
Thorax Clinic Heidelberg-Rohrbach since 2011. The Heidelberg Zoo was
founded in 1933 and attracts around half a million visitors every year.
The animal population includes around 1726 animals in 159 species (as of
2019). Klaus Wünnemann has been the zoo director since 1998.
A memorial on the mountain cemetery near the Görresstraße entrance
commemorates the 27 victims of National Socialism who are buried there,
including 19 resistance fighters from the "Lechleiter Group", named
after the KPD member of parliament Georg Lechleiter, who was murdered
with the other members in 1943. Another commemorative plaque provides
information about French resistance fighters from the "Wodli Group" who
committed acts of sabotage on important armaments installations. At the
Goerdeler family gravesite, a plaque refers to Carl Friedrich Goerdeler,
one of the leading figures behind the assassination attempt of July 20,
1944. He was murdered together with his brother Fritz in 1944 in
Berlin-Plötzensee.
The honorary cemetery from 1934 above the mountain
cemetery was expanded in 1953 to become a memorial for 177 prisoners
from sub-camps who were deported to Germany from Poland, the Soviet
Union and Yugoslavia for forced labor.
A plaque in the mourning hall
of the Jewish cemetery commemorates the persecuted and murdered Jewish
residents. Below the plaque, a stone commemorates the synagogue that was
destroyed during the November pogrom of 1938. This place of worship is
also remembered at its former location on Große
Mantelgasse/Lauerstrasse.
At Mombertplatz in the Emmertsgrund
district there is a memorial plaque for the Jewish lawyer and poet
Alfred Mombert, who died as a result of his imprisonment after being
deported to the Gurs camp in 1940.
A commemorative plaque at the
Heiliggeist Church in the Old Town provides information about the work
of the Protestant pastor Hermann Maas, who belonged to the Confessing
Church and helped threatened Jews to flee. The Prelate Hermann Maas
Archive preserves the memory of this honorary citizen of Heidelberg.
On the Rathausplatz in the Rohrbach district, a memorial stone shaped
like a Star of David commemorates the destroyed synagogue.
A memorial
stone in the Kirchheim district cemetery commemorates at least 100
prisoners of the Nazi dictatorship who fell victim to forced labor.
In the district of Wieblingen, the residents commemorate the resistance
fighter who was murdered in Berlin-Plötzensee in 1944 with the Elisabeth
von Thadden School and other memorials.
Fehrentzstraße in the
Bergheim district is dedicated to the memory of the worker athlete and
wrestler Heinrich Fehrentz, who was murdered in 1943 and buried in a
grave of honor in the municipal cemetery after 1945.
The Theater der Stadt Heidelberg is the largest theater in the city,
a municipal four-section theater with music, spoken and dance theater as
well as its own ensemble for children's and youth theater, which
celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2009.
The largest venue, the
Municipal Stage, was expanded and remodeled from 2009 to 2012 and
reopened with a festival on November 24, 2012. The project was estimated
at 52.9 million euros. This decision was made possible by the civic
commitment, which is unique in Germany and amounted to 16.5 million
euros. The main venues during the renovation were the opera tent and the
theater cinema housed in the former castle cinema, as well as the
children's and youth theater Zwinger 3 and the studio stage Zwinger 1.
The city theater, which opened in 1853 with a performance of Friedrich
Schiller's The Bride of Messina, also organizes the castle festival in
Heidelberg Castle.
The University of Heidelberg also has its own
stage, the Theater im Romanisches Keller. It is the largest forum for
student and independent theater in Neckarstadt. The reputation of the
theater in the Romanisches Keller extends far beyond Heidelberg.
A theater with a completely different style is the Zimmertheater. It was
founded in 1950 by the young actors Jochen Ballin, Claire Hahn, Helga
Schmidle, Karl-Heinz Walther and Brigitte Zepf and has retained its
small theater charm to this day. The Zimmertheater has also become known
beyond the borders of Heidelberg thanks to its premieres and premieres.
It is the oldest private theater in Germany. The Zimmertheater is
financially supported by the Association of Friends of the
Zimmertheater.
The Taeter Theater is one of the younger theaters
in Heidelberg. It was founded in 1984 and found its home in 1987 in the
old tobacco factory in Landfried. The name of the theater is a play on
words with the terms theater and perpetrators, which points to the
principle of the group: In the beginning there is the deed - everything
else will follow.
The Plappermaul Puppet Theater is a theater
that offers programs primarily for younger audiences. Also worth
mentioning is the Roadside Theater, the English-speaking theater of the
US armed forces in Heidelberg. It offers an Anglo-Saxon theater program
that is based on the style of American community theaters. Other
theaters in Heidelberg that have their own venues are the Stage 14, the
Cabaret Kleinkunst in the Anna-Blum-Haus, the Stephge, the Vogelfrei
theater group in the garden of the German Studies Seminar, the
Theaterwerkstatt Heidelberg, the TiKK as well as the UnterwegsTheater
and the Improvisation theater DRAMA light. The theater hall in the
Augustinum Heidelberg was regularly used as a venue for touring theater
until the end of the 1990s. Due to a lack of visitor numbers and the
many other venues in Heidelberg, theater operations in the Augustinum
have all but ceased, but cabaret and cabaret are offered more
frequently, including in cooperation with the Kulturfenster Heidelberg.
Heidelberg was once the city with the highest density of cinemas in
Germany and had no commercial cinema after the cinemas died out in
recent years and the closure of the Harmonie Lux cinema center. A
curiosity is that the Harmonie Lux cinema center was housed in the
historic town house of the Worms bishops until the beginning of 2014.
The cinema was a remnant of the Ufa bankruptcy estate and was meanwhile
run by the employees. Since 2014, the building has been converted into a
department store and literature store.
The Luxor Filmpalast
Heidelberg was opened in December 2017. It has 15 halls and is the
world's first passive house cinema.
The other cinemas in
Heidelberg are a mixture of commercial and program cinemas with upscale
programs: Gloria & Gloriette, Kamera, Cinema Augustinum and the
municipal Karlstorkino. In addition, the Karlstorkino has regularly
changing thematic focuses on which foreign-language films and
documentaries are shown. As a repertory cinema in the theater of the
retirement home, the Cinema Augustinum shows around two films a month,
mostly current films.
Particularly worth mentioning are the
annual International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg, which mainly
shows films by "undiscovered" directors, and the Mediterranean Film Days
in the Montpellier House. There is also the short film festival Zum
Goldenen Hirsch, where only film productions from the Rhine-Neckar
metropolitan region can be seen.
The city maintains eleven senior centers in the districts. They serve as a central point of contact for older people in their own residential area.
Hike
A walk from the old town over the Neckar Bridge to the
Philosophenweg should not be missed. On the 2km long panorama trail you
have a breathtaking view of the old town, the castle, the Königstuhl and
the Rhine-Neckar plain. From the Old Bridge, the Schlangenweg leads
partly over stairs in a zigzag to the Philosophenweg.
A trip to
the Königstuhl is ideal for longer hiking tours. Here a via naturea
(nature path) lures with numerous installations that offer fun for young
and old. You can easily reach it by bus from Bismarckplatz or by
mountain railway from Kornmarkt.
The Neckarsteig long-distance
hiking trail stretches a total of 126.4 kilometers from the culturally
important city of Heidelberg through the Neckartal-Odenwald Nature Park
to the lovely town of Bad Wimpfen am Neckar.
Sightseeing
If
you want to explore the city or its sights, you can choose the most
suitable one from the wide range of city tours. In addition to a tour of
the old town, evening tours and city tours by bus, you can also book a
so-called city safari by Segway. A paw tour for dogs and mistresses or
masters is even offered several times a year. All further information is
available from the tourist information at the main train station and in
the town hall.
On the Neckar you can book a small round trip with
the Neckar ferry.
Another Heidelberg audio guide for iPods,
mobile phones and the like can be downloaded here for EUR 4.99 before
you travel. With this type of city guide you can discover Heidelberg
completely independently on your own.
The main street, which stretches from Bismarckplatz to Karlstor, is
Heidelberg's main shopping street. It is a pedestrian zone from
Bismarckplatz to Kornmarkt. You can find everything there, but it is
usually very crowded. Alternative shops, such as Alnatura or second-hand
shops, can be found primarily in Weststadt and on Bergheimer Strasse. In
particular, high-quality goods can also be found in Neuenheim on
Brückenstrasse.
Reisebuchladen-Heidelberg, Kettengasse 5, 69117
Heidelberg. Tel.: +49(0) 6221 20552, e-mail:
Info@Reisebuchladen-Heidelberg.de. A small bookshop down a side street
that has a huge selection of maps and travel literature. Here you can
also get the maps of the various hiking clubs. They can order
everything, even antiquarian. Just looking at the many globes is worth
it. Open: Mon-Fri 9am-7pm; Sat 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Many restaurants in the old town are considered disproportionately
expensive. It is therefore advisable to check the offers carefully and,
if necessary, to switch to the outskirts!
Cheap
The university
canteen at the Marstallhof, Uniplatz and in Neuheimer Feld offers
students and visitors buffets and fixed menus at relatively low prices.
With a campus card or student ID, the prices are approx. 18% lower, but
the prices between students and visitors can sometimes differ by up to
50%. There is also the kosher canteen of the University for Jewish
Studies, but payment here is only possible with a campus card.
Opening hours of the Marstall-Zeughaus canteen at the Marstallhof: 9
a.m. (cafe) and 11 a.m. (buffet) to 10 p.m. (buffet) and midnight (bar).
The two Indian fast food restaurants on Plöck (street parallel to the
main street). Both have roughly similar food at the same prices and
opening hours. Curries, flat cakes and lassi are available together for
around €5. Open until 11.30 p.m.
In Neuenheim directly at the
bridgehead: Chinatown. Chop suey and the likes from €3 to €7, open until
11pm.
The excellent falafel shop on Heugasse. Falafel to go from €3,
with many more options.
You can also find inexpensive doner kebabs in
Istanbul on Bergheimer Straße (from €2.90).
Good salads, wraps and
Anatolian specialties (€3.50-5.00) are available in the Exotica salad
bar in the Carré shopping center (at Adenauerplatz).
emma24 is a
delivery service that delivers for various restaurants. Currently pizza,
asian, greek and sushi.
Middle
1 Café "Yilliy", Haspelgasse 7,
69117 Heidelberg (old town). Cozy café and gallery, chocolate, pralines,
drinking chocolate. In the warm season seating on the street opposite
the cafe. Open: Sun – Thu 10 a.m. – 8 p.m., Fri + Sat 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Gasthaus zum Weissen Schwanen, Hauptstraße 143 (old town). Tel.: +49
(0)6221 659692. Good restaurant with German cuisine.
