Eisenach is a town in the Wartburg district in western Thuringia and,
with around 42,000 inhabitants (2020), the sixth largest municipality in
Thuringia. It is one of the so-called Luther cities. The medium-sized
town was an independent town from 1998 to June 30, 2021 and is now the
first large district town in Thuringia. It is also the center of western
Thuringia and the adjacent north-eastern Hessian areas. In spatial
planning, the city occupies the position of a middle center with partial
functions of a regional center and is assigned to the planning region of
southwest Thuringia. Eisenach is on the Hörsel on the northern edge of
the Thuringian Forest.
Eisenach is known for the Wartburg above
the town, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage and was the seat of
the Landgraves of Thuringia in the Middle Ages. It was there that Martin
Luther translated the New Testament from Greek into German in the fall
of 1521. In 1817 the Wartburg Festival took place there, one of the most
important events of the Vormärz. Eisenach has been a university town
since February 2017, and the town is unofficially nicknamed
Wartburgstadt.
The composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in
Eisenach in 1685.
Industrialization began in Eisenach in the
second half of the 19th century. In 1896 the vehicle factory in Eisenach
was founded, which belonged to BMW from 1928 and later built the
Wartburg as the Automobile Works in Eisenach. The tradition of
automobile construction was continued after 1990 by Adam Opel AG. The
factories of the automotive industry such as Opel and Bosch now employ
over 4000 people, which makes Eisenach an industrial center in
Thuringia.
The Eisenach Theater was inaugurated in 1879. After an eventful
history, it was elevated to the Thuringian State Theater Eisenach in
1952 by the then Thuringian state government. An important part of the
theater is the Eisenach State Orchestra, founded in 1919 as a municipal
orchestra. It was rebuilt after the end of the Second World War in 1946
with expelled members of the Silesian Philharmonic Breslau and musicians
from the former Eisenach City Orchestra and received its current name in
1952. In addition to the Landeskapelle, the Tanztheater Eisenach has
been part of the ensemble since 2004 and the Junges Theater Eisenach
since 2005.
The Theater am Markt, founded in 2008 as a voluntary
independent theater, developed from the Theater Education Center at the
Landestheater Eisenach after its dissolution.
Exhibitions and
concerts are held regularly in the historic foyer, which made Eisenach’s
rise to a spa town possible in 1906 – an open music pavilion on the edge
of the Kartausgarten, which was built as an English-style park at the
beginning of the 20th century. In addition to an industrial museum, the
industrial monument Alte Mälzerei also houses a theater and the
Lippmann+Rau music archive, which was maintained until 2009 by the
Jazzklub Eisenach e. V. was looked after.
Eisenach traditionally
has a rich choral landscape, and the Bachchor Eisenach is one of the
choirs that are also known nationally. The majority of the choirs in the
city and the surrounding Wartburg district are organized in the
Wartburgsängerkreis.
In the so-called stork tower, the historical
theater Im Kerker is the smallest venue in the city.
Eisenach has
a cinema with the listed Capitol film theater, the last of four former
sound film cinemas in Eisenach.
Since 2007, exhibitions of
contemporary art have been held in the former exhibition pavilion of the
Eisenach automobile plant, today's ART pavilion, in Wartburgallee. The
pavilion was built in 1967 and was used until 1994 as an exhibition
space for motor vehicles built in Eisenach. It has been under monument
protection since 2013.
Every year on the weekend before Laetare, one of the largest spring
festivals in Germany takes place in Eisenach with the summer prize. The
highlight is the parade that takes place on Saturday, at the end of
which Ms. Sunna and Mr. Winter engage in the traditional argument.
During the Christmas season, the traditional Christmas market on the
Wartburg and the Christmas market on the Eisenach market square with
around 50 exhibitors are among the tourist attractions.
In the
years 2005 to 2007, with a view to the Luther Decade from 2008 to 2017,
Luther – The Festival took place at the end of August. The organizing
Luther Association e. V. as the main organizer strives to develop this
event as a medieval festival with new themes and offers. The Eisenach
Telemann Days have been held every two years since 1982 in honor of the
composer Georg Philipp Telemann. In spring, the city is one of the
venues for the Thuringian Bach Festival.
The Alte Mälzerei has
been a household name as a venue for jazz music since the 1990s, and
open-air concerts take place in the lobby (reggae nights).
Since
reunification, Eisenach has been the permanent meeting place of the
German fraternity. The Burschentag always takes place in the week after
Pentecost.
The Motorsport Club Eisenach e. V. is the organizer of
the Wartburg Rally, a road race around the city of Eisenach, which takes
place every summer. For classic car fans, Thuringia tours and veterans'
meetings take place regularly in spring and summer.
The city's landmark is the Wartburg World Heritage Site.
In
addition, there were numerous castles on the mountains around the old
town, of which only field names and sparse remains as archaeological
monuments are reminiscent, in particular the Metilstein, the Eisenacher
Burg, the Frauenburg, the Burgstelle Rudolfstein and the Malittenburg.
Within the walls of the old town were aristocratic city castles,
including what is probably the oldest secular building in the city,
known as the Hellgrevenhof and the Lussenhof am Frauenberg. The
landgrave's Steinhof as a city residence immediately south of the
Georgenkirche was followed by the ducal residence castle at the same
place, of which the castle brewery, the well cellar, the residence house
and the Creutznacher house still exist. The former moated castle Klemme
served as a stronghold and later as a garrison.
The preserved
palaces and palace-like buildings in the city center include the
Eisenach City Palace, Fischbach Palace, Palais Bechtolsheim, Landhaus
Pflugensberg and the Hohe Sonne hunting lodge, which is in urgent need
of renovation. In the districts are the Berteroda Castle, the Neuenhof
Castle, in Stedtfeld the Boyneburgksche Lower Castle, small remains of
the Upper Castle, the Steinstock defense tower and a Boyneburgksche
country villa. The Stedtfeld moated castle was razed after the Thirty
Years' War. The buildings of the moated castle in Madelungen with the
associated estate have also disappeared. In Hötzelsroda there was an
earth wall known as a ski jump, an aristocratic castle in the local area
and in the Dürrerhof district the Dürrerhof manor with a landscape park,
which was demolished in the 1950s.
Evangelical Lutheran Churches
The Georgenkirche, built around
1180, is the wedding church of Saint Elisabeth and the baptismal church
of Johann Sebastian Bach.
The Nikolaikirche was built in the
Romanesque style shortly after 1160 and restored in the neo-Romanesque
style in the 19th century. Until the Reformation, the church was the
parish church of the Benedictine monastery of St. Nikolai.
According to legend, the Annenkirche was built by Elisabeth von
Thuringia as a house of prayer, the inscription above the archway
"Hospital zu St. Annen - donated by St. Elisabeth 1226" is supposed to
prove this. In fact, the former chapel fell victim to a fire in 1342,
and the new building was destroyed in 1525 during the Peasants' War. The
Annenkirche was completely rebuilt between 1634 and 1639, and the
inscription probably dates from that time. In the 18th century the
church was used as a garrison church, from 1874 to 1954 as a church of
the deaconess house foundation.
The Clemens chapel was first
mentioned in a document in 1295. The Wartha half-timbered church, built
in 1586, is the oldest and smallest half-timbered church in Thuringia.
The most recent church building is the Elijah Chapel in
Altstadtstraße, which was completed in 2005. It serves as a place of
prayer on the workshop premises of the Diakonie-Verbund Eisenach.
Catholic Churches
The parish church of the Catholic community of
St. Elisabeth Eisenach is the St. Elisabeth Church. It was built in
neo-Gothic style between 1886 and 1888 based on the model of the
Elisabeth Church in Marburg. In the years 2000 to 2002 an extensive
exterior and interior renovation took place.
Not far from the old
cemetery is the profaned Kreuzkirche, which was built in 1692 from the
remains of the Mariendom in Eisenach.
The Preacherkirche is
located on the site of a former Dominican monastery. Its construction
began shortly after Elizabeth's canonization and it was consecrated
around 1240. Today the church houses the permanent exhibition Medieval
Art in Thuringia, which is part of the Thuringian Museum.
Synagogue
There was already a synagogue on the property at Karlstraße
23 in the Middle Ages. Between 1883 and 1885 the New Synagogue was built
on today's Karl-Marx-Strasse and inaugurated on January 8, 1885. The
building was completely destroyed by arson during the November pogroms
of 1938 and demolished shortly afterwards. The synagogue monument,
handed over on September 21, 1947, commemorates the events, the base of
which was made of stones from the New Synagogue.
Monument ensembles
The two largest ensembles of monuments in the
city in terms of area are the Eisenach old town monument and the
southern quarter monument.
The construction of the 2.84 kilometer
long city wall began in 1130. There were a total of 22 towers, five of
which were city gates, of which only the Nikolaitor survives today.
Individual monuments
The Eisenach town hall on the market square
was built in 1508 in late Gothic style as a wine cellar and was given
its current Renaissance form during the renovation in 1564. In 1596 it
was elected the new town hall after the old town hall near the
Georgenkirche had become too small. After the great city fire in 1636 it
was rebuilt and in 1638 it received its characteristic stair tower.
The Georgsbrunnen has been on the market square for more than 450
years and has been moved several times. The gilded fountain statue was
created by Hans Leonhard in 1549. The city palace is also located on the
market square. It was built in several sections from 1742 under Duke
Ernst August by Gottfried Heinrich Krohne. Three of the original four
wings are still preserved today. The south wing on the market was
created as a residential wing incorporating existing town houses, the
north wing houses richly decorated rooms with stucco work by the Kassel
master J. M. Brühl and paintings by the Austrian painter Josef Michael
Daysinger, the stables are on the ground floor of the west wing.
The building at Karlstraße 1 was built around 1560. During the city fire
of 1636 it remained intact. The court pharmacy founded in 1585 was
located here from 1771 to 1948.[84] In 1900 the old timber framework was
uncovered and a gable was erected over the entrance. Further conversions
took place in 1936. The Hof-Apotheke was renamed the Rats-Apotheke in
1948 and is still in the building today.
The Reutervilla is
located in the south of the city not far from the driveway to the
Wartburg. It was built according to plans by the poet Fritz Reuter in
the years 1866 to 1868 by the German architect Ludwig Bohnstedt in the
neoclassical style as the poet's residence. Today the villa houses the
Reuter-Wagner-Museum and a branch of the registry office.
In the
east of the city, the monument to the fraternity of the German
fraternity rises up on the Göpelskuppe. The 33 meter high monument was
inaugurated in 1902.
The Eisenach Theater was built in the
classical style on behalf of the Eisenach banker and manufacturer Julius
von Eichel-Streiber according to designs by the Leipzig architect Karl
Weichardt and was handed over to the city of Eisenach on January 1,
1879. The building offers space for 501 spectators.
On
Johannisplatz in the city center is probably the narrowest inhabited
half-timbered house in Germany. It is 2.05 meters wide and 8.50 meters
high and has two floors. The house is estimated to be well over 250
years old.
In 1539, the Eisenach merchant and councilman Conrad
Creutznacher built a representative residential and commercial building
on the market, the Creutznacher Haus. When Duke Johann Ernst expanded
his residence on the Esplanade at the end of the 16th century, he
included the house in the palace complex. The building, which was
renovated between 2003 and 2005, is one of the few surviving Renaissance
buildings in the city and today houses the tourist information, among
other things.
The Sophienbad, one of the oldest art nouveau baths
in Germany, was opened in 1899 by the grand duchess of
Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach. It is used differently today, but is protected
as a whole.
The foyer on the edge of the Kartausgarten was
inaugurated in 1906, below the Hotel Fürstenhof, as a drinking and foyer
and is reminiscent of the time when Eisenach was a summer resort and spa
town.
The deaconesses' house in the city center and the southern
wing of today's St. George's Clinic in the north of the city are
examples of early 20th-century healthcare.
The history of the approximately 3.8 hectare Carthusian garden goes
back to the 14th century, when Carthusian monks laid out a monastery
garden there around 1390. Around 1700 it was elevated to a princely
pleasure and kitchen garden, and at the end of the 18th century Johann
Georg Sckell transformed it into a landscape garden. From 1845 this was
looked after by the Eisenach court gardener Hermann Jäger. The facility
has been in municipal hands since 1942. In addition to the classical
gardener's house with a tea room, the foyer is also located on the site.
About 400 meters east of the city center is the 26.7 hectare city
park. Between 1841 and 1844, the area on the Goldberg was redesigned
into a landscape garden by Eduard Petzold on behalf of the Eichel
family. In the years 1890 to 1892, the Villa Pflugensberg, later used as
the regional church office, was built there, a castle-like building in
the neo-Gothic style. The Bismarck monument in the entrance area of the
city park was demolished in 1963.
In the district of Hötzelsroda
is the landscape park Dürrerhof, also designed by Eduard Petzold, with
the Hötzelsroda war cemetery created after the Second World War.
