Thuringia is a state in the center of the Federal Republic of
Germany. With around 2.1 million inhabitants and an area of around
16,000 square kilometers, it is one of the smaller states in Germany
(twelfth largest state by population, eleventh largest by area). The
state capital and largest city is Erfurt, other important centers
are Jena, Gera, Weimar and Eisenach. Neighboring states are the Free
State of Saxony to the east and south-east, Saxony-Anhalt to the
north and north-east, Lower Saxony to the north-west, Hesse to the
west and the Free State of Bavaria to the south. Several places in
the northwest of the country claim to be the exact center of
Germany.
The name Thuringia has appeared as an area
designation since the Thuringian Empire in the early 6th century.
After that, Thuringia no longer formed a coherent dominion, even if
the Landgrave of Thuringia managed to control large parts of the
region for a short time. Nevertheless, the name of the landscape was
retained and was taken up in 1920 when seven free states united to
form Thuringia. Formerly Prussian areas such as Erfurt and northern
Thuringia were added on July 9, 1945. After the dissolution of the
states in the GDR in 1952, it was only re-established on October 3,
1990 from the three districts of Erfurt, Gera and Suhl as well as
some neighboring areas and is now divided into 17 districts and five
urban districts. Since 1993, Thuringia, like Bavaria and Saxony, has
officially had the suffix Freistaat, which is based on the
historical parts of the state.
The economy of Thuringia was
able to stabilize after the upheaval in the course of reunification
in the period after the turn of the millennium, so that the
unemployment rate today is around the national average. The
structure is mainly dominated by small companies, with some regions
such as southern Thuringia or Eichsfeld still being characterized by
the manufacturing industry. Larger companies are mainly found in
Jena (Zeiss, Jenoptik, Schott) and Eisenach (Opel, Bosch), while
Erfurt, with its diversified structure, is the country's most
important economic center. Important locations for education and
research in the Free State are Jena with the fourth largest
university in the new federal states, Erfurt and Ilmenau with its
Technical University. The cultural center of the state is Weimar
with its traditional Bauhaus University Weimar, the Music Academy
and its numerous UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Thuringia has a
high density of cultural sites of national and international
importance. UNESCO World Heritage includes the "Classic Weimar", the
Bauhaus in Weimar, the Wartburg near Eisenach and the Hainich
National Park as part of the European beech forests. With the
cathedral, the Krämerbrücke and the oldest surviving synagogue in
Central Europe, the state capital has important cultural and
historical sites.
Due to its abundance of forests, the state
earned the nickname "green heart of Germany" as early as 1897. It
was originally a popular book title by the travel writer August
Trinius. The slogan was then used in the Weimar Republic to present
the country, which had emerged from numerous small states, and was
taken up again after its re-establishment in 1990 and used as an
official advertising slogan until 2022.
The south of the country is dominated by the Thuringian Forest, which
stretches between the Werra and Saale rivers. To the west of the Werra,
the state shares the Rhön mountain range with Hesse and Bavaria. To the
east of the Saale, the Thuringian Forest continues as the Thuringian
Slate Mountains, which are not as high, but are also scenically
attractive. In the extreme south-east, east of the river Weiße Elster,
Thuringia shares the Vogtland together with Saxony and Bavaria.
A
landscape with comparatively sparse natural vegetation is the Thuringian
Basin north of the Thuringian Forest. It borders the Harz mountains to
the north and is interrupted by the Hainleite to the south of
Sondershausen.
The result is the following picture of
the holiday regions or holiday areas (clockwise from north to west):
Northern Thuringia: Harz, Hainich, Hainleite, Kyffhäuser and Eichsfeld.
Thuringian heartland (also sometimes called "Thuringia's middle" or
"Thuringian basin")
Saaleland: Ilm-Saale-Platte, Orlasenke, Saaletal,
Thuringian Tuscany and Thuringian Slate Mountains
East Thuringia:
Thuringian Holzland, Thuringian Vogtland and Osterland.
Thuringian
Forest, Western and Central Thuringian Forest, High Slate Mountains and
Schwarzatal.
Southwest Thuringia: Werratal, Rhön and Grabfeld.
The capital of the Free State of Thuringia is Erfurt. The largest
cities in the country lie on a line in an east-west direction. These are
Gera, Jena, the "cultural capital" Weimar, Erfurt, Gotha and Eisenach.
Important towns outside of this line are Suhl in the Thuringian Forest,
Nordhausen on the southern edge of the Harz Mountains and the skat town
of Altenburg in the extreme east of the country. In the Thuringian
Forest, Ilmenau, Oberhof and the half-timbered town of Schmalkalden are
worth seeing. The former residence towns of Rudolstadt in the Saale
valley with the Heidecksburg Castle and Meiningen in the Werratal with
the well-known theater and museums are also worth seeing for tourists.
Selected cities:
1 Altenburg. Known as the city of skat, the
former residence city is the largest city in the eastern Thuringian
Altenburger Land with around 38,000 inhabitants and has a lot to offer
culturally. The card game Skat was developed here between 1810 and 1818.
In addition to the German Skat Association, the International Skat Court
is also based in the city, and there is even a fountain dedicated to
card games. In addition to the castle and the large contiguous historic
old town area, there is also an art museum of national importance. The
Altenburg Prince Robbery Festival takes place every summer in
cooperation with the Altenburg State Theater and the City of Altenburg.
Also in Altenburg is the Gumpert Sportwagenmanufaktur, a manufacturer of
expensive exclusive sports cars, a visit to which is a must for car
lovers.
2 Eisenach. the birthplace of Johann
Sebastian Bach is located in western Thuringia. It lies at 221m above
sea level at the north-west end of the Thuringian Forest, where Hörsel
and Neffe flow together. The city is best known for Luther, who hid in
the Wartburg. In the city center, the castle with the porcelain
collection, the Georgenkirche and the Luther and Bach house are
particularly worth a visit. Eisenach also made a name for itself as an
automobile town. Before the Second World War, BMW produced its cars in
Eisenach, the Wartburg was manufactured during the GDR era, and since
reunification, Opel has had its Corsa assembled in the city. This
history of automobile construction in Eisenach is shown in the
"automobile world eisenach" museum.
3
Erfurt. The state capital has a
medieval old town with many half-timbered houses. The most famous bridge
in Erfurt is without a doubt the 120m long Krämerbrücke, which is lined
with houses. The landmark of the city is the cathedral towering over the
city together with the neighboring Severikirche. The Cathedral Steps
Festival takes place every year in August on the grand staircase that
leads down from the cathedral to the market square. Another impressive
building is the Petersberg Citadel, from which you can enjoy a fantastic
view of the old town. Erfurt was also known as the city of flowers, and
the Egapark still bears witness to this today.
4
Gera. the birthplace of Otto Dix, is
the third largest city in Thuringia and is located in the valley of the
Weißen Elster. For the visitor to Thuringia, this city in the shadow of
Erfurt is probably only a secondary destination, although it does have
some cultural highlights. Orangery and theater date from the time of the
Principality of Reuss. In the city center, the town hall and the
Salvator Church adorn the cityscape. In 2007, together with the small
neighboring town of Ronneburg, it organized the Federal Garden Show.
5 Gotha. became known mainly through the
founding of Germany's first insurance company and through the merger of
two workers' parties to form the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany,
which was later renamed the SPD. Gotha was a residential city for a long
time. The early baroque Friedenstein Castle still bears witness to this
period. The Museum of Nature, the largest natural history museum in
Thuringia, is located in the west tower of Friedenstein Castle.
6
Greiz. is a former residential town and was
the seat of the older line of the Principality of Reuss. The East
Thuringian city is the district and largest city in the district of
Greiz. It advertises itself as a "park and castle city", which
designations are justified by two castles plus a summer castle and an
extensive English park, which is considered one of the most beautiful
landscape parks in Thuringia. Beyond the city limits, Greiz is known as
the "Pearl of the Vogtland", which refers to the charming location in
the valley of the white Elster and the architecturally valuable city
ensemble from the Art Nouveau era.
7 Mühlhausen.
the city in the heart of Germany is nestled between the Hainich and
Eichsfeld mountain ranges, north of Eisenach. From whichever direction
you approach the town in the Unstrut Valley, the church tower of the
Marienkirche greets you from afar. The city wall with its defense towers
and the towers of the 11 medieval churches transport visitors to a
bygone era. This is where the princes of the empire met in the Middle
Ages. Philip of Swabia was elected German king and the civic community
of the imperial city achieved self-government in 1251. Mühlhausen is
crowned by the Marienkirche in the upper town, the largest church in
Thuringia after the Erfurt Cathedral. The reformer Thomas Müntzer, who
was well known alongside Martin Luther, preached here and made the city
the focus of German history during the Peasants' War. The town's second
main church, the Divi Blasii parish church, a Gothic hall church, is
located on the Untermarkt. It is closely connected with the name of
Johann Sebastian Bach. The composer and church musician worked here as
an organist in 1707-1708. You can still listen to Bach's music in the
church today. A treasure of a special kind is housed in the town hall.
The Imperial City Archives with valuable documents and writings are
located here.
8
Jena. The university town is located
in the Saale valley, surrounded by high, mostly rugged limestone
mountains. It is the second largest city in Thuringia after Erfurt. Jena
is “City of Science 2008”. The historic old town was badly damaged
during the Second World War. As a result, an alternation of modern and
historical buildings characterizes the cityscape. The most striking
building is the 149 meter high JenTower. The cylindrical high-rise was
built in GDR times and completely rebuilt after reunification. The
highlight of a visit to Jena is the Zeiss Planetarium, which is the
oldest in the world.
9 Meiningen. lies in the Werra valley between
the Thuringian Forest and Rhön on the border with Bavaria. The city is a
station on the Classic Route and has a large and wide range of offers
for city tourism and cultural tourism alike. Meiningen is generally
known as a “theater town”. The dialect is Henneberg-Franconian, a
subspecies of Main-Franconian.
10
Weimar. the city of Goethe and
Schiller is a World Heritage Site. However, not only the two poets
stayed in the city, the composer Johann Sebastian Bach and the Bauhaus
founder Walter Gropius also worked in the city. Weimar offers a lot of
sights, including the German National Theater, Bauhaus Museum,
Schiller's house. It is probably the best-known city in Thuringia, not
only culturally but also steeped in history, especially through the
Weimar Republic. The darkest chapter in Weimar history is during the
Nazi era. In front of the city was the Buchenwald concentration camp,
which is now a memorial to the victims.
Nordhausen
Rudolstadt
Saalfeld
Sonneberg
Suhl
Other destinations
Buchenwald Concentration Camp
Hanstein Castle
Schloss Elisabethenburg
Hainich National Park
Schloss
Reinhardsbrunn
1 Thuringian Forest Nature Park
2 Rhön biosphere
reserve
Here you will find the highest point in Thuringia on
the Schneekopf observation tower at 1001m.
The upper Saale
area on the western edge of the Thuringian Slate Mountains is also
recommended for nature lovers. There are the Hohenwarte and the
Bleilochtalsperre. Not far from the Saale valley is the Schwarzatal
with the Oberweißbacher Bergbahn.
Rennsteig. The hiking trail
that stretches from Eisenach over the ridge of the Thuringian Forest
to the Bavarian border in the Thuringian Slate Mountains is
indispensable for exploring the natural environment. North of
Eisenach you can climb the forest to the roof on a treetop path in
the Hainich National Park.
From Weimar and Jena north towards the
federal state border, Thuringia shares an area with Saxony-Anhalt on
the Ilm, Saale and Unstrut, which was nicknamed "Tuscany of the
East" because of its sunny river slopes and gentle hills, and is
otherwise known as the Saale-Unstrut wine-growing region . This is
also where the Saale, Unstrut and Ilmtal cycle paths meet.
The
nationally important Schifflersgrund Border Museum is located on the
former German/German border near Asbach-Sickenberg, and the
Eichsfeld Borderland Museum is about 40 km to the north-east in
Eichsfeld.
Background
Thuringia
was not a state entity until 1920. Rather, the land of the
residences was a reflection of German small-stateism: again and
again divisions of inheritance took place and other lines died out
again after a short period of existence. Not only the large ducal
castles of Weimar or Gotha testify to this today, but also smaller
residences such as that of the 500-strong village of Ebersdorf near
Schleiz (Link).
After the division of Leipzig in 1485, a
large part of today's Thuringia was ruled by the Ernestines, but the
sub-lines of the Schwarzburgs and Reusses also had dominions. Even
Prussia and Saxony had a small share of the cake. Since the
Thuringian princes had little political weight, it is not surprising
that they devoted themselves particularly to culture as a
substitute. So it was only through the efforts of Duke Carl August
that Goethe went to Weimar. After the abdication of the nobility,
the state of Thuringia was formed in 1920. With an interruption from
1933 to 1945, it existed until 1952. Until 1990, it was divided into
the three districts of Erfurt, Gera and Suhl, with some areas now
belonging to Thuringia also being assigned to other districts. This
included, for example, the Altenburger Land, which was assigned to
the district of Leipzig.
The official state anthem of
Thuringia is Thuringia, gentle land, the Rennsteiglied is considered
unofficial because it is sung much more often.
By plane
The nearest commercial airports with scheduled flights
are Leipzig Halle Airport (IATA: LEJ), Nuremberg Airport (IATA: NUE) and
Frankfurt Airport (IATA: FRA).
In Thuringia itself there are two
airports, Erfurt – Weimar Airport (IATA: ERF) and Altenburg, where
larger aircraft can land. Both have no regular service. From Erfurt
there are charter flights to some hot water destinations.
By
train
In Thuringia, the rail connections are still quite good, but
the area-wide connection to long-distance traffic has decreased in
recent years. There are ICE connections from the cities of Frankfurt,
Berlin, Halle, Leipzig, Dresden, Bamberg and Munich. Otherwise, the
journey is mainly via regional express trains.
With the
Halle/Leipzig − Erfurt − Nuremberg high-speed line, the section between
Halle/Leipzig and Erfurt was put into operation on December 13, 2015.
The route to Nuremberg has been extended since December 2017. This
gradually reduced the long-distance stops in Thuringia. Since the end of
2017, ICEs have only stopped in Erfurt, Gotha and Eisenach. Three IC
trains run daily from Gera, Jena and Weimar via Kassel and the Ruhr area
to Düsseldorf.
By bus
The development of the long-distance bus
market is currently subject to rapid change, both in terms of providers
and routes.
In the street
From the north and south, the
journey is usually via the A9 (Berlin-Munich). From the east and west,
travelers can reach Thuringia via the A4 (Dresden-Frankfurt). The two
motorways represent the most important connections and are mostly
expanded to six lanes. There are only small expansion gaps.
Other
motorways in Thuringia are the A38 (Leipzig-Göttingen), the A71
(Schweinfurt-Südharz) and the A73 (Nuremberg-Suhl).
Note: As
everywhere, arriving by car on Friday afternoons should be avoided
because of the weekend commuters.
By train
Both Deutsche Bahn and some private railways operate in
local transport. The Vogtlandbahn travels to train stations in eastern
Thuringia. The South Thuringia Railway and the Erfurt Railway operate in
central and south-west Thuringia. Abellio drives north and east.
Line network map of rail passenger transport in Thuringia
There are
two transport associations in Thuringia. On the one hand, there is the
central Thuringia transport association around Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar,
Jena and Gera, and on the other hand, there is the cross-state Central
German transport association in Altenburger Land, which also extends to
north-western Saxony around Leipzig and south-eastern Saxony-Anhalt
around Halle.
With the Thuringia ticket, one person can travel
through Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt for €25 (as of March 2018).
4 additional people each pay an additional €7. Your own
children/grandchildren up to the age of 14 travel free of charge. The
ticket is valid on regional trains of the DB, most private railways, in
some bus companies and in the city traffic of all places in the
Verkehrsverbund Mittelthüringen (VMT), i. H. e.g. in Gotha, Erfurt,
Weimar, Jena and Gera, Monday to Friday from 9 a.m., on weekends and
public holidays all day until 3 a.m. the following day.
For
single travelers there is the hopper ticket, with which you can easily
travel 50 km within Thuringia for €5.40 or return for €8.70 (December
2018). Within the network area of the VMT there is a VMT hopper ticket
for €5.60 one way/€9.20 return, which is then also valid on buses and
trams at the start and destination. For longer distances, there is the
Regio120 ticket up to 120 km, Regio 120 plus up to 150 km in Saxony,
Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt for €17 and €22 respectively. These tickets
are also only valid on local trains on weekdays from 9 a.m. or on
Sat/Sun all day.
The Thuringian regional trains take bicycles
free of charge.
By bus
Buses usually only connect the nearest
towns and villages. While the number of city lines has mostly remained
stable in recent years, lines on intercity routes have decreased due to
population decline. Thüsac in Altenburger Land is trying to maintain the
lines with minibuses. These are mostly large taxis with 8 seats that
drive on behalf of Thüsac. If a larger group is traveling with you, they
must contact Thüsac beforehand so that a larger bus can be used. There
is an overview on the website of Bus Thüringen.