2 Goldener
Stern, Lauerstrasse 16, 69117 Heidelberg. Tel.: +49 (0)6221 23937. Greek
restaurant with reasonable prices.
3 BrunnenStube, Kranichweg 15,
69123 Heidelberg (at the corner of Obere Rödt, Pfaffengrund district).
Tel.: +49 (0)6221 734222. Good restaurant with German cuisine. Furnished
in French country style. Specialty: Light German cuisine - especially
fish - suitable for the season. Wine sale also to take away.
Occasionally also live piano music. Function rooms and terrace
available, free parking possible. Closed from the 4th of Advent to
mid-January and in August. Open: Mon – Sat 5.30 p.m. – 10.00 p.m. Sun
and some public holidays rest day. Price: main courses €8.90 to €14.80.
upscale
Simplicissimus, Ingrimstrasse 16, 69117 Heidelberg. Tel.:
+49 (0)6221 6732588. A bit hidden in the old town south of the main
street.
4 Scharffs Schlossweinstube, Schlosshof 1, 69117 Heidelberg.
Tel.: +49 (0)6221 8727010. Very romantic right in the castle - in summer
also with a terrace in the castle courtyard. Open: Thu – Sat 6.00 p.m. –
12.00 a.m.
5 Hirschgasse, Hirschgasse 3, 69120 Heidelberg. In this
alley on the northern bank of the Neckar opposite the old town.
6
Kurfürstenstube, Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage 1, 69117 Heidelberg (in the
Hotel Europäischer Hof). Tel.: +49 (0)6221 515512. Open: daily 12.00
p.m. – 11.00 p.m.
7 Pier 4, Neckarstaden 25, 69117 Heidelberg. Tel.:
+49 (0)6221 20181, fax: +49 (0)6221 20211, e-mail:
info@weisse-flotte-heidelberg.de. On the Neckar at the town hall.
Vegetarian
8 Red - The Green Kitchen, Poststrasse 42, 69115
Heidelberg. Tel.: +49 9145206. With buffet and dish of the day for €7.
Open: Mon - Sat 11.30 a.m. - 9 p.m., Sun closed.
After spending the night in Heidelberg's numerous cafés and pubs,
it's a good idea to sober up and relax on the Neckarwiesen with
like-minded people on the following sunny day.
If you want to
start the day with a good breakfast first, you should try the whale.
Ordinary and extravagant tastes are served here and sufficiently
satisfied.
Cheap
1 Special Bar, Untere Str. 13, 69117
Heidelberg. Tel.: +49 (0)6221 25200. Rock music, some from the 70s and
many types of absinthe. Open: Sun – Thu 2 p.m. – 1 a.m., Fri + Sat 2
p.m. – 4 a.m.
Middle
There are several pubs and bars around
the Heiliggeistkirche and in the adjoining Untere Straße.
2 Max Bar,
Marktplatz 5, 69117 Heidelberg.
3 Destille, Untere Str. 16, 69117
Heidelberg.
4 Weinloch, Untere Strasse 19, 69117 Heidelberg.
5
Tangente, Kettengasse 23. The Tangente grants free entry and is a safe
bet for a good atmosphere and lots of people who love to dance.
6
Karl, Lauerstrasse 7-9, 69117 Heidelberg.
Cheap
1 Heidelberg Youth Hostel, Tiergartenstrasse 5, 69120
Heidelberg. Tel.: +49(0)6221 651190, Fax: +49(0)6221 6511928. The youth
hostel is on the outskirts in Neuenheimer Feld, about 45 minutes' walk
from the city center (Bismarckplatz). Bus line 32 runs from there via
the main station and Bismarckplatz to the old town (Universitätsplatz).
The journey time is about 25 minutes. New, well-kept house with lounge,
bar and spacious, quiet rooms. Free WiFi also in the rooms. Open 24
hours, late arrival without complications possible by prior arrangement.
Feature: free wifi.
2 campsite Heidelberg. The site is 5km up the
Neckar in Heidelberg-Schlierbach on a narrow strip between the Neckar
and the busy federal highway 37. There is no information about the noise
situation on the site (noise protection wall?).
3
Altstadtpension-Jeske, Mittelbadgasse 2, 69117 Heidelberg. Email:
info@pension-jeske-heidelberg.de. This nice pension is located in a
small, rather quiet alley in the middle of the old town (the market
square is 1/2 minute away). Feature: pension.
4 Steffi's Hostel, Alte
Eppelheimer Strasse 50, 69115 Heidelberg. Phone: +49(0)6221 7782772,
email: info@hostelheidelberg.de . This hostel is a five-minute walk from
the main train station.
5 LOTTE – The Backpackers Hostel Heidelberg,
Burgweg 3, 69117 Heidelberg. Phone: +49(0)6221 7350725, email:
info@lotte-heidelberg.de . This hostel is located in the heart of the
old town, just below the castle.
6 Hotel am Kornmarkt, Kornmarkt 7,
69117 Heidelberg. Tel.: +49(0)6221 905830, email:
info@hotelamkornmarkt.de . This nice little hotel is located in the
heart of the old town, just below the Kornmarkt Palace.
7
"Hemingway's" Hostel, Fahrgasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg. Phone: +49(0)6221
6560488 . Small hostel in the old town, right on the Neckar.
8 HD
Hostel, Alte Eppelheimer Straße 2. Tel.: +49(0)6221 892074, email:
kontakt@tinashostel.de. Simple but stylish multi-bed rooms and single
rooms with shared kitchen and rental bikes.
Middle
9 Hotel Neu
Heidelberg, Kranichweg 15, 69123 Heidelberg. Tel.: +49(0)6221 73820.
West of the center, conveniently located yet quiet in a residential
area. Restaurant with German cuisine and terrace, garden, sauna, rooms
from €59 incl. breakfast buffet/night and parking. Features: ★★★, WiFi.
10 Hotel and Restaurant Auerstein, Dossenheimer Landstr. 82, 69121
Heidelberg (Ghandschuhsheim district). Phone: +49(0)6221 649970-0.
11
Deutscher Kaiser, Muehltalstr. 41, 69121 Heidelberg (Ghandschuhsheim
district). Phone: +49(0)6221 71495-00.
12 Hotel ISG, Im Eichwald 19,
69126 Heidelberg. Phone: +49(0)6221 3861-0. Feature: WiFi.
Ruprecht Karl University, Grabengasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg. Tel.: +49 (0)6221 540. The university can look back on more than 600 years of tradition. The number of courses and faculties is large, so that almost all courses can be taken here. Furthermore, the SRH is based in Heidelberg-Wieblingen.
Heidelberg is a very safe city. As in all other cities, theft can
also occur in Heidelberg. Normal precautions are sufficient. However,
bicycles should be locked properly (and above all chained to a fixed
device such as a lantern, bicycle stand, etc.). In the evenings,
scuffles can break out in the entertainment districts.
Police
station Heidelberg-Mitte, Römerstraße 2-4, 69115 Heidelberg. Phone: +49
(0)6221 991700.
Police station Heidelberg-Süd, Bürgerstraße 47, 69124
Heidelberg. Phone: +49 (0)6221 34180.
Police station Heidelberg-Nord,
Furtwänglerstraße 11, 69121 Heidelberg. Phone: +49 (0)6221 45690.
Bismarkplatz Police Station, Sofienstrasse 15, 69115 Heidelberg. Phone:
+49 (0)621 1740.
Police station Wieblingen, Adlerstraße 1/4, 69123
Heidelberg OT Wieblingen. Phone: +49 (0)6221 830740.
Heidelberg has good health care. The largest and best-known hospital
is the University Hospital.
Hospitals
1 University Hospital,
Im Neuenheimer Feld 672, 69120 Heidelberg. Phone: +49 (0)6221 560.
2
Salem Hospital, Zeppelinstrasse 11-33, 69121 Heidelberg. Phone: +49
(0)6221 4830.
Pharmacies
3 Kurfürsten pharmacy, Bahnhofstr. 1,
69115 Heidelberg. Tel.: +49 (0)6221 22617, fax: +49 (0)6221 586184,
e-mail: info@kurfuersten-apotheke.eu. Open: Mon, Tue, Thu + Fri 9 a.m. -
1 p.m. + 3 p.m. - 6.30 p.m., Wed + Sat 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
4 star
pharmacy, Römerstr. 1, 69115 Heidelberg. Phone: +49 (0)6221 53850, fax:
+49 (0)6221 538550, email: info@sternapotheke-heidelberg.de. Open: Mon -
Fri 7.30 a.m. - 8 p.m., Sat 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
5 Atos Pharmacy,
Bismarckstrasse 9-15, 69115 Heidelberg. Tel.: +49 (0)6221 9831331, fax:
+49 (0)6221 9831332, e-mail: apotheke@atos.de. Open: Mon - Fri 8.30 a.m.
- 6.30 p.m., Sat 9.00 a.m. - 1.00 p.m.
6 Schwan Pharmacy, Hauptstr.
176, 69117 Heidelberg. Tel.: +49 (0)6221 22487, fax: +49 (0)6221 163088,
e-mail: schwan-apo@web.de. Open: Mon - Fri 9.00 a.m. - 6.30 p.m., Sat
9.00 a.m. - 2.00 p.m.
7 City Pharmacy, Sofienstr. 19, 69115
Heidelberg. Phone: +49 (0)6221 22925, fax: +49 (0)6221 168820, email:
stadt.apo.heidelberg@pharma-online.de. Open: Mon - Fri 9 a.m. - 7 p.m.,
Sat 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
8 Linden Pharmacy, Lindenweg 2, 69126
Heidelberg. Phone: +49 (0)6221 3338301, fax: +49 (0)6221 3338302, email:
info@linden-apo-hd.de. Open: Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6.30 p.m., Sat 8 a.m. -
1 p.m.
Tourist Information at the main train station, Willy-Brandt-Platz 1,
69115 Heidelberg. Phone: +49 (0)6221 5844444, fax: +49 (0)6221 5840254,
e-mail: touristinfo@heidelberg-marketing.de.
Another tourist
information can be found at the town hall.
Heidelberg has a free WiFi
network that is available at around 160 locations without registration:
Heidelberg4you
The city of Heidelberg was founded in the 12th century; but its history goes back to Celtic and Roman times. From the 13th century to 1720, Heidelberg was the residence of the Counts Palatine near the Rhine and the capital of the Electoral Palatinate.
In 1907, near Heidelberg, in the community of Mauer, the lower jaw of
a prehistoric man (Lower Jaw of Mauer) was found in a sand pit, one of
the oldest finds of the genus Homo in Europe. The Neanderthals descended
from this extinct hominid species, Homo heidelbergensis (Heidelberg
man).