The Old Cemetery is located above the Eisenacher Markt at the foot of
the Schlossberg. It was created in 1599 on behalf of Duke Johann Ernst.
Numerous members of the Bach family of musicians are buried in the
cemetery, and the adjacent Kreuzkirche houses the archive of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia.
Between the Wartburg
and the western old town is the Roesesches Hölzchen landscape park,
created around 1800 by the Eisenach merchant Christian Friedrich Roese,
with the Metilstein in the center. Here you can also find the legendary
rock formations Monk and Nun, which Goethe once inspired to draw.
In the Mariental there is the artificially created Prinzenteich with
gondola operation, swans and carp stock. It received its name in the
19th century in honor of the two sons of the Duchess of Orleans, who
stayed in Eisenach with their children from 1848 to 1858.
The
main cemetery was laid out in the north of the city in 1896.
In
the Dresdner Straße there is a geological garden with rock samples from
all over Germany.
Eisenach is the birthplace of the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. The
Bachhaus on Frauenplan, which is considered the birthplace of the
composer, is dedicated to him and his family.
The Luther House,
run as a museum by the then Thuringian State Church (today: Evangelical
Church in Central Germany) since 1956, commemorates the reformer Martin
Luther. In the house, which is one of the oldest half-timbered houses in
Thuringia, Martin Luther is said to have lived with the wealthy Cotta
family from 1498 to 1501. From 2013 to 2015, the Lutherhaus was
extensively renovated, expanded with an extension and equipped with a
new permanent exhibition ("Luther and the Bible").
The city
palace houses the Thuringian Museum, founded in 1899. This also includes
the exhibition areas in the Preacherkirche, the tea room in the
Kartausgarten and the Reutervilla. The arts and crafts collection moved
to the City Palace in 1931. In addition to the collection of Thuringian
porcelain, there are also works of painting from the second half of the
19th century and of expressive realism as well as city history. The
Predigerkirche houses the collection of medieval carvings, the most
comprehensive of its kind in Thuringia. In the Reutervilla, the former
living quarters of the Low German poet Fritz Reuter, is the
Reuter-Wagner-Museum with the most extensive collection about the
composer Richard Wagner after Bayreuth.
The Automobile Museum was
founded in 1967. It was initially located in what is now the KUNST
pavilion on the edge of the Kartausgarten, which was specially built for
this purpose. In 1998, on the occasion of the anniversary of 100 years
of automobile manufacture in Eisenach, the symbolic foundation stone for
the new exhibition automobile world eisenach was laid on the site of the
former automobile factory Eisenach (AWE). Since 2005, the exhibition,
which shows BMW, EMW, Dixi and Wartburg vehicles, for example, has been
located in the former AWE administration building O2, a listed building.
In the immediate vicinity of this is the former main gate of the AWE,
which is also listed.
The Goldener Löwe memorial, a former inn at
the southern end of Marienstraße, commemorates the founding of the SDAP
(later SPD) on August 8, 1869 and August Bebel.
Since June 2010
the Sparkasse Museum has been located in the administration building at
Rennbahn 6 of the Wartburg Sparkasse.
A non-public collection on
Eisenach's criminal history with historical uniforms, technical
equipment for surveillance by the Stasi, and testimonies from agent
activities in Eisenach during the Cold War is located in the Eisenach
police station.
In the north-east of the city is the old malthouse, a largely unique
industrial monument. It was built in 1873 by Adam Heintz as a malt and
malt coffee factory. Particularly noteworthy is the almost completely
preserved machine park, some of which dates back to the founding years
and was fully functional again after restoration in 1993/1994.
The foundation stone for the Eisenach brewery was laid in 1828, when the
244 authorized brewers in the city built a 100 meter deep rock cellar
for beer storage. In 1874, ten citizens of Eisenach founded a club
brewery, which became the Eisenach stock brewery in 1886. The brewhouse
built in 1911 is still considered a landmark of the brewery.
At
the turn of the 19th/20th century At the end of the 19th century,
Eisenach's main station was built with the Fürstenbahnhof on the right.
The only partially preserved industrial buildings in Eisenach
include the old slaughterhouse and the Eisenach gas works. The former
cigar factory at Fischweide 1 was left in ruins for a long time and has
since been demolished.
Numerous commemorative stones and plaques commemorate historically
important events and personalities in the city's history.
In the
immediate vicinity of the Bach House is the Bach monument, which the
city dedicated to the composer who was born in Eisenach on September 28,
1884. The design comes from Adolf von Donndorf, it was executed by
Hermann Howaldt.
The Luther monument, also designed by Adolf von
Donndorf, is located on Karlsplatz in the center of the city. A third
monument designed by Donndorf, the Bismarck monument erected in 1903 at
the entrance to the city park, was removed by 1963.
The Black
Fountain on Georgenstrasse commemorates a tragic accident in which 68
people died when three wagons loaded with gunpowder and ammunition
exploded.
In honor of the dead of the Franco-Prussian War of
1870/71, the Wingolf Association inaugurated the Wingolf Memorial in
1899, which was later also dedicated to the dead of both world wars. It
is integrated into an imposing staircase that leads from the city center
over the Pfarrberg to the southern quarter.
Opposite the Wartburg
driveway, the Carl Alexander Monument was dedicated in 1909 to
commemorate the Grand Duke's friendship with Eduard Mittenzwey. It was
executed by the Eisenach sculptor Hermann Hosaeus. Further along the
road, below the Wartburg, you will come across the Cranach monument to
the Wartburg captain and founder of the Reuter-Wagner Museum, Hans Lucas
von Cranach.
The memorial for the victims of the Kapp putsch is
located on Frankfurter Strasse, commemorating the killing of five
unarmed citizens in Eisenach.
On Karlsplatz, in front of the
mother house of the Diakoniestiftung Eisenach, stands the Doctors'
Memorial, a memorial created in 1926 for the German doctors who died in
the First World War in fulfillment of their service. It was restored in
1997 and the dedication extended to "...the (medical) victims of war,
terror and tyranny".
An armored rider, symbolizing the dragon
slayer St. Georg, is on the Jakobsplan. It was created by Erich
Windbichler in 1939 and originally stood in front of the officers' mess
of the barracks complex on Ludendorffwall (today: Ernst-Thälmann-Straße)
in the north of the city. The memorial stands for the tradition of the
heavy Silesian cavalrymen from Sagan, the "predecessors" of the Eisenach
Panzer Regiment II. In 1999 the memorial was restored.
The
monument to the history of the German labor movement in Wartburgallee is
now a listed relic of the GDR era.
Several memorials,
commemorative stones and plaques commemorate the victims of both world
wars and the crimes of the Third Reich and the Holocaust; this also
includes around 100 stumbling blocks and the memorial to the
“Dejudaization Institute” unveiled in 2019. The "Götterdämmerung"
Bismarck Tower, built on the Wartenberg in 1902 based on a design by
Wilhelm Kreis, was blown up in 1963.
By plane
The nearest airport is in Erfurt, about 65km away. Only
charter planes take off and land in Erfurt, so Leipzig Halle Airport or
Frankfurt am Main Airport, which are about the same distance from
Eisenach, are also possible.
By train
Eisenach train station
is an ICE and IC stop for trains in the direction of
Leipzig/Halle/Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and Kassel/Ruhr area. Ideally,
the journey from Frankfurt takes 1:45 hours, from Leipzig it is 1:12
hours with the fastest connection.
Regional trains come from
Bebra, Erfurt and Meiningen.
By bus
Flixbus drives to Eisenach
daily from Berlin/Erfurt and Düsseldorf/Marburg. Another connection,
which is operated several times a week, connects Kassel in
Chemnitz/Prague with a stop in Eisenach. The long-distance bus stop is
at Uferstrasse 40, about 500m from the train station.
On the
street
Eisenach is on the A 4, Bad Hersfeld - Dresden. There are
three exits: Eisenach-Weststadt, Eisenach-Mitte, Eisenach-Oststadt; the
city can be reached after a few kilometers from everyone.
By boat
Neither the Hörsel nor the Werra, which flows past to the west, are
navigable.
At Karlsplatz there are still remains of the tram tracks today (as of 2021), but a tram has not been running here for a long time. The city center can also be easily explored on foot, so that you don't have to rely on public transport. Parking is also possible in the city center, but not for free.
The main shopping street is Karlstrasse, which starts right at the
old town hall on the market square. There you will find the classic
branches or small shops. More shops can be found in the side streets.
The typical tourist souvenirs can be found in the Bachhaus: from busts
to chocolates and liqueurs, everything to do with Johann Sebastian Bach
can be found there.
1 PEP Prima shopping park, Neue Wiese 1,
99817 Eisenach. Tel.: +49 (0)3691 890176. Open: Mon – Fri 9 a.m. – 8
p.m., Sat 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
2 Forum Eisenach, Bleichrasen 41, 99817
Eisenach. Tel.: +49 (0)3643 8674409. Open: Mon – Sat 7 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Cheap
Mobile grills in the pedestrian zone - the well-known
Thuringian Rostbratwurst is offered here (price: €2.80 in September
2021)
Many small kebab and Asian snack bars with seats
1 The
totally crazy potato house, Sophienstraße 44, 99817 Eisenach. Tel.: +49
3691 721568, fax: +49 3691 721568, e-mail:
wir@kartoffelhaus-eisenach.de. Quaint restaurant, lovingly furnished. A
beer garden is also available.
Medium
2 Pizzeria/Trattoria La
Grappa, Frauenburg 8-10, 99817 Eisenach. Tel.: +49 3691 733860. Small
restaurant with terrace and seating under trees. Very tasty Italian
dishes.
3 Ristorante Michelangelo, Karlsplatz 21, 99817 Eisenach
(downtown). Phone: +49 3691 734081, email:
michelangelo.eisenach@googlemail.com. Italian restaurant with good menu
and excellent service. Very nice courtyard and more outdoor spaces.
4
Cafe Toccata, Markt 2, 99817 Eisenach. Tel.: +49 3691 21 75 88, fax: +49
3691 88 35 25. Open: Mon – Fri from 9 a.m., Sat + Sun from 10 a.m.,
until 10 p.m.
Upscale
5 Turmschänke wine restaurant,
Karlsplatz 28, 99817 Eisenach. Tel.: +49 3691 213533, Fax: +49 3691
888812. Open: Mon – Sat from 6 p.m., Sun is a day off.
6 Delphi,
Theaterplatz 8, 99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 3691 215260, email:
info@delphi-eisenach.de. Greek and Mediterranean dishes. Open: daily
11.30 a.m. – 2.30 p.m. + 5.30 p.m. – midnight.
7 Steakhouse zum
Ritter, Rittergasse 3, 99817 Eisenach. Tel.: +49 3691 743388, fax: +49
3691 743389, e-mail: info@steakhaus-zum-ritter.de. The steakhouse is
located in the center of Eisenach am Frauenberg, right next to the
well-known Bachhaus. Open: Mon – Sun 11:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. + 5:30 p.m.
– 11:00 p.m.
8 Baron wine restaurant, Karlsplatz 13, 99817 Eisenach.
Phone: +49 (0)3691 2453240, email: info@baron-eisenach.de . Modern
restaurant and wine bar with Mediterranean and international cuisine,
120 wines and a terrace. Open: Mon-Sat from 5 p.m. (holidays from 11:30
a.m.).
9 Restaurant Heimat, Markt 10, 99817 Eisenach (right next to
Lutherhaus & Markt). Tel.: (0)3691 2454134, email:
kontakt@restaurantheimat.de . Thuringian and German cuisine, including
vegetarian and vegan dishes. Open: Mon-Sun 11:00 - 22:00. Accepted
payment methods: Cash, Visa, Master, EC.
Spitz, Alexanderstr. 28, 99817 Eisenach. Email:
info@spitz-eisenach.de.
Stage slaughterhouse Eisenach, Langensalzaer
Straße 43, 99817 Eisenach. Email: mail@schlachthof-eisenach.de.
Performances by various local bands.
Edison Bar, Markt 10, 99817
Eisenach. Phone: +4936912454134
When staying overnight in Eisenach, it should be noted that a tourist
tax of €6 per night and person is due, which must be paid when paying
for the hotel room.
Cheap
1 Eisenach Youth Hostel, Mariental
24, 99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 3691 743259.
2 "Am Storchenturm" inn,
Georgenstrasse 43a, 99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 3691 733263, fax: (0)3691
733265, email: info@gasthof-am-storchenturm.de. Price: single room from
€23, double room from €36.
3 Hotel Klostergarten, Am Klosterholz 23,
98817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 3691 785166, email:
info@hotel-klostergarten.de. Price: Single room from €45, double room
from €65.