In the street
The motorways are also the most important routes
when driving within the country. While most of the autobahns are well
developed, some of the major federal highways still lack local bypasses.
There is an environmental zone in Erfurt.
By boat
Shipping
traffic with passenger transport is only available on the
Bleilochtalsperre and the Hohenwarte Dam with round trips. Otherwise,
only the Werra and the Saale can be navigated by canoe.
By
bicycle
Thuringia has a network of cycling routes that opens up all
parts of the state, but is sometimes quite demanding due to the
mountainous location.
The language in Thuringia is essentially divided into two dialect groups. The Franconian south of the Thuringian Forest and the Thuringian-Upper Saxon north of it. However, as in Saxony, the dialects are quite different. Even the "Gersche Fettguschen dialect" differs from the Greizer dialect, although the two cities are only 30 km apart.
Two of the best-known Thuringian specialties are
Thuringian grilled sausages and Thuringian dumplings.
Further
information on Thuringian cuisine can be found under Eating and drinking
in Thuringia.
Thuringia's oldest university is the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. Today it has ten faculties.
Thuringia is considered a very safe federal state. In the annual federal crime statistics, the state with Bavaria leads the table with the lowest crime rate.
The Holzland, the
Saale-Orla area and the upper Werra area around Hildburghausen are
classified as TBE risk areas. These are areas in which between 1985 and
2004 at least five cases of tick-borne encephalitis or at least two TBE
cases were registered within one year.
Emergency call: 112
Poison control number: +49 (0)361 730730
Thuringia is located in the middle of Germany and borders on the
states of Hesse (length of the border 270 km), Bavaria (381 km), Saxony
(265 km), Saxony-Anhalt (296 km) and Lower Saxony (112 km). Like Saxony
and parts of Saxony-Anhalt, the Free State of Thuringia belongs to the
region of Central Germany. As a result of a satellite-supported state
survey in 2007/2008, the center of Thuringia was determined in the area
of the municipality of Rockhausen in the Ilm district at the coordinates
♁50° 54′ 12″ N, 11° 1′ 35″ E about eight kilometers south of Erfurt
Cathedral.
The landscape in Thuringia is very different. In the
extreme north is the Harz Mountains. To the southeast is an area known
as the Goldene Aue, with the fertile valley of the Helme river. In the
northwest is the Eichsfeld, a partially wooded hilly landscape. In the
middle of the state lies the flat, very fertile Thuringian Basin. This
region is one of the oldest cultural landscapes in Germany. The first
settlements here have been documented since the year 704. The Thuringian
Basin is surrounded by various small mountain ranges, such as the Dün in
the north-west, the Hainleite and the Windleite immediately to the
north, as well as the Kyffhäuser in the north, Schmücke, Hohe Schrecke
and Finne in the north-east, the Ettersberg in the south-east and the
Fahnerhöhe in the south and the Hainich in the west. Hainich National
Park is the only national park in the country.
South of the
Thuringian Basin is the hilly foothills of the Thuringian Forest,
finally the Thuringian Forest itself, as the largest mountain range in
the country. To the east, the forest merges seamlessly into the
Thuringian Slate Mountains, which in turn merges into the Franconian
Forest to the south-east in the district of Sonneberg and in the
Saale-Orla district, which, however, is only to a small extent in
Thuringia. Together they form the Thuringian-Franconian low mountain
range. This low mountain range is crossed by the Rennsteig, the ridge
path. It represents the watershed between the Elbe in the north and the
Weser or Rhine in the south. The Thuringian Forest is a ridge mountain
range, while the Schiefergebirge and the Franconian Forest are high
plateaus cut up by narrow valleys. The Saale valley runs east of the
forest and basin. Beyond the Saale lies the Thuringian Holzland in the
north, the Vogtland in the south and the Osterland in the east. In
contrast to the former, the Osterland around Altenburg has little forest
and is very fertile. The Franconian Line runs in the southern district
of Sonneberg north of the district town of Sonneberg; In Thuringia, this
separates the Franconian Forest from the Obermainisches Hügelland.
Southwest of the Thuringian Forest, in southern Thuringia, lies the
Werra valley, followed by the Rhön to the west and the Grabfeld to the
extreme south.
The country's most important rivers are the Werra
in the southwest and the Saale in the east. Larger tributaries of the
Saale are the Unstrut (with Gera), the Ilm and the White Elster. The
Leine has its source in the northwest of the country. Overall, the
country is divided into the catchment areas of the Weser in the west,
the Elbe in the middle and in the east and the Rhine in the extreme
south, with an intersection at the Dreistromstein near Neuhaus am
Rennweg. There are no larger natural bodies of water in Thuringia, but
with the dams of Bleiloch and Hohenwarte, two of the largest reservoirs
in Germany are located here.
The highest elevation in the state
is the Great Beerberg in the Thuringian Forest at 983 meters. Other high
mountains are the Schneekopf (978 m), the Große Finsterberg (944 m) and
the Große Inselsberg (916 m). The highest point in Thuringia is 1060
meters above sea level and is located on the Bleßberg in the district of
Sonneberg (position of the radio system 865 m + 195 m height of the
transmitter). The highest mountain in the Schiefergebirge is the Großer
Farmdenkopf (869 m), in the Rhön region of Thuringia the Schnitzersberg
(816 m) belonging to the Ellenbogen and in the Harz Mountains in
Thuringia the Großer Ehrenberg (636 m). Important elevations between the
Harz Mountains and the Thuringian Forest are the Birkenberg (533 m) in
Eichsfeld, the Alte Berg (494 m) in Hainich, the Kulpenberg (474 m) in
Kyffhäuser and the Ettersberg (482 m) near Weimar. South of the
Thuringian Forest are the Dolmar (740 m) and the Große Gleichberg (679
m), east of the Saale lies the highest mountain with the Rosenbühl (653
m) in the southern Vogtland, but without any particular relief energy.
Furthermore, the central Thuringian Forest and the adjacent western
slate mountains and the Rhön are populated up to the ridges, so that
around 20 towns in the state are over 700 meters above sea level,
including Oberhof, Neuhaus am Rennweg and Steinheid as the highest
places at over 800 meters (in the town center) as well as the Rhön
villages of Frankenheim and Birx at an altitude of 750 meters, which -
unlike the proto-industrial early modern foundations in the Thuringian
Forest - even come from the high medieval settlement with agricultural
livelihoods. The lowest points are the Unstrut valley between Wiehe and
Roßleben (114 m), the Saale valley near Großheringen (120 m), the Werra
valley near Lindewerra (145 m) and the Pleiße valley near Treben (150
m).
Thuringia is located in the temperate climate zone of Central Europe
with prevailing westerly winds. Since there are already some protective
low mountain ranges between the western seas and the Free State,
Thuringia's climate is more continental than in western and northern
Germany. This is reflected above all in colder winters and drier summers
than in other parts of the Federal Republic.
There are very large
climatic differences within Thuringia. The Thuringian Basin in the
center of the state is particularly favoured. It is surrounded by
mountains, so that the lowest amounts of precipitation in Germany fall
there. Straußfurt holds the record with 242 millimeters of annual
precipitation in 1911.[10] Normal in the Thuringian Basin is 400 to 500
millimeters of annual precipitation with an annual mean temperature of
8.5 degrees Celsius (1961-1990 at the Artern weather station). The hilly
areas in the country are climatically about average for Germany. In
Gera, for example, 624 millimeters of precipitation fell at a
temperature of 7.8 degrees Celsius. The mountain zones in Thuringia have
an unfavorable climate. An average of 1289 millimeters of annual
precipitation at a temperature of 4.4 degrees Celsius is measured on the
Schmücke. Here the January temperature is −4 degrees Celsius and the
July temperature is 12.8 degrees Celsius. In Artern on the northern edge
of the Thuringian Basin, the values for these months are −0.7 degrees
Celsius and 17.6 degrees Celsius.
Regular natural disasters in
Thuringia are in particular floods and storms. Floods usually occur in
Vb weather situations, in which large low-pressure areas with moist
Mediterranean air move north across the Adriatic, Austria, the Czech
Republic and Poland and cause heavy rainstorms in the Thuringian Forest
and Slate Mountains due to their anti-clockwise rotation. In contrast,
the risk of flooding as a result of rapid snowmelt is less great, since
the high altitudes of the Thuringian Forest drain into many different
rivers. After reunification, flood protection was significantly improved
through the designation of appropriate areas and the installation of
numerous retention basins, including on small rivers. Storms are
particularly problematic for the mountainous regions where spruce
monocultures, damaged by 20th-century pollution, are vulnerable to
windbreaks, most recently seen in hurricane Kyrill. By increasing the
diversity of species in forest operations, the impact of future storms
should be reduced here. If, as forecast, climate change leads to a more
irregular distribution of precipitation, the lowlands in the Thuringian
Basin are exposed to a higher risk of summer drought, since
precipitation levels are quite low here. Farmers are trying to react to
this by switching to more drought-resistant varieties.
The geological situation in Thuringia is characterized by a large
variety of geological formations. Almost all layers of the Phanerozoic,
i.e. the last 500 million years, can be found on the surface or in the
areas close to the ground in the various regions of the country.
Based on the history of its origin, Thuringia is divided into four
so-called structural floors, which are dominant in the respective
regions and are arranged according to their age:
the Hercynian
basement in the Thuringian Slate Mountains
the transitional or
molasse storey in the Thuringian Forest belonging to the Saxothuringian
the table top mountain range in the Thuringian Basin and in the
south-west Thuringian Triassic region
the soft rock stockwork in the
Weißelster basin
While the geomorphological shape of Thuringia in
the south and west is almost exclusively determined by tectonic
processes and erosion caused by precipitation, these structures were
reshaped by the Elster glaciation around 400,000 - 320,000 years ago in
the north and east. Accordingly, from a geomorphological point of view,
the country is divided into five externally delimitable areas:
the
Thuringian Mountains, consisting of the Thuringian Forest and the
Thuringian Slate Mountains
the Zechstein and Triassic landscapes of
the Thuringian Basin and southern Thuringia
the southern Thuringian
volcanic areas (Heldburger Gangschar)
the Kyffhäuser and the
Thuringian part of the Harz Mountains
the Altenburg-Meuselwitz area,
which is characterized by opencast lignite mining and remains of uranium
mining that took place in the second half of the 20th century.
In
addition to flat areas, numerous faults characterize the landscape
within the Zechstein and Triassic landscapes, of which the
Eichenberg-Gotha-Saalfeld fault zone, which separates the Thuringian
Forest foreland from the Thuringian Basin, is the longest and most
conspicuous. Larger salt deposits can be found in the Zechstein area in
the Werra and Wipper area, which were particularly mined in the 20th
century. Numerous geological phenomena can be observed in the red
sandstone area of the Saale valley near Jena.
Based on the mining
of mineral resources such as iron ore, copper slate or gold, which began
in the late Middle Ages, especially in the area of the Thuringian
Mountains, a theoretical processing of practical geoscientific knowledge
developed in the region as early as the 16th century. In 1796, the
Society for the Entire Mineralogy of Jena, the first geoscientific
association, was founded. It was created at the suggestion of Goethe,
who was its president from 1803 to 1830.
Due to ongoing tectonic
processes, small earthquakes occasionally occur in south-east Thuringia.
These have been observed by the University of Jena since the beginning
of the 20th century. Today, the Moxa Geodynamic Observatory of the
Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Bauhaus University Weimar's
Center for Engineering Analysis of Earthquake Damage are located in the
east of the Thuringian Slate Mountains to investigate and evaluate
possible consequences of earthquakes not only in this area.
Thanks to the diverse geological subsoil and the influence of the low
mountain ranges on the local climate, a large number of plant species
with different ecological requirements can grow in Thuringia. A natural
spatial classification of Thuringia distinguishes between the seven
natural area types: low mountain ranges, red sandstone hilly areas,
shell limestone hilly areas, basalt hill country, arable hilly areas,
floodplains and lowlands as well as the Zechstein belt on mountain
edges. Within these natural space types, 38 individual natural spaces
are distinguished; the natural area of the Thuringian Mountains is also
divided into eight sub-units.
The potential natural vegetation of
Thuringia consists of forests, which could be divided into different
types depending on the site conditions. The most widespread would be
beech forests dominated by the common beech (Fagus sylvatica),
especially grove rush, woodruff, forest barley and orchid beech forests.
Other tree species could only dominate where the site conditions are
less than ideal. The sessile oak (Quercus petraea), English oak (Quercus
robur), hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) and small-leaved lime (Tilia
cordata) would be found more frequently in the warm, dry, continental
areas of the central Thuringian basin. In the low mountain ranges, on
the other hand, in addition to the common beech, the sycamore maple
(Acer pseudoplatanus), the Norway spruce (Picea abies) and the silver
fir (Abies alba), which is rare today, would be found. Spruce-beech
forests can only be found in the highest areas of the Thuringian Forest
and the Thuringian Slate Mountains.
The current flora and fauna
are adapted to the German cultural landscape. Due to human use, the
vegetation consists primarily of forests, grassland, fields, settlements
and bodies of water. About a third of the country's area is covered by
forest. Thuringia is one of the most densely forested federal states.
However, only 30% of this is semi-natural deciduous forest. The
coniferous forests that were planted at the end of the 19th and
beginning of the 20th century are particularly characteristic. However,
the state forest administration is endeavoring to increase the
proportion of hardwood again. After hurricane Kyrill in January 2007
caused massive damage, especially in the Thuringian Forest, the native
beech-oak mixed forest was sometimes used again instead of spruce
monocultures for afforestation. The main tree species in Thuringia are
spruce with 42.6%, common beech with 20.1% and Scots pine with 15.7%.
However, the forests are not homogeneously composed mixed forests.
Depending on the location, the low mountain ranges of the Middle and
Eastern Thuringian Forest, the Thuringian Slate Mountains and the Harz
Mountains are predominantly planted with spruce. Pine forests are
widespread in the Buntsandsteinländer, such as in Holzland. Beech
forests dominate in the shell limestone areas, including in the Hainich,
in the Dün and in the Hainleite, but also in the northwestern Thuringian
Forest.
The grassland is mainly characterized by dry and semi-dry
grassland, fresh meadows rich in species in the hilly regions have
declined sharply. A large proportion of fresh and moist meadows are used
as cattle pasture.
Roe deer, red deer, wild boar, mouflon and
foxes live in the forests of Thuringia. The wild cat (Felis silvestris)
has found its habitat again in the Hainich National Park and in the
valley of the Weißen Elster, between Greiz and Wunschdorf. The lynx
(Lynx lynx) is once again roaming through the Harz mountains in the
north of the country. The country's nature reserves are home to rare
bird species, including the black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix or Tetrao
tetrix), the black stork (Ciconia nigra) and the corncrake (Crex crex).
There have also been sightings of wolves in Thuringia for several years.
On the military training area in Ohrdruf, a female wolf has proven her
territory and mated with a dog. Wolves have also been found in the
Thuringian Forest and in the Holzland. Domestic animals that are adapted
to life in the country include the Thuringian forest goat, which has
been bred for centuries, and the Rhön sheep.
Due to the
industrial pollution that was emitted between 1850 and 1990, parts of
Thuringia were badly damaged at the end of this period. Since then, this
damage has been partially mitigated. For example, the former uranium
opencast mine in Ronneburg was renovated and sealed as part of the 2007
Federal Horticultural Show in Gera and Ronneburg; the new landscape of
Ronneburg was created. Another contaminated site is the tar lake in
Rositz near Altenburg, which poses an extremely high risk to the
environment. Overall, however, the pollution of the air and water has
decreased considerably, only the Werra is - due to the Hessian potash
mining - still so salty below Dorndorf (the salt content in many places
corresponds to that of the Baltic Sea) that many plants and animals
cannot survive . Wastewater discharges by the K+S Group repeatedly
caused disputes between the communities and the states of Thuringia and
Hesse in this region. In areas of intensive agricultural use, smaller
streams continue to suffer from increased nitrate input due to surface
fertilization.
The Hainich National Park, the Rhön and
Vessertal-Thuringian Forest biosphere reserves and the
Eichsfeld-Hainich-Werratal, Kyffhäuser, Thuringian Slate Mountains/Upper
Saale and Thuringian Forest nature reserves are important nature
reserves in Thuringia. Central areas of the Hainich National Park have
been among the 36 World Heritage sites in Germany since they were
recognized by the World Heritage Committee on June 25, 2011. By 2030, 5%
of all forest areas should be completely taken out of economic use in
order to develop into near-natural forests in the long term. In addition
to the Hainich, areas are planned for this in the Hohe Schrecke, in the
Hainleite am Possen and in the Pöllwitzer Wald, most of which were used
for military purposes before 1990 and are still partly contaminated by
ammunition residues.