From about 500 BC the Celts founded a larger fortified
settlement on the Heiligenberg. Their double ring wall, created to
protect against the advancing Germans, can still be seen. 200 years
later this facility was abandoned for unknown reasons.
Roman Heidelberg existed from the 1st to the 3rd century AD. Around
AD 70 the Romans founded a camp in what is now Neuenheim, which was
replaced around 90 by two stone forts. A wooden bridge initially led
over the Neckar, from around 200 a stone pillar bridge. A temple to
Mercury was built on the summit of the Heiligenberg, and Mithraism was
also widespread in Heidelberg. In Roman times, the region's main town
was neighboring Lopodunum (today's Ladenburg), but a flourishing pottery
center also developed around the military camp in Heidelberg (whose
Latin name is unknown).
After 260, the Romans had to retreat to
the Rhine before the Germanic tribe of the Alamanni, who had broken
through the Limes and invaded Roman territory. The victory of the
Merovingian king Clovis I over the Alamanni in 506 finally made
Heidelberg part of the Frankish Empire, and at the same time the area
was Christianized.
In 870 the Michaelskloster was founded on the summit of the
Heiligenberg in place of the old Merkur temple as a branch of the Lorsch
monastery, which at that time was fighting with the diocese of Worms for
supremacy in the region. Another branch followed later, the
Stephanskloster, and the Neuburg Abbey.
The oldest written
mention of Heidelberg dates back to 1196. The etymological meaning is
uncertain. However, it can be assumed that the place had already emerged
in the course of the 12th century. At that time, Heidelberg was owned by
the diocese of Worms and consisted of the upper castle on the Molkenkur
on the slope of the Königsstuhl and a castle hamlet in the area of the
Peterskirche at the foot of the mountain. Many of today's districts of
Heidelberg go back to villages that had already emerged in the 6th
century during the Frankish period. Some of them were first mentioned in
the Lorsch Codex, Neuenheim and Handschuhsheim around the year 765.
The predecessor of the Heidelberg Castle was built in the 13th
century on the Jettenbühl. Probably at the same time, the city in the
area between Königstuhl and Neckar was planned with a rectangular floor
plan and the market square in the center. This city complex took up the
eastern part of today's old town up to Grabengasse. It was surrounded by
a city wall and a bridge crossed the Neckar.
In 1156, Emperor
Friedrich I Barbarossa appointed his half-brother Konrad den Staufer
Count Palatine of the Rhine. The County Palatine was later ruled by the
Wittelsbach dynasty and developed into a larger territorial entity
within the Holy Roman Empire. In 1225 the Count Palatine near the Rhine
received what was formerly Worms Heidelberg as a fief. In the Golden
Bull of 1356, the Counts Palatine of the Rhine were granted the
electoral dignity. From then on they were known as the Electors of the
Palatinate, and their dominion was known as the Electoral Palatinate.
Initially, the Counts Palatine did not have a fixed residence, but
stayed at various places in their dominions. As early as the 13th
century, Heidelberg had developed the character of a residential city.
When the rule of travel was given up in the 14th century, the city was
able to assert itself against Neustadt an der Haardt and became the
capital of the Electoral Palatinate.
In 1386, Ruprecht I founded
the University of Heidelberg as the third university in the Holy Roman
Empire (after Prague and Vienna). It is the oldest university in
Germany. In 1392 Heidelberg was extensively expanded, the city area
almost doubled and corresponded to today's old town. Heidelberg
benefited from the rule of Ruprecht III, who was elected Roman-German
king in 1400, by building the Church of the Holy Spirit. His successors
turned the University of Heidelberg into a stronghold of early humanism
towards the end of the 15th century.
Martin Luther's reformatory ideas had already spread in south-west
Germany in the first half of the 16th century and also reached
Heidelberg clergy early on. However, the Reformation was only introduced
in the city after Frederick II took office in 1545/1546 and had to be
quickly withdrawn under pressure from the Emperor. The Reformation was
only finally introduced in the Electoral Palatinate under Elector
Ottheinrich (1556–1559). After the transition to Calvinism under his
successor Friedrich III. Heidelberg attracted students and scientists
from all over Western Europe and was considered the third Geneva after
Leiden. The Heidelberg Catechism was published in Heidelberg in 1563 and
the first complete German translation of the Institutio Christianae
Religionis, the main work of John Calvin, was published in Heidelberg in
1572. Towards the end of the century, a large number of magnificent
Renaissance buildings were erected in Heidelberg, all of which (with the
exception of the facade of the Haus zum Ritter) were destroyed in the
Palatinate War of Succession. The castle was also significantly expanded
at that time and transformed from the medieval castle into a modern
residence.
In order to be able to offer his wife, the English
king's daughter Elisabeth Stuart, court life befitting her status,
Elector Friedrich V (1610–1623) had Heidelberg Castle redesigned by
building the Hortus Palatinus. On the political front, Frederick, as
leader of the Protestant Union, was caught up in the turmoil of the
Thirty Years' War when he had himself elected King of Bohemia in 1619.
However, he was unable to assert himself against the Catholic Emperor
and was defeated in 1620 at the Battle of White Mountain. Because of his
brief reign, he went down in history as the Winter King. In the first
weeks of September 1622, Johann T'Serclaes von Tilly, as commander of
the Catholic League, successfully besieged Heidelberg. Heidelberg was
taken on September 16th. Apart from a Swedish occupation between 1633
and 1635, the city remained under Bavarian occupation until the end of
the war. During this time, Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria gave the
Bibliotheca Palatina to the Pope, so that large parts of it are now in
the Bibliotheca Vaticana. Heidelberg was hit hard by the war and the
population suffered great hardship. In the Peace of Westphalia, which
ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648, the Electoral Palatinate was
restored, but lost much of its political weight.
When Elector
Karl II died childless in 1685, the Palatinate-Simmern line of the House
of Wittelsbach became extinct and the office of elector passed to the
Catholic Palatinate-Neuburg branch line. The Palatinate War of
Succession resulted from the inheritance claims that the French King
Louis XIV raised with reference to his sister-in-law Liselotte von der
Pfalz. In the course of this war, Heidelberg was conquered and
completely devastated twice by French troops, in 1688 and 1693. After
the War of Succession ended in 1697, the destroyed Heidelberg was
rebuilt in the Baroque style on a medieval layout. The now Catholic
electors settled Jesuits in the city.
The Heidelberg Palace was
uninhabitable after it was destroyed by the French, but in any case it
no longer corresponded to the baroque taste of the time, which preferred
spacious palace complexes modeled on Versailles. Plans to build such a
residence on the level in the area of today's Bergheim district failed
due to the resistance of the Heidelberg citizenry, and so Karl III
decided. Philipp to move his residence to Mannheim in 1720. In the city
of squares, which corresponded far more to the representative interests
of the elector than medieval Heidelberg, he had the magnificent Mannheim
Palace built. Heidelberg lost its position as a center of political
power and also suffered economically due to the departure of the court.
Heidelberg also benefited from the reign of Elector Carl Theodor
(1743–1799) with the construction of the Old Bridge and the Karl Gate.
Repairs to the castle were stopped in 1764 after a devastating lightning
strike.
In the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, the Electoral
Palatinate was dissolved, the areas on the right bank of the Rhine and
thus also Heidelberg were added to Baden, which was soon raised to the
status of Grand Duchy. The Baden Grand Duke Karl Friedrich (1771-1811)
turned the university into a state-financed educational institution and
helped it to rise again to become a renowned educational institution. In
honor of him and the founder of the university, Elector Ruprecht I, the
University of Heidelberg was given the new name
"Ruprecht-Karls-Universität". At the beginning of the 19th century, the
Neckarstadt also became one of the most important places of German
Romanticism, favored by the beautiful landscape and the picturesque
castle ruins. The work of poets such as Friedrich Hölderlin, Achim von
Arnim, Clemens Brentano and Joseph von Eichendorff became known as the
"Heidelberg Romanticism". Between 1806 and 1808 Arnim and Brentano
published a collection of German folk songs in Heidelberg entitled Des
Knaben Wunderhorn. A circle of artists around the painters Karl Philipp
Fohr, Carl Rottmann and Ernst Fries also developed in Heidelberg.
During Vormärz, national, liberal and democratic ideas were spread
at Heidelberg University. After the beginning of the March Revolution,
liberal and democratic politicians from south-west Germany gathered on
March 5, 1848 for the Heidelberg Assembly, which provided decisive
impetus for the constitution of the Frankfurt National Assembly. After
the failure of the National Assembly, the May Uprising in Baden was put
down by Prussian troops. Fighting against liberal volunteers also broke
out in Heidelberg.
Initially, industrialization passed the
Neckarstadt without major traces. Tourism developed into an important
economic factor in Heidelberg from the early 19th century, especially
after the city was connected to the railway network in 1840. The number
of students also increased, many of whom belonged to the student
associations. Joseph Victor von Scheffel's poem Alt-Heidelberg, du fein
(later set to music as a popular student song) and the play
Alt-Heidelberg, which premiered in 1901, made Heidelberg a symbol of
student life in the 19th century. In the last quarter of the 19th
century, Heidelberg then experienced rapid expansion when the urban area
was enlarged by numerous incorporations. The population rose from 20,000
in 1871 to 85,000, more than fourfold, in 1933. At the same time, the
infrastructure was expanded with the introduction of the tram and
mountain railway and the canalization of the Neckar (in the 1920s). In
1930, generous donations from influential US citizens enabled the
construction of the New University's lecture hall building on
Universitätsplatz.
The election results of the NSDAP in Heidelberg were mostly above the
average of the results in the Reich or in Baden. After the National
Socialists seized power on January 30, 1933, organized discrimination
against Jews and other “non-Aryans” also began in Heidelberg. By 1939,
Heidelberg University had lost more than a third of its teaching staff
for racist or political reasons. During the November pogroms of 1938,
the National Socialists in Heidelberg burned down the synagogues in the
old town and in Rohrbach, destroyed the prayer room at Plöck 35 and
devastated numerous shops and apartments belonging to Jewish citizens.
The next day, 150 Heidelberg Jews were deported to the Dachau
concentration camp, allegedly in protective custody, in order to force
them to emigrate and to Aryanize their assets. On October 22, 1940, more
than 6,000 Baden Jews, including 280 from Heidelberg, were deported to
the Camp de Gurs internment camp in south-west France as part of the
“Wagner-Bürckel Action”. Few survived.