4 Gate to the Rennsteig, Unterstrasse 2-4, 99817
Eisenach-Hörschel. Phone: +49 36928 92699, fax: +49 36928 92690, email:
info@rennsteig-beginn.de. The associated inn has the following opening
times: daily from 11:00 a.m., Tuesday is a day off. Feature: pension.
Price: Single room from €35, double room from €60.
5 Landhotel "Zur
Gute Quelle", Hörscheler Str. 14, 99817 Eisenach-Neuenhof. Phone: +49
36928 90375, fax: +49 36928 96715, email: info@landhotel-gute-quelle.de.
The associated dining room has the following opening times: Tues – Sat 5
p.m. – 11 p.m., Sun 12 p.m. – 2 p.m. + 4 p.m. Price: Single room from
€39, double room from €55.
6 Pension am Rennsteig, Eisenacher Weg 19,
99817 Eisenach-Neuenhof. Phone: +49 36928 90455, fax: +49 36928 96762,
email: info@pension-am-rennsteig.de. Feature: pension. Price: Single
room from €30, double room from €40 (in each case without breakfast plus
city tax!).
Medium
7 Ibis Hotel Eisenach, Am Grundbach 1,
99819 Eisenach. Tel.: +49 36920 82100, Fax: +49 36920 82299. Breakfast
is from 4 a.m. to 12 p.m. Small snacks can also be ordered around the
clock in the adjoining bistro. Price: SR from €49.
8 Hotel
Klostergarten, Am Klosterholz 23, 99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 3691
785166, fax: +49 3691 785148, email: info@hotel-klostergarten.de.
Available daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Price: Single room from €45,
double room from €65.
9 Hotel Haus Hainstein, Am Hainstein 16, 99817
Eisenach. Phone: +49 3691 2420, fax: +49 3691 242109, email:
haushainstein@t-online.de. In the associated restaurant "Lutherstube"
there are both national cuisine and Thuringian specialties. Price: SR
from 60€, double room from 86€.
10 Hotel "An der Linde", Zum Wehr 2,
99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 36920 81133, email: info@hotel-anderlinde.de.
There is also a restaurant and a beer garden. Price: SR €45, DR €64.
11 Hostel / Pension Alte Brauerei, Wartburgallee 25a, 99817 Eisenach.
Tel.: +493691238030, fax: +493691238033, e-mail:
info@hostel-pension-eisenach.de. Hostel with breakfast, located in the
building or on the site of an old brewery. Price: from €45 (SR) / €50
(DBL) / night.
Upscale
12 Glockenhof, Grimmelgasse 4, 99817
Eisenach (near the Bachhaus). Tel.: +49 3691 23 40, fax: +49 3691234131,
e-mail: info@glockenhof.de. Price: €88 per night in a double room.
13
Steigenberger Hotel 'Thüringer Hof', Karlsplatz 11, 99817 Eisenach.
Tel.: +49 3691 280, fax: +49 3691 28190. The history of the hotel goes
back to the 16th century, 4 stars, 127 rooms, downtown; At Karlsplatz.
Price: Single room from €79, double room from €90.
14 Hotel auf der
Wartburg, Auf der Wartburg 2, 99817 Eisenach. Tel.: +49 3691 797223,
fax: +49 3691 797200, e-mail: info@wartburghotel.de. Hotel directly on
the Wartburg, 5 stars, 35 rooms, different arrangements possible.
15
Hotel "Haus Hainstein", Am Hainstein 16, 99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 3691
2420, fax: +49 3691 242109, email: haushainstein@t-online.de. Price:
Single room from €60, double room from €86.
16 Land- und Golfhotel
Alte Fliegerschule, Am Weinberg 1/Nessetalstrasse, 99817
Eisenach/Stockhausen. Phone: +49 36 91 8680, fax: +49 3691 868200,
email: info@landhotel-eisenach.de. The hotel also offers several
restaurants. Price: Single room from €59, double room from €79.
17
CITY HOTEL, Bahnhofstrasse 25, 99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 3691 2098-0,
fax: +49 3691 2098-120, email: info@cityhotel-eisenach.de. Price: single
room from €57, double room from €79.
18 Luther Hotel Eisenacher Hof,
Katharinenstrasse 11-13, 99817 Eisenach. Tel.: +49 3691 2939-0, fax: +49
3691 293926, e-mail: info@eisenacherhof.de. The adjoining experience
restaurant has the following opening hours: Mon – Sat from 5 p.m., Sun
11 a.m. – 3 p.m. + from 6 p.m., Sat also 12 p.m. – 2 p.m. Price: Single
room from €69, double room from €89.
19 Suites MITTE (Apart-Hotel
Eisenach, Apart-Hotel in the center of Eisenach), Kleine Löbergasse 2.
Tel.: +49 36 91 7 41 43 70, email: info@suites-mitte.de . Apart-hotel,
eight bright suites with a south-facing balcony for 1-4 people each with
an extra bedroom. Oak floorboards, box spring beds, design furniture,
floor-level showers, kitchenette. Check-in: 3 p.m. Check-out: 11:00 a.m.
Price: from €53.00 p.p. (with an occupancy of 2 people per apartment).
20 Kaiserhof, Wartburgallee 2. Tel.: +49 36 91 8 88 90, email:
info@kaiserhof-eisenach.de. Since 1897, new furnishings in the style of
that time (candle lamps in the corridors, etc.) Check-in: 3 p.m.
Check-out: 11:00 a.m. Price: from approx. €85 p.p.
1 Eisenach Police Station, Ernst-Thälmann-Strasse 78, 99817 Eisenach.
Phone: +49 (0)3691 2610.
2 Eisenach Police Station, Nordplatz 1B,
99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 (0)3691 734786.
1 St. Georg Klinikum, Mühlhäuser Str. 94-95, 99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 (0)3691 6980, Fax: +49 (0)3691 6987100.
2 Stadt-Apotheke, Karlstrasse 52, 99817 Eisenach. Tel.: +49 (0)3691
203034, fax: +49 (0)3691 75194, e-mail: info@stadtapo-eisenach.de. Open:
Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat 8.30 a.m. - 1 p.m.
3 Pharmacy at the
Nikolaitor, Bahnhofstrasse 6, 99817 Eisenach. Tel.: +49 (0)3691 8893970,
fax: +49 (0)3691 88939797, email: info@Apotheke-am-Nikolaitor.de. Open:
Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6.30 p.m., Sat 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
4 Georgen-Apotheke
Am Bahnhof, Bahnhofstrasse 21, 99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 (0)3691
214613, fax: +49 (0)3691 732608, email: bahnhof@georgenapotheke.de.
Open: Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
5 Wartburg
Pharmacy, Nordplatz 23, 99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 (0)3691 89840, fax:
+49 (0)3691 898489, email: info@wartburgapo.de. Open: Mon - Fri 8 a.m. -
7 p.m., Sat 8 a.m. - 1 p.m.
6 Annen Pharmacy, August-Bebel-Strasse 1,
99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 (0)3691 71324, fax: +49 (0)3691 882936,
email: mail@annen-apotheke-eisenach.de. Open: Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6 p.m.,
Sat 9 a.m. - 12.30 p.m.
7 Pharmacy am Frauenberg, Frauenberg 9, 99817
Eisenach. Tel.: +49 (0)3691 743880, fax: +49 (0)3691 743881, e-mail:
info@frauenberg.de. Open: Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6.30 p.m., Sat 8.30 a.m. -
12.30 p.m.
8 Pharmacy Alte Spinnerei, Bleichrasen 41, 99817 Eisenach.
Tel.: +49 (0)3691 721576, fax: +49 (0)3691 721577, e-mail:
info@apotheke-alte-spinnerei.de. Open: Mon - Fri 8.30 a.m. - 7 p.m., Sat
9 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Tourist information, Markt 24, 99817 Eisenach. Phone: +49 (0)3691
79230, email: info@eisenach.info. Open: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. (weekdays until
6 p.m.).
Deutsche Post main branch, Markt 3, 99817 Eisenach. Open:
Mon - Fri 9 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
ATMs: The ATM of the
Sparkasse can be found in the numerous Sparkasse buildings in the city,
for example on the market. There is a machine in the Commerzbank
building on Johannisplatz for customers of the Cash Group.
Public
toilet: There is a huge modern public toilet on the Johannisplatz.
The heart of Eisenach lies in the Hörsel valley, which flows into the
Werra on the right-hand side in the Hörschel district. The lowest point
of the entire urban area is not far north of the Hörschel district at
about 196 m above sea level in the Werra valley. The lowest point of
Eisenach's old town is at the former Nadeltor on Goethestrasse.
In the south and southwest, the Thuringian Forest rises steeply to over
400 m above sea level. There the Rennsteig between the Hohe Sonne and
the Vachaer Stein forms the southern border of the city area. At 460 m
above sea level is a rocky outcrop on the Weinstrasse on the Kleiner
Drachenstein, the highest point in the Eisenach urban area. Between the
Hohe Sonne and the city are the Drachenschlucht and the
Landgrafenschlucht. The cursed Jungfernloch, a rock cave, is located in
the mountains of the southern city area, as is the fraternity monument
and the Wartburg. Also south of the city area, the federal highway 84
crosses the Rennsteig am Vachaer Stein, the pass is at 368 m above sea
level.
To the east of Eisenach stretches the Hörseltal and the
Hörselberge mountains to the north, which, according to legend, are said
to be the home of Mother Holle. North of the Hörselberge runs the valley
of the Nesse, which flows into the Hörsel at the Eisenacher Petersberg.
North of Eisenach, an extensive plateau extends to the edge of the
Hainich with the Eisenach districts of Hötzelsroda, Neukirchen,
Madelungen and Berteroda.
West of Eisenach, near Stedtfeld, the
Hörseltal narrows to a width of a few hundred meters. At the Thuringian
Gate near Hörschel, the Hörsel flows into the Werra and there the
Rennsteig begins as a ridge path in the Thuringian Forest; the districts
of Göringen, Wartha and Neuenhof lie south of the Rennsteig in the Werra
valley.
Due to its location on the border of two natural areas, Eisenach is one of the so-called gate cities. It mediates between the Werrabergland and the Hörselberge, two escarpment landscapes shaped by the shell limestone in the north and the north-western Thuringian Forest in the south, which is shaped by the sandstones and conglomerates of the Oberrotliegend. In the northwest, the urban area of Eisenach has a share in the Gerstungen-Creuzburger Werraaue. The peripheral mountains of the Thuringian Forest south of the Neuenhof district are in the north of the Bad Liebenstein Zechstein belt. This location on the edge of several natural areas favored the development of the medieval town of Eisenach as a market for the raw materials wood and stone and the products derived from them, as well as for agricultural products. The location on an important pass road over the Thuringian Forest was also beneficial for urban development.
The communities of Krauthausen and Amt Creuzburg border on the city area in the north. To the east of the city are the communities of Hörselberg-Hainich and Wutha-Farnroda. This is followed by the town of Ruhla in the south-east and the municipality of Gerstungen in the south and south-west. While all of these neighboring communities are in the Thuringian Wartburg district, the urban area borders in the west on Herleshausen in the Hessian Werra-Meißner district.
The Eisenach urban area covers an area of 103.85 km². Of this, 7.44
km² are built-up areas, 6.10 km² are traffic areas, 45.39 km² are
agricultural areas and 1.12 km² are commercial and industrial areas. Due
to its location in the Thuringian Forest, the forested area of 37.52 km²
takes up around a third of the city area.
Eisenach consists of
the core town and the districts of Berteroda, Hötzelsroda, Madelungen,
Neuenhof, Hörschel, Neukirchen, Stedtfeld, Stockhausen, Stregda, Wartha
and Göringen.
The districts have district constitutions, Neuenhof
and Hörschel as well as Wartha and Göringen each have a common district
constitution.
The precipitation totals are between 781 and 959 mm per year, the
average is 831 mm (national average: 837 mm). In most of the urban area,
the values are between 800 and 850 mm, only in the floodplains of Werra
and Hörsel are they below 800 mm. With 850 to 900 mm per year, the
highest amounts of precipitation are reached in the north and south of
the city area.
The annual mean temperature in the city is 7.6 to
9.0 °C and thus corresponds to the Thuringian state average. The average
annual sunshine duration is 1423 to 1444 hours per year. The prevailing
wind direction in open areas is west-southwest.
The urban area has a share in the landscape protection area of the
Thuringian Forest and the Thuringian Forest Nature Park. In the
north-west it touches the nature park Eichsfeld-Hainich-Werratal. Large
parts of the forests with gorges nature reserve between Wartburg and
Hohe Sonne are located in the south of the city area between the
outskirts and the Rennsteig. There are the extensive mixed deciduous
forests and important geotopes typical of the Northwestern Thuringian
Forest natural area.
Among 15 protected landscape components,
area natural monuments and natural monuments there are two regionally
and nationally important bat roosts.