Thuringia has around 2.12 million inhabitants, although the number of inhabitants has been declining since the end of the Second World War. For this reason, the aging of the population is already far advanced in comparison with Germany and the birth deficit is comparatively high, although the fertility rate (births per woman) is above the national average. The migration balance was positive again in 2013 for the first time since 1996, as emigration to other federal states is declining while immigration from abroad is increasing sharply. Only a few migrants live in the country, so that the proportion of foreigners (about 4%) is one of the lowest in Germany. The population development is different at the local level. The two major cities in the state have been growing again since 2003 (Erfurt) and 1999 (Jena), while the communities in rural areas in particular are losing a lot of population due to aging. The urbanization trend in Thuringia is thus continuing.
In terms of population density, Thuringia is second only to Saxony
among the five new federal states. Nevertheless, the population density
is now lower than that of all the "old" states, while Thuringia was one
of the more densely populated regions of Germany before the Second World
War. The population density is greatest along the Thuringian chain of
cities, which stretches from west to east through the middle of the
state and on which the six largest cities in Thuringia are located. The
population density is also higher on the northern and southern edges of
the Thuringian Forest and Slate Mountains, along the connection from
Halle to Kassel in the north and in the valleys of Saale, Werra and
Unstrut.
The area between the Werra and the state border in the
south, the area around the Saale reservoirs in the south-east, the
woodland between the Roda and Orla valleys and the north of the
Thuringian basin are less populated. In terms of settlement geography,
west of the Saale in the lowlands, large, often self-structured villages
with numerous farmsteads and quite large village areas such as
Herbsleben dominate, while in the areas east of the Saale, which did not
belong to the German old settlement area, the villages usually consist
of only a few farmsteads such as Gieba. However, the density of places
is much higher there. With a similar total population density in the
district of Gotha in the western center of the state there is an area of
about ten square kilometers per place, while in Altenburger Land in the
east it is only about two square kilometers. Inconsistent settlement
structures can be found in the forest areas, there are “industrial
villages” that have grown into cities, such as Zella-Mehlis or Lauscha,
as well as places with just a few houses, such as Allzunah. Depending on
the definition of place, there are between 2500 and 3000 places in the
Free State, of which 126 currently have city rights. There are also
around 20 former cities that were incorporated or lost their rights
again.
The State Development Plan 2025 specifies spatial policy
objectives for the period up to 2025. The challenge of state spatial
planning is to approach equal living conditions throughout the state. It
is particularly important to counteract infrastructural deficits in
rural and peripheral areas and to deal with the problems associated with
demographic change. There are three regional centers in the state, all
located along the middle of the state - Erfurt, Jena and Gera. They are
considered potential regiopoles, which already plays a role in Erfurt's
urban development concept from 2008 for networking with neighboring
cities to form a regiopole region.
Other regional centers
radiating towards Thuringia are the Franconian cities of Coburg,
Bamberg, Schweinfurt and Würzburg in the south, as well as Fulda in
Hesse for the western Rhön. In the south-east, Zwickau, Plauen and Hof
have central functions for the Vogtland. Göttingen and Kassel act as
regional centers for Eichsfeld. In the northeast, the area around Artern
is oriented towards Halle and the northern Altenburger Land towards
Leipzig.
In addition, in the parts of the state that lie on the
periphery of the Thuringian chain of towns on the A4, some medium-sized
towns occupy a structural position between the regional center and the
middle center. Nordhausen was able to establish itself as a regional
center for the southern Harz region and northern Thuringia with a
growing university. With its efficient economy, Eisenach also plays a
central role in western Thuringia and parts of north-eastern Hesse.
Mühlhausen and Saalfeld/Rudolstadt showed less dynamics, but can still
be considered regional centers in the north-west and south-east of the
country. On the other hand, the importance of Suhl as a center in the
south-west of the country has decreased due to the decline of the local
retail trade and due to the ongoing strong population loss, but is
supplemented by Meiningen. In the middle of the state, in addition to
the regional centers of Erfurt and Jena, Weimar and Gotha also have
higher central local functions.
The remaining medium-sized and
some small towns are medium-sized centers with a focus on the local
surrounding area. The range extends from places with 25,000 inhabitants
to small towns with well under 10,000 inhabitants.
In the field
of intermunicipal cooperation, the cities of Jena and Gera are members
of the central German metropolitan region, and the district of Sonneberg
has joined the Nuremberg metropolitan region. Furthermore, the "Impulse
Region" exists as a cooperation between Erfurt, Weimar, Jena and the
Weimarer Land as the central settlement and economic area of the state.
The Linguistics Commission of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in
Leipzig distinguishes nine regional dialects in Thuringia, seven of
which belong to the Thuringian-Upper Saxon dialect group and two to the
Main Franconian dialect group. In addition, with the Rhöner Platt and
Grabfeldisch, two other Main Franconian dialects are usually mentioned,
the distribution areas of which are to a large extent also in
neighboring East Hesse and Lower Franconia.
Central Thuringian is
spoken in the center of the state around Erfurt, Arnstadt, Ilmenau,
Gotha, Bad Langensalza and Sömma. To the north follow North Thuringia
around Mühlhausen, Nordhausen, Bad Sachsa, Sondershausen, Stolberg
(Harz), Kelbra and southern Eichsfeld, and Northeast Thuringia around
Artern, Sangerhausen and Nebra. To the east of the distribution area of
Central Thuringia, the Ilm-Thuringia borders around Eckartsberga,
Weimar, Jena, Rudolstadt and the Schwarzatal, which in turn merges into
Southeast Thuringia to the east. This dialect is mainly spoken around
Saalfeld, Pößneck, Schleiz, Greiz and Gera. In the east of the country,
the East Thuringian dialect is spoken, this applies above all to
Holzland and Osterland around Altenburg. In the Eisenach-Bad Salzungen
area, West Thuringia predominates, a dialect in which East Hessian
influences can already be identified. The Main Franconian language areas
are in southern Thuringia, with Hennebergisch in the Werra catchment
area around Suhl and Meiningen, Itzgründisch in the Itz catchment area
around Sonneberg as far as Hildburghausen and in the Heldburger Land,
Rhöner Platt in the area southwest of Bad Salzungen, Grabfeldisch in the
southwestern district of Schmalkalden-Meiningen and in the western
district of Hildburghausen.
Upper Hessian is found in the former
Hessian enclave of Schmalkalden. In addition, Upper Franconian is spoken
in Heinersdorf in the district of Sonneberg, beyond the Bamberg barrier.
In northern Eichsfeld, a Low German dialect of Ostfalian is
traditionally spoken.
The Thuringian dialects combine similar
characteristics, which become more and more evident from west to east.
The four main Franconian dialects are seamless, clearly differentiated
from them and especially pronounced in the itzgründisch language area.
The Rennsteig as the old border path of the medieval Gaue is the hard
border here, only the salt arch, which is also located south of the
Rennsteig (roughly along the Werra between Breitungen, Bad Salzungen and
Vacha) forms an approx. 20 km wide transition zone with Franconian,
Hessian and Thuringian language elements.
In Thuringia, as in most regions of Germany, the two large churches
are losing members. In 1991, 32.2% of Thuringians were considered
Protestant and 9.5% Catholic. At the end of 2021, Thuringia had
2,108,863 inhabitants, of whom 19.5% were Protestant, 7.5% Catholic and
73.1% were non-denominational, belonged to another religious community
or made no statement.
Thuringia was Christianized as early as the
8th century by Bonifatius, which is why he is sometimes referred to as
the "Thuringian missionary". Until the introduction of the Reformation,
the population therefore belonged to the Catholic faith.
The
Thuringian states were one of the first Protestant areas in the world in
the 16th century, as the reformer Martin Luther had a patron in Elector
Frederick of Saxony. In addition, some of the background to the
Reformation took place in Thuringia: Luther completed his theology
studies at the University of Erfurt, his family himself came from Möhra,
the translation of the Bible was partly done in the Wartburg and the
Peasants' War and the Schmalkaldic War were the consequences of the
Reformation to a large extent in Thuringia. The Reformation Anabaptist
movement was also widespread in large parts of Thuringia. One of the
centers of the Central German Anabaptists was the town of Mühlhausen,
where Thomas Müntzer had already worked in 1525.
However, the
evangelical church never had the social influence that the catholic
church had in their areas. As early as the 18th century, most Thuringian
states were considered to be liberal and enlightened, which was promoted
above all by the Weimar ducal family.
The decomposition of the
former Lutheran state church caused by the German Christians, the
atheistic world view of the SED, the appropriate education in schools
and career disadvantages for Christians later contributed to the fact
that the majority of the population left the church.
In the
Evangelical Church, Thuringia is part of the Evangelical Church in
Central Germany (EKM), which was formed in 2009 and essentially
comprises the federal states of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt. The former
district of Schmalkalden is the only part of the state that does not
belong to the EKM, but to the Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck
(EKKW). There are large regional differences in the proportion of
residents remaining in the Protestant Church. As everywhere, rural
communities have a higher proportion than cities.
In Thuringia,
the proportion of Christians in the total population is currently lower
than in the western federal states, but somewhat higher than in Berlin,
Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. An
exception in Thuringia is Eichsfeld, where the majority of the
population is Catholic. Among the new federal states, Thuringia has the
highest proportion of Catholics in the population. First and foremost,
this includes Eichsfeld, which belonged to Kurmainz until 1802.
According to the 2011 census, the proportion of Catholics in the
district of Eichsfeld (which is not completely congruent with the
historical region) was 69.5%, making it the only district in the new
federal states that still had a church-bound majority of the population.
Historically, Eichsfeld also includes the communities in the north-west
of the Unstrut-Hainich district, from Südeichsfeld in the south-west to
Dünwald in the north-east, most of which are also Catholic. Another
former electoral Mainz region was the state capital Erfurt and its
surroundings, which is why there is traditionally a Catholic minority in
Erfurt (2011: 6.8%) and some of Erfurt's country villages remained
mostly Catholic. With the exception of Witterda, these villages are all
districts of Erfurt today. A third Catholic region is the area between
Geisa, Dermbach and Zella in the Rhön in the southern Wartburg district,
which belonged to the Fulda Bishopric until 1802. Furthermore, some
larger cities have significant Catholic minorities that (with the
exception of Erfurt) are the result of migration since 1871, for example
Mühlhausen (10.3%), Jena (6.6%) and Weimar (6.1%). In the other parts of
the country, the proportion of Catholics is well below 5%. Most of the
Catholics are organized in the Diocese of Erfurt. Smaller parts of the
country also belong to other dioceses (East Thuringia to the
Dresden-Meissen diocese, Geisa to the Fulda diocese).
A small
number of Jewish communities had existed in Thuringia since the 12th
century, so there were never more than 5,000 to 6,000 Jews living in the
state. Most of them lived in the relatively free cities of Erfurt,
Mühlhausen and Nordhausen. In the early modern period, some "protected
Jews" also settled in the Rhön and in the Werratal in the south-west.
From about 1870 they migrated to the cities, especially to Eisenach,
Gotha, Meiningen and Suhl. The time of National Socialism put an abrupt
end to Jewish life in Thuringia. Since the Second World War, only the
Jewish community in Erfurt has existed with around 750 members (2007)
throughout Thuringia.
Other religious communities play only a
minor role in Thuringia. Various Christian free churches maintain their
own small congregations in medium-sized towns. The Muslim communities
also only have a few thousand members, although no official statistics
are collected here because, unlike various Christian churches, Islam is
not organized as a public corporation. According to the central register
of foreigners, around 35,000 foreigners from predominantly Muslim
countries lived in Thuringia in 2016, which corresponds to one to two
percent of the total population.
The Thuringian tribe was formed during the Migration Period. Their
origins are disputed, so an often assumed connection to the older
Hermundurs is scientifically untenable, it is more likely that the tribe
formed from resident groups and groups that had migrated from the east.
The first mention of the Toringi comes from Flavius Vegetius Renatus in
the late 4th century, writing about their horses and relating them to
Huns and Burgundians. Later, the Thuringians founded a kingdom with a
settlement focus in the fertile Thuringian Basin along the Unstrut. It
existed until 531, when the Franks destroyed it with the help of the
Saxons and incorporated the area west of the Saale into the Frankish
Empire. Around 620 the Merovingians founded the Duchy of Thuringia,
which existed until the late 8th century. The first written traditions
in the country also date from this period, including from Arnstadt in
704 and from Erfurt in 742. At the same time, Bonifatius, who founded
the Erfurt diocese, was evangelizing in the country.
The Saxon
Ottonians made the area on the lower Unstrut between Naumburg and
Sangerhausen a center of the Holy Roman Empire in the 10th century. A
separate Thuringian tribal duchy could not develop in this way. At that
time, the county of Weimar was the greatest power in Thuringia. Only the
Ludowinger were able to bring considerable parts of Thuringia back under
their control. Ludwig the Springer had the Wartburg built in 1067. His
descendants were in 1131 by the later Emperor Lothar III. elevated to
Landgrave of Thuringia. Under them, the region blossomed into a center
of German culture in the High Middle Ages, especially the singers' war
at the Wartburg and the work of Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia are worth
mentioning in this context. The Landgrave family died out in 1247, after
which the Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession began. It ended in 1264
with the Wettins receiving large parts of the country and integrating
them into their state. The Wettin dynasty ruled over Thuringia for
almost 700 years and only ended with the abolition of the monarchies in
Germany in 1918. In the Thuringian War of Counts between 1342 and 1346,
the Counts of Schwarzburg, Weimar-Orlamünde and Hohnstein as well as the
bailiffs of Weida tried to push back the supremacy of the House of
Wettin, but they were unsuccessful.
In the 12th century, the
process of state expansion in Thuringia intensified. The first fortified
towns emerged, such as Mühlhausen (1135) or Saalfeld (1180). At the same
time, Erfurt's heyday began. The population reached around 20,000 in the
14th century, making the city one of the largest in the empire. Erfurt
was equipped with about 30 parish churches and monasteries of almost all
orders present in Central Europe, two mighty walls, a cathedral and St.
Peter's Monastery. In 1331 the city received the imperial trade fair
privilege more than 150 years before Leipzig (1497), followed in 1392 by
the founding of Germany's third university in the city. Erfurt's heyday
ended at the beginning of the 16th century when the political and
economic conditions deteriorated. The city's wealth was based in part on
the woad trade, which was replaced by the cheaper indigo after the start
of the colonial trade, thereby eroding a crucial source of income.
However, the political causes weighed more heavily. As a result of the
Reformation, the city's population and city council became Protestant,
while the sovereign, the archbishopric of Mainz, remained Catholic. The
archbishop of Mainz suppressed the city of Erfurt and the city council,
but on the other hand it was an exclave in the middle of the Saxon
dominion, which hampered Erfurt's economy, so that the city was
overtaken by the up-and-coming trading cities of Frankfurt am Main and
Leipzig.
The most important noble families of medieval Thuringia
were the dominant Wettins and the Ludowingers (Landgraves of Thuringia;
1040-1247), the Counts of Beichlingen (in northern Thuringia; 1080 to
approx. 1600), the Counts of Gleichen (in central Thuringia; 1099-1631)
, the Counts of Hohnstein (in the Harz foothills; 1184–1593), the Counts
of Kevernburg (in the foothills of the Thuringian Forest; 8th century to
1385), the Lobdeburgers (in East Thuringia; about 1100 to about 1300),
the Counts of Schwarzburg (in the Thuringian Slate Mountains and its
foothills; 1071–1918), the Counts of Stolberg (in the Harz Mountains;
1210–1806), the Counts of Vitzthum (in the Weimar-Jena area; from 1123),
the bailiffs of Weida (in the Elstertal, Ancestors of the Counts of
Reuss; 1209-1918) and the Counts of Weimar-Orlamünde (in central
Thuringia; 949-1486). After the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806,
only the Ernestines as descendants of the Wettins and the now princely
Reussen and Schwarzburgers were able to secure their power in Thuringia.
They ruled until the end of the monarchy in 1918.
In 1485, with the division of Leipzig, the Wettin lands were divided
between the younger Albertines in the east and the older Ernestines in
the west. At the same time, they took over the electoral dignity from
the Wettins. The Ernestines initially ruled over large parts of
Thuringia, only a strip in the central Thuringian basin along the
Unstrut belonged to the Albertines.
With the Reformation at the
beginning of the 16th century, Thuringia became the focus of German
politics. Martin Luther first studied at the University of Erfurt and
lived in the Augustinian monastery before he went to Wittenberg and the
Reformation began. Eventually he was hidden by the Saxon Elector
Frederick the Wise in the Wartburg, where he was working on translating
the Bible into German. In 1525, as a result of the Reformation, the
Peasants' War began, which found two of its centers in the Thuringian
towns of Mühlhausen and Frankenhausen and found a strong leader in
Thomas Müntzer. The Schmalkaldic War between the Catholic Empire and
Protestant princes later began in Thuringia, which ended in 1547 with
the Wittenberg capitulation and the defeat of the Protestants.