The Thingstätte on the
Heiligenberg is a visible structural legacy, an open-air stage built
between 1934 and 1935 by the Reich Labor Service and Heidelberg
students. The Heidelberg Cemetery of Honor on the Ameisenhumkel was also
laid out in 1934 by the Reich Labor Service. In 1935, the Reichsautobahn
Heidelberg–Mannheim was inaugurated, now known as the Bundesautobahn
656, and both ends, in Mannheim and Heidelberg, were lowered to federal
highway level, today the B 37. Until the late 1990s, the A 656 led
directly into Mannheim and Heidelberg .
Filled with military
hospitals, Heidelberg was one of the few major German cities to survive
the Second World War almost unscathed. Minor air raids in 1944 and 1945
caused only minor damage. Of the 9,129 residential buildings in
Heidelberg, 13 were totally destroyed (0.14%), 32 severely damaged
(0.35%), 80 moderately damaged (0.87%) and 200 slightly damaged (2.19%).
Why Heidelberg was almost spared is not entirely clear. On the one hand,
the city did not have any major strategic importance due to the lack of
heavy industry, on the other hand, it cannot be ruled out that the
Americans had already considered Heidelberg as the location of their
headquarters before the end of the war.
During their retreat on
March 29, 1945, the Wehrmacht blew up the Old Bridge, among other
things. On March 30, the American troops of the 63rd Infantry Division
marched in without encountering any significant resistance. They were
able to take over many buildings in the city for their purposes,
including the Großdeutschland barracks, which has since borne the name
of Campbell Barracks.
After the Second World War, undamaged Heidelberg attracted many
people who had been bombed out and displaced. Heidelberg became part of
the American occupation zone and the location of high command posts for
the US Army and later also for NATO. From 1948 to 2013, Campbell
Barracks in Heidelberg was the headquarters of the United States Army
Europe and Africa, formerly the 7th US Army, and the NATO Land
Headquarters Central Europe. Not least because the US military presence
in Western Europe was significantly reduced with the changed US security
policy after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, all units were
withdrawn from Heidelberg between 2011 and 2015. In 2008, the American
armed forces still occupied almost 200 hectares of land, including for
two barracks, two housing developments and a military hospital (news
barracks). In 2010 around 16,000 Americans lived in Heidelberg;
Americans made up ten percent of Heidelberg's population at the time.
In January 1946, the Ruprecht-Karls University resumed teaching as
the second West German university after Göttingen. Even before the war,
individual university facilities had been relocated from the old town
campus to Neuenheim on the other side of the Neckar, and from 1951 work
began on building a completely new campus, the Neuenheimer Feld, on the
western outskirts of the city. By the mid-1970s, the expansion of the
120-hectare site was essentially complete. In 1955, the main station was
relocated to its present location, around 1.2 kilometers west of the old
location. In the 1960s and 1970s, two completely new residential areas,
Boxberg and Emmertsgrund, were built in the south of the city to
accommodate Heidelberg's growing population. With the incorporation of
the community of Ziegelhausen in the Neckar valley in 1975, Heidelberg's
expansion in terms of area was completed.
During the tenure of
Mayor Reinhold Zundel (1966 to 1990), the old town was renovated, the
main street with a length of 1.6 kilometers was converted into one of
the longest pedestrian zones in Europe and Bismarckplatz was given its
current form. An application for the palace and old town to be included
in the UNESCO World Heritage List was rejected in 2005 and 2007.
Heidelberg is partly located in the Upper Rhine Plain, mainly on the
left bank of the lower Neckar before its outflow from the Odenwald in an
elongated valley bottom that tapers to a point upstream. The Neckar
flows here from east to west, on the right bank of the Neckar rises the
Heiligenberg (445 m). In the south, Heidelberg is bordered by the
Königstuhl (568 m) and the Gaisberg (375 m). The Neckar flows into the
Rhine about 22 kilometers north-west, measured from the end of the
valley floor, in Mannheim. The towns that were incorporated in the 20th
century stretch across the Neckar valley into the Bergstraße, which runs
along the edge of the Odenwald. The city is located in the Rhine-Neckar
metropolitan region, a metropolitan area with 2.35 million inhabitants,
which includes parts of southern Hesse and the Rhineland-Palatinate
Vorderpfalz in Baden-Württemberg, the two urban districts of Mannheim
and Heidelberg and the western and southern communities of the
Rhine-Neckar circle includes.
The following cities and
municipalities border directly on the city of Heidelberg, starting in
the west and clockwise: Eppelheim, Plankstadt, Mannheim,
Edingen-Neckarhausen, Dossenheim, Schriesheim, Wilhelmsfeld, Schönau,
Neckargemünd, Bammental, Gaiberg, Leimen, Sandhausen, Oftersheim (except
for the City of Mannheim all belonging to the Rhein-Neckar-Kreis).
Since Heidelberg is located in one of the warmest regions of Germany,
some special features thrive here by Central European standards, such as
almond and fig trees or even olive trees - planted in the open garden.
The “balcony” of the city forms the “Philosophenweg” opposite the old
town with many exotic plants. There, in 2000, viticulture was
successfully started again.
There are also populations of
free-living ring-necked parakeets in Heidelberg, whose ornithological
name is Psittacula krameri, as well as a free-living population of
Siberian swan gooses, which can be found primarily on the Neckarinsel in
front of Bergheim and on the Neckarwiesen. From a nature conservation
point of view, however, reference is often made to the problem of such
naturalizations of non-native species (neobiota), which usually arose
from escaped zoo or domestic animals (captive refugees).
There are five nature reserves in the city of Heidelberg. This means
that 85.4 hectares of the city area are under nature protection, or 0.78
percent.
Former red sand quarry on the Neckarhalde: 13.4 ha; District
of Ziegelhausen
Felsenmeer, Russenstein, Michelsbrunnen Nature Park:
11.2 ha; District of Heidelberg
Leimen quarry: 22.0 ha (of which 4.0
ha in the city of Heidelberg); District of Heidelberg
Lower Neckar:
Altneckar Heidelberg-Wieblingen: 45.2 ha; District of Wieblingen
Lower Neckar: Altneckar Wörth-Weidenstücker: 16.7 ha (including 11.6 ha
in the city of Heidelberg)
Heidelberg is the seat of the district office of the Rhein-Neckar
district. The city itself is independent of a district within the
administrative district of Karlsruhe. Heidelberg is part of the
Rhine-Neckar conurbation, which includes parts of southern Hesse and the
Vorderpfalz in Rhineland-Palatinate in Baden-Württemberg, the two urban
districts of Mannheim and Heidelberg and the western and southern
communities of the Rhine-Neckar district. Together with a large number
of other municipalities, it forms the economic area known as the
Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region or "Rhine-Neckar triangle". In 2005 the
Rhine-Neckar triangle became a European metropolitan region.
Within the Rhine-Neckar region, Heidelberg forms a regional center
alongside Mannheim, of which a total of 14 have been designated for all
of Baden-Württemberg according to the 2002 state development plan. For
the surrounding communities of Dossenheim, Schriesheim, Wilhelmsfeld,
Heddesbach, Heiligkreuzsteinach, Schönau, Neckargemünd, Wiesenbach,
Bammental, Gaiberg, Leimen, Nußloch, Sandhausen and Eppelheim, the
Heidelberg regional center also assumes the function of a central area
within the administrative structures of the state.
The city of Heidelberg is divided into 15 districts and 47 districts.
This includes seven former neighboring villages that were incorporated
until 1975. Some parts of the city also include other small, separately
located residential areas and farmsteads.
Downtown
One of the
oldest parts of Heidelberg is the old town, the historical core of the
city between the Neckar and the Königstuhl. This is where most of the
sights, such as Heidelberg Castle, are located. Because of its rich
cultural heritage, Heidelberg applied in 2004 and 2007 to have its old
town recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This part of the city
also includes the areas further out, such as the Molkenkur, the Kohlhof
and the Speyererhof. Together with the old town, Bergheim, to the west
of the old town, forms the inner city. The former village is older than
the old town. Remains of human settlement can be traced back to the
early Stone Age. Bergheim was first mentioned in 769 in the Lorsch
Codex. In 1392 the village of Bergheim was dissolved and the residents
were forced to move to the fast-growing residential city of Heidelberg.
The area was repopulated during industrialization in the late 19th
century as the city expanded westward.
Center
Weststadt is
located immediately south-west of Heidelberg's city center and merges
into Südstadt in the south. These parts of the city arose as a result of
the rapid population growth in Heidelberg during industrialization as a
Gründerzeit district (Weststadt) and after the Second World War
(Südstadt). The Südstadt includes the Mark Twain Village and the
Campbell Barracks, where US soldiers and their relatives were housed
until the US troops officially withdrew in 2014. A new use is currently
(as of 2022) being developed as part of a conversion project.
In the
west, a new district adjoins Bergheim and Weststadt: the so-called
Bahnstadt is currently still under construction, but only the western
third of the master plan is still missing. In July 2014, the first
construction phase was inaugurated. One of the largest passive house
settlements in the world is to be built on the site of the former goods
and marshalling yard.
South
Further south is the district of
Rohrbach with the Hasenleiser and the Bierhelderhof. To the south-east,
Heidelberg is closed off by the two young districts of Boxberg and
Emmertsgrund.
West
Kirchheim is the largest and oldest
district of Heidelberg. Already in the Bronze Age there were settlements
in the current municipal area. Several Carolingian graves, which were
found during excavations at the "Spider" in the 1970s, testify to the
importance of Kirchheim as an important junction between the monasteries
of Lorsch and Mainz. Kirchheim forms the southwestern part of Heidelberg
and was incorporated in 1920. Also included in Kirchheim are the
Kurpfalzhof, Kirchheimer Hof, Patrick-Henry-Village (a US Army
settlement founded in 1947, which after the troops left in 2014 is still
used today (as of 2021) as emergency refugee accommodation.
Patrick-Henry -Village initial reception center and coordination and
distribution center for refugees.), the Pleikartsförster Hof and
Neurott.
The Im Mörgelgewann emergency housing area is located on the
outskirts of Weststadt in the direction of Kirchheim. The quarter is
socially and optically off the beaten track; it can only be reached via
a cul-de-sac. It was originally built to house refugees after World War
II. In 2008, around 300 people lived here who were given emergency
accommodation by the city of Heidelberg as homeless people.
The
Pfaffengrund is located on the western edge of Heidelberg. It can be
divided into an industrial area to the north and a residential area to
the south. The name Pfaffengrund derives from the medieval field name,
the area itself was used as farmland until 1920.
Further north is
Wieblingen with the Grenzhof and the Ochsenkopf. Like Kirchheim and the
Pfaffengrund, Wieblingen became a district of Heidelberg in 1920.
Wieblingen was first mentioned in the Lorsch Codex in 767.