The part of the urban area in the northwestern Thuringian Forest is
formed in the near-surface geological subsoil of the Eisenach succession
of the Oberrotliegend (Saxon). The layers of the Wartburg conglomerate
in the east are followed by unstructured siltstones, the so-called
schist clays, and the gritty succession of the main conglomerate in the
west. The eroding streams cut through the silicate-bound and thus hard
conglomerates and sandstones like gorges and carved out the numerous
high ledges of rock which, like the gorges, characterize the landscape.
Larger gorges are the Drachenschlucht and the Landgrafenschlucht.
Significant rocks are below the Wartburg, at the Teufelskanzel and at
the Mädelstein.
The northern slopes of the Hörsel valley and the
layered areas adjoining to the north are shaped by the layered rocks of
the middle and upper shell limestone and the lower Keuper. The layer
surfaces can also be covered by loess loam. The geological strata of the
Werra Uplands in the Eisenach area are divided into several strata by
several Hercynian faults. The geological layers are mostly tilted
against each other along the fracture edges. A rib of shell limestone,
for example, forms the up to 20 meter high rocks of the Michelskuppe
within the northern part of the city. Large areas of clay and marlstone
from the Lower Jurassic have also come to light on the fault lines
southwest of the Stregda district and around the Eisenach cemetery. The
extreme west of the urban area is characterized by the Leine sequence
and the Werra-to-Stassfurt sequence of the Zechstein. Limestone and
dolomite dominate there, but also anhydrite and gypsum. The
Kupferschieferbank and reef limestone are exposed, for example, at the
fraternity monument. An outcrop of rocks from the Tertiary has been
preserved in a so-called geological window at Hörschel train station. It
is a basalt dike in the Hörschelberg that was created during the Rhön
volcanism. The valley floodplains of Hörsel and Werra are filled with
floodplain sediments, mostly loose valley sands, which were deposited
there by the rivers in the more recent geological past. They are the
largest flat areas in the city of Eisenach and are important as
industrial locations. The old town of Eisenach was built on periglacial
debris, i.e. debris that was formed during the Vistula glaciation on the
northern edge of the Thuringian Forest.
The potential natural vegetation at almost all locations in the city
of Eisenach is beech forest. The spectrum ranges from limestone and
orchid beech forests to grove beech forests on the Rotliegend
conglomerates of the northwestern Thuringian Forest. Alder-ash brook
forests and willow-ash riparian forests have naturally developed in the
floodplains. The natural vegetation of the gorges consists of maple-ash
gorge forests. Dry oak forests may have developed at extreme locations
on rocky crests and on ridges over conglomerate and sandstone. On steep
southern slopes, for example on the Petersberg in the east of the city,
it is difficult for the trees to grow up because of the steepness and
the dryness of the locations. In places there are species-rich dry
bushes and grasses. Sloe and hawthorn species are common, but rarer
species such as barberry, privet, buckthorn and juniper are also
present. There is also an endemic species on the slopes of the
Petersberg, the Eisenach whitebeam.
In many places, the current
vegetation differs significantly from the potentially natural one. The
forests are forested. Tree species that are not appropriate to the site,
such as Norway spruce, Scots pine and black pine, were introduced or
used for afforestation of eroded slopes. Large areas, especially in the
north and east of the urban area, are subject to intensive agricultural
use and are dominated by cultivated plants. Plant species associated
with field flora such as poppies or odorless chamomile can at best gain
a foothold there. In the area of the former military training area on
the Wartenberg in the north of the city area, extensive, semi-natural,
species-rich nutrient-poor grassland (borse grassland) has arisen
through grazing with sheep. In places, gentian-schiller grass can also
be found there. The forests in the Thuringian Forest conservation area
in the southern part of the city are particularly natural. They also
contain floristic specialties such as the two-flowered violet. Common
beech and pedunculate oak form stocks there and in some places reach
their natural age. Old and particularly tall specimens of common ash and
sycamore have grown in the numerous ravine and scree forests. Extensive
wetlands are located in western Eisenach between the Thuringian Forest
and the automobile factory. There are reed areas, a lake, streams,
alluvial forests, canary grass reed beds, damp tall herb meadows and wet
meadows closely interlinked. Old trees, including several black alders,
characterize the area as well as the transition to near-natural
deciduous forests interspersed with rocks.
The oldest traces of settlement go back about 5500 years. At the
Eisenach brickworks west of the Mühlhäuser Chaussee, traces of the
linear ceramics were found. They lived in rectangular post houses. Other
archaeological finds from the area of the former clay pits indicate that
agriculture and animal husbandry were also practiced here. In the 2nd
millennium B.C. Celts settled in the Eisenach area.
Late 1st
millennium BC The Germanic Hermundurs settled in the region around 300
BC, their and the Celtic settlements were on the rivers near Hörschel,
Stregda, Stockhausen and Sättelstädt. The Thuringian Museum in Eisenach
houses the artefacts from these excavations.
Until 531, the
settlement area belonged to the Kingdom of Thuringia. In older research
it was assumed that the Thuringians ("Toringi") appearing in the sources
in late antiquity partly emerged from Hermundur groups, but this is now
disputed. After the Thuringian Empire was smashed by the Franks,
Franconian settlers are said to have settled on the banks of the Hörsel
near the Petersberg in the 8th century. This settlement is considered to
be the origin of today's town of Eisenach.
According to legend,
Ludwig the Springer had the Wartburg built in 1067. At that time, the
Ludowinger family, to which the count descended, tried to consolidate
and expand its territorial power by building castles. The Wartburg was
first mentioned in a document in 1080 by the Saxon chronicler Bruno von
Merseburg. The name Eisenach first appeared in a written source in 1150,
when a knight Berthold de Isenacha was about to be buried.
Eisenach was first mentioned in a document in the 1180s as a
landgrave's civitas near an existing village on the Petersberg. The
town of Eisenach goes back to three (customs) legally separate
market settlements: the Saturday market (today Karlsplatz), the
Wednesday market (on Frauenplan) and the Monday market on today's
market square. The city's location at the crossroads of
long-distance trade routes enabled the rapid development of trade
and commerce, which was protected by the Eisenach city wall, which
had been built since the second half of the 12th century. The
Nikolaitor, one of the oldest city gates in Thuringia, is a reminder
of this fortification in addition to preserved sections of the wall
and remains of the tower.
In addition to the right to
construct the city fortifications, Eisenach received (restricted)
administrative rights, the right to hold markets and collect taxes,
a city coat of arms and the right to mint coins as characteristics
of the city's development. The streets running parallel and at right
angles, the placement of the churches and the layout of the
craftsmen's quarters all point to a planned development of the city.
At the end of the 12th century, the Wartburg became the main
residence of the Landgraves of Thuringia. Eisenach occupied a
central position within the Ludowingian dominion, it was a link
between the Hessian and Thuringian parts of the region. The court of
Landgrave Hermann I of Thuringia was considered the center of
minstrelsy and poetry in the empire. In 1206 the legendary singers'
war is said to have taken place at the Wartburg.
From 1211,
Elisabeth of Thuringia lived in the Wartburg as the wife of
Landgrave Ludwig IV. She appeared in Eisenach as a benefactor and
donated, among other things, a hospital in which she devoted herself
to the poor, sick and lepers. After the death of Ludwig IV,
Elisabeth left the Wartburg in 1228 and was inherited by Pope
Gregory IX in 1235. canonized. Ludwig's successor, Heinrich Raspe,
founded the preacher's monastery in Eisenach in her honor. In 1246,
Heinrich Raspe confirmed the rights and freedoms of the city of
Eisenach. In 1247 he died at the Wartburg and was buried in
Eisenach.
With Heinrich's death, the Ludowinger family died out, which led to
the Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession between Hermann I's grandson,
the Meissen Margrave Heinrich the Illustrious, to whom Heinrich Raspe
had promised eventual enfeoffment in the event of his death in 1243, and
Sophie von Brabant, a daughter of Ludwig IV. led. After the end of the
war (1264) Eisenach fell to Heinrich the Illustrious of Wettin. As a
direct result of this war, the areas known as the Landgraviate of Hesse
and other parts of the dominion were lost.
Eisenach had already
received a municipal statute under Heinrich Raspe, which is only
indirectly handed down in the handhold of 1283. At the same time, the
city was elevated to the rank of Oberhof. Thus, all towns of the
Landgraviate formed a municipal law family. They had to adopt the
Eisenach legal principles and to conform to them. In 1286 Landgrave
Albrecht gave the town the right to elect two mayors. A paved road (“the
stone path”) in Eisenach was first mentioned in a document in 1293.
In 1306 the city tried in vain to gain the status of an imperial
city. The fight against the Wettin town lords led to the destruction of
Klemme Castle and the defense towers of the Marienkirche. After an
unsuccessful siege of the Wartburg, Eisenach surrendered to the
Landgrave Friedrich the Freidigen in 1308. As reparations, the
townspeople had to rebuild the destroyed Klemme Castle and the towers of
the Marienkirche.
In the years 1333 to 1362, the Eisenach City
Volunteers were written down, a collection of local laws drawn up by the
Eisenach Council. In 1387, the priest and town clerk Johannes Rothe
wrote the now-lost Eisenach law books as chain books, which served as
the basis for the law book written by Johannes Purgold at the beginning
of the 16th century. It was also Johannes Rothe who wrote the Thuringian
State Chronicle based on the Chronica Thuringorum written around 1395 by
Dominican monks from the Preacherkloster in Eisenach.
For
entertainment, mystery plays or moralities with a religious background
were performed in the city of Eisenach. Landgrave Friedrich der Freidige
is said to have gotten so excited during the Eisenach performance of The
Play of the Five Wise and Five Foolish Maidens in 1321 that he suffered
a physical and mental collapse and lived in mental derangement until his
death.
Jews probably settled in Eisenach as early as the 12th
century. The first reference to a possible Jewish community around 1235
is the mention of Jechiel ben Jakob from Eisenach, author of a synagogue
poem and two lamentations. It is proven that Samuel ben Jakob
corresponded with Meir von Rothenburg on religious questions in the 13th
century. At the end of the century, the Jews are said to have lived in
the Judengasse, which was severely damaged in a city fire in 1342, and
later in the Loeberstrasse. From the years 1293 and 1323 other names
have been handed down. In 1283 the city law contained provisions
relating to Jewish residents. During the plague from 1348 there were
attacks on Jews, after 1411 they were expelled from the city. In 1510
they were allowed to trade for a few years, but not to settle in
Eisenach.
In 1342 a great fire in the city destroyed almost all of the city's
buildings; with the town hall on the market, the municipal documents
were burned. In 1349 the city was hit by the first plague epidemic,
another one in 1393 claimed 3000 victims in the city.
In 1406,
with the death of Landgrave Balthasar, Eisenach lost the court and the
landgrave's administration and thus its status as a landgrave's
residence. This eventually led to the city's economic decline. When the
landgrave's possessions were divided up in 1445, Eisenach fell to
Wilhelm III, who had the Eisenach mint closed around 1450. After the
death of Wilhelm III. Eisenach fell to the Ernestine family during the
division of Leipzig in 1485.
Martin Luther came to Eisenach for the first time in 1498 as a Latin
student. On May 2, 1521, he preached in the Georgenkirche on the return
journey from the Diet of Worms. After he had been banned from the Reich,
he was housed in the Wartburg as “Junker Jörg” the following day and
thus hidden from possible pursuers. He stayed there until March 1, 1522
and translated the New Testament from the original Greek into German; it
was published in September 1522 (“September Testament”).
With the
arrival of the preacher Jacob Strauss from Basel, which was noted for
1523, the usury dispute in Eisenach began – a conflict that quickly grew
in severity despite the personal intervention of Luther and Melanchton –
as a result of which the citizens of Eisenach initially refused to pay
interest on financial transactions. As a result, residents tumultuously
attacked the existing ecclesiastical institutions, almost all churches
and monasteries were severely devastated or burned down.
On May
7, 1525, the Werrahaufen, a horde of rebellious peasants in the German
Peasants' War, arrived in front of the city to obtain support from the
city authorities and the population. The city commandant managed to lure
most of the unsuspecting leaders into the city, whereupon they were
immediately arrested and executed after a show trial in the market. A
cross in the pavement in front of the church still reminds us of this
today. 17 sympathizers from the Eisenach population shared this fate
weeks later, after Elector John the Steadfast had regained control of
the situation.
In 1528 Eisenach became a Protestant in the course
of the Reformation, with Justus Menius as the first superintendent. The
Anabaptist movement was widespread in Thuringia at the time, and one of
the most important supporters in Eisenach was Fritz Erbe. He was
captured in 1533 and imprisoned in the stork tower for seven years. In
1540 he was moved to the dungeon in the south tower of the Wartburg,
where he died in 1548.