Therefore, the Saxon electoral dignity passed from the Ernestines, which
were increasingly losing importance, to the Albertines. When the
Franconian Princes Counts von Henneberg died out in 1583, a contract of
inheritance came into force that brought the Ernestines extensive
possessions in Franconia, the area of today's southern Thuringia. With
the division of Erfurt in 1572, the continuous fragmentation of the
Ernestine possessions into numerous duchies began, some of which lasted
until 1918. In 1640, two main Ernestine lines emerged: the House of
Saxe-Weimar and the House of Saxe-Gotha. While the former had only a few
branch lines and the highest representative was the first
German-Prussian Empress Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the House of
Saxe-Gotha had many branch lines, most of which ruled over their own
country. In addition, this house represents a number of European kings,
such as the British kings (since 1901), the Belgian kings (since 1831),
the Portuguese kings (1837-1910) and the Bulgarian kings (1887-1946).
In the period that followed, the phase of humanism in Thuringia
began, during which the University of Erfurt also experienced a heyday.
A center of German humanism formed around Ulrich von Hutten and the
reformers. At that time, under the rule of Ernst the Pious, Saxony-Gotha
was considered a humanistic “model state”. For example, in 1642 he was
the first head of state in the world to introduce compulsory schooling
for all boys and girls up to the age of twelve.
It was not until around 1780 that the reigning Duchess Anna Amalia
and her son Karl August drew attention to the region again. They called
poets like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe or Friedrich Schiller to their
court, so that Weimar Classicism established itself there as the German
version of the classical literary movement. During this time, a center
of German philosophy developed at the University of Jena, which was
established through the work of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich
Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The Jena
Romanticism around poets such as Novalis, Clemens Brentano or Friedrich
Schlegel was also style-defining throughout Germany at this time.
"It's a strange country, this little Thuringia, where three decisive
epochs in the intellectual life of the German nation have found their
atmospheric setting. The legend connects the noblest names of German
Minnesang to the Wartburg. Here Luther later began his Bible
translation, the basis of the modern German language. Finally Thuringia
was again - this time Weimar - the place where spirits even mightier
than the German minnesingers touched those deep-toned chords that still
vibrate today. Where else does one find it that three times the genius
of a great people chose the same small country for its high seat?
–
Joseph Viktor Widmann
The Reichsdeputationshauptschluss in 1803
ensured that the Archdiocese of Mainz lost its areas around Erfurt and
Eichsfeld and that the imperial cities of Mühlhausen and Nordhausen had
to give up their independence. They were finally assigned to Prussia at
the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The same affected Amt of Geisa, which
belonged to the Bishopric of Fulda until 1803, became after its
dissolution Orange-Nassau (1803-1806), then the Napoleonic Grand Duchy
of Frankfurt (1810-1813) and then, at the Congress of Vienna in 1815,
the Wettin Duchy, which had just been raised there to a Grand Duchy
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach struck.
In 1806, during the Napoleonic era,
the decisive battle between the French and Prussians in Thuringia was
looming. On October 9th came the Battle of Schleiz, followed by the
Battle of Saalfeld on October 10th and the decisive Battle of Jena and
Auerstedt on October 14th, which ended in a Prussian defeat. This was
followed in 1808 by the Erfurt Congress of Princes between France and
Russia, at which Goethe also met Napoleon and finally the formation of
the first resistance groups against French rule. The University of Jena
was also the driving force here. After the end of Napoleonic rule and
the results of the Vienna Congress, the Urburschenschaft was formed in
Jena in 1815, which organized the Wartburg Festival in 1817 and united
national and liberal movements. The first liberal constitutions were
also created at this time, for example in Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in 1816,
in Saxe-Hildburghausen in 1818 and in Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld in 1821. This
early phase of liberalism came to an end with the enforcement of the
Karlsbad Decrees of 1819 in Thuringia.
The country's cultural
heyday continued in the decades that followed, with the General German
Educational Institute being established as a modern school in Rudolstadt
in 1817 under the educator Friedrich Fröbel. In 1840 Froebel founded the
first German kindergarten in Bad Blankenburg. Furthermore, Ernst-Wilhelm
Arnoldi founded the German insurance industry in 1820 with Gothaer
Versicherung. Joseph Meyer founded the Bibliographic Institute in Gotha
in 1826, the publisher of Meyer's conversational lexicon. The
Bibliographic Institute & F. A. Brockhaus, editors of the Brockhaus
Encyclopedia, also had their headquarters between 1811 and 1818 in
Altenburg in eastern Thuringia. The first Duden was published in Schleiz
in 1872. On March 1, 1882, Oscar Tietz founded the department store
Tietz in Gera, which later became the Hertie department store group. In
1908 he opened the Römer Kaiser department store (today Anger 1) in
Erfurt, which is still the largest department store in the country. In
the second half of the 19th century, Weimar experienced a renaissance in
its "Silver Age". Musicians such as Franz Liszt came to court and the
Weimar School of Painting established itself in German painting from
1860.
The Customs and Trade Association of the Thuringian States
was founded in 1833, which inspired the industrial revolution in the
state. In 1842 the first railway line reached Thuringia and in 1846 the
main railway line of the state was opened with the Thuringian Railway.
First of all, the East Thuringian textile industry around Gera took off,
followed by the metal industry scattered all over the state and the
optical industry in Jena, which rose to the top of the world at the
beginning of the 20th century.
The revolution of 1848 was rather
unspectacular in Thuringia. Centers were found in impoverished Eichsfeld
and in backward Reuss. It ended with the abdication of the obstinate
Duke Joseph of Saxe-Altenburg and Prince Heinrich LXXII. von
Reuss-Ebersdorf, whose country was merged into the Principality of Reuss
of the younger line (ruled by the Schleizer line). However, the desire
for a unified German state remained present even after the failed
revolution, and so the Erfurt Union Parliament was convened in 1850,
which took up and discussed the idea of the nation state, but without
achieving a breakthrough. Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha also
advocated German unity, but he was also a critic of Prussian hegemonic
politics, which earned the duke, who loved public festivals, the
derisive name "Schützenkönig".
In the Austro-Prussian War of
1866, most of the Thuringian states were on the side of Prussia, only
Saxony-Meiningen and Reuss of the older line were allied with Austria.
This circumstance meant that Bismarck wanted to incorporate the two
states into the Kingdom of Prussia after the end of the war, but this
was not done due to the intervention of the Weimar Grand Duke Karl
August, the brother-in-law of the Prussian king. Instead, only the
rulers of the two states, Bernhard II von Sachsen-Meiningen and Caroline
von Reuss-Greiz, were deposed.
As a result of industrialization,
Thuringia became the cradle of social democracy. In 1869 August Bebel
and Wilhelm Liebknecht founded the Social Democratic Workers' Party in
Eisenach, which merged with the General German Workers' Association in
Gotha in 1875 to form the SPD. The Gotha program and the Erfurt program
subsequently defined the goals of social democratic politics in Germany.
The November Revolution of 1918 after the First World War had its
Thuringian center in the Free State of Saxe-Gotha under the leader of
the revolution, Wilhelm Bock. The USPD was founded in Gotha on April 8,
1917. First, the eight Thuringian monarchs abdicated between November
9th and 25th, 1918. A communist council was formed in the Free State of
Saxe-Gotha. Until 1920, Saxony-Gotha got caught up in political quarrels
and conditions resembling a civil war. A special incident was the
Mechterstädt murders in 1920. Because of the political unrest in Berlin,
the new Reich constitution was drawn up by the National Assembly as the
Weimar Constitution in 1919 in Weimar, signed in Schwarzburg by Reich
President Ebert and thus became the first democratic constitution for
all of Germany in power set.
After the monarchs abdicated, the
way was clear for the founding of a unified state in Thuringia. The
state of Thuringia was therefore founded on May 1, 1920. It included the
Thuringian states, namely Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Gotha,
Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt,
Schwarzburg-Sondershausen and the People's State of Reuss. The Free
State of Coburg joined the Free State of Bavaria. The development of the
young country was characterized by political and cultural turmoil in the
1920s. This resulted in a strengthening of the political extremists from
the right and left. Society was also divided: young modernizers, who
gathered at the Bauhaus in Weimar from 1919, opposed old traditionalists
who longed for the monarchy. At that time, Hitler was forbidden to speak
in many German states, but not in Thuringia, which is why he was able to
hold rallies in Weimar again and again in the 1920s.
In 1923, a
state government was formed from SPD and KPD, which led to Red October
in Saxony and Thuringia. The two countries were subjected to Reich
executions on October 29 (Saxony) and November 6 (Thuringia) and the
Reichswehr marched in to depose the government, which they succeeded in
doing. The SPD responded with a vote of no confidence in Chancellor
Gustav Stresemann in the Reichstag, which led to his dismissal. The
1920s were marked by political standstill and constantly changing state
governments. As early as 1930, the Baum-Frick government was established
as the first state government with the participation of the NSDAP in
Germany.
After the National Socialists seized power, the state of
Thuringia was brought into line and thus effectively abolished.
Gauleiter of Thuringia was Fritz Sauckel. During the National Socialist
period, there were three concentration camps in the country in addition
to the Nohra concentration camp, which was operated briefly in 1933: the
Bad Sulza concentration camp from 1933 to 1937, its successor, the
Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar from 1937 to 1945 and the
Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp near Nordhausen from 1943 to 1945 1945
The Second World War caused comparatively moderate damage in
Thuringia. The British air raids on Nordhausen on April 3 and 4, 1945
almost completely destroyed the town, killing around 8,800 people.
Damage from bombardment and artillery fire also occurred in Erfurt,
Gera, Jena, Weimar, Eisenach and some smaller towns and villages.
Thuringia was occupied by the Americans between April 1 and 16, 1945
and handed over to the Soviet military administration on July 1, 1945,
with areas around the towns of Bad Sachsa and Tettenborn being handed
over to the British military administration in exchange for parts of the
Blankenburg district . The enclave of Ostheim off the Rhön remained
under American military administration and later became part of Bavaria.
The state of Thuringia was restored and expanded to include the former
Prussian administrative district of Erfurt.
From August 1945 to
1950, the Soviet occupation maintained the special camp no. 2 Buchenwald
in the area of the former concentration camp near Weimar.
The
state of Thuringia was dissolved by the GDR government in 1952. The
largest parts went to the newly founded districts of Erfurt, Gera and
Suhl. The districts of Altenburg and Schmölln went to the district of
Leipzig, while Pausa-Mühltroff, which had once belonged to the Kingdom
of Saxony, went to the district of Gera.
The district of
Nordhausen was formed, consisting of the district of Grafschaft
Hohenstein, the former Hanoverian district of Ilfeld and the western
part of the former Prussian district of Sangerhausen. The same applies
to the newly formed district of Sömmerda, which was made up of the
Prussian district of Weißensee and the western part of the district of
Eckartsberga with the town of Kölleda. Both circles came into the
district of Erfurt. There was also the new district of Artern, which was
made up of southern parts of the Prussian district of Sangerhausen, the
extreme north-west of the district of Eckardsberga and the former
Frankenhausen sub-lordship of the principality of
Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. This district came together with the rest of the
district of Sangerhausen to the district of Halle. The remainder of the
district of Eckardsberga was divided between the newly formed districts
of Nebra and Naumburg, which were also allocated to the district of
Halle.
Around 24,000 workers took part in the popular uprising of
June 17, 1953 in Thuringia, mainly in the industrial centers of Erfurt,
Jena and Gera. He was thrown down using Soviet troops under a state of
emergency.
On August 13, 1961, according to a decision by the
Warsaw Pact in Moscow, the complete sealing off of the borders between
the GDR and the Federal Republic began, which hit Thuringia particularly
hard. Some villages in the border area were razed (e.g. Billmuthausen,
Erlebach, Leitenhausen and Liebau on the border with Bavaria), others
were divided by walls (Mödlareuth and Heinersdorf). As early as 1952, a
restricted area about five kilometers deep was set up along the border
and controlled by border guards. Hundreds of families in the border area
were forcibly relocated inland as part of the vermin operation without
prior notice and often leaving their belongings behind. In the village
of Böseckendorf in Eichsfeld, the residents escaped the resettlement
through a mass exodus.
In 1970, the top politicians of the two
German states met for the first time. Willy Brandt and Willi Stoph met
at the Erfurt Summit in the Erfurter Hof on March 19, accompanied by a
large crowd in front of the main station building, who cheered the West
German Chancellor.
In autumn 1989, mass demonstrations against
the SED regime also began in Thuringia, which gradually spread to all
cities in the state. Finally, on the night of November 9th, 1989, the
border crossings between Thuringia and Bavaria, Hesse and Lower Saxony
were opened.
With German reunification on October 3, 1990, the state of Thuringia
was re-established. It was formed from the districts of Erfurt, Gera and
Suhl as well as parts of the districts of Leipzig (districts of
Altenburg and Schmölln) and Halle (Artern). The district of Artern, like
the rest of the district of Halle, had been earmarked for the new state
of Saxony-Anhalt. In a referendum, however, 88% voted for the assignment
to Thuringia.
On January 10, 1991, the state parliament decided
which city should become the future state capital of Thuringia. In
addition to Erfurt, Gera, Jena, Weimar and Nordhausen also applied. Of
88 deputies, 49 voted for Erfurt, followed by Weimar with 25, Gera with
ten and Jena with four votes. The state constitution was passed on
October 25, 1993 at the Wartburg by the state parliament with more than
two thirds of its members. It came into force provisionally on October
30, 1993 and finally came into force after a referendum on October 16,
1994 with 70% approval. With this constitution, the designation Free
State was introduced.
From 1991 to 1992, after reunification, the
8th Guards Army of the western group of troops vacated the Thuringian
territory it had previously occupied. Their troops were stationed here
at 143 locations with 51,000 soldiers (plus 4,000 specialists from other
army units), 5,000 civilian employees and 20,000 family members.
The state structure of Thuringia is based on the constitution of the
Free State of Thuringia from 1993. According to the constitution,
Thuringia is a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is a
democratic, social constitutional state committed to protecting the
natural basis of human life (Article 44). Article 45 states that all
state power emanates from the people and that the people realize their
will through elections, referendums and referendums.
legislative
branch
The legislature is the Thuringian state parliament, which is
elected every five years according to the personalized proportional
representation system. During the seventh legislative period of the
Thuringian state parliament, it consists of 90 members and was formed on
the basis of the results of the state elections on October 27, 2019. The
strongest party at the beginning of the legislative period was Die Linke
with 29 seats, followed by the AfD with 22 and the CDU with 21 seats.
With 8 seats, the SPD is one of the smaller parties, as are the Greens
and the FDP, each with 5 seats. During the legislative period, three
members of the AfD parliamentary group and one member of the FDP
parliamentary group resigned. From June 22, 2022 to January 12, 2023
they formed the parliamentary group Citizens for Thuringia.[30] When Ute
Bergner left the FDP parliamentary group, it lost its parliamentary
group status and has also been a parliamentary group ever since.
There is the possibility of active participation in the legislature of
the people through a referendum.
Executive
The executive is led by the Thuringian state government, which consists
of the Thuringian prime minister and the ministers. The Prime Minister
is elected by the state parliament with a majority of its members
without debate in a secret ballot for the entire legislative period. The
Prime Minister appoints and dismisses ministers. He also designates a
minister as his deputy. The state parliament can only depose the prime
minister through a constructive vote of no confidence.
The judiciary is exercised by the Thuringian Constitutional Court and
the other courts in the state. The Constitutional Court consists of a
President and eight other members. Ordinary jurisdiction is divided into
the Thuringian Higher Regional Court in Jena, the regional courts in
Erfurt, Gera, Mühlhausen and Meiningen, to which the four public
prosecutor's offices are also assigned, and the subordinate district
courts. There are prisons for men in Goldlauter, Gräfentonna,
Hohenleuben, Untermassfeld and Arnstadt (juvenile detention), for women
the JVA Chemnitz is responsible.
The Thuringian Higher
Administrative Court is based in Weimar.
With the Federal Labor
Court in Erfurt, there is also a federal court in Thuringia.
Thuringia is considered to be a rather conservative state, especially
in rural areas, and was dominated by the CDU at state political level
until the change of government in 2014. After that, the first
red-red-green coalition was formed at state level and Bodo Ramelow was
the first left-wing politician to be elected prime minister. As in all
of East Germany, party affiliations are not as pronounced, so that the
CDU received the most votes in federal elections in 1990, 1994, 2009
(just ahead of the Left Party), 2013 and 2017 and the SPD in 1998, 2002
and 2005.