North
The district of Neuenheim is located opposite the city center on the
north bank of the Neckar. The development of Neuenheim began in
pre-Roman times. It was the first district of Heidelberg to become part
of the city through incorporation in 1891. The new campus of the
Ruprecht-Karls-University is located in Neuenheimer Feld.
Further
north is Handschuhsheim, which was incorporated a few years after
Neuenheim, in 1903. The name Handschuhsheim probably goes back to a
landowner in the early Middle Ages whose coat of arms depicted a hand or
a glove.
East
In the east, on the south side of the Neckar,
lies Schlierbach. It was first mentioned in a document in 1245. The area
is one of Heidelberg's upscale residential areas.
On the other side
of the Neckar lies Ziegelhausen with the district of Peterstal.
Ziegelhausen was mentioned in a document in 1220, a few years before
Schlierbach. The area was probably inhabited as early as Roman times.
Ziegelhausen was incorporated into Heidelberg in 1975 - against the will
of the vast majority of its residents.
The climate in the region in the sheltered location between the Palatinate Forest and Odenwald is mild all year round and is 65 percent determined by the supply of maritime air masses from the west. Compared to the nearby Rhine plain, Heidelberg's location at the exit of the Neckar valley results in an above-average frequency of easterly winds. The slopes of the Odenwald favor cloud formation and precipitation. Between 1971 and 2000, the DWD climate station in Heidelberg measured an average temperature of 11.1 °C and an annual rainfall of 745 mm. The warmest month is July with an average of 20.1 °C, the coldest January with 2.5 °C. Temperatures above 30 °C are not uncommon in midsummer. Most precipitation falls in July and the driest month is March.
According to the 2011 census, 31.7% of the residents were Protestant,
26.9% Roman Catholic and 41.4% were non-denominational, belonged to
another faith community or made no statement. The number of Protestants
and Catholics has since fallen. At the end of 2021, Heidelberg had
146,034 inhabitants (main residence only), of which 25.8% were
Protestant, 21.7% were Catholic and 52.4% had either another religion or
no religion at all. Three years earlier, 23.8% of the residents belonged
to the Catholic Church, 27.3% to the Evangelical Church, and 48.9% were
non-denominational or had another religious affiliation. In 2017, 24.2%
of the inhabitants were assigned to the Roman Catholic faith and 27.7%
to the Protestant faith.
Precise figures for other religious
communities (besides the two official churches) were last collected in
the 2011 census: At that time, 1.7% of the population were Christian
Orthodox, 1.2% were members of a Protestant free church and 3.2%
belonged to others in Baden- Württemberg recognized religious
communities under public law (this includes, for example, Old Catholics
and Jehovah's Witnesses).
In 2015, around 20,000 Muslims lived in
Heidelberg, which corresponded to 12.9% of the population.
In
2021, 375 residents (0.2% of the city's population) belonged to the
Jewish community of Heidelberg.
After initial beginnings under Elector Frederick II, Elector
Ottheinrich finally introduced the Lutheran Reformation in the Electoral
Palatinate from 1556. His successor Frederick III. leaned more towards a
Calvinistic direction of the Reformation. In 1563 the “Heidelberg
Catechism” was written in Heidelberg, which was to point the way for all
Reformed believers. After a brief Lutheran interlude under Louis VI.
Heidelberg and the Electoral Palatinate remained reformed for a long
time. The attempts at re-catholicization under Bavarian and Spanish
occupation during the Thirty Years' War were a temporary episode. Only
when the reformed Pfalz-Simmern line died out with the death of Elector
Karl II in 1685 and the Electoral Palatinate passed to the Catholic
Pfalz-Neuburg line did the re-Catholicization of Heidelberg begin, of
which many statues of Mary, such as the Kornmarkt Madonna, bear witness
to this day. The Catholic electors settled Jesuits for this purpose, but
especially for the reorganization of the university. The Discalced
Carmelites also lived in Heidelberg for a long time, until in 1803, in
the course of secularization, the order had to leave its monastery -
which at that time occupied the area of today's Karlsplatz. Although,
despite these measures, the Reformed denomination remained dominant, the
Catholic population gradually made up almost a third of the total
population. Overall, the frequent change of denomination is a special
feature of the religious history of the Electoral Palatinate and
Heidelberg.
The fate of the Church of the Holy Spirit is an
example of Heidelberg's denominational division. From 1706 it was
divided by a wall as part of the so-called religious declaration: the
nave belonged to the Reformed, later Evangelical-United, community, the
choir belonged to the Catholic Church, and from 1874 to the Old Catholic
Church. Elector Karl Philipp's attempt to turn the entire church into a
Catholic court church led to a crisis throughout the Reich. It was not
until 1936 that the entire Heiliggeistkirche became the property of the
Evangelical Church in Baden, after which the dividing wall could be torn
down.
In 1821, the union between Lutheran and Reformed
congregations was introduced in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Today, the
Protestant congregations, unless they belong to a free church, belong to
the Deanery of Heidelberg within the North Baden church district of the
Evangelical Church in Baden. The Roman Catholic parishes belong to the
Heidelberg-Weinheim Deanery of the Archdiocese of Freiburg.
In
addition to the major churches, there are a variety of other Christian
denominations, for example the Old Catholic Church and the Anglican
Church, the Brethren, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
and Jehovah's Witnesses.
The New Apostolic Church is represented
in Heidelberg with five congregations. The Baptists built a church on
Feuerbachstraße in 1963, which has been called the Hoffnungskirche since
1988. Since 2009 there has been a Coptic-Orthodox congregation of St.
Maria and St. Josef in Heidelberg, which for some time has been
celebrating its services in the church of St. Albert (Bergheim) on the
first three Sundays of the month. The Romanian Orthodox Church “St.
Trinity” continues the religious practice of the orthodox faith in
Heidelberg that began in the 19th century and has been celebrating the
John Chrysostom liturgy in St. Anna in the old town every second Sunday
of the month since 1997.
The first synagogue in Heidelberg is mentioned in 1390 in the course
of the expulsion of the Jews from Heidelberg by Ruprecht II. It was on
the corner of Unteren Strasse and Judengasse (today Dreikönigstrasse) in
the old town. Only after 1740 could the Jewish community buy a house in
Mantelgasse again and use it as a synagogue. This synagogue was
demolished in 1875 and replaced by a new building in 1878. However, this
synagogue, like an orthodox synagogue in the Plöck, was destroyed during
the Reichspogromnacht.
Even before the Nazi era, there were
occasional riots against the city's Jewish residents, for example in
1819. A new Jewish cemetery was laid out with the Bergfriedhof, which –
unlike the synagogues and many private houses that were destroyed in
1938 – also survived National Socialism. In 1933, 1,102 citizens of the
Jewish faith lived in Heidelberg. At the beginning of the Second World
War in 1939 there were only 483 and in 1946 just 196 more. As part of
the Wagner-Bürckel action, in which over 6000 Jews from Baden and the
Saar-Palatinate were deported to France, on October 22, 1940 282
Heidelberg Jews deported to the Camp de Gurs internment camp. Most of
the deported Heidelbergers were then murdered in Auschwitz.
Since
1990 there has again been a synagogue of a liberal reform community in
the city. In 1994 a new synagogue with a community center was completed
on the site of the older community center in Weststadt. The local Jewish
community today has 375 members (as of 2019) is a unitary community that
is based on the orthodox rite, but welcomes Jews of all religious
denominations.
In addition to and associated with the university,
the Heidelberg University for Jewish Studies has existed since 1979.
With ten chairs, it offers a wide range of subjects for both Jewish and
non-Jewish students. Among other things, it enables training to become a
rabbi. A spacious new building was inaugurated in 2009.
In
October 2010, stumbling blocks were laid in the city for the first time.
Other
Furthermore, there is a large number of Muslims in
Heidelberg, for whom there are two mosques: a free mosque on the
Kurpfalzring (district of Pfaffengrund) and a DITIB mosque in the
industrial area of Rohrbach Süd. There is also a Buddhist and a Bahai
community.
The population of the city of Heidelberg exceeded 100,000 in 1946,
making it a major city. It is a city with an international population,
38.0% of the city's population has an immigrant background (as of 2016).
In a Germany-wide comparison, an above-average number of them come from
Arab countries, Iran and East Asia. In addition, the city had one of the
largest American communities outside of North America - due to the
university, which was already connected to the United States in the
interwar period, the romantic reputation of the city and the American
soldiers stationed here, the latter group in the Heidelberg Population
statistics are not kept. In 2013, according to official updates,
Heidelberg had 152,113 permanent residents (excluding soldiers and
employees of the US Army and their families, a total of around 20,000
people) – a historic high. In 2015, 156,267 residents were registered.
In 2017 there were more than 160,000.
The following overview
shows the population according to the respective territorial status. Up
to 1833, these are mostly estimates, after that they are census results
(¹) or official updates from the respective statistical offices or the
city administration itself. The information relates to the "local
population" from 1843, from 1925 to the resident population and since
1987 to the "Population at place of main residence". Before 1843, the
number of inhabitants was determined using inconsistent survey methods.
The Heidelberg municipal council consists of 48 honorary and elected members; the mayor is also the voting chairman. The Council is directly elected for a period of five years. The task of the municipal council is to decide, together with the mayor, on all of the city's affairs. The council controls the city administration and monitors the implementation of its decisions.
At the head of the city administration in Heidelberg was the city mayor, who had held the title of city director since 1717. After the transition to Baden, the head of the city initially bore the title of Lord Mayor, from 1819 First Mayor and from 1875 Lord Mayor again. Since 2006, the independent Eckart Würzner has been Lord Mayor of Heidelberg. A list of all mayors since 1701 can be found in the List of Persons in the City of Heidelberg.
District Advisory Boards
Since the 2014 election, the
representation of the districts has been expanded to include 15 district
advisory councils. The members are appointed proportionally by the
factions of the municipal council. They are informed and involved by the
city administration in district-related questions. The district advisory
councils have an advisory function for the municipal council of the city
and meet regularly at least three times a year.
The city
administration has initiated a district framework plan for all 15
districts. It contains all the important district information available
in the city, a development concept and proposals for measures both from
the city administration and from citizen participation. As a result,
relatively up-to-date information packages are available for interested
parties and the municipal and district advisory councils.
The Foreigners' Council/Migrations Council has been meeting since 1989. The Foreigners' Council works with all foreign and German-foreign associations in the city of Heidelberg. Since 2003 he has also been responsible for migrants, which is reflected in the name extension. The Foreigners' Council/Migrations' Council represents the interests of foreign residents vis-à-vis the municipal council and the city administration.