In the 1550s, Hanns Leonhardt, as master builder and architect, built
numerous magnificent town houses in the Renaissance style; the former
wine cellar, today the town hall, the St. George fountain on the market
square and the Luther House have been preserved. Such a prestigious city
center made it easier for Johann Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Eisenach, to move
his residence from Marksuhl to Eisenach in 1596. Devastating city fires
in 1617 and 1636, the tribulations of the Thirty Years' War and the
plague that was brought in in 1626 severely damaged the city and slowed
down the economic boom again.
Eisenach and today's districts of
Madelungen, Neukirchen and Stregda were affected by witch hunts from
1615 to 1681. Eight women and one man were involved in witch trials,
four were executed, two women resisted torture and did not confess, but
like the man were expelled from the country.
Johann Sebastian
Bach was born in Eisenach on March 21, 1685 and baptized in the
Georgenkirche. His father Johann Ambrosius Bach was head of the
Rattrumpetererei. In Eisenach, the baroque composers Johann Pachelbel
and Johann Christoph Bach worked as organists and Georg Philipp Telemann
as court conductor.
Eisenach became a residence town, until 1757 with a princely court,
and in the 18th century more and more a cultural town. The city palace
built on the market square between 1742 and 1751 is the architectural
symbol of this new heyday. In 1741 the Duchy of Saxe-Eisenach fell to
Ernst August I of Saxe-Weimar on the death of Duke Wilhelm Heinrich. In
1777, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe stayed at the Wartburg for the first
time at the invitation of Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
In the circles of Julie von Bechtolsheim, Goethe's "little soul" and
Wieland's "Psyche", the most respected spirits of the time met at the
Jakobsplan: in addition to Goethe and Wieland, the Eisenach philosopher
Christian Schreiber, Friederike von Schardt, Charlotte von Stein's
sister-in-law, Madame de Staël, Benjamin Constant, Duke August of Gotha,
Grand Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and his wife, Carl
Friedrich, the then reigning Grand Duke of Weimar and his wife, Maria
Pavlovna, Duke Bernhard of Weimar, Moritz August von Thümmel, Friedrich
de la Motte Fouqué, Johann Friedrich Rochlitz, Karl von Müffling,
General Wilhelm von Dörnberg, Count Johann von Thielmann, Aaron Burr,
the Vice President of the United States of America, August von Kotzebue,
Count Otto von Loeben, Johann Benjamin Erhard, and Count Dorotheus
Ludwig von Keller and many others. There was what Madame de Staël once
said: "All truly educated people are countrymen".
In 1807, Napoleon I rested in the city. A tragic accident occurred on September 1, 1810 during the Napoleonic Wars: a gunpowder explosion on a French ammunition transport through the middle of Eisenach killed 70 people and severely damaged the town. The Black Fountain on Georgenstrasse, erected in 1817, is a reminder of this and was given its current appearance on its centenary. The retreat of the defeated French army claimed countless victims, as a result of which a typhoid epidemic broke out in the city. During the 1814 campaign, the Russian Tsar Alexander I stayed briefly in Eisenach.
In October 1817, on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the
Battle of the Nations near Leipzig, around 500 students and professors
met for the first Wartburg Festival to commemorate 300 years of the
Reformation and to demand a unified and free Germany. Another Wartburg
Festival followed in 1848. Since 1850, the Wingolf Association has
celebrated its Wartburg Festival in Eisenach every two years. The
physicist and social reformer Ernst Abbe was born in Eisenach in 1840.
Economically, structurally and culturally, the city developed much
faster after 1800 than before. In 1817 a school for midwives opened in
Fleischgasse (today Lutherstrasse). A centralization of midwifery
education that "physicians and state theorists alike welcomed." The
merchants Eichel, Pfennig and Streiber founded the first industrial
companies; Spinning mills, white lead and paint factories were
established, and the worsted yarn spinning mill was the first
large-scale operation. The tanning trade was also important. The traffic
routes emanating from Eisenach were developed as comfortable roads and
created the connection to the Eisenacher Oberland in the Rhön, a part of
the area of the secularized Fulda Abbey that was granted by the Congress
of Vienna.
The Biedermeier period favored the creation of
landscape parks; merchant Christian Friedrich Roese laid out a forest
park on the still bare Metilstein. At the same time, the gardens on the
Pflugensberg and on the Spicke, the Kartausgarten, the Clemdagarten and
Pfennigsgarten were created. The founding of the Grand Ducal-Saxon
Forestry School by the forester Gottlob König in 1830 continued this
trend. The first restaurants and places of entertainment sprang up
around the city, and the first coffee houses and ballrooms in the city.
In the social salons typical of the time, in Eisenach the Clemda Society
for the "educated classes", higher officials, entrepreneurs, officers,
but also the landed gentry met for cultural discussions, music and
entertainment.
In 1820, the architect Johann Wilhelm Sältzer
built a brick factory in Eisenach, which his son Eduard Sältzer later
expanded and which, with the introduction of the Hoffmann ring kiln, set
standards for the economical production of the building material that
was urgently needed in Thuringia in the Wilhelminian era. In 1847 it was
connected to the Thuringian Railway to Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar, Halle and
Leipzig in the east. The route was extended to Bebra in Hesse in 1849,
so that there were rail connections to Frankfurt am Main and Kassel. The
Werra Railway was the last railway line to be opened in 1858, leading to
the Main via Meiningen and Coburg. The Schwebda–Wartha railway to
Eschwege, which opened in 1907 and was closed in 1969, began west of
Eisenach in what is now Wartha.
In 1859 the German National
Association was founded in Gasthof Fantasie. August Bebel and Wilhelm
Liebknecht founded the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP) in the
Goldener Löwe inn in 1869 and wrote their Eisenach program. In the
further development up to 1890 it became the SPD. The economic
development of the city led to the foundation of further factories
around 1870, the Demmer brothers stove factory, the Hermann Berger shoe
last factory, the August Saeltzer art pottery, the Arzberger, Schöpff &
Co. paint factory, the Wilk & Oehring window factory, the Eisenach Stein
& Co. monastery brick factory. and in 1873 the Petersberger brewery in
Eisenach, owned by the businessman Albert Erbslöh, which later became
the Aktien-Brauerei Eisenach and now exists as Wartburg Brauerei
Eisenach GmbH.
In 1896 the vehicle factory in Eisenach was
founded, which marked the beginning of the Eisenach automotive industry.
To supply the city, a (light) gas station was built in 1862, a
waterworks in 1874, the post and telegraph office in 1887 and the city
slaughterhouse and power station in 1892. This made it possible to
operate the Eisenach electric tram from 1897. Numerous banks and
insurance companies set up branches in the city center around 1900, and
in 1905 a branch of the Reichsbank was established in the north of the
city centre.
An infantry garrison had existed in Eisenach since
1822, and the number of troops was estimated at 165 in 1831. At the
instigation of the city administration, construction of the municipal
barracks on Hospitalstrasse began in 1869. The 2nd Battalion of the 5th
Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 94 was stationed there from 1871 to
1914.
In 1899 the memorial to the Wingolf Association was
completed, in 1902 the fraternity memorial was inaugurated, in 1904
today's main station, in 1906 the Volkshaus Stern and in 1907 the
Bachhaus. In 1908 the first movie theater was opened and in 1913 a zoo
was created on the Wartenberg. Eisenach became a conference and congress
town around 1900. On January 19, 1901, the Association of German Motor
Vehicle Manufacturers was founded in the Hotel Kaiserhof with the
participation of the director of the vehicle factory in Eisenach, Gustav
Ehrhardt. The Kurbad-Eisenach-Gesellschaft was founded in 1905, numerous
hotels and guesthouses, the lobby, a casino, baths, parks and
sanatoriums were built. The Kurbad-Gesellschaft acquired the rights to
use the mineral water spring at Wilhelmsglücksbrunn, known as the Grand
Duchess Karolinen Spring, and had a water pipe laid from this to the
foyer, where the spa was opened on July 8, 1906 in Eisenach’s southern
town. With the First World War, spa operations in Eisenach largely came
to a standstill.
With permission for the Thuringian court factor Michael Rothschild in
1804, a modest Jewish immigration began. In the 1820s, more families
came from the rural communities, the surrounding "Jewish villages"
Lengsfeld, Gehaus, Herleshausen, Nesselröden, Geisa. However, it was
only at the beginning of the 1860s that a small community was founded,
which had 72 members in 1864, and by 1877 there were already 287. Around
1864, Jacob Heidungsfeld was employed as the first teacher in the Jewish
community, and he also worked as a cantor until his death in 1897 . The
Jewish religious school was founded in 1865, and a mikveh set up in 1868
(Clemensstrasse 5).
Eisenach was from 1846 to 1876 under Rabbi
Dr. Mendel Hess and from 1912 the seat of the state rabbinate of
Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach, which included the communities of Apolda,
Aschenhausen, Eisenach, Gehaus, Geisa, Jena, Ilmenau, Stadtlengsfeld,
Vacha and Weimar. From 1898 to 1930 Dr. Josef Wiesen Rabbi, from 1912 in
Eisenach. He died in November 1942 in the Theresienstadt concentration
camp.
The Jews of Eisenach were initially active in the
livestock, cloth and millinery trade, then in fur, leather and
agricultural products, wool, wood and manufactured goods. In 1877 there
were two Jewish lawyers, a doctor, an editor, an insurance agent, two
bankers, etc. Renowned shops were the Löwenstein women's fashion shop,
the Dreyfuss men's fashion shop, but also industrial companies such as
the Weinstein drum factory. In 1904 the congregation had the highest
number of members with 430, in 1906 it only had 386 members.
After World War I, the city's population had grown to 40,000 in 1919.
In the newly created residential areas of the suburbs and north of the
railway line, four-storey houses were therefore preferred. The living
conditions in the villa colonies Mariental, Predigerberg, Karthäuserhöhe
and Marienhöhe in the southern part of the city were significantly more
luxurious. The reestablishment of the Jewish community in Eisenach,
which was made up in part of business people from Stadtlengsfeld and the
Eisenacher Oberland, was also linked to the economic upswing. The center
of the Eisenach Israelite community was the synagogue built in 1885 on
what was then Wörthstrasse (today: Karl-Marx-Strasse). It was set on
fire and destroyed on November 9, 1938 during the Kristallnacht pogrom
night. During the First World War, 23 Jewish soldiers from Eisenach
died.
The 2nd Replacement Battalion 167 was transferred from
Eisenach to Kassel in 1917 and in November the replacement battalion of
the Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 83 from Eschwege was taken over. The
Panzer Regiment II, which had been transferred from Silesia to Eisenach,
moved into the newly built barracks on Ludendorffwall (today
Ernst-Thälmann-Straße) in October 1935. A memorial for those who died in
March at the entrance to Frankfurter Strasse commemorates a bloody
military operation on March 18, 1920 during the Kapp Putsch, in which
five Eisenach workers died. From 1920 to 1940, Eisenach was the center
of Guida Diehl's new territory movement. The organization and the
Neuland publishing house were based in the Neulandhaus; the city was the
annual scene of the Neulandtag. In 1920 the newly founded Thuringian
state church took up residence in Eisenach.
On January 30, 1933, the NSDAP took power. First, the city
experienced a strong economic impulse. Housing estates (Am Klosterholz,
Kirschberg), two schools, the building of the Thuringian State Bank on
Karlstrasse and the publishing house of the Thuringian Daily Post, the
mother house of the deaconess on Karlsplatz and a forest stage were
built. Armaments factories, large barracks and an Air Force flying
school were built as part of the rearmament. In 1935 the city became the
location of the 2nd Panzer Regiment of the 1st Panzer Division. A camp
for the Reich Labor Service was set up at Siebenborn.
In 1920 and
1924, various Jewish shops were daubed with paint by schoolchildren, and
in 1923 and 1925 the windows of the synagogue were smashed. From 1933,
the Jews of Eisenach were increasingly disenfranchised, as they were
everywhere in the German Reich. From 1938 more and more Jewish citizens
had to leave their homeland. During the pogrom night of November 9,
1938, the synagogue on Wörthstrasse was destroyed, and Jewish shops and
private homes were looted and vandalized. Commemorative plaques in the
station building and on Karl-Marx-Straße as well as around 50 stumbling
blocks commemorate these incidents. On May 6, 1939, eleven regional
evangelical churches founded the Institute for Research and Elimination
of Jewish Influence on German Church Life in the Wartburg, which from
then on had its headquarters at Bornstraße 11. The institute's work
aimed to "liberate" Christianity from all Jewish influences and thus
create a "species-appropriate" faith. In September 1941, the 145 Jews
still living in the city were interned in the house at Goethestraße 48
and deported from there to Belzec and Theresienstadt in 1942. Few of
them survived.