The GDR era and the upheavals after reunification are
still resonating politically in the country, for example in the
perception of part of the population that they are “left behind” or not
being given sufficient political attention. This impression is
reinforced by manifest problems in many rural areas, from the aging and
migration of the population to the thinning of infrastructure to
vacancies and the fall in real estate prices. The Thuringia Monitor of
the Friedrich Schiller University Jena has been conducting annual
surveys since 2000 to examine the socio-political climate in the state
and the population's attitudes towards value issues. Even before
reunification, there was a small, loud right-wing extremist scene in the
country, which also became violent, for example in the NSU terrorist
cell. Right-wing populism has been growing stronger in the country since
2013, which also manifested itself in the entry of the Alternative for
Germany into the state parliament in 2014 and in the federal election
result of 22.7% for the AfD in 2017. Their state chairman Björn Höcke is
considered the head of the so-called wing, the right-wing current of his
party.
The level of debt at the end of 2017 was around 15.8 billion euros or
7,372 euros per inhabitant, which puts Thuringia in the middle in a
national comparison. Future risks for the state budget result from the
expiry of the solidarity pact in 2019 and declining payments from the EU
structural funds due to the comparatively good economic development
after 2005. The resulting financing gap has not yet been closed;
furthermore, the country will not be able to fully cover its expenses
with its own regular income for the foreseeable future and will
therefore remain dependent on financial aid from outside. Like all other
new federal states, Thuringia has been a recipient country in the state
financial equalization system since 1990 and receives around 500 million
euros from this annually.
Many municipalities in Thuringia are
over-indebted. Although the nominal debt levels are not as high as in
many western German municipalities, tax revenue and thus debt
sustainability are also significantly lower. While the two major cities
in the state have their debts under control, Gera, Eisenach and the
Unstrut-Hainich district (where a state receiver was appointed) have
made headlines since 2010 due to their poor fiscal situation. Many
communities and community associations in rural areas in particular have
hardly any tax revenue, which is why even comparatively low levels of
debt represent a high burden here, especially in the districts of
Nordhausen, Kyffhäuserkreis, Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis and Sömmerda in
northern Thuringia. In the south-west, on the other hand, there are
debt-free districts, such as the Wartburg district and the district of
Schmalkalden-Meiningen, as well as some debt-free municipalities and
associations of municipalities, such as Schleusingen, Floh-Seligenthal
and Unterbreizbach.
Because of its central location far from the coast and the German
western and eastern borders, Thuringia had had a below-average number of
military bases since the 19th century, although at least the state
capitals had barracks. However, the only important garrison town was
Erfurt, which belonged to Prussia and was a fortress town until 1873 and
also had a large number of barracks and military personnel in the 20th
century.
With the rise of the National Socialists, Weimar
developed into an important military location. The 1st Armored Division
was set up in Weimar (headquarters at Jenaer Strasse 2, today the Weimar
Administrative Court). The military airfield in Nohra also gained in
importance. In the southeast of Nordhausen an airfield with attached
barracks was built in 1935/36; The air base was essentially used for
training purposes.
After the Second World War, Thuringia,
especially Weimar and Meiningen, was a main focus of the Red Army
stationing with tens of thousands of soldiers. Tank companies, airborne
troops and combat helicopter squadrons of the Red Army were stationed in
Weimar, and cruise missiles with nuclear warheads were stationed in
Rudisleben in the 1970s. The GDR border troops stationed Helicopter
Squadron 16 (until 1990) in Nordhausen and Meiningen. Thuringia was at
the interface of two alliances and was systematically developed into a
deployment area for the NVA and the Red Army.
After 1990, in the
course of the dissolution of the National People's Army and the
withdrawal of the Soviet armed forces in Germany, many barracks were
closed, so that today there are only eight barracks of the Bundeswehr,
which, with two exceptions, are concentrated in the northern center of
the country on the edge of the Thuringian Basin. Specifically, these are
the Henne barracks and the Löberfeld barracks in Erfurt, the Kyffhäuser
barracks in Bad Frankenhausen, the Karl Günther barracks in
Sondershausen, the Görmar barracks in Mühlhausen, the Friedenstein
barracks in Gotha, the pioneer barracks in Gera and the Werratal
barracks in Bad Salzungen. They provide work for 7,000 soldiers and 700
civilian employees. The only military training area in the Free State is
the Ohrdruf military training area. The Weberstedt military training
area was a second one in the state until 1990. After its dissolution, it
was integrated into the Hainich National Park.
Since January
2013, the Bundeswehr Logistics Command has been a command at divisional
level in Erfurt. The LogKdo is responsible for the management and
control of all logistic forces of the armed forces.
The current coat of arms of the Free State of Thuringia was initially
regulated in a simple parliamentary law that was passed by the state
parliament on January 30, 1991 and came into force retrospectively as of
October 3, 1990 according to paragraph 3. A sentence of this law was
later incorporated verbatim into the Thuringian constitution. With the
law of January 30, the state government was also authorized to regulate
further details in an ordinance, and this authorization to issue
ordinances was exercised on April 11, 1991. Here, among other things, it
is regulated who is entitled to bear the state coat of arms, the state
seal, the official seal and the official sign.
The coat of arms
of Thuringia shows the Ludowinger »colorful lion« in the translucent
blue shield, four times the same width, red and silver stripes, gold
armor and a crown, surrounded by eight silver stars.
The coat of
arms of Landgrave Konrad von Thuringia from the 13th century is the
oldest colored representation of the "Thuringian coat of arms". The War
of Succession in 1264/65 freed Hesse from being politically independent,
and since then it has had the »Colorful Lion« (striped in reverse:
silver-red) in its coat of arms. When the state of Thuringia from the
seven republican Thuringian small states merged on May 1, 1920, seven
silver stars on a revolutionary republican red background were chosen
for the national coat of arms, based on the federal stars and stripes of
the USA. The National Socialists gave Thuringia a more archaic coat of
arms with eagles. With the founding of the state of Thuringia in 1991,
the current Thuringian coat of arms was derived from the historical
basis. The eighth star stands for the areas of Erfurt, Mühlhausen,
Nordhausen, Schmalkalden and Suhl, which also belong to the Free State
of Thuringia and were formerly part of Prussia.
The state of Thuringia is divided into two levels. Since the
municipal reform of July 1, 1994, the first level has included the 17
rural districts and five urban districts, and the second level has the
631 municipalities of the state (since July 1, 2021). In between there
are partial administrative communities (merger of several small
communities to form an association that takes over the administration)
and fulfilling communities (a small community entrusts a larger
neighboring community with its administration). There are no
administrative districts in Thuringia.
Since the introduction of
this level of administration in Prussia in 1815, the number and
structure of the administrative districts and urban districts have been
subject to constant change. These are presented in the article history
of Thuringia's administrative structure.
The seat of the
Thuringian State Administration Office is in Weimar.
After reunification, all of Thuringia's towns began to lose
population quickly. Since the turn of the millennium, this development
began to differentiate, which intensified in the years that followed.
The three cities of Erfurt, Weimar and Jena have been able to grow
continuously since 2000 and thus reverse the trend of shrinkage. In a
group of other cities, the shrinkage has largely subsided and
stabilization with some slight growth can be seen there from 2011, for
example in Gotha, Eisenach, Arnstadt, Meiningen and Apolda. A few other
cities, on the other hand, continued to shrink slightly at the same
pace, such as Saalfeld or Sondershausen, while in a few cities such as
Greiz or Altenburg the pace of population decline accelerated. It is
evident that cities with large educational and research institutions in
particular benefit demographically; this also applies to a lesser extent
to cities with a pronounced, export-oriented manufacturing industry such
as Eisenach or Arnstadt. The other cities are still affected by a
certain degree of out-migration (spatial population movement), although
the lack of births and the accompanying aging will become a more serious
problem there in the long term (natural population movement). During the
refugee crisis, there were large fluctuations in the number of
inhabitants in some cities from 2015, which normalized again from 2018.
Based on the 2011 census, only eight cities were able to record
population growth by 2020.
In a population development forecast
from 2015 to 2035 published by the Thuringian State Office for
Statistics (TLS) in 2015, only five of the 33 cities with more than
10,000 inhabitants can expect growth. These cities are Erfurt (+9.5%),
Jena (+3.5%), Eisenach (+0.3%), Meiningen (+1.4%) and Eisenberg (+2.6%),
relatively stable the population figures for Gotha (−0.1%), Arnstadt
(−1.0%) and Weimar (−3.8%) also remain the same.
On July 1, 1994, the 35 districts in Thuringia that had existed since
1952 were reduced to 17 as part of the district reform. By the same day,
the urban districts had been enlarged by incorporating surrounding
communities. Eisenach was only spun off from the Wartburg district in
1998 and raised again to the status of an independent city.
Since
the implementation of the district reform in Mecklenburg-Western
Pomerania in 2011, Thuringia has been the eastern German state with the
smallest district structure. Even before the state elections in 2009,
the Left, SPD and Greens were in favor of renewed district reform, while
the CDU opposed the project. After the change of government in 2014, the
red-red-green state government put the issue back on the agenda,
although implementation failed due to fierce resistance from the
affected municipalities and the government abandoned the project in
December 2017.
The only area change that was implemented at
district level is the voluntary incorporation of the independent city of
Eisenach into the Wartburg district on July 1, 2021.
Historically, the distribution between wealthy and poorer areas in
Thuringia has changed fundamentally since 1945. Before the Second World
War, the poorest areas were in the Thuringian Forest, Thuringian Slate
Mountains and also in the rural areas of southern Thuringia. The most
developed areas included industrialized eastern Thuringia around Gera
and the areas bordering Saxony, which benefited from the cities of
Zwickau, Leipzig and Chemnitz. Cities in which the public service was
concentrated, such as Meiningen or Weimar, were also relatively
prosperous. Today, however, the most economically powerful regions can
be found along the Thuringian chain of towns from Eisenach to
Hermsdorfer Kreuz, with the Erfurt-Weimar-Jena area in particular
showing high economic growth. The positive economic development of this
region in particular began in the 19th century, at that time still
including the city of Gera. Eichsfeld, the towns of Nordhausen and
Eisenach as well as the south-west Thuringian districts also have a
comparatively favorable economic structure today, Nordhausen and
Eisenach are two other towns with industrial roots that reach far back.
Development problems are still evident in the northern Thuringian Basin
(Kyffhäuserkreis, Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis and parts of the districts of
Nordhausen and Sömmerda) and contrary to historical “normality” in East
Thuringia (city of Gera, Altenburger Land and parts of the district of
Greiz).
With the economic, currency and social union and the
accession to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990, the social market
economy replaced the socialist central administration economy in
Thuringia. This far-reaching restructuring process triggered crises in
various sectors and led to high unemployment rates. Between 1989 and
1995, two thirds of the old jobs in Thuringia fell victim to the
economic turnaround. In the meantime, some sectors such as scientific
device construction, microelectronics and medical technology have
achieved growth.
In 2016, the economic output in the federal
state of Thuringia measured in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) was
almost 61 billion euros, which corresponds to 1.9 percent of the total
German GDP or around 58,000 euros per employed person. In comparison
with the GDP of the EU, expressed in purchasing power standards,
Thuringia achieved a value of 88 percent in 2015 (EU-28: 100, Germany:
124).
In 2015, 126 income millionaires lived in Thuringia. Most
of the income millionaires lived in Erfurt, Jena and the district of
Saalfeld-Rudolstadt. In 2019, Thuringia had the third-lowest wealth rate
in a comparison of the federal states at 3.7% (national average 7.9%).
Since the low point of the transformation crisis after reunification
around 2005 (cf. unemployment in May 2004: 16.6 percent), Thuringia's
economy has been on the upswing and unemployment has been falling (June
2019: 5.1 percent). Regarding the unemployment rate, there are large
differences within the country. The district of Sonneberg in southern
Thuringia had the lowest rate for a long time, followed by the
neighboring district of Hildburghausen (3.2% in June 2019). The
Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis and Kyffhäuserkreis in the northern Thuringian
Basin as well as the city of Gera and Altenburger Land in eastern
Thuringia have had the highest rates of unemployment for many years (in
June 2019 the rates in these areas were between 6.6% and 8%). Economists
do not expect any significant increase in the quotas in the long term
and justify this with the demographic change.
On the other hand,
the average hourly wage of EUR 13.83 in 2014 was well below the national
average of EUR 16.97. The comparatively low wages prompt well-educated
young people to emigrate to the West. The workforce potential of
Thuringia is therefore declining sharply. According to the results of
the 2011 census, around 502,000 people in the country will retire from
the labor market due to age by 2026 (age group of those aged 50 to 64 at
the time), while only around 236,000 will move up (age group of those
aged 3 to 18 at the time), which means that migration effects are
ignored - a gap of around 266,000 employable people arises, which
exceeds the number of unemployed many times over. For example,
attracting immigrants in competition with other regions will pose a
major challenge for Thuringia's economy in the coming years, with
continued emigration exacerbating the problem.
As early as the Middle Ages, woad, a commodity that was important
throughout Europe, was cultivated and exported in Thuringia. This helped
cities like Erfurt to become very wealthy. At the beginning of the 20th
century, industrial companies emerged in Thuringia that mainly produced
for export. These included, for example, the optical industry in Jena,
technical glass production, glass and porcelain for households (e.g.
Christmas tree decorations from Lauscha), but also the toy industry in
the Thuringian Forest, whose products were exported by Woolworth from
Sonneberg to the United States in the 1920s became. After the Second
World War, trade mainly took place with the countries of the Council for
Mutual Economic Assistance.
The collapse of this market in 1990
contributed significantly to the collapse of the entire industry after
reunification. Exports reached a low in 1992 at the equivalent of 1.2
billion euros. This was followed by an increase to 4.5 billion in 2000,
10.8 billion in 2010 and 13.5 billion in 2015. The most important export
partners in 2015 were Hungary, the USA and France. About two thirds of
the exports go to the European Union. Imports increased from 0.6 billion
euros in 1991 to 3.8 billion in 2000 and 6.8 billion in 2010 to 9.3
billion in 2015. In terms of imports, China has ranked first since 2004,
followed by the United Kingdom and Italy .
Agriculture in Thuringia is characterized by large farms that have their roots in the LPGs founded in GDR times. As a result, the field pieces are quite large and can be managed efficiently. Meat production is also dominated by large companies. Many areas are very fertile, such as the Thuringian Basin in the north of the state, Grabfeld in the south, and Orlasenke and Altenburger Land in the east. Associated problems in these areas are the ecological lack of species in the extensive "tidy" corridors and the high nitrate pollution of the water bodies. Pastoralism dominates in the higher elevations and areas of poor soil quality, such as the hilly landscapes between the basins and the mountains.
A total of 22,700 people worked in agriculture in 2016, a trend that has been declining for decades. The agricultural area was 7790 square kilometers in 2016, which corresponds to 48.2% of the country's area, with organic farming accounting for 4.7%. The proportion of the agricultural area in the Federal Republic of Germany was thus around five percent. Mainly silo maize, winter wheat, winter barley, sugar beet and winter rape are grown. The main area under cultivation is divided between the four districts of Kyffhäuserkreis, Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis, Sömmerda and Wartburgkreis. The main fruit-growing areas with permanent crops are the Gotha district (Fahnersche Höhen), the Kyffhäuser district and the Sömmerda district. When it comes to vegetables, the cultivation of white cabbage, cauliflower, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and asparagus dominates. The center of viticulture is the town of Bad Sulza, which belongs to the Saale-Unstrut wine-growing region. The vineyards are located on the sunny dry limestone slopes of the Ilm and Saale valleys on the border with Saxony-Anhalt between Weimar, Jena and Naumburg.
In 2016, 1,574,000 laying hens, 740,000 pigs, 330,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep were counted. While the numbers of hens, pigs and cattle have declined only minimally, the number of sheep has fallen from 220,000 in 2005 to just over half a decade later. East Thuringia is the center of meat production.
The 515,262 hectares of forest area in Thuringia (2009) are mainly divided into private forest, state forest and municipal forest ownership. Church forest is also available. Private forest owners have often joined forces to form forest management communities. Deciduous cooperatives appear as a special form of ownership in the selection forests in the Hainich-Dün-Hainleite natural area. Forest management is currently carried out by the 24 forest offices of the state forest administration, which are organized in the state forest institute "ThüringenForst", an institution under public law (AöR).
Mining has been practiced in Thuringia since the Middle Ages,
especially in the mountains such as the Thuringian Forest, the Harz
Mountains and the Thuringian Slate Mountains. With Schmalkalden, Suhl or
Ilmenau there were important mining towns in the Thuringian Forest.
Various ores such as iron, manganese, copper and silver were mined. Gold
deposits were also mined in the Thuringian Slate Mountains, as indicated
by place names such as Goldisthal or Reichmannsdorf. The most important
of these mining sites was the Schmalkalden region with its iron
industry, which only went under with industrialization in the 19th
century. At the same time, the Maxhütte Unterwellenborn near Saalfeld
was built, which was also supplied with regional iron deposits. It still
exists today as Stahlwerk Thüringen.