In November 2005, the Heidelberg youth council was elected for the first time. It is made up of a total of 30 students from Heidelberg schools and is elected by all Heidelberg students for a period of two years. Members must not be older than 19 at the time of election. The seats are distributed among the school types as follows: five secondary school students, five junior high school students, ten high school students and ten vocational school students. The JGR has advisory members in the youth welfare, culture, sports and urban development committee. The youth council replaced the previous youth council, which was founded in 1999 and was previously elected exclusively by the Heidelberg student representatives. The initiative for the further development of the Heidelberg youth council model project and the establishment of a youth council came from the members of the youth council themselves. In doing so, they strived for greater participation in the municipal council and its committees.
The fourth Ombudsman is Gustav Adolf Apfel. Heidelberg is the only city in Germany to have a voluntary Ombudsman who is completely independent of the administration. In ongoing administrative proceedings, the Ombudsman can request information and access to files and documents from the administration. The Ombudsman cannot intervene in court proceedings.
The city belongs to the Heidelberg-Mannheim Neighborhood Association, which draws up the land use plan on behalf of its 18 member communities. In North Baden it covers around 488 km² with around 666,000 inhabitants.
The non-profit foundation Stadt-Heidelberg-Stiftung was founded by
the city of Heidelberg in 1986 on the occasion of the 600th anniversary
of the University of Heidelberg and aims to strengthen the connection
between the university and the citizens of Heidelberg. It is a municipal
foundation under civil law. The purpose of the foundation is to promote
humanities and social science projects at Heidelberg University and its
students, doctoral candidates and young scientists. The foundation
prefers to support projects that inform a broad public about the
activities of Heidelberg University. For example, subsidies are granted
for public lectures, exhibitions, human resources for scientific
projects and fees for public events.
A second Heidelberg
foundation is the Heidelberg Citizens' Foundation, founded in 2009. As
part of this foundation under civil law, citizens invite their neighbors
and friends of the city to protect and promote the city's reputation
through personal commitment. In this way, founders, donors and
volunteers are to be brought together. Your support focuses on the areas
of education and integration. The founding was supported by the
association Bürger für Heidelberg, which has been politically active
since 1972, particularly in the field of urban planning.
Other
foundations can be traced back to initiatives by research institutions
or individual residents, including the Heidelberg University Foundation,
the Heidelberg Surgery Foundation and the SRH (Heidelberg Rehabilitation
Foundation), which among other things runs the SRH Heidelberg
University.
The Local Alliance for Families is still running in
2008 as one of several nationwide model projects. It serves to promote
families and civic engagement in cooperation with politics,
administration, citizens, educational institutions and associations.
The offices of the city administration are grouped into five departments. Each department is headed by a full-time mayor, one of whom is the deputy mayor as first mayor, who with Department I is responsible for the fire brigade, public relations and personnel, among other things. In addition to Mayor Eckart Würzner, there is currently First Mayor Jürgen Odszuck (Department II, Urban Development and Building), Raoul Schmidt-Lamontain (Department III, Climate Protection, Environment and Mobility), Stefanie Jansen (Department IV, Social Affairs, Education, Family and Equal Opportunities), Wolfgang Erichson (Department V, Culture, Citizen Service and Creative Industries). As an employer, the city employs around 2,750 people.
Coat of arms of Heidelberg blazon: "In black on a green
three-mountain striding to the right, the red-armored, red-tongued and
red-crowned golden Palatinate lion."
Coat of arms: The lion was
adopted as the heraldic animal of the Counts Palatine, since Heidelberg
was the residence of the Electors near the Rhine for a long time. The
Dreiberg probably alludes to the name of the city and is therefore a
talking element. At times, this Dreiberg was not shown in the coat of
arms. The lion's tail is not divided in two here.
The coat of arms
was adopted by the city in its current form in 1898 and has been used in
its current form, heavily stylized by Ludwig Peinecke, since 1969.
The colors of the city flag are black and yellow. They appeared in
the 19th century (1830s to 1840s) based on the coat of arms used at the
time. Of these colors, red was considered insignificant over time, and
the colors black and yellow prevailed in the discussion about whether
city flags should have three or four colors at all.
In addition, since 1994 there has also been a modern signet for the
city's corporate design, which has been in use since 1995: on a white
square (figurative mark) are three distinctive lines for Heidelberg
Castle, the Neckar and the "Old Bridge" (Karl Theodor Bridge), in black,
blue and red (design by Erwin Poell). The signet was first developed for
the anniversary "800 years of Heidelberg". It was later developed
further and used as the city logo.
Since the introduction of a
new, uniform corporate design and the revision of the city's website in
September 2013, the city of Heidelberg has used a logo consisting of the
original Poells logo and the "Heidelberg" word mark. Both in the color
"blueberry". The modernized corporate design conveys the positioning of
the city of Heidelberg as a traditional tourism city, but also as an
important science, business and conference location with a high quality
of life.
Heidelberg is twinned with the following cities:
Montpellier,
France, since 1961
Cambridge, United Kingdom, since 1965
Rehovot,
Israel, since 1983
Bautzen, Germany, since 1991
Simferopol,
Ukraine, since 1991
Kumamoto, Japan, since 1992
Hangzhou, People's
Republic of China, since 2017
Palo Alto, United States, since 2017
In October 2006 Mayor Beate Weber signed a friendship agreement
(“Charter of Friendship”) with the city of Heidelberg (Gauteng), South
Africa.
Friendly relations also exist with the cities of Jelenia
Góra (Poland) and Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina). Relationships with
Calamba City (Philippines) are established.
There is also the
America House (German-American Institute) in Heidelberg and the
Montpellier House, which is located in the old town on Kettengasse. In
Montpellier there is a corresponding Maison de Heidelberg. The
university is a partner of a Confucius Institute.
The city as
namesake
Because of its historical importance, the city of Heidelberg
is often used as a namesake. In its history, Lufthansa has named four
aircraft after the city on the Neckar, most recently in 1990 an Airbus
A320-200 for 139 passengers. An ICE train of Deutsche Bahn also bears
the name Heidelberg.
A roughly 600,000-year-old lower jaw of a
previously unknown human ancestor was found in 1907 on land in the
municipality of Mauer near Heidelberg. The new species was named Homo
heidelbergensis, after the region and research location (University of
Heidelberg) of the eponymous researcher Otto Schoetensack.
In
several colonized countries, cities were named after Heidelberg, for
example Heidelberg (Victoria) in Australia or Heidelberg (Texas) in the
United States, as well as in South Africa. A Heidelberg research group
named an island in Antarctica as Heidelberg Island.
For centuries, Heidelberg was a 'residence of the spirit'. Even
today, the university town is the service and science center of the
Rhine-Neckar region. Following the trend in most major German cities,
the tertiary sector has continued to grow in recent decades. In 2013,
83.8% of all people worked in the service sector, only 16.1% worked in
manufacturing. In the 2016 Atlas of the Future, the independent city of
Heidelberg ranked 14th out of 402 rural districts and urban districts in
Germany, making it one of the regions with "very good prospects for the
future".
69.4% of the approximately 85,600 jobs were taken by
commuters in 2014.
In 2016, Heidelberg, within the city limits,
generated a gross domestic product (GDP) of €8.391 billion, ranking 42nd
in the ranking of German cities by economic output. In the same year,
GDP per capita was €53,079 (Baden-Württemberg: €43,632, Germany €38,180)
and thus significantly above the regional and national average. In 2016,
the city's economic output recorded nominal growth of 3.1%. The
unemployment rate was 3.6% in December 2018, making it one of the lowest
among major German cities.
The largest employer in Heidelberg is
the University of Heidelberg with its university hospital, which offers
more than 15,000 jobs. International companies such as ABB
Stotz-Kontakt, cbs Corporate Business Solutions, Heidelberger
Druckmaschinen, HeidelbergCement, Henkel-Teroson, Lamy, Prominent
Dosiertechnik, Rockwell Collins, SAP and SAS Institute are based in the
city.
In 2007, according to the State Statistical Office,
Heidelberg had the highest density of physicians among the urban and
rural districts in Baden-Württemberg. In Heidelberg, there was one
doctor for every 272 inhabitants, while the state average was 646
inhabitants.
In the banking sector, the Sparkasse Heidelberg, the
Heidelberger Volksbank and the Volksbank Kurpfalz have their
headquarters in Heidelberg. In addition, there are branches of national
credit institutions.
Tourism is an important economic factor. In
2014, 11.9 million tourists and 1.12 million commercial overnight stays
generated gross sales of 535 million euros. In 2017, the number of
commercial overnight stays increased to 1.44 million.
Heidelberg is touched on in the west by the A 5, which connects the
region to the north with Frankfurt am Main and to the south with
Karlsruhe. The A 656, which begins to the west of the city center and
lies between two sections of the B 37, connects Heidelberg with
Mannheim. Both autobahns meet in the Heidelberg city area at the
Heidelberg autobahn junction. The A 656 meets the A 6 at the Mannheim
motorway junction, which connects Heidelberg east and west with southern
Germany. The city also runs through the B 3 in a north-south direction
(Frankfurt am Main-Karlsruhe) and in an east-west direction on the B 37
(Mannheim-Eberbach). Both meet in the city center at Bismarckplatz. The
B 535 begins in the south of Heidelberg and leads to Schwetzingen.
There were plans to relocate the B 37 in the Heidelberg city center
area on the banks of the Neckar over a length of 2.2 kilometers into a
tunnel. The goal is a traffic-calmed river bank for the old town and the
possibility of a new tram route as a "campus line". However, these plans
are not currently (2019) pursued.
An environmental zone was
introduced in Heidelberg on January 1, 2010. It included the districts
of Handschuhsheim, Neuenheim, Bergheim, Altstadt, Weststadt, Südstadt
and Rohrbach. Since 2013, due to the fine dust pollution in Heidelberg,
only vehicles that meet at least pollutant group 4 (green sticker) have
been allowed to drive. Due to an improvement in air quality, the
environmental zone was lifted on March 1, 2023.
The four holiday
routes on which Heidelberg is located are relevant for tourism: the
Bergstraße, the Bertha Benz Memorial Route, the Burgenstraße and the
Straße der Demokratie.
Characterized by the Neckar valley, the five following Neckar bridges
are important for road traffic in Heidelberg:
Old Bridge (officially
Karl-Theodor-Bridge) - connects the old town and Neuenheim
Theodor-Heuss-Bridge – connects Bismarckplatz in the Bergheim district
with Neuenheim
Ernst-Walz-Bridge - connects Bergheim and Neuenheim
Neckarbrücke Schlierbach-Ziegelhausen - connects the aforementioned
parts of the city
North of Wieblingen, the A 5 crosses the Neckar
There are also three footbridges leading over the Neckar in
connection with weirs. The Roman bridge, which has been documented
archaeologically, stood between the Theodor-Heuss bridge and the
Ernst-Walz bridge.