In 1940 the first prisoners of war and women and
men from the countries occupied by Germany came to the city and were
forced to do forced labor, especially in the BMW municipal works and in
the BMW aircraft engine works. The largest groups were 2154 Ukrainians,
1314 Russians and 390 Belarusians. The forced laborers also worked in
the surrounding towns. A memorial in the Erlengräben (district of
Mosbach, municipality of Wutha-Farnroda) commemorates 455 victims. 1040
Soviet prisoners of war and 102 civilian prisoners who died are
commemorated in the Soviet Cemetery of Honor on the Wartenberg.
In 1941, Eisenach was connected to the Reichsautobahn network, from the
east route 80 was provisionally completed up to the Eisenach-West exit.
For this purpose, construction work has been taking place in the north
of the city area since 1936, including the construction of the
Karolinental Bridge and the motorway maintenance depot, which is now a
listed building.
During World War II, from February 1944 to
February 1945, the city was the target of seven Allied air raids, mostly
by the United States Army Air Forces. 170 heavy bombers dropped more
than 400 tons of bombs on Eisenach. The automobile factory and its
surroundings as well as the historic city center, especially in the area
of the market square, Lutherstrasse and Frauenplan, were particularly
affected. At the end of the war, 2,000 homes in Eisenach were damaged or
uninhabitable, and two-thirds of the car factory had been destroyed. The
archive vault and the stables of the residence as well as the council
scales, which were later removed, also lay in ruins. The old residence,
the old castle, the Creutznacher house, the town hall, the Luther house
and the Bach house were badly damaged. Numerous other buildings suffered
minor to moderate damage from bombs or artillery fire, such as the
Annen, Georgen, Kreuz, Nikolai and Prediger churches, the bell tower,
the New Residence and the Wartburg. Most of the damaged buildings were
restored after the war ended. About 370 civilians died in the air raids,
including low-flying aircraft and artillery shelling, prior to the
occupation.
The western suburbs of Hörschel and Neuenhof, along with the
neighboring town of Creuzburg, were taken by American units on April 1,
1945. The German combat commander von Eisenach refused to surrender and
ordered unconditional resistance. In the days that followed, the
Americans advanced further north of the city towards Gotha. On April 6,
from 2 a.m. until dawn, Eisenach's city center was occupied by artillery
fire, which resulted in additional building losses due to unextinguished
fires. As a result, the combat commander's office left and the troops of
the German Wehrmacht surrendered. In the morning hours of April 6, Mayor
Rudolf Lotz, who had been inaugurated two days earlier, handed the city
over to American troops.
The balance of destruction in World War
II was four damaged bridges, 55 public buildings (21 total loss), 6742
apartments (1870 total loss) and 231 utility buildings, factories,
depots and technical facilities (84 total loss). Seven bombardments
alone targeted the BMW site on the northern edge of downtown and the
outside area on the Wartenberg. Over 17,000 foreigners, including 14,089
Italians, were forced laborers or prisoners of war in barrack camps,
ruins and emergency shelters on the outskirts of the city. The Eisenach
death register contains the data of about 2,000 Soviet citizens and many
hundreds of victims from other European countries.
Mayor Lotz was
retained in office by the American city commander until May 7, 1945, and
was then replaced. Ernst Fresdorf, a Rhinelander and long-time mayor of
Cologne, who happened to be present in Eisenach, was appointed the new
mayor. The demolition of the city, the railway operation and the
reopening of production facilities began while the Americans were still
there.
With the contractual handover of Thuringia to the Red Army on July 1,
1945, Fresdorf had to agree to extensive personnel reviews, he himself
was relieved of his office on July 25, 1945. From July 27, the SPD
politician Karl Hermann took over the duties of the mayor.
After
the end of the war, four transit camps (one for each zone of occupation)
were set up in Eisenach as quarantine camps for prisoners of war, forced
laborers and expellees. By September 1946, around 450,000 people were
registered and cared for in Eisenach.
On a former courthouse on
Theaterplatz there is a plaque with the inscription: "In memory of the
victims of violence and injustice 1945-1989. In memory of 33 Eisenach
youths aged 13-21: arrested in 1945, convicted in 1946 and 9 of them
executed. You are unforgettable.” The young people were accused of
werewolf activities. Five of those sentenced to long terms of
imprisonment died in Soviet special camps, the survivors returned from
camp detention in 1950/51.
After the inner-German border was closed in 1952, today's western
districts were in the five-kilometer exclusion zone, which could only be
entered with state permission. Overall, the location near the border had
a negative impact on urban development, so the previously close economic
and social ties to Northeast Hesse broke off, the population fell from
53,000 in 1939 to 48,000 in 1988. In 1950 Eisenach lost its status as an
independent city and became part of it of the district of Eisenach,
which was divided in 1952. The city came to the reduced district of
Eisenach in the district of Erfurt. The Wartha/Herleshausen border
crossing was set up west of the city. At least one person was shot by
the border troops in 1964 for attempting to flee the republic in the
border area near what is now Wartha and Göringen.
On June 17,
1953, 6,000 workers at the Eisenach Motor Works (EMW) went on strike. In
particular, they called for a lowering of labor standards. Soviet troops
moved in and the occupying power declared a state of emergency.
In 1955 the Wartburg Stadium was built and from 1965 the sports center
in Katzenaue. A GDR performance center for fencing was located in
Wartburgstadt. In 1962 the Bismarck Tower on the Wartenberg was blown
up.
The triple jubilee celebrated in 1967 - 900 years of
Wartburg, 450 years of Reformation and 150 years of the fraternity
meeting - was the reason for the GDR leadership to present Eisenach as a
model socialist city. An extensive cultural program and urban
redevelopment limited to the area around the sights were approved. The
cityscape was beautified by the redesign of green spaces
(Bahnhofstrasse, Wartburgallee) and facade renovations. A modern city
marketing with tourism information was initiated, the first Intershops
in Eisenach for the sale of Western articles were established in two
hotels. The Wartburg Pavilion was built to present the Eisenach
automotive tradition. In the years that followed, the Eisenach parish
received two new buildings in the outskirts of Hofferbertaue and
Eisenach-Nord, financed by West German church districts, as a guest
gift. Several scientific conferences with international participation
took place in the city in 1966 and 1967. The planned city partnerships
with Denain in France and Pesaro in Italy were prohibited.
The
traditional summer prize, the song festival around the Wartburg, the
fountain festival and the foyer festival were the most important
cultural events over the course of the year in the GDR era.
The Wartburgstadt was an important industrial location in the GDR,
the largest companies were the VEB Automobilwerk Eisenach (AWE), the
Kombinat Fahrzeugelektrik Ruhla (FER), with its headquarters in Eisenach
and Ruhla, the VEB Elektroschaltgeräte Eisenach, the VEB Elektrotechnik
Eisenach and the VEB Bakery factory in Eisenach. The focus was on
vehicle construction: in 1956 the first Wartburg rolled off the
production line in Eisenach. The annual increase in production figures
reached 42,700 cars in 1971 and the highest annual production of 74,000
cars in 1985. Since the 1970s, the lack of skilled workers in industry
and the latent housing shortage have been problematic for the further
development of the city. Planning for the first prefabricated housing
estates began as early as 1972, after a housing estate close to the city
of the Arbeiterwohnungsbaugenossenschaft (AWG) had already been built on
Ernst-Thälmann-Strasse in the north-west of the city.
With the
demolition of old town quarters, space was created for industrial
housing construction from 1975, in the same year the construction of the
inner-city residential area Goethestraße with around 750 apartments
began, from 1976 to 1978 a further 460 apartments were built in the
Petersberg residential area and from 1978 to 1985 were built in the
residential area Eisenach-Nord 3745 residential units for around 12,000
residents. By connecting these residential areas to the district heating
networks that were created at the same time, it was possible to reduce
the level of pollutants in the air we breathe. In a balance sheet for
1986, 5,325 remotely heated homes were reported. In 1975, the Eisenach
tramway that had opened in 1897 was discontinued and replaced by
articulated buses. The high volume of traffic at the change of shift and
the fact that the apartments were still mostly heated by stoves often
led to smog alarms in the inner city, and illnesses caused by
respiratory problems increased steadily. This environmental pollution
has also been mentioned in the Eisenach daily press since the mid-1980s.
In addition to the political situation, the feared loss of other large
parts of the historic old town and the increasing environmental
pollution were the main reasons for the growing resentment and
resistance of the Eisenach population.
On October 11, 1989, thousands of concerned people from Eisenach
gathered for the first time in the Georgenkirche for a prayer for peace.
On October 23 and 30, the church also served as a podium for the
meetings of representatives of the Thuringian state church and the
Eisenach opposition and citizens' movement that was being formed. Twelve
representatives of integrity from all walks of life were appointed to
the "Eisenach Citizens' Committee". A demonstration march through the
old town of Eisenach concluded the event. On the night of November 9,
the rush to the border crossing points near Wartha-Herleshausen began.
For months, Eisenach became the stage of the wave of travel to the old
federal states that was now beginning, numerous radio and television
stations reported live from the city and district area.
The first
major demonstration after the opening of the border took place on
November 19: artists and around 8,000 citizens demanded the end of the
SED rule in the GDR. The representatives of the citizens' committee met
with representatives of the city and district administration as well as
the SED for initial consultations on December 2nd. December on. The
first offices of the citizens' movement and the newly founded parties
(SDP, Neues Forum and Demokratischer Aufbruch) were made available in
the administration building of the Eisenach District Council. The "round
table" was formed for the first time on December 20 in the offices of
the Eisenach Superintendent on Pfarrberg, with Superintendent Hans
Herbst leading the talks. On January 27, 1990, a large rally registered
by the SPD took place on the market square in Eisenach, at which Willy
Brandt spoke to the people of Eisenach. All parties used the following
weeks to prepare for the Volkskammer elections on March 18, 1990.
Numerous prominent federal and state politicians also turned up in
Eisenach for this purpose. Contrary to expectations, the “Alliance for
Germany” led by the CDU also won this election in Eisenach with a clear
majority. On April 20th, the council of the district of Eisenach met for
its last meeting, the representatives of the Eisenach Citizens'
Committee ceased their work on April 27th. With the local elections on
May 6, 1990, the CDU in Eisenach won a clear majority in the city and
district of Eisenach. In mid-May, the leading representatives of the
parties represented in parliament (CDU, SPD, FDP, Democratic Awakening
and the “Hofferbertaue Citizens’ Initiative”, which is important in
Eisenach), agreed to form a grand coalition.
On May 31, 1990,
Eisenach's first freely elected city council since 1933 met for the
first time, to which 59 city councilors from ten political parties and
groups belonged. He voted out Hans-Peter Brodhun as the new mayor and
the city council that existed under GDR law.
After reunification, the population continued to fall, but the
economic conditions in Eisenach were better than in other parts of the
new federal states. Automaker Opel started production at a new car plant
in Eisenach in 1992 after the Eisenach car plant closed in 1991. In
1994, as part of the Thuringian district reform, the districts of
Eisenach and Bad Salzungen merged to form the Wartburg district with
headquarters in Bad Salzungen and Eisenach. The head office of the
district administrator has been in Bad Salzungen since July 1994, where
a new district office was built and moved into in 1997. In 1998 Eisenach
(again) became an independent city. The sole seat of the Wartburg
district then passed to Bad Salzungen.
As part of a trip to
Germany on May 14, 1998, the then President of the United States of
America, Bill Clinton, visited the city together with the then Federal
Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
Work on the Tor zur Stadt urban
development complex has been underway since October 2005, and there have
been plans for the site of the former paint factory since the early
1990s. The focus is on the redesign of the station suburbs, including
urban planning measures, remediation of contaminated sites and aspects
of traffic management. The latter remained largely unchanged after the
redesign of the ZOB (central bus station) in 2017 on Müllerstrasse. From
now on, the city bus lines will also run at the site of the former
regional bus station. In 2020, the gateway to the city was built as a
retail park with a multi-storey car park and contributes to the
structural unity of Bahnhofstrasse. As a result of the neglect of empty
houses in the inner city area, it is not uncommon for them to be
demolished, for example on Johannisplatz. On May 25, 2009, the city was
awarded the title of Place of Diversity by the federal government.
On November 4, 2011, right-wing terrorists Uwe Mundlos and Uwe
Böhnhardt were found dead after a successful bank robbery in a mobile
home in the Stregda district. Through this de facto self-disclosure,
their terror cell National Socialist Underground suddenly became known
and triggered years of coming to terms with their murders and attacks
with twelve investigative committees and a court case. The circumstances
of her death and the subsequent work of the authorities have not been
fully clarified and have occupied the investigative committee of the
Thuringian state parliament since 2015. Eisenach is one of the largest
remaining strongholds of the right-wing extremist NPD, which in the city
with results of around 10 percent on a par with the more moderate AfD.
In 2015, Eisenach was awarded the honorary title of "European City
of Reformation" by the Community of Evangelical Churches in Europe.