Potash mining developed into
the most important branch of mining in the 20th century. Thuringia has
two mining areas: the Werra mining area between Bad Salzungen and Bad
Hersfeld, which is still in use today, and the northern Thuringian
mining area, which was closed after 1990, with the Roßleben,
Sondershausen, Bleicherode and Bischofferode mining sites. During the
Cold War, a large part of the uranium required by the Soviet Union was
also mined near Ronneburg. This was accompanied by massive environmental
destruction and numerous illnesses in the miners who came into contact
with the carcinogenic material.
In the 19th century, opencast
lignite mining began in the Meuselwitz district in eastern Thuringia,
which, in addition to generating energy, also served the Leuna works as
a raw material for the chemical industry. The lignite deposits were
depleted towards the end of the 20th century. There were also isolated
hard coal deposits in the Thuringian Forest, but mining them was no
longer worthwhile with industrialization. Hard coal was mined for a long
time in the Stockheim district near Sonneberg on the border with
Bavaria. The slate mining in the Thuringian Slate Mountains, which is
still in operation today, is also significant. Its center is the town of
Lehesten with the largest slate quarries in the country. In Gehren in
the Thuringian Forest there is a barite mine.
Thuringia's industry is characterized by small company sizes and a
wide spread across the country, especially in the west and south of the
state. The main products come from metal, plastic and wood processing,
while many traditional branches of industry such as glass, porcelain,
toys and textiles largely fell victim to the structural changes of the
20th century. Industrial centers are located in the regions of Eisenach
(vehicle construction) and Jena (optics), and Daimler also operates a
large engine plant in Kölleda. Other large industrial companies have
settled in the area around the Erfurter Kreuz, sometimes in the city
itself. The food industry also plays an important role in some regions
and ranks second behind the automotive industry nationally.
Among
the companies from Thuringia listed on the Prime Standard are Carl Zeiss
Meditec and Jenoptik from Jena as well as ADVA from Meiningen, in
m:access Funkwerk from Kölleda and also X-FAB from Erfurt. Intershop
from Jena and SDAX Geratherm from Geschwenda were once listed in the
NASDAQ.
A total of around 171,000 people (2016) work in
Thuringia's industry in companies with more than 20 employees and
generate an annual turnover of 34 billion euros (2016). In 2010 there
were 157,000 people and 29 billion in sales. Cities with the most
industrial jobs in 2016 were Jena (7985), Eisenach (6606), Erfurt
(6208), Nordhausen (4653), Arnstadt (3767), Gotha (3705) and Gera
(3568).
In GDR times, the Erfurt microelectronics combine with
56,000 employees (1990) and the Carl Zeiss Jena combine with 54,000
employees (1990) were the largest employers in Thuringia. In 1990 there
were another 22 combines, each with 2,000 to 30,000 employees, which
were based in today's state of Thuringia.
The service sector is the largest economic sector in Thuringia. It is
characterized by low wages, with many workers benefiting from the
introduction of the minimum wage in 2015. High-quality industrial and
business services are below average, as the country has neither
corporate headquarters nor large cities. The logistics sector, on the
other hand, is more strongly represented, benefiting from low wages and
the central location in Germany and Europe. Since 2000, numerous
logistics centers have emerged, also as a result of the booming online
trade, especially on the Erfurter Ring and along the federal highway 4.
The trade and construction industry also benefit from the central
location and the brisk building activity in the neighboring states of
Hesse and Bavaria, where many orders in in these areas are carried out
by Thuringian companies.
Retail has its most important center in
Erfurt, which is one of the top places in Germany in terms of retail
space per inhabitant. The concentration on a few large centers has
increased significantly since 2000, so that small and medium-sized towns
are struggling with sometimes significant vacancies in this area.
Tourism is another important branch of the economy, which includes
the three areas of city tourism, rural tourism and health tourism
(sometimes overlapping). City tourism with the centers of Erfurt, Weimar
and Eisenach is experiencing dynamic growth, while rural tourism along
the Rennsteig in the Thuringian Forest and Schiefergebirge is in an
ongoing modernization process to make itself more attractive and further
develop the offers in competition with neighboring holiday regions in
the low mountain ranges. A total of around 9.2 million overnight stays
were booked in 2016, compared to 8.3 million ten years earlier. Around
6% of the bookings were made by foreign guests.
The school system in Thuringia was restructured from 1990 on the
models of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg; There have not been any
comprehensive system reforms since then. After the four-year elementary
school, secondary schools follow, which lead to both the Hauptschule and
the Realschule, or the Gymnasium, where the Abitur can be taken after
eight years. After the Erfurt killing spree, the special performance
assessment was introduced at the Thuringian grammar schools at the end
of grade 10, an examination in German, mathematics, English and a
natural science that gives all existing pupils a Realschule certificate
(intermediate school leaving certificate). On the one hand, Thuringian
schoolchildren often achieve top positions in nationwide comparative
studies, on the other hand, the proportion of school dropouts is also
well above the national average.
The number of pupils in
Thuringia fell sharply between 1998 and 2006 (at general schools from
around 330,000 to around 190,000) and has been stable since then. In
addition to 800 state schools, there were also around 100 private
schools in 2016. In the area of vocational schools, the upheaval took
place between 2006 and 2013, where the number of students fell from
90,000 to 50,000. This was associated with numerous school closures,
especially in rural areas, and under protest from the affected families
and communities.
During the GDR era, several special schools were
set up in Thuringia to support highly gifted students in certain subject
areas, which have continued to exist to this day. These include the
music high schools Schloss Belvedere in Weimar and Rutheneum in Gera,
the sports high schools Pierre de Coubertin in Erfurt, Johann Christoph
Friedrich GutsMuths in Jena and the sports high school for winter sports
in Oberhof, the scientific special schools in Erfurt
(Albert-Schweitzer-Gymnasium), Ilmenau (Goetheschule) and Jena
(Carl-Zeiss-Gymnasium) and the Salzmannschule Schnepfenthal near
Waltershausen. The boarding schools Hermann-Lietz-School Haubinda
(founded in 1901) and Klosterschule Roßleben (founded in 1544) are among
the special schools in the state. The Thuringia College in Weimar leads
to the second educational path to the Abitur. Important educators with a
focus of activity in the state included Friedrich Fröbel, the "inventor"
of the kindergarten, Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths, who founded
physical education in schools, Christian Gotthilf Salzmann, founder of
the Salzmann School in Schnepfenthal, Hermann Lietz, founder of the
Hermann-Lietz- schools, and Peter Petersen, who came up with the concept
of the Jena-Plan schools.
The only full university is the Friedrich Schiller University Jena,
founded in 1558, with ten faculties, which is also the oldest
continuously existing university in Thuringia. There are three other
universities: the Bauhaus University in Weimar, which specializes in
architecture, civil engineering, design and media, the Technical
University of Ilmenau and the University of Erfurt, which was
re-established after reunification and has a humanities profile. The
state's four technical colleges are located in Nordhausen, Erfurt, Jena
and Schmalkalden. In Weimar there is also the Franz Liszt Academy of
Music. Other educational institutions are the Gera-Eisenach Cooperative
State University, the Thuringian University of Applied Sciences for
Public Administration in Gotha and Meiningen, the private SRH University
of Applied Sciences in Gera, the private HMU Health and Medical
University and the private IU International University both in Erfurt
and the Erfurt Seminary. Tuition fees are not charged at state
universities in Thuringia.
The number of students in Thuringia
rose sharply in the 1990s and reached a peak in 2011 with 54,000. Since
then they have fallen slightly again and are around 50,000, which can be
found in Jena (approx. 22,000), Erfurt (approx. 10,000), Ilmenau
(approx. 6000) and Weimar (approx. 5000) as well as the smaller
universities in Schmalkalden, Distribute Nordhausen, Gera, Eisenach,
Gotha and Meiningen. In 2016, only 35% of students had also obtained
their Abitur in Thuringia, compared to 58% ten years earlier. 12% of the
students came from abroad in 2016, 8.5% from Bavaria, 7.4% from Saxony
and 6.0% from North Rhine-Westphalia. The largest university in
Thuringia is now the private IU International University with around
75,000 students.
Important research institutes in Thuringia are the Fraunhofer
Institute for Digital Media Technology in Ilmenau, the Fraunhofer
Application Center for System Technology in Ilmenau, the Fraunhofer
Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering in Jena, the
Helmholtz Institute Jena in Jena, and the Leibniz Institute for Research
on Aging in Jena, the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and
Infection Biology in Jena, the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
in Jena, the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, the Max
Planck Institute for Economics in Jena, the Institute for Vegetable and
Ornamental Crops in Erfurt, the Leibniz Institute for Photonic
Technologies in Jena, the Institute for Bacterial Infections and
Zoonoses in Jena and the Institute for Molecular Pathogenesis in Jena.
The oldest still existing planetarium in the world, the Planetarium
Jena, is also one of the most important scientific institutions in the
state.
Important libraries in the state are the Thuringian
University and State Library, based in Jena since 1549 (previously in
Wittenberg and Weimar) and the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar,
founded in 1691. The Erfurt/Gotha University and Research Library was
founded in Gotha in 1647 by Ernst the Pious and is also one of the most
important libraries in the country. The Academy of Non-Profit Sciences
was founded in Erfurt in 1754 and is the third-oldest scholarly
association of its kind in Germany. The most important archives in
Thuringia are the Goethe and Schiller archives in Weimar, the main state
archive in Weimar and the subordinate state archives in Altenburg,
Gotha, Greiz, Meiningen and Rudolstadt.
Due to its central location in reunified Germany and the need to catch up as a result of the GDR era, considerable efforts have been made in Thuringia to expand the infrastructure since 1990.
In 2017 Thuringia had 521 kilometers of motorways, 1512 kilometers of
federal roads, 4220 kilometers of state roads and 3309 kilometers of
district roads. The autobahn network had thus doubled since 1997, while
a good 400 kilometers of federal roads and, on balance, almost 1,500
kilometers of state roads were downgraded.[52] The most important road
axes in Thuringia are the federal autobahn 4 in east-west direction and
the federal autobahn 9 in north-south direction. Both have been widened
to six lanes along their entire length; the A 4, which dates back to the
1930s, was also rerouted in the Eisenach and Jena areas. The autobahn
network is supplemented by the federal autobahn 38 in the north, which
connects Leipzig with Göttingen and Kassel; the Bundesautobahn 71 runs
across the country in a north-east-south-west direction and was also
completed in 2015. It connects Erfurt with the Würzburg area in the
south and the Halle area in the north. The federal autobahn 73 begins in
Suhl, south of where the A 71 crosses the Thuringian Forest, and runs
south to Nuremberg. From 2022, the federal autobahn 44 will run from
Eisenach to Kassel on the Hessian border. The federal autobahn 72 runs
along the Saxon border, partially connecting the districts of Greiz and
Altenburger Land. The distance to the next motorway connection in the
state is a maximum of around 40 kilometers, this applies to the areas in
the slate mountains around Probstzella, in the Rhön around Dermbach and
in the northern Thuringian basin around Schlotheim, while among the
larger cities only Mühlhausen, Saalfeld/Rudolstadt and Altenburg have no
motorway connection are.
The federal road network has also been
and is being partially expanded. The most important projects here are
the expansion of the B 247/B 176 in the northwest of Leinefelde via
Mühlhausen and Bad Langensalza to Erfurt to connect the Unstrut-Hainich
district to the trunk road network, as well as the new construction of
the B 90 to the A 71 to connect Saalfeld and Rudolstadt , the expansion
of the B 88 to the A 4 and the B 281 to the A 9. Other important federal
roads are the B 19 from Eisenach to Meiningen and the B 62 in the west
of the state, the B 243 as a connection from Nordhausen in the direction
of Hanover and the federal roads 7 and 93 to connect Altenburg in the
east of the country. Nevertheless, most federal roads are still
characterized by numerous through-roads and crossroads and follow the
course of the 19th-century highways.
The busiest section of the
autobahn in 2015 was the A 9 north of the Hermsdorfer Kreuz with around
65,000 vehicles a day, while the least traffic was on the A 71 between
Artern and Helddling with fewer than 9,000 vehicles. In the federal road
network, the eastern Erfurter Ring (B 7) was the busiest with more than
25,000 vehicles in some sections, while the B 90 between Leutenberg and
Wurzbach sometimes had a traffic volume of less than 1000 vehicles a
day. Despite the falling population, the number of motor vehicles has
continued to increase in recent years, while traffic density has
remained constant and the number of accidents has decreased. The number
of road deaths even halved in 2016 compared to 2006.
The railway reached Thuringia in 1842 with the Leipzig–Hof railway
via Altenburg as the first connection from Berlin to Munich. In 1846,
the state capital of Erfurt received a railway connection on the route
from Berlin to Frankfurt am Main. Today, two ICE lines intersect in
Erfurt's main train station: Berlin-Munich and Frankfurt-Dresden. The
new Erfurt–Leipzig/Halle line opened in 2015 serves as a connection to
Berlin and Dresden, the Nuremberg–Erfurt high-speed line to Munich,
which went into operation in 2017, and the existing Erfurt–Bebra line to
Frankfurt, sections of which were upgraded to 200 km/h. Other
long-distance stops with regular services are Eisenach and Gotha on the
route to Frankfurt. Freight traffic only plays a relatively minor role,
as there are neither port-hinterland traffic nor large companies with a
significant volume of their own and is essentially limited to the
east-west connections Halle-Kassel with around 40 and Naumburg-Bebra
with around 50 trains daily as well as the north-south connections
Naumburg-Bamberg with 60 and Leipzig-Werdau with 35 freight trains per
day (both directions together). The most important goods handling center
is the goods traffic center in Vieselbach east of Erfurt.
In
contrast, the condition of the regional routes is very different; since
1945 around 1000 kilometers of railway lines have been closed, leaving
around 1500 kilometers in operation. Of these, only a small proportion
is electrified (the lowest proportion of all federal states) and/or has
two tracks. Local transport is therefore mainly operated with diesel
railcars. In addition to DB Regio Southeast, Abellio Rail
Mitteldeutschland, the Vogtlandbahn, the Erfurter Bahn, the
Süd-Thüringen-Bahn and Cantus also provide transport services. The local
transport service company Thuringia is responsible for the transport.
Transport associations include the Verkehrsverbund Mittelthüringen,
which is to be extended to the entire federal state, and the
Mitteldeutscher Verkehrsverbund in the district of Altenburger Land,
which is served by the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland. The most important
construction project in the railway network is the expansion of the
Weimar-Gera railway line, which connects the four largest cities in the
state, but is still not electrified and is partly single-track. The same
applies to the Gotha–Leinefelde railway, which is also to be expanded.
Overall, the number of passengers in public transport is slightly
declining, especially in bus transport and in rural areas. Here services
are often patchy or limited to school bus services, while major city
tram networks have been expanded and are showing increasing passenger
numbers, as have regional trains between major cities. The
Oberweißbacher Bergbahn and the Harzquerbahn of the Harzer
Schmalspurbahnen mainly serve tourist traffic.
The only airport with scheduled flight operations is Erfurt-Weimar
Airport, which, like most regional airports, is in deficit and depends
on subsidies from the state government. The development of traffic at
the airport, which was expanded in the 1990s, fell far short of
forecasts, also because Frankfurt, Leipzig, Nuremberg and Hanover are
four airports with a wide range of services in the vicinity and can be
easily reached by car or train. Between 2003 and 2010 there were also
scheduled flight operations at Altenburg Airport. Other airfields in the
country are used for private aviation.
water supply, energy and
telecommunications
Some larger dams were created in the Thuringian
Forest and Slate Mountains to supply drinking water, including the
Leibis-Lichte dam, the Schönbrunn dam, the Schmalwasser dam and the Ohra
dam. They supply essential parts of the country. Numerous small dams and
reservoirs in the lowlands are used to obtain service water for
agriculture, where periods of drought can sometimes occur due to low
rainfall. Nevertheless, the demand for water is declining, so the
dismantling of some smaller dams has started.
Hydropower has also
long been used to generate electricity, for example with the dam system
of the Saale cascade, which also includes Germany's largest reservoir,
the Bleilochtalsperre. In 2003, the Goldisthal pumped-storage plant, the
largest of its kind in Germany, went into operation. Nevertheless,
Thuringia has always been a net importer of electricity, so in the 20th
century it was mainly the lignite-fired power plants in the central
German district that supplied the electricity required in the state. In
2011, around 60% of the electricity requirement of 12.2 TWh was covered
by imports from other regions. Nevertheless, the import rate used to be
significantly higher and is falling from year to year. In 2016, 9.3 TWh
of electricity was produced in the country itself, minus the pumped
storage power plants, it was 7.4 TWh, of which 28% came from wind power,
28% from natural gas, 14.5% from photovoltaics, 12.7% from biomass and
12, 1% came from biogas, the rest from other energy sources. Wind power
has increased eightfold between 2000 and 2016, and photovoltaics
sevenfold. 840 wind turbines with a nominal output of 1.6705 gigawatts
are currently installed on 0.33% of Thuringia's land area. The
Thuringian climate law aims for 1% of the state area.