The Czernybrücke, which leads over the railway
tracks at the main station, is also important in terms of traffic. It
was named after the surgeon and cancer researcher Vincenz Czerny and
connects the districts of Bergheim and Bahnstadt. Named after its French
sister city, the Montpellier Bridge also crosses the railway tracks and
is located in the western part of the city.
The Neckar has been used as a transport and traffic route since time
immemorial. In 1920 the Reichstag decided to build the Neckar Canal. On
June 15, 1925, the Wieblingen-Schwabenheimer Hof barrage was put into
operation. In October 1928, the Heidelberg–Neckargemünd shipping route
was completed, and on December 19, 1929, the bridge over the Hirschgasse
weir was opened to general traffic. In 1935, the Mannheim-Heilbronn
shipping route was navigable with a length of 113 km and on December 12,
1954 the Ziegelhausen-Schlierbach Bridge was inaugurated.
In 2007
around 7.5 million tons of goods were moved on the Neckar.
Today,
especially in the summer season, numerous small and medium-sized
excursion boats are used by tourists, mostly for short trips to see the
city panorama. Other trips go up the Neckar, for example, via the towns
of Neckargemünd, Neckarsteinach, Hirschhorn and Eberbach. You can get to
Heilbronn or Stuttgart on special trips. To the west you reach the Rhine
via Ladenburg and Mannheim; Special trips to the Middle Rhine are very
popular. An attraction since June 2004 is the catamaran "SolarSchiff", a
solar boat that offers 110 people almost silent gliding, but can only be
used when the current is low.
In the Neckar there are several
buildings within Heidelberg's boundaries that serve to regulate the
river. These are: the Wieblingen side canal, the Wieblingen weir and the
Heidelberg barrage.
In long-distance rail transport, Heidelberg can be reached with ICE trains on the Basel-Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart-Cologne, Zurich-Frankfurt am Main and Stuttgart-Hamburg lines, as well as with EC/IC trains on the Salzburg-Frankfurt, Stuttgart-Dortmund and Karlsruhe lines – Stralsund. Since 2017, Heidelberg can also be reached via the Stuttgart-Berlin Flixtrain line.
The most important local transport hub in Heidelberg is
Bismarckplatz. Several of the city's main traffic arteries intersect
here, and one of the longest pedestrian zones in Europe, the main
street, runs through the entire old town of Heidelberg. For a long time,
the main station was in the immediate vicinity, which at that time was
still a combined terminus and through station. In 1955 it was moved
about 1.5 km further to the west, so that trains running to the south no
longer needed to change direction. The new main station thus rose to
become the second important transport hub in Heidelberg.
There
has been local public transport in Heidelberg since 1885, at that time
still in the form of a horse-drawn tram, which was put into operation
that year. Due to the rapidly increasing volume of transport, it was
decided on December 20, 1901 at an extraordinary general meeting to
convert the horse tram to electric operation.
On March 16, 1902,
the first electric tram ran on Rohrbacher Strasse, using the railway
facilities of the electric Heidelberg-Wiesloch suburban railway built in
1901 by the German Railway Company. The tram network was gradually
expanded up to the 1950s. As the automobile, which was rapidly gaining
in popularity, presented local public transport operators with
increasing problems, the tram network was gradually reduced to a network
geared towards basic services. Only on December 10, 2006 was a new tram
line reopened with the connection to Kirchheim. Today, the RNV is
responsible for operating the tram and bus lines. Since 1989 they can
all be used with a uniform tariff within the Verkehrsverbund
Rhein-Neckar (VRN).
Since December 14, 2003, Heidelberg has been
connected to the Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn network, which opens up the entire
Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region and runs lines to the Palatinate,
Saarland and southern Hesse. A connection to the S-Bahn network to
Karlsruhe took place. This made the Rhine-Neckar region one of the last
metropolitan areas to have its own S-Bahn. Planning began decades ago;
However, because four federal states had to coordinate with each other
(Baden-Württemberg, Saarland, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate),
implementation was delayed for so long.
Since 2005, the
Heidelberg mountain railway has been running new railcars in the lower
section from the Kornmarkt to the Molkenkur viewpoint and the historic
carriages from 1907 in the upper section from the Molkenkur viewpoint to
the Königstuhl. It is one of the most popular means of reaching
Heidelberg Castle. The first planning for the mountain railway began as
early as 1873. However, due to a lack of funds, the first section could
not be opened until 1890. In 2004, the upper mountain railway was
included in the register of monuments of the state of Baden-Württemberg.
Heidelberg is on the European long-distance hiking trail E1, from
North Cape in Norway to Salerno in Sicily. The Neckarweg and the
Neckarsteig (as a rated hiking trail) also lead through the city as
long-distance hiking trails.
The Odenwald-Madonnen-Weg leads from
Tauberbischofsheim through the Odenwald near Hardheim and Walldürn, the
Neckar valley near Eberbach and Heidelberg to the Rhine plain to Speyer.
The Bergstraße cycle path, which leads to Darmstadt, begins in
Heidelberg. The 303 km long Heidelberg-Black Forest-Lake Constance cycle
path through the Kraichgau and the Black Forest to Radolfzell on Lake
Constance also starts here. The Neckar Valley Cycle Path runs through
the city.
Due to the promotion of solar energy, an innovative tenant
electricity model and the goal of a climate-neutral city, Heidelberg was
awarded the title of "Energy Municipality" in February 2015. Heidelberg
is a member of the Energy Cities network and, as a master plan
municipality, Heidelberg has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas
emissions to almost zero by 2050 and final energy consumption to 50
percent. In June 2022, this target was brought forward to 2040. The
Heidelberger Energiegenossenschaft eG (HEG) has been helping to
implement the energy transition in Heidelberg and the surrounding area
since 2010. It operates more than 30 citizen solar systems and is
involved in several wind turbines.
Stadtwerke Heidelberg obtains
75 percent of the district heating and thus about 34 percent of the
total heat consumption of Heidelberg from the large power plant in
Mannheim, one of the largest coal-fired power plants in Europe.
The only local daily newspaper published in Heidelberg is the
Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung. She has several local editions. The city publishes
a weekly official gazette, the Stadtblatt. The city magazine with the
event calendar Heidelberg aktuell is also published. The
Rhein-Neckar-Journal – an audio newspaper for the blind and visually
impaired – brings information from the Heidelberg area to the blind and
visually impaired every week. Since August 2009, an online portal has
also been publishing local news under the title "Die Stadtredaktion".
The Süddeutsche Rundfunk (today Südwestrundfunk) maintained a
regional studio for many years, which is now based in Mannheim. There is
also the Rhein-Neckar Fernsehen as a local television station. Since the
beginning of the 1990s, there has also been a lively interest on the
part of the student body to be represented with their own media. In
addition to the student newspapers Ruprecht and unimut, the Rhein-Neckar
campus radio broadcasts on FM 105.4 MHz, RadioAktiv. Heidelberg
students, together with fellow students from the neighboring university
of Mannheim, are committed to maintaining radio operations and providing
the student body with music and news from the campus.
Heidelberg
is the location of some radio transmitters. In addition to the SWR
television tower on the Königstuhl, there is also the Deutsche Telekom
transmission system in the immediate vicinity.
DVB-T is broadcast
from the Heidelberg-Königstuhl television tower. 13 programs can be
received on three transponders, channel 21, 474 MHz (ZDF), channel 49,
698 MHz and 60, 786 MHz (SWR or ARD). From the Rhine-Main area and from
the Stuttgart telecommunications tower, private stations can also be
received in the Rhine-Neckar area with a roof antenna. The DVB-T signal
from the Königstuhl has a range of 80 to 100 kilometers.
In Heidelberg there is a district court and a regional court, both of
which belong to the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe, as well as a
public prosecutor's office. External chambers of the Mannheim Labor
Court are also located in Heidelberg.
The city is also the seat
of the trade association for raw materials and the chemical industry,
the Heidelberg church district of the Evangelical Church in Baden and
the Heidelberg deanery of the Archdiocese of Freiburg.
Heidelberg
was the seat of the NATO Land Headquarters Central Europe (Land
Headquarters; formerly LANDCENT) under the command of the Supreme
Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. The headquarters of the 7th US Army
was located at Campbell Barracks (V. US Corps Headquarters). There were
also many American military facilities in the vicinity. In 2008, about
1,000 civilian workers were employed by the US armed forces. Members of
the US military and their relatives spent an estimated ten million euros
in retail in Heidelberg, and a further five million euros in gastronomy.
The annual investment by the US military for its own buildings and
facilities was around 30 million euros. By the end of 2012, however, a
large part of the US armed forces had moved to Wiesbaden, where a new
headquarters was built. By 2015, the US military had been completely
withdrawn from Heidelberg.
The Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg was founded in 1386 and
is the oldest university in what is now Germany. Its campus is divided
into two urban areas and several individual buildings: the humanities,
social sciences and law are located in numerous historic buildings in
the old town. The natural sciences and medicine are mainly located on
the new campus in Neuenheimer Feld.
There is the University of
Church Music in Heidelberg. It was founded in 1931 as an institution of
the Evangelical Church in Baden.
The Heidelberg University of
Education was founded in 1904. After several expansions and renamings,
it finally became a scientific university with its current name in 1971.
The SRH Hochschule Heidelberg is a private university of the SRH
Holding (Foundation Rehabilitation Heidelberg). It was founded in 1969
and was the first private university to be accredited by the German
Science Council in 2004. It is located in the Science Tower in the
district of Wieblingen.
The Hochschule Fresenius Heidelberg
(until 2017 Hochschule für Internationales Management Heidelberg) is a
private, state-recognized university. Its bachelor's and master's
programs are accredited according to the requirements of the German and
British university systems. The students acquire a German and a British
university degree at the same time.
The Heidelberg University for
Jewish Studies was founded in 1979. It has nine sections of the religion
and culture of Judaism.
The Schiller International University has
a campus in Heidelberg. The private American university offers
bachelor's and master's programs in the fields of International Business
and International Relations & Diplomacy.
The State Seminar for
Didactics and Teacher Training (high schools and special schools) and an
Institute for Translation and Interpreting (IÜD), which is part of the
Ruprecht Karls University.
There are a large number of research institutions in Heidelberg,
especially for life sciences.
The most important sponsor in the
Heidelberg research landscape is the University of Heidelberg. There are
numerous institutes under its roof, such as the Heidelberg Biochemistry
Center (BZH), the Interdisciplinary Center for Neurosciences (IZN), the
Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR), the South Asia
Institute (SAI), and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA),
the Heidelberg Center for Latin America and the Center for Astronomy at
the University of Heidelberg (ZAH). At the beginning of 2007, the newly
built Center for Quantitative Analysis of Molecular and Cellular
Biosystems (BIOQUANT) in Neuenheimer Feld was added.