Due to the city's ongoing budget deficit, efforts have been underway
since 2012 to give up the freedom of a district and reintegrate Eisenach
into the Wartburg district. In 2016, the city applied to the state
government to give up its freedom of district and to be able to return
to the Wartburg district. The red-red-green state government initially
included this concern in the planned regional reform. After the planned
second district reform in Thuringia was canceled in November 2017, the
city and the district drew up a joint contract, on the basis of which
the integration into the district should take place. This "contract for
the future", which the district council of the Wartburg district
approved with a large majority in August 2018, formed the basis for the
draft law for the voluntary reorganization of the district of Wartburg
district and the independent city of Eisenach. However, the Eisenach
city council voted 16 to 16 against the "Future Contract", which meant
that the Thuringian state parliament could not pass the law. The city
council of Eisenach already expressed concerns about the project at the
beginning of November 2018, among other things because Eisenach was not
intended to be a district town and could not become financially viable
in the long term by giving up the district freedom. Finally, on March
12, 2019, the city council unanimously approved a merger. On September
12, 2019, the state parliament confirmed this by law. For this purpose,
the city of Eisenach will receive a total of €16.5 million from the Free
State of Thuringia for 2022 to 2026. The merger took place on July 1,
2021, and the transfer of tasks on January 1, 2022. With the merger,
Eisenach was given the title of major district town, which is intended
for all independent towns that can be incorporated into a district but
are not designated as the district seat become.
Coat of arms of the city of Eisenach Blazon: "In blue, the silver
full figure of St. George in mail armor and cloak; in the right hand a
flagged spear, whose three-pronged silver pennant shows a red high
cross, the left hand holding a golden palm branch, supported on a silver
shield with a red cross in paws. The shield figure is accompanied on the
right by a silver paw cross.”
Justification for the coat of arms: The
city coat of arms with St. George goes back to the oldest city seal from
the end of the 13th century. Landgrave Ludwig der Springer, the son of
the founder of Eisenach, worshiped the saint, had the Georgenkirche
built on the market square and chose him as the patron saint for himself
and his town.
incorporations
On October 1, 1922, Fischbach,
Eichrodt, Wutha, Stockhausen, Trenkelhof, Stregda, Mittelshof, Dürrerhof
and Ramsborn were incorporated. Stedtfeld followed on October 1, 1923.
On September 30, 1924, Eichrodt, Wutha, Stockhausen, Stregda,
Mittelshof, Dürrerhof and Stedtfeld became independent again.
On
July 1, 1994, the community of Hötzelsroda, the community of Lerchenberg
near Eisenach with the districts of Stregda, Madelungen, Neukirchen and
Berteroda, the community of Neuenhof/Hörschel, the community of
Stedtfeld, the community of Stockhausen and the community of
Wartha-Göringen were incorporated.
Eisenach was already one of the larger cities in Thuringia in the Middle Ages. It is estimated that the city had 4500 inhabitants in the mid-16th century, 5500 in the mid-17th century and 6500 in the early 18th century. According to a census in the Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach from 1791, the city of Eisenach had 8,214 inhabitants. Even in the early modern period, the population increased continuously, so that at the beginning of industrialization around 1850, around 10,000 people were already living in Eisenach. Nevertheless, the strongest population growth took place later than in most other cities in Thuringia, namely only in the period between 1895 and 1914, when mechanical and vehicle construction in particular ensured a high degree of industrialization. The population doubled between 1850 and 1890 and again from 1890 to the First World War, when the city already had 40,000 inhabitants. In the period between the world wars another 10,000 inhabitants were added because the automobile industry was developing well. Shortly after the Second World War, the number of inhabitants reached its historic high of around 52,000 due to refugees. In GDR times, Eisenach did not continue to grow due to its disadvantageous location directly on the inner-German border. Between 1945 and 1989, the number of inhabitants even fell by around 4,000 people. After reunification, the population began to decline rapidly, but this was slowed down in the mid-1990s due to improved economic conditions. Since then, Eisenach's population has been shrinking only slowly. In her 2009 publication Who, where, how many? - Population in Germany 2030", in which the Bertelsmann Foundation provides data on the development of the number of inhabitants for all municipalities in Germany with more than 5000 inhabitants, a decline in the population between 2009 and 2030 by 7.5 percent (3220 people) is predicted for Eisenach.
Eisenach was already a center of religious life in Germany under the
Thuringian landgraves. Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia lived and worked
here, and her husband, Landgrave Ludwig IV (the saint) also promoted the
religious life of the city to the best of his ability. The first Jewish
community settled in Eisenach under these landgraves. Until the
Reformation, the Catholic Archdiocese of Mainz was responsible for
Eisenach. The most important religious orders were represented in the
city with monasteries and term farms.
Eisenach was and is a
center of the Reformation. From 1921 to the end of 2008, the city was
the seat of the regional bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Thuringia. The new regional bishop of the Evangelical Church in Central
Germany has had his seat in Magdeburg since the merger of the Thuringian
regional church and the Evangelical Church of the Church Province of
Saxony in 2009. The bishop and the regional church office had their seat
in the Villa Pflugensberg above the city center.
The regional
synod of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany (EKM) approved the
formation of the Eisenach-Erfurt provost district on January 1, 2013.
The regional bishop will be based in Eisenach. The provost responsible
for the region, Reinhard Werneburg, was elected at the Gera conference
of the state synod on March 18, 2012.
Many citizens of Eisenach
are non-denominational today.
In addition to the two large
Christian parishes, there are other religious communities in Eisenach,
namely Baptists (Julius-Lippold-Straße), Seventh-day Adventists (Obere
Predigergasse), Methodists (Goethestraße), New Apostolic Church
(Uferstraße) and Jehovah's Witnesses (Am Wiesengrund ).
The rooms
of the regional church community in Eisenach are located in
Barfusserstrasse.
There is also a Muslim community in Eisenach,
which is part of the German-speaking Islamic Cultural Center in Eisenach
e. V. has organized and operates a prayer room.
The Jewish
community in Eisenach was systematically wiped out with the destruction
of the synagogue in 1938 and the deportation of the Eisenach citizens of
Jewish faith until 1942. The memorial book of the Federal Archives for
the victims of the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany (1933-1945)
lists 212 Jewish residents of Eisenach who were deported and mostly
murdered.
(Lord) Mayor
In 1286, Landgrave Albrecht II granted the city the
right to elect two mayors. In the Middle Ages, members of influential
patrician families such as Hellgreve or Cotta held this office. With the
introduction of a new town ordinance in 1813, the office of mayor and
his powers were newly regulated; the first incumbent to rule according
to the new rules was the Eisenach councilor Friedrich Günther Beyer. A
Lord Mayor was first elected in 1847, and August Roese held the office
as “Lord Mayor for life”. Between 1950 and 1994 the city was again
represented by a mayor. Katja Wolf (Die Linke), who has been in office
since 2012, won the 2018 mayoral election with 7,859 votes (58%) in the
runoff on April 29, 2018 and thus remained the city’s mayor.
Town
twinning
Eisenach has six sister cities:
There have been
historical connections with the Hessian university town of Marburg for
more than 800 years in connection with Elisabeth of Thuringia. For this
reason, the Marburg City Council decided in 1986 to revive the
connection between the two cities, which was ratified on June 10, 1988
in the Wartburg Palace.
Relations with Sedan in France date back to
1972. Even before reunification, a state-organized youth exchange took
place between the former district of Erfurt and Sedan. On May 25, 1991,
the agreement on a town twinning was signed.
Located in Waverly
(Iowa, USA), the German Lutheran College was founded in 1879 and was
later named Wartburg College. For this reason, a town twinning has
linked Eisenach and Waverly since November 28, 1992.
A company that
was also active in Eisenach as a supplier to the automotive industry
after reunification resulted in the conclusion of a town twinning with
the Danish town of Skanderborg in 1993, which was renewed on the
occasion of the 15th anniversary with a contract dated October 6, 2008.
As early as the early 1990s, children from the Belarusian city of
Mogilev, who were affected by the Chernobyl disaster, stayed in Eisenach
several times at the invitation of the Diakonisches Werk. That was the
trigger for the town twinning signed on December 12, 1996 with
Mahiljou/Mogilev.
Sárospatak in Hungary is believed to be the
birthplace of Saint Elizabeth. Every year at Pentecost, a big festival
is celebrated there to commemorate the farewell to Erzsébet, who was
only four years old. In Thuringia's Elizabeth Year 2007, on the occasion
of the 800th birthday of St. Elizabeth, the first contacts between the
two cities were made, which were contractually sealed on November 19,
2008 in the Elizabeth Church in Sárospatak with a town twinning.
Eisenach has a district court, which belongs to the district of the
district court of Meiningen, as well as the labor court in Eisenach,
which belongs to the district of the regional labor court in Erfurt.
The municipal facilities include the Eisenach City Library with a
current stock of around 70,000 printed works and digital media as well
as around 3500 mostly historical books on Thuringian-Saxon history.
In the rear building of the city palace is the city archive with
city files, files of the incorporated villages and official books from
the 16th century to 1990. The collections also include a significant
part of the former Carl Alexander Library and the partial estate of the
family of the writer Walter Flex.
The merger of the Christian
Hospital in Eisenach with the Wartburg Clinic in 2002 resulted in the
St. Georg Clinic in Eisenach.
In Eisenach there are four state elementary schools, three regular
schools (Wartburg School, Geschwister-Scholl-School, Goethe School), two
state high schools (Ernst-Abbe-Gymnasium and Elisabeth-Gymnasium) and
the state support center Pestalozzi School (as of the 2017/18 school
year). At the beginning of the 2013/2014 school year, the city's first
community school was set up on the site of the Oststadtschule. In
addition to the state schools, there are the Evangelical elementary
school and the Martin-Luther-Gymnasium in the city as educational
institutions sponsored by the Evangelical Church in Central Germany, a
Waldorf school and the Johannes Falk special school for the mentally
handicapped sponsored by the Diakonie-Verbund Eisenach.
The
Gera-Eisenach Cooperative State University (until 2016 Eisenach
Vocational Academy), the Ludwig Erhard Vocational School Center and the
Eisenach Technology and Vocational Training Center are available as
inter-company training facilities.
One municipal and several
private music schools serve to promote young musicians. The municipal
adult education center is located at Schmelzerstraße 19.
The
Gera-Eisenach Cooperative State University offers dual courses of study
in the fields of business and technology on the Eisenach campus.
In 2015, there were 46 sports clubs in Eisenach with 6,918 members.
The handball club ThSV Eisenach played in the 2015/16 season in the
Handball Bundesliga. The previous venue in the Werner-Aßmann-Halle
belongs to the sports and leisure center An der Katzenaue and offers
space for 3140 spectators. However, the sports hall built in 1979 and
modernized after 1990 no longer complies with the regulations of the
Handball Bundesliga, so preparations are underway for the replacement
building with 4000 seats at a location in downtown Eisenach.
The
highest-class football clubs in Eisenach are FC Eisenach in the
sixth-class Thuringia league and FSV Eintracht Eisenach in the women's
division of Thuringia. The Wartburg Stadium, which opened in 1955, is
the city's largest stadium and home of FC Eisenach. The predecessor club
of FC Eisenach, BSG Motor Eisenach, played between 1954 and 1983 for a
total of 12 years in the DDR-Liga, the second highest league of the
German Football Association. In the all-time table of the GDR league,
the club occupies 54th place. The handball division of the BSG was GDR
champion in field handball in 1958.
Eisenach is the starting
point of the Supermarathon, the longest running route of the GutsMuths
Rennsteiglauf at 72.7 kilometers.
The Motorsport Club Eisenach e.
V. is the organizer of the Wartburg Rally, which takes place every
summer, a road race as part of the German Rally Championship.
Since 2005, Eisenach has been the destination of the biennial Flèche
Allemagne, a brevet-style rally for long-distance cyclists. Eisenach was
a stage of the Deutschland Tour 2019.
The Wartburg Open was a
tennis tournament that took place annually in Eisenach from 1993 to
2002. It was part of the ATP Challenger Tour and was played outdoors on
sand at the TC Blau-Weiß Eisenach in Eisenach's Johannistal.
The
city has five municipal sports halls, 13 school sports halls, the An der
Katzenaue sports center with the Werner-Aßmann-Halle and around a dozen
sports fields in the city area.
In 2016, Eisenach, within the city limits, had a gross domestic product (GDP) of €1.7 billion. In the same year, GDP per capita was €40,821 (Thuringia: €27,674; Germany: €38,180) and thus above the Thuringian and national average. There are around 29,100 employed people in the city in 2017. The unemployment rate was 6.2% in December 2018 and thus above the Thuringian average of 5.2%.
vehicle industry
Automobiles have been designed and built in
Eisenach since 1898. In the plant founded by the entrepreneur Heinrich
Ehrhardt as a vehicle factory in Eisenach, production included the Dixi
from 1904, before the plant was taken over by BMW in 1928, which meant
their entry into vehicle construction. Motorcycles were manufactured
during World War II, for use in the army, and through the mid 1950's.