The Free
State belongs to the transmission grid area of 50Hertz Transmission. A
larger part of the energy supply was remunicipalised in 2013 by buying
back TEAG Thüringer Energie, which had previously belonged to E.ON.
Thüringer Energie operates its largest power plant with the thermal
power station Jena (197 MW), with the power station Erfurt-Ost there is
another larger power station in the middle of the state (80 MW). The
country's largest wind farm is located near Wangenheim between Gotha and
Bad Langensalza with an output of 130 MW and 66 turbines.
Broadband expansion is a priority in the telecommunications sector, for
which the state has set up the broadband competence center. In 2017, 51%
of households had a connection of at least 100 Mbit/s, mainly in cities,
78.5% at least 50 Mbit/s and 84% at least 30 Mbit/s. As a result, 16% of
households still have no way of using fast internet, which particularly
affected smaller districts in rural areas.
In Thuringia in 2016 there were a total of 44 hospitals with almost
16,000 hospital beds and an occupancy rate of 77.5%. This corresponds to
733 beds per 100,000 inhabitants. 38% of the beds are public, 18%
non-profit and 34% private. Approximately 580,000 cases are treated each
year. Around 5,000 full-time doctors and 25,000 non-medical staff are
employed in the hospitals. In total, around 9,300 doctors and a good
2,000 dentists were working in the country in 2016. In the same year
there were 553 pharmacies. Some rural regions have an undersupply of
both general practitioners and specialists in certain disciplines, the
medical profession is also aging and finding successors is difficult,
although the state government is trying to counteract this with funding.
A not inconsiderable proportion of the newly hired clinic doctors come
from Eastern Europe, in particular from Poland, Hungary, Romania and
Bulgaria, where these doctors are again lacking to care for the local
population.
The only university with a medical degree in the
state is the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, whose university
hospital is the largest hospital in the state. In addition to the
Klinikum Erfurt as the second largest hospital, according to the
Thuringian hospital plan 2017, the central clinic Bad Berka, the
Wald-Klinikum Gera, the Klinikum Meiningen, the Südharz Klinikum
Nordhausen, the Thuringia clinics “Georgius Agricola” in Saalfeld and
the central clinic Suhl also have a supra-regional supply mandate as the
country's medical centers.
The average life expectancy in the
period 2015/17 was 77.2 years for men and 83.0 years for women. Men thus
rank 13th among the German federal states, while women rank 9th.
Regionally, in 2013/15 Jena (expectation of the total population: 81.95
years), Saale-Holzland-Kreis (81.44) and Eichsfeld (81.27) had the
highest, as well as Sömmerda (78.80), Sonneberg (78.76 ) and the
Kyffhäuser district (78.16) had the lowest life expectancy.
The regional daily newspaper market is dominated by two media
companies. The Thuringia media group, which belongs to Funke
Mediengruppe, publishes the newspapers Thüringer Allgemeine from Erfurt
(with 14 local editorial offices in central and northern Thuringia),
Ostthüringer Zeitung from Gera (with 13 local editorial offices in
eastern Thuringia) and Thüringische Landeszeitung from Weimar (with 9
local editorial offices in central and northern Thuringia ) out of here.
Its circulation was 239,000 copies in 2017, which has halved in the past
20 years. The regional newspaper group Hof/Coburg/Suhl, which publishes
the Freie Wort from Suhl (with seven local editorial offices in
southwest Thuringia) and the Südthüringer Zeitung from Bad Salzungen
(with the Bad Salzungen and Schmalkalden editions), belongs to the
Süddeutscher Verlag. The group receives its cover section from the
Stuttgarter Nachrichten. At the end of 2019, its circulation was around
57,700 copies, which also halved over the past 20 years. The Meininger
Mediengesellschaft (MMG), in which the Suhler Verlagsgesellschaft (SVG)
and the Mediengruppe Oberfranken each have a 50% stake, publishes the
Meininger Tageblatt (MT), which cooperates editorially with the Freie
Wort. A local edition of the Leipziger Volkszeitung is published by the
publishing company Madsack in Altenburg. This means that there is only
journalistic competition in Altenburg (where the Ostthüringer Zeitung is
also published) and Ilmenau (Thüringer Allgemeine and Freies Wort),
while the rest of the country belongs to the Einzeitungkreise. Only
Funke Mediengruppe has its newspapers printed in Thuringia itself, all
others are printed in neighboring regions and delivered in Thuringia. At
the end of 2021, Funke will also close the print shop in Erfurt and
print its newspapers in Braunschweig.
Public broadcasting in
Thuringia is produced by Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR). The MDR
operates the state radio station in Thuringia on Gothaer Strasse in
Erfurt. KiKA, the children's channel of ARD and ZDF, MDR advertising and
the MDR production subsidiary MCS Thüringen are also housed there. The
MDR Thüringen Journal, the daily television news program for Thuringia,
is produced in the Erfurt broadcasting center. In addition, MDR
broadcasts MDR Thüringen, a radio program specially produced for the
state. In the immediate vicinity is the Children's Media Center, in
which, among other things, the KiKA series Schloss Einstein is produced.
ZDF runs its state studio for Thuringia in Erfurt, which supplies its
programs and magazines with reports from the region.
Private
broadcasting in Thuringia is provided by the nationwide radio stations
Landeswelle Thüringen, Antenne Thüringen and their subsidiary Radio Top
40. In some places there are local television stations. The Thuringian
State Media Authority has also set up eleven community radio projects.
With the largest distribution areas, these are the two open channels
supported directly by TLM, the Open TV Channel in Gera and Radio
Funkwerk in Erfurt and Weimar. There are also open channels sponsored by
clubs in Jena (OK-J), Saalfeld (SRB), Eisenach, Wartburg Radio 96.5,
Nordhausen and Leinefelde. In some cities, non-commercial local and
university radio stations have also been licensed by the TLM. These
include Radio F.R.E.I. in Erfurt, Radio Lotte Weimar, radio hsf in
Ilmenau, the student radio of the Bauhaus University Weimar. The media
education projects, including PiXEL television and RABATZ, are also
located in most open channels. Here, children and young people can do
radio and television themselves.
The national commission for
youth media protection has been based in Erfurt since it was founded in
2003.
The cultural landscape of Thuringia is quite diverse due to the long
political fragmentation (until 1920). This diversity has been preserved
to this day and finds expression in the various former residences in the
state with their historically grown museums and theaters. Parallel to
the diversity of the parts of the country, the similar cuisine and
similar festivals and customs connect people. The culture is still
shaped by the numerous sites of classical high culture from the
Reformation to the Bauhaus, behind which the sites of contemporary
culture fall a bit behind.
Since 1996, the UNESCO World Heritage
in Thuringia has included the Bauhaus sites in Weimar with the main
building of the Bauhaus University built between 1904 and 1911 according
to plans by Henry van de Velde, the Weimar School of Applied Arts and
the model house Am Horn, since 1998 the eleven sites of the Classic
Weimars (Goethe's house, Schiller's house, Herder Church and Herder
sites, Weimar City Palace, Wittumspalais, Duchess Anna Amalia Library,
Park on the Ilm with Goethe's Garden House and Roman House, Belvedere
Palace, Ettersburg Palace, Tiefurt Palace, Weimar Historical Cemetery),
since 1999 the Wartburg near Eisenach and since 2011 the Hainich
National Park as part of the European beech forests.
The museum landscape in Thuringia has its focus in Weimar with its
classical poets, musicians and artists. But there are also important
museums in a few other cities in the country. In addition, the
respective state museums, which focus on regional history, are located
in the old residential palaces.
The Weimar World Heritage Site
includes the Goethe National Museum, which unites the poet's places of
activity in the city, as well as Schiller's house and a large number of
other culturally used facilities. The Bauhaus Museum in downtown Weimar
is also significant. The second former Ernestine main residence in Gotha
also has a house of national importance with the Ducal Museum, which
reopened in 2013. The Lindenau Museum in Altenburg houses the largest
collection of early Italian panel paintings north of the Alps. Along
with the Wartburg and the Weimar Classic Foundation, it is one of the 20
“cultural beacons” in the Federal Government’s Blue Book in the new
federal states.
The Panorama Museum near Bad Frankenhausen, which
opened in 1989, houses the Peasants' War panorama to commemorate the
German Peasants' War and the peasant leader Thomas Müntzer. With an area
of 1722 m², it is one of the largest panel paintings in the world. The
German Toy Museum in Sonneberg was opened in 1901 and is the oldest and
one of the largest toy museums in Germany. The German Horticultural
Museum in Erfurt is similarly important in the field of landscape
architecture. On 1500 square meters it shows historical and biological
aspects of horticulture in Central Europe. The Optical Museum in Jena
describes the history and progress of technology in the field of optics
and is also of national importance in this field. In Eisenach, in
addition to the Wartburg, there is also the Luther House, where Luther
lived during his school days in Eisenach, and the Bach House, which is
dedicated to the composer Johann Sebastian Bach (probably) who was born
there.
There are memorials for the victims of war and
dictatorship in the 20th century in Buchenwald near Weimar, in
Mittelbau-Dora near Nordhausen, in the Topf & Sons Memorial in Erfurt
and in the Stasi prison Andreasstrasse in Erfurt.
The theatrical landscape in Thuringia is – due to the fact that it is
a small state – also still diverse today. The most important multi-genre
theaters in the state are the German National Theater in Weimar, Theater
Altenburg-Gera and the State Theater in Meiningen. Traditional theaters
are still in operation today in Arnstadt, Nordhausen, Rudolstadt and
Eisenach. The Theater Erfurt and the Vogtlandhalle Greiz are new
buildings from the recent past. The largest open-air stage is the
Naturtheater Steinbach-Langenbach in the Thuringian Forest. Since all
theaters are subsidized by the Free State, financing this cultural offer
is a difficult task. In recent years, the theaters have already had to
accept major budget cuts from the state government.
The oldest
preserved theater in Germany is the Ekhof Theater from 1681 in Gotha, as
well as the Stadttheater Hildburghausen from 1755, the oldest preserved
city theatre, where Germany's first drama school was founded in 1765.
Only in the Thuringian Theater Association e. V., 28 professional
and amateur theaters have been organized so far.
Around 1200, Thuringia experienced a heyday of minnesang and song
poetry. The collection of poems about the fictitious singers' war at the
Wartburg bears particular testimony to this. According to legend, the
most important minnesingers of the time competed there.
The Bach
family with their most famous son, Johann Sebastian Bach, comes from
Wechmar near Gotha. Many members of this family became musicians and
shaped court and church music in Thuringia between the 16th and 18th
centuries. After the Bach family, musicians like Franz Liszt came to
Thuringia in the “Silver Age” of Weimar in the 19th century. They
appreciated the liberal and historical atmosphere of the Goethe city.
Thanks to Liszt and his circle of students, around 1850 Weimar became
one of the centers of modern music at the time. In 1872 Carl
Müllerhartung founded the first German orchestra school here, the
forerunner of today's Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar. The music
teachers working there also included the probably most important
composers of the 20th century who lived permanently in Thuringia,
Richard Wetz and Johann Cilenšek. In the second half of the 19th
century, the Meiningen court orchestra gained the reputation of an
excellent orchestra, which, especially since Hans von Bülow had taken
over the direction in 1880, attracted other capable musicians who made a
significant contribution to the development of a musical heyday. This
tradition was continued until 1914 under the conductors Richard Strauss,
Fritz Steinbach, Wilhelm Berger and Max Reger.
Important
orchestras in the state are the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Erfurt
Philharmonic Orchestra, the Thuringia Philharmonic Gotha-Eisenach, the
Thuringian Symphony Orchestra Saalfeld-Rudolstadt, the Jena
Philharmonic, the Loh Orchestra Sondershausen and the Vogtland
Philharmonic Greiz/Reichenbach. In the field of historical performance
practice, the ensemble Cantus Thuringia & Capella Thuringia has gained
an international reputation in recent years. The Thuringian Bach Weeks
are a nationwide music festival in honor of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Herbert Roth, the composer of the Rennsteig song, was particularly
dedicated to folk music in Thuringia. It is considered the "secret"
state anthem and is better known than the (unofficial) anthem Thuringia,
lovely country. The best-known musicians from Thuringia in GDR times
included Veronika Fischer, Tamara Danz, the singer of the band Silly,
the pop singer Ute Freudenberg ("Jugendliebe"), the rock musicians
Jürgen Kerth and Klaus Renft, founders of the Klaus Renft Combo, and the
singer-songwriter Gerhard Gunderman. Recently, pop musicians like Yvonne
Catterfeld or Clueso have become well known. In the field of electronic
music, bands like Northern Lite or DJs like the Boogie Pimps have
emerged. One of the largest festivals in Thuringia, the SonneMondStar,
takes place in this area.
The literary history of Thuringia is
inseparably determined by the Weimar Classics. She led the
German-language literature in the 18th century with the circle of poets
around Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. Johann
Gottfried Herder, Karl Ludwig von Knebel and Christoph Martin Wieland
can also be assigned to this era. They were concentrated at the Weimar
court around Duke Karl August and his mother Anna Amalia. In later
epochs, poets such as Rudolf Baumbach, Ludwig Bechstein, Otto Ludwig and
Theodor Storm were of particular importance for the country. Non-fiction
literature has also produced some important works, for example the first
Duden by Konrad Duden was published in Schleiz in 1872, and Justus
Perthes wrote the first genealogical manual for the nobility in 1763,
which was later referred to as "der Gotha". From 1863 appeared in
Hildburghausen Brehm's Thierleben by Alfred Brehm from Renthendorf near
Neustadt an der Orla. Ernst Haeckel published Darwin's theory of
evolution at the University of Jena and developed it further. The
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche spent the last years of his life in
Weimar, where the Nietzsche Archive now administers his estate. From
1900, Hermann Haack from Gotha became an important cartographer.
In the field of fine arts, the Bauhaus in Weimar was of particular
importance in Thuringia. In the 1920s it was style-defining worldwide
and attracted painters such as Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul
Klee, Johannes Itten and Oskar Schlemmer as well as architects such as
Walter Gropius, Henry van de Velde and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to the
Free State. But painters such as Lucas Cranach the Elder or Otto Dix and
the sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider also worked in Thuringia.
Thuringia does not have any uniform significant customs, rather these
differ from village to village and from region to region. Every year in
almost every village throughout the country, the fair is the central
village festival. According to the company, the Mühlhausen fair is the
largest in Germany. The Eisenach Summer Prize is Germany's largest
spring festival, which is celebrated every year three weeks before
Easter with a large procession. Shooting festivals are also an integral
part of village life culture in some parts of the country.
Traditional festivals are also the Rudolstadt bird shooting, the Weimar
onion market, the Erfurt Christmas market and the Cathedral Steps
Festival in the capital Erfurt. Thuringia has also established itself as
a center for popular hits, whose events - often directed by MDR - fill
the large halls in the state.
In addition to the nationwide
public holidays, Reformation Day and, since 2019, World Children's Day
on September 20 are the only federal states to be a public holiday in
Thuringia. Corpus Christi is a public holiday in the entire Eichsfeld
district and in some predominantly Catholic communities in the
Unstrut-Hainich and Wartburg districts.
The carnival tradition is
only occasionally observed in Thuringia, especially in the Catholic
areas of Eichsfeld and the Rhön. Major processions take place in
partially Catholic Erfurt (one of the largest in East Germany), Wasungen
in the Franconian south of the country, and Apolda and Sondershausen.
After 1990, carnival events and parades spread and since then have also
been celebrated in some places without a strong tradition.
Winter sports with its center in Oberhof, which has produced numerous
Olympic and world champions, is particularly characteristic of
competitive sports in Thuringia. The most popular disciplines include
biathlon, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined and ski jumping on the
one hand, and tobogganing, bobsledding and skeleton on the other. In
recent years, Oberhof's comparatively low altitude and the associated
uncertainty about the weather have repeatedly made themselves felt, so
that competition conditions were not always given and events had to be
postponed. Speed skating and figure skating have found a center in
Erfurt (Eissportclub Erfurt), as well as the summer sports of athletics,
cycling and swimming. Olympic champions from Thuringia were the
tobogganist Johannes Ludwig and the Oberhof bobsleigh pilot Mariama
Jamanka from Berlin at the last Winter Games in 2018 in Pyeongchang, as
well as the track cyclist Kristina Vogel and the javelin thrower Thomas
Röhler at the last Summer Games in 2016 in Rio.