Well-known
institutes are the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), founded in
1964, and the Center for Molecular Biology Heidelberg (ZMBH), which was
founded in 1983. Both institutes are dedicated to basic research.
The central facility of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory
(EMBL), founded in 1974, is also based in Heidelberg. There are branches
in Monterotondo (Italy), Hinxton (England), Grenoble (France) and
Hamburg, among others. It is operated by 18 European countries.
With four institutes, Heidelberg is a regional focus of the Max Planck
Society. The Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and
International Law, the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, the Max
Planck Institute for Astronomy and the Max Planck Institute for Medical
Research are located here. The city of Heidelberg is also a "corporate
supporting member" of the Max Planck Society.
Other research
institutes are the State Teaching and Research Institute for
Horticulture, the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory, the
Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, the European Media Laboratory (EML), a
private research institute for applied computer science and the research
facility of the Evangelical Study Community, which is run by the
Evangelical Church will be carried.
There are elementary, community, junior high and vocational schools
(state and private), special education and counseling centers and high
schools.
Schools of particular character are the Free Waldorf
School Heidelberg (private) and the International Comprehensive School
Heidelberg (IGH) (state). The IGH is an additive comprehensive school,
which is mentioned by name with two other comprehensive schools in the
Baden-Württemberg school law as a school with an extraordinary
character. Both schools offer the opportunity to take the Abitur. The
private, state-approved supplementary school Heidelberg International
School (HIS) in Wieblingen also has a special character. The language of
instruction is English and school fees are charged.
In addition
to Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, the Johannes Gutenberg School in Heidelberg
is one of the three state vocational colleges for graphics and design in
Baden-Württemberg.
In addition to the adult education center
there is also the Music and Singing School of the City of Heidelberg
with the Johannes Brahms Hall. There is also a hotel management school
and numerous private vocational schools such as the bfw and the F&U
schools. In addition to these schools, there are also extracurricular
educational institutions, such as the Heidelberg Life Science Lab, a
student laboratory at the German Cancer Research Center.
The
Academy for the Elderly, founded as an association in 1984, offers
elderly people (60 years and older) a wide range of educational
opportunities in the form of lectures and seminars. It promotes
integration, the creation of new networks, voluntary work and the
political participation of older people.
The Heidelberg City Library, founded in 1904 (total holdings: over 200,000 media), has repeatedly achieved top positions in the "Big City Library" category in the library index. The city library was able to regain this top position after several years of municipal savings targets thanks to a comprehensive renovation in 2009.
The city of Heidelberg has been running a special sports funding
program to support the clubs for years. In 2006 there were 120 sports
clubs, 22 municipal sports facilities and 40 sports and gymnastics halls
in Heidelberg. Heidelberg is also considered a German rugby stronghold,
as there are five rugby clubs in the city area, four of which (2022/23
season) (Heidelberger Ruderklub, Rudergesellschaft Heidelberg, TSV
Handschuhsheim Rugby, SC Neuenheim) belong to the 16 teams of the Rugby
Bundesliga belong, the Heidelberger TV competes in the 2nd Bundesliga.
The German Rugby Union (DRV) has its headquarters in Heidelberg and
regular test matches of the German national rugby union team take place
in the Fritz-Grunebaum-Sportpark.
The sports club with the most
members in Heidelberg is the Heidelberg section of the German Alpine
Club, founded in 1869, with over 9,300 members, ahead of TSG Rohrbach,
founded in 1889 as a gymnastics club. The association currently has over
3000 members. TSG Rohrbach is one of the ten largest clubs in North
Baden.
Several Heidelberg clubs have repeatedly won
championships. A prominent example is the basketball club USC
Heidelberg, which has won the second most German basketball
championships with nine titles, two of them since the basketball
Bundesliga was founded in 1967. Today (season 2021/22) the club is
playing in the second division after many years ProA is back in the 1st
league for the first time and is particularly known for its youth
department, which has produced national players on several occasions.
Another example is the swimming club SV Nikar Heidelberg. Between 1982
and 1998 the women's team at the Heidelberg TC was German team champion
ten times. The SGK Heidelberg is currently the most successful football
department in Heidelberg.
In 2003, a group of three schools in
Heidelberg – the Helmholtz-Gymnasium, the Johannes-Kepler-Realschule and
the Willy-Hellpach-School – was awarded the title “Elite School of
Sports” by the German Sports Association. The award was given for the
special sports support programs that these schools offer in cooperation
with the Heidelberg Olympic base in Neuenheimer Feld. Young athletes who
take part in this support program receive special accommodation in order
to harmonize school and training. Several German champions and
international successes have emerged from the program.
The following nationally known events take place regularly in
Heidelberg:
January: Wonder Worlds; Festival with live multivisions
and photography workshops on the 1st weekend in January since 2010 in
the "Musik- und Singschule" The series of events has become a tradition
for her. It has been held in Heidelberg since 2010
March/April:
Heidelberg Spring, annual festival for classical and contemporary music
with internationally recognized artists
International Easter Egg
Market Heidelberg
three weeks before Easter (Sunday Laetare):
traditional summer day train
April: Heidelberg Half Marathon on the
last weekend in April
April/May: Queer Festival Heidelberg
April/May: Heidelberg play market, theater days with young authors
May: Heidelberg Symposium
Early summer: Annual presentation of the
Clemens Brentano Prize donated by the city
May: Spring Fair at the
Messplatz
May: Heidelberg rowing regatta
July: Theater marathon in
public places and at the venues
June/July/August: Heidelberg Castle
Festival in the castle courtyard
July/August: HeidelbergMan, a
triathlon competition
June–September: on the first Saturday in June
and September and on the second Saturday in July – the Heidelberg Castle
Illumination with brilliant fireworks from the Old Bridge
September:
Heidelberg Autumn in the old town and on the one kilometer long
pedestrian zone on the last Saturday in September
October: Autumn
Fair
October/November: The Heidelberg Theater Days, an international
festival for German-language independent theatre
October/November:
Enjoy Jazz, an international festival for jazz and other things
October/November/December: cabaret autumn think beautifully from the
culture window
November: International Film Festival
Mannheim-Heidelberg
November/December: Heidelberg Christmas market
Heidelberg is the subject of numerous poems. Among the best known are
Oswald von Wolkenstein's Ich rühm dich Heidelberg, several poems by
Martin Opitz, the ode Lange lieb ich dich by Friedrich Hölderlin, the
song about a student's arrival in Heidelberg by Clemens Brentano,
Gottfried Keller's poem on the Old Bridge and Alt -Heidelberg, you fine
by Joseph Victor von Scheffel.
Heidelberg also gained literary
importance because it was here in September 1815 that Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe and Marianne von Willemer met for the last time. About 15 of
the poems of the West-Eastern Divan were written at this meeting or
immediately afterwards. Stays of other poets in Heidelberg such as
Joseph von Eichendorff, Jean Paul and Nikolaus Lenau are also
documented. Alfred Mombert and Hilde Domin lived and worked in
Heidelberg. In December 2014, Heidelberg became the first German city to
become a UNESCO City of Literature.
Numerous feature films and television series have been shot in
Heidelberg, including:
1926: I lost my heart in Heidelberg
1927:
That was in Heidelberg on a blue summer night
1927: I was a student
in Heidelberg
1930: A boys' song from Heidelberg
1948: The Lost
Face
1949: I was a male war bride
1951: Heidelberg Romance
1952: I lost my heart in Heidelberg
1957: The big chance
1957: The
Zurich Engagement (some scenes were shot in Heidelberg, including the
Old Bridge)
1959: Old Heidelberg
1995–1997: The moon shines for
lodgers too (TV series)
2000: Anatomy
2016: Morris from America
2016-2019: Hotel Heidelberg (TV series)
2020: Isi & Ossi
The local dialect of the Heidelberg area is "Kurpellsisch" or in High
German: the Palatinate dialect in Kurpfälzer form. Many things in
Heidelberg have a Palatinate name, such as Hendesse for the district of
Handschuhsheim.
A Rhenish-Franconian dialect is "babbled" in
countless small-scale variants, the High German and the high proportion
of newcomers has pushed back the dialect somewhat. Elsbeth Janda's
lectures, for example the role of Liselotte von der Pfalz, are
unforgettable.
Many well-known personalities lived and worked in the city of
Heidelberg. Commemorative plaques can often be found on inconspicuous
houses in the old town, reminding us that a famous person once lived or
worked here.
The humanist Johannes Reuchlin wrote the Latin
school drama Henno here in the years 1496-1497.
The key role of
the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg in research is one of the
reasons for the large number of well-known personalities in the city.
Many Nobel Prize winners have lived, studied or taught here:
Carl
Bosch, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry 1931
Georg Wittig, Nobel Prize
in Chemistry 1979
Walther Bothe, Nobel Prize in Physics 1954
Ernst
Ruska, Nobel Prize in Physics 1986
Otto Meyerhof, winner of the Nobel
Prize for Medicine in 1923
Bert Sakmann, Nobel Prize in Medicine 1991
Wolfgang Ketterle, Nobel Prize in Physics 2001
Theodor Hänsch, Nobel
Prize in Physics 2005
Harald zur Hausen, Nobel Prize winner for
medicine 2008
Stefan Hell, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014
Pioneering inventions such as spectroscopy were developed in Heidelberg
by scholars living there.
Well-known Heidelberg personalities
include:
Liselotte of the Palatinate (1652–1722), Duchess of Orléans
Otto Schoetensack (1850–1912), anthropologist and paleontologist
Max
Weber (1864–1920), sociologist
Karl Jaspers (1883–1969), philosopher
Friedrich Ebert (1871–1925), first President of the Reich
Ernst
Jiinger (1895–1998), writer
Hilde Domin (1909–2006), writer
Marie
Marcks (1922–2014), cartoonist
Dieter Schmitt (1924–2013), test pilot
and record flyer
Ananda Mahidol (1925–1946), King of Siam/Thailand
Dietmar Hopp (* 1940), entrepreneur and sports patron
Silvia
Sommerlath (born 1943), Queen of Sweden
Götz Werner (1944–2022),
entrepreneur
Jackson Browne (born 1948), rock musician, singer,
lyricist, composer
Hansi Flick (born 1965), football coach
Cress
Williams (born 1970), actor
Michael Fassbender (born 1977), actor
Ken Duken (born 1979), actor
Paul Ripke (born 1981), photographer
Ardian Bujupi (born 1991), singer
Elisabeth Seitz (born 1993),
artistic gymnast