With football,
the most popular sport of the public in Thuringia is rather poorly
represented, since it is difficult to find sponsors, the degree of
professionalization of the management is rather low and the financial
situation of the professional clubs is precarious. In the 2022/23
season, no club counts as a professional; at amateur level, FC Rot-Weiss
Erfurt, FC Carl Zeiss Jena, Wacker Nordhausen and ZFC Meuselwitz are
among the more successful teams. In women's volleyball, VfB 91 Suhl
plays in the Bundesliga and in women's handball, Thuringian HC from
Erfurt/Bad Langensalza plays. The THC has won seven championship titles
since 2010. In table tennis, Post SV Mühlhausen plays in the Bundesliga
(men) in 1951, while the basketball club Science City Jena competes in
the second division.
Almost 3,500 popular sport clubs are members
of the Thuringia State Sports Association. They have around 370,000
members (approx. 17% of the population), with football being the most
popular sport with 26% of members. The largest sports club in the
country is FC Carl Zeiss Jena with over 4,200 members. In recreational
sports, hiking and cycling are very popular; The GutsMuths Rennsteiglauf
takes place every year on the most famous hiking trail, the Rennsteig,
with around 15,000 participants. The Ilmtal cycle path was awarded four
stars by the ADFC and, like the entire network of cycle paths, has been
significantly expanded since 2000, so that cycle tourism is gaining in
importance, with the spectrum ranging from mountain biking in the
mountains to simple routes in the lowlands, for example along the
Unstrut .
The Herzogliche Golf-Club Oberhof with the only listed
golf course in Germany, the Schleizer Dreieck as a motorsport track and
the racecourse on the Gothaer Boxberg are of primary historical
importance.
Thuringian cuisine is traditionally meat-heavy and rather hearty.
Well-known specialties are the Thuringian dumplings, the Thuringian
bratwurst and the Rostbrätel.
Beer is the most important drink in
Thuringia, especially the Köstritzer black beer is known nationwide.
Pils and other types of beer are produced in the country's many small
and medium-sized breweries. The center of viticulture is the town of Bad
Sulza in the Ilm Valley. It belongs to the Saale-Unstrut wine region.
In Thuringia, buildings from the stylistic epochs since the
Romanesque period have been preserved. Romanesque buildings of
importance are the Wartburg, the Lohra Castle and the Kemenate Orlamünde
in the field of castle building and the monasteries in Thalbürgel,
Paulinzella and Göllingen (Byzantine style) as well as the Nordhausen
Cathedral and the Erfurt Peterskirche (former Peterskloster). The Werra
Bridge in Creuzburg, built in 1223 and thus the oldest bridge in the new
federal states, was built in the Romanesque style.
The Gothic was
characterized by the construction of large, representative town
churches. The most important works of this time are the Erfurt Cathedral
and the neighboring Severikirche as well as the Predigerkirche and the
Barfusserkirche in Erfurt's old town. Large church buildings were also
erected in other cities at this time, such as the Marienkirche and the
Divi-Blasii-Kirche in Mühlhausen or the Marktkirche in Bad Langensalza
and the Jenaer Stadtkirche. The Kornhofspeicher in Erfurt is one of the
largest Gothic secular buildings.
The Renaissance period led to
the rise of the bourgeoisie in the cities, which the town halls and town
halls of that time bear witness to. The Altenburg town hall, like the
Gera town hall and the Erfurt town houses Haus zum Roten Ochsen, Haus
zum Breiten Herd or Haus zum Stockfisch belong to this era of Western
architecture. During this time, the transition from castle building to
palace building took place, which is evident today in castles such as
the Upper Castle in Greiz, Ranis Castle, Bertholdsburg Castle in
Schleusingen, Veste Heldburg or Wilhelmsburg Castle in Schmalkalden.
Church building came to a standstill in Thuringia during the Renaissance
due to the Reformation.
Castle construction experienced its
heyday in the Baroque period. Residences such as the Heidecksburg or
Friedenstein Palace were built, but also administrative buildings such
as the Kurmainzische Stadthalterei, today the Thuringian State
Chancellery, in Erfurt. Country palaces were built at this time not far
from the residential cities, just in the vicinity of Weimar these are
Belvedere Palace, Tiefurt Palace and Ettersburg Palace, all of which
were built in the baroque era of absolutism. Churches such as the
Stadtkirche Waltershausen (round), outbuildings of residences such as
the Gotha Orangery and residential buildings of the bourgeoisie such as
the Wittumspalais in Weimar were also erected.
Classicism was
less influential in Thuringia than in Prussia, for example. Larger
palace complexes from this era are the Weimar City Palace and the Lower
Palace in Greiz. There are also a few classicist church buildings, for
example the Trinity Church in Zeulenroda. The town hall is also the most
influential building of classicism in Thuringia. This style was followed
by historicism, which was accompanied by enormous population and urban
growth, which required numerous new buildings. Historicism still
characterizes entire cityscapes today. Countless residential and
administrative buildings were built, as well as churches in the growing
districts of the larger cities. The neo-Gothic Landsberg Castle near
Meiningen was built in early historicism, followed later by the New
Museum in Weimar and the Museum of Nature Gotha. In the final phase of
historicism before the First World War, new theaters (in Weimar and
Meiningen) and the Volkshaus Jena were built.
Modernism began in
Thuringia during the First World War, when the 42-metre-high Building 15
in Jena was Germany's first skyscraper. From 1919, the Bauhaus based in
Weimar became style-defining. Under the direction of Walter Gropius, the
model house Am Horn was built in Weimar according to the ideals of the
Bauhaus. The House of the People in Probstzella was also built according
to the principles of the Bauhaus. The Luther Church in Erfurt is one of
the few buildings in the Art Deco style, erected in 1927. Around 1930,
the first quarters with social housing were built in the east of Erfurt,
which were stylistically based on Bauhaus and New Objectivity. The
architecture of National Socialism followed, which was the specification
for the construction of the Gauforum in Weimar. After the war,
industrial housing construction made of precast concrete elements became
dominant in the GDR. This trend was also reflected in the architecture
of public buildings. In 1972 the university building in Jena was
inaugurated. Since 2004 it has measured 159 meters to the top of the
tower. One of the last buildings of the GDR was the monumental building
of the Peasants’ War Panorama (“elephant toilet”) near Bad Frankenhausen
from 1987. After German reunification, construction activity
concentrated on public buildings such as the Federal Labor Court or the
Erfurt Theater, which, in accordance with the taste of the time, were
Glass and steel were executed.
The most famous architects who
worked in Thuringia include Nikolaus Gromann (Renaissance), Gottfried
Heinrich Krohne (Baroque), Clemens Wenzeslaus Coudray (Classicism),
Henry van de Velde (Art Nouveau) and Walter Gropius (Bauhaus Weimar).
On June 30, 2007, 988,122 of Thuringia's 2,300,538 people lived in
cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants. Although the degree of
urbanization is relatively low at 42.95% and most of the cities have not
experienced any significant growth since 1940, they form the cultural
and economic centers of the country. The most extensive cultural life
takes place in the cities of Erfurt (state capital), Weimar (European
Capital of Culture 1999) and Jena (university and economic center). The
image of the cities is relatively heterogeneous, with some cities
showing a medieval cityscape at their core. This applies above all to
Erfurt and Mühlhausen, but also to smaller towns such as Saalfeld and
Schmalkalden. A baroque-classical cityscape characterizes the former
residences such as Weimar, Gotha, Eisenach, Rudolstadt or Meiningen.
Cities like Gera, Altenburg, Greiz or Apolda that grew up during the
period of industrialization are characterized by a Wilhelminian
appearance. The destruction caused by the Second World War ensured that
Jena and Nordhausen have extremely heterogeneous city centers in which
high-rise buildings and large apartment blocks alternate with
half-timbered buildings. In the 1960s and 1970s, the city of Suhl
underwent a restructuring unprecedented in Thuringia, in which most of
the old town center was removed and replaced by a center that
corresponded to the contemporary taste of the socialist city. Leinefelde
was essentially created during the GDR period and is the only planned
city of this type in Thuringia. Many cities in the state are
characterized by their location in relatively narrow river valleys, so
that there are considerable differences in height within the cities and
the building space is limited in many places. As a result, some of the
largest cities such as Jena, Gera, Eisenach or Suhl stretch over long
distances along a valley and take up its entire width.
The
administrations deal with historic buildings in different ways: while
some cities try with great effort to preserve as much of the old town
buildings as possible and have also achieved success (Bad Langensalza
won gold in the Entente Florale Deutschland competition in 2004), other
cities attach less importance to monument protection. On June 6, 2007,
the city of Gotha decided to demolish the historic Volkshaus zum Mohren,
which was carried out in October 2007, as well as the demolition of the
Winter Palace on September 13, 2006, which could only be prevented by
massive protests from various sides.
A list of the town halls,
which are often important cultural monuments, can be found at List of
town halls in Thuringia.
The hilly landscape with many valleys and the central location in the
German cultural area have favored the construction of castles in the
Free State since the early Middle Ages. The most famous castle in the
country is the Wartburg Castle above Eisenach, which is a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. It was once the seat of the Landgraves of Thuringia and
later the place where Martin Luther hid from the imperial power and
translated parts of the Bible into German. Later, the Wartburg once
again gained importance for the liberal and national student movements
of the 19th century, since the Wartburg Festival took place here in
1817.
A well-known castle ensemble is the Drei Gleichen between
Erfurt, Arnstadt and Gotha. Among them is the Mühlburg, the oldest
preserved building in Thuringia from the year 704. Other mighty
complexes include Creuzburg Castle above the Werratal near Creuzburg,
the Leuchtenburg above the Saaletal in Seitenroda and the Osterburg
above the Elstertal near Weida. A further development of the medieval
castles were modern fortresses. The Petersberg citadel in Erfurt's old
town is one of the largest surviving early modern fortifications in
Central Europe.
In 1918 Thuringia still had eight monarchies with their own
residences. Today, these residences are the largest and most important
palaces in Thuringia. The headquarters of the Ernestine family was in
Weimar, where the classical Weimar City Palace, which is now a World
Heritage Site, houses an extensive museum. Friedenstein Castle in Gotha
was the seat of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha and is now also largely used as a
museum. Other Ernestinian residences were Altenburg Palace in Altenburg
and Elisabethenburg Palace in Meiningen. In addition, this ducal family
maintained many small country castles scattered throughout Thuringia.
Well-known among them are the Dornburg Castles above the Saale valley,
the Castles of Tiefurt, Ettersburg and Belvedere near Weimar and Castle
Molsdorf near Erfurt as well as Castle Altenstein with its large
landscaped park near Bad Liebenstein.
In addition to the
Ernestines, the princely families of Schwarzburg and Reuss ruled in
Thuringia. The Schwarzburg residences Schloss Heidecksburg in Rudolstadt
and the castle in Sondershausen are just as important museums today as
the Lower and Upper Castles in Greiz. The other Rerussian residence in
Gera, Schloss Osterstein, was destroyed in World War II. Also worth
seeing are Burgk Castle, also owned by the princes of Reuss, above the
Saale reservoirs, and Schwarzburg Castle in the Schwarzatal.
Important early modern castle complexes of older ruling families are the
Henneberg residence Schloss Bertholdsburg in Schleusingen, Schloss
Ehrenstein in Ohrdruf and Schloss Wilhelmsburg in Schmalkalden as the
seat of a branch line of the Landgraves of Hesse.
The most important of the approximately 2,500 sacred buildings in
Thuringia date from the Gothic period and are located in the centers of
the historic towns. Erfurt is home to the Erfurt Cathedral, the largest
church in Thuringia, which forms an ensemble well worth seeing with the
neighboring Severikirche. In addition, there are about 25 other, mostly
Gothic, parish churches in Erfurt's old town, which significantly shape
the cityscape. That is why Erfurt historically has the nickname "City of
Towers" (Latin Erfordia turrita, towering Erfurt).
The two main
churches of the former imperial city of Mühlhausen are significant
Gothic buildings. The Marienkirche was a center of the Peasants' War of
1525 and has the highest church tower in the Free State (86 meters). The
Divi Blasii Church was a place where the composer Johann Sebastian Bach
worked and is the main Gothic church in Mühlhausen; the pillars of the
Brooklyn Bridge in New York City are modeled on their choir window
fronts; the bridge was designed by the native Mühlhausen engineer Johann
August Röbling.
Worth mentioning in the church landscape are
above all the upper church in Bad Frankenhausen with the tower tilted
four meters from the vertical, as well as the Russian Orthodox chapel in
Weimar, which was once built for Duchess Maria Pavlovna and is one of
the oldest orthodox churches in Germany.
The country's
monasteries essentially lost their power with the Reformation at the
beginning of the 16th century, after which many were dissolved.
Therefore, Romanesque and Gothic monastery ruins are mainly preserved
today. The Reinhardsbrunn monastery near Gotha (burial place and house
monastery of the Landgraves of Thuringia) as well as the Erfurt and
Saalfeld Peterskloster were of historical importance. The monastery
ruins in Kloster Veßra, Paulinzella, Göllingen or Stadtroda are
architecturally interesting. A well-known Thuringian monastery is the
Augustinian monastery in Erfurt, which was reoccupied in 1996 and where
Martin Luther spent a few years of his life. In the Catholic areas of
the country (Eichsfeld and partly the city of Erfurt), some monasteries
existed until the secularization of the Napoleonic era, before they too
were dissolved. Since 1800 there have only been a few continued
facilities such as the Ursuline monastery in Erfurt or the Franciscan
monastery in Hülfensberg near Geismar in Eichsfeld.
The most well-known monuments in the state are the Kyffhäuser
Monument in the district of Steinthalleben, an 81 meter high monument
that can be seen from afar on the mountain of the same name near Bad
Frankenhausen. It was erected between 1890 and 1896 and refers to the
Kyffhäuser legend, with Kaiser Wilhelm I as the unifier of the empire
being directly related to Friedrich Barbarossa and portrayed as the
keeper of his legacy. After the Monument to the Battle of the Nations in
Leipzig and the monument at the Westphalian Gate, the monument on the
Kyffhäuser is the third largest in Germany.
Another well-known
monument is the Goethe and Schiller monument on Weimar's Theaterplatz.
It is part of the world cultural heritage and shows the poets Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. It was inaugurated in 1857.
The 33 meter high fraternity monument near Eisenach from 1902 is
reminiscent of the German fraternities of the early 19th century, which
played a role in the Wartburg Festival of 1817, among other things.
Kerstin Klare: Strong women from Thuringia. Wartberg Verlag,
Gudensberg-Gleichen 2021, ISBN 978-3-8313-3250-2 (96 pages, 29
portraits).
Steffen Rassloff: Central German history. Saxony –
Saxony-Anhalt – Thuringia. Leipzig 2016. New edition Markkleeberg 2019,
ISBN 978-3-86729-240-5.
Steffen Rassloff: History of Thuringia.
Munich 2010 (2nd edition 2020), ISBN 978-3-406-74734-2.
Steffen
Rassloff: Small history of Thuringia. Ilmenau 2017 (2nd edition 2020),
ISBN 978-3-95560-056-3.
Reinhard Jonscher, Willy Schilling: Small
Thuringian history. From the Thuringian Empire to 1990. Jenzig-Verlag
Köhler, Golmsdorf 2005, ISBN 3-910141-74-9.
Steffen Rassloff:
Thuringia. A historical overview. Published by the state center for
political education in Thuringia. Erfurt 2004 (3rd edition 2015).
Jürgen John: Sources for the history of Thuringia. State Center for
Civic Education, Erfurt 1997, ISBN 3-931426-14-9.
Bernhard Post,
Volker Wahl (eds.): Thuringia Manual. Territory, constitution,
parliament, government and administration in Thuringia from 1920 to
1995. Weimar 1999, ISBN 3-7400-0962-4.
Frank Boblenz: Outline of the
territorial history of Prussian Thuringia. In: Prussian Thuringia.
Treatises on the history of its people's representatives (= writings on
the history of parliamentarism in Thuringia. Volume 17). Rudolstadt
2001, ISBN 3-89807-020-4, pp. 9-45.
Dehio handbook of German art
monuments: Thuringia. 2nd edition, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin/Munich
2003, ISBN 3-422-03095-6.
Hans Müller: Thuringia (= DuMont art travel
guide). Ostfildern 2005, ISBN 3-7701-3848-1.
Nikolaus Huhn: Thuringia
in small steps. Notes from the Hearing Walk. Mitteldeutscher Verlag,
Halle 2015, ISBN 978-3-95462-407-2.
Cultural Discoveries. Music
country Thuringia. Published by the Sparkassen Kulturstiftung
Hessen-Thüringen, Verlag Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2020, ISBN
978-3-7954-3502-8.