BMW also manufactured aircraft engines between 1937 and 1945 at the BMW
Flugmotorenfabrik Eisenach am Dürrerhof, which was completely dismantled
after the end of the war. In the days of the GDR, the city was the site
of the Automobilwerk Eisenach (AWE), which manufactured the Wartburg
car. The production site of Opel Eisenach GmbH, a subsidiary of Adam
Opel AG, has been located on the western outskirts of the city since
1992; In the 1990s, BMW set up a new factory in the immediate vicinity
of Eisenach in the Deubachshof industrial park (Krauthausen
municipality, Wartburg district), which specializes in the production of
large press tools.
Since 2003, Bell Equipment dump trucks have
been assembled in our own factory in Eisenach.
The industrial companies based in Eisenach focus on automotive
construction and the supplier industry, metal processing and logistics.
In 2003 there were 102 industrial companies with around 8000 employees.
With 133 industrial jobs per 1000 inhabitants, Eisenach is well above
the national average. The monthly average of productivity in 2003 was
just under 27,000 euros per employee, the export ratio of the Eisenach
economy is 14 percent. In 2010, 2008 commercial and industrial companies
were registered in Eisenach.
At the beginning of the 1990s,
Robert Bosch GmbH founded the subsidiary Robert Bosch Fahrzeugelektrik
Eisenach GmbH on the Wartenberg, where it employs 1,650 people.
Truck-Lite Europe GmbH, which today belongs to the Penske International
Group, emerged from the traditional company Fahrzeugelektrik Ruhla (FER)
and is based in the industrial park in the Stockhausen district. In the
transport, logistics and service sector, Panopa Logistik GmbH & Co KG,
Piepenbrock dienstleistungen GmbH & Co KG and Hörseltalbahn GmbH should
be mentioned, among others.
Wind turbines have been in operation on the northern outskirts of the city near Neukirchen and Stockhausen since around 1998. As one of the first Thuringian cities, the city supports a citizen solar park for the generation of electrical energy from regenerative sources, which went into operation in 2008 on the site of the former Eisenach gas works.
Since 1998, the proportion of employees in agriculture and forestry who are subject to social security contributions in Eisenach has fallen by 94.3%. It is currently (as of June 30, 2011) 0.3% (= 60 employees). In 2011, Eisenach's farms managed an area of 4502 ha, which corresponds to 0.5% of the agricultural area in Thuringia. Agricultural employment is concentrated in the rural districts of Neukirchen, Madelungen, Hötzelsroda, Neuenhof and Göringen.
Tourism is very important for the city and the surrounding area. In
addition to the classic travel destinations of Wartburg, Bachhaus,
Lutherhaus and Rennsteig, the founding of the Hainich National Park
north of the city enabled a further increase in visitor numbers. The
Eisenach–Budapest mountain hiking trail begins at the Wartburg.
Eisenach is a city in the countryside, forest covers large parts of the
southern city area and is used for forestry. In the outskirts of the
city, riding stables and adventure farms, for example in the districts
of Gefilde, Trenkelhof and Madelung, as well as canoe and bicycle
tourism along the Werra have gained a certain importance.
Eisenach is located at the junction of the Thuringian Railway (Halle-Gerstungen-Bebra) and the Werra Railway (Eisenach-Eisfeld). Eisenach train station is an ICE and IC stop and belongs to the third-highest price category of DB Station&Service. Other train stops in the city are Eisenach West, Eisenach-Opelwerk and Hörschel as well as the depots in Eisenach-Stedtfeld (shared station with the HTB) and Wartha (Werra). The depot in Eisenach, which was formerly operated and closed by Deutsche Bahn AG, is being continued by a private railway company.
Highways
The historically most important road through Eisenach is
the Via regia, which led from Frankfurt via Erfurt and Leipzig to
Russia. Today this road is traced by the B 84 to the west and the L 3007
to the east.
Since 2010, Eisenach has only been touched by the
federal autobahn 4, which has been rerouted further north. The original
A 4 route between the former Wutha-Farnroda and Eisenach-West junctions
is now being used as a bypass to relieve inner-city traffic and connect
to the new Eisenach-West motorway junction, about one kilometer west of
the Ramsborn district. The Eisenach Ost(-stadt), Eisenach Mitte and
Eisenach West(-stadt) junctions were retained. Another autobahn near
Eisenach is the federal autobahn 44, which is to connect Eisenach to the
Ruhr area via Kassel. The connection to the BAB 4 will take place about
15 kilometers west of Eisenach at the Wommen triangle.
The
federal highway 7, which has ended at the BAB 4 junction Eisenach-West
since 2010, connects Eisenach with Kassel. The section of the B 7 from
Eisenach-West through the city center via Wutha-Farnroda to Sättelstädt
was downgraded to state road 3007 when the BAB 4 was relocated north.
The B19 federal highway begins at the BAB 4 junction in Eisenach-West
and runs along the former autobahn route, which is now used as a motor
road, to Eisenach Oststadt and further south through the city area,
through the Thuringian Forest to Meiningen. As a connection to Bad
Langensalza in the north-east and to the BAB-4 junction at Eisenach Ost
near Grossenlupnitz as well as to Vacha and Fulda in the south-west, the
federal highway 84 crosses the city area. The federal highway 88 begins
at the former BAB-4 exit Eisenach-Ost (B 19/84 Eisenach-Oststadt) and
connects Eisenach with Ilmenau in the southeast. Important state roads
lead to Mühlhausen in the north and to Herleshausen and Gerstungen in
the west.
Due to the overlapping interests of commuter and individual traffic,
stationary traffic and the needs of tourism-related traffic, a traffic
and parking space concept was developed in 1994 and updated in 2003,
2007 and 2020.
The city now has an automated parking guidance
system for the southern part of the city, which is interlinked with the
Wartburg, as well as three inner-city car parks.
From 1897 to 1975, Eisenach had a tram network that first connected
the southern district and later also the north, east and west of the
city area with the city center.
At Easter 1913, on the private
initiative of a locksmith, the bus service was opened on the bus lines
from the train station to Wartburg and from the train station to the
Hohe Sonne and Wilhelmsthaler See, and immediately attracted great
interest. The buses purchased in Berlin were fitted with improved brakes
and new paintwork. In 1918, the Deutsche Reichspost took over the
lucrative bus business in Eisenach and established connections to all
towns in the district.
Today there are 14 city bus lines and
several dozen regional bus lines operated by the Wartburgmobil transport
company and its partner companies. The new construction of a central bus
station (ZOB) in the immediate vicinity of the main train station was
completed in 2017, so that the previously spatially separate central
stops for the city bus lines and regional transport were merged in the
Gabelsberger Straße. There is a long-distance bus stop near the city car
park on Uferstrasse.
The central taxi rank has been at the main
entrance in front of Eisenach's main train station since the 1920s.
The Eisenach-Kindel airfield is located 12 kilometers north-east of the city in the neighboring municipality of Hörselberg-Hainich. The former military airfield is approved for aircraft up to 20 tons and helicopters. The nearest scheduled airports are Erfurt-Weimar Airport, about 50 kilometers to the east, and Kassel-Calden Airport, about 80 kilometers to the north-west.
Eisenach is located on the long-distance cycle path of the Thuringian chain of cities, on the Iron Curtain Trail long-distance cycle path, near the Rennsteig cycle path, near the Werra cycle path, on the Hörseltal cycle path, the Pummpälzweg and the Hercules-Wartburg cycle path to Kassel. In town, there is already a first continuous cycle path connection along the Hörsel, some main streets have been extended to include lanes for cyclists, and the cycle path concept developed in 2003 is to be implemented in the next few years. The goal is a consistent cycle path network that will separate cycle traffic from motor vehicle traffic, especially on busy roads.
The first newspaper was published in Eisenach as early as the 18th
century, initially as part of the court reporting and government
gazette. At the end of the 19th century, Philipp Kühner took over the
editor-in-chief of the Eisenacher Tagespost and a little later also its
publishing house. Under his direction, the newspaper developed into the
most widely read daily newspaper in western Thuringia. Today, Eisenach
is the seat of a local editorial office for the Thüringische
Landeszeitung and the Thüringer Allgemeine.
In April 1926, a
radio intercom of the Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk AG (MIRAG) was put into
operation in the Ritterbad of the Wartburg. This meeting point in the
Wartburg, which has been technically renewed several times, was in
operation as an external studio for the Weimar station until 1987 and
enabled the transmission of numerous concerts and conferences from the
Wartburg. The local radio station Wartburg-Radio 96.5 has been
broadcasting from Eisenach since 2001. The private radio station Antenne
Thüringen operates a regional studio in the city.
The television
series Familie Dr. produced from 2004 to 2020 on behalf of
Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk. Kleist was born and played in and around
Eisenach.
The title of honorary citizen was first conferred in Eisenach in 1837
on the senior postal clerk Franz Maximilian Diez in recognition of his
services to the postal service in the city. Other honorary citizens
include the Duchess of Orléans (1851), Chancellor Otto von Bismarck
(1895) and Bishop Moritz Mitzenheim (1961).
With a municipal
council decision of December 5, 1946, the National Socialists Adolf
Hitler, Wilhelm Frick and Fritz Sauckel were stripped of their honorary
citizenship, which had been awarded centrally in 1933.
For a city of this size, Eisenach boasts a multitude of personalities
from German and world history.
Born in Eisenach in 1685, Johann
Sebastian Bach is one of the most important German composers of the
Baroque era. With Johann Wilhelm Hertel, an important representative of
the "sensitive style" of German pre-classicism is a son of the city. In
1925, Rudolf Mauersberger founded the Eisenach Bach Choir.
Eisenach is also a city of humanities and natural sciences, the
philosopher Christian Schreiber, the physicist Ernst Abbe and the
educator Wilhelm Rein were born there. The philosopher and women's
rights activist Hedwig Bender worked there, as did the geologist Johann
Georg Bornemann.
The relationship between Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe and Charlotte von Stein, who was born in Eisenach in 1742, still
offers material for speculation today. The poetess Julie von
Bechtolsheim, who spent most of her life in Eisenach, also maintained
friendly relations with Goethe.
The Cotta family was one of the
most influential patrician families in the city in the 15th and 16th
centuries. Both Johann Cotta (sen.) and his son Johann Cotta (jun.) were
mayors in Eisenach in the 16th century. Ursula Cotta is said to have
housed and supported the young Martin Luther. From the 17th century, but
especially in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the members of the
Eichel-Streiber family of industrialists had a great influence on the
fate of the city State politician Friedrich von Eichel-Streiber.
Also in the recent past, the city has produced some important
personalities, e.g. the politicians Sabine Bergmann-Pohl and Botho Prinz
zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein, the national handball player Stephan
Just and the author and theater director Michael Schindhelm. The
handball player Werner Aßmann, after whom the ThSV Eisenach venue is
named, lived and worked in Eisenach.
There are several theories for the interpretation of the name
Eisenach, which are mostly based on abnormalities of the main
tributaries, but so far have not provided any coherent explanation. The
place name is said to have originated as Middle High German îsîn, "iron"
and aha, "water".
"The Middle High German name "Isenacha", "iron
river", is derived from the location on the Hörsel, which is brownish in
color due to the high iron content."
This interpretation is
contradicted by linguists, because the Hörsel does not carry ferrous
water, the turbidity corresponds to that of any other stream in the
region.
From 1991, the vehicle distinguishing mark for the district of
Eisenach and the city that belonged to the district at the time was ESA.
After the founding of the Wartburg district, it was temporarily issued
until January 31, 1995 and was replaced by the new distinctive sign WAK
on February 1, 1995. With the attainment of district freedom, the city
was assigned the distinguishing mark EA, which was issued from then on
for new registrations and re-registrations.
28,777 vehicles were
registered in the registration district on December 31, 2018.
Despite the reintegration into the Wartburg district on July 1, 2021,
Eisenach kept the license plate EA, whereby the license plates WAK and
SLZ, which are customary in the district, were also introduced in the
urban area. Nevertheless, EA was approved in the entire district.
Planetoids Eisenach and Bach
As a special form of honor, the
naming of newly discovered celestial bodies after important places and
personalities in history has been common for over 100 years. With Johann
Sebastian Bach, nine Bach planetoids in the asteroid belt of the sun
have already been considered, and the most important places of action
have also been taken into account. The planetoid 1931 TWI – (01814)
discovered by K. Reinmuth in 1931 bears the official name (1814) Bach.
The planetoid (10774) Eisenach discovered in 1991 by F. Börngen
(Tautenburg Observatory) has an orbital period around the sun of 3.72
years, the surface is 65 square kilometers and the diameter is around
4.5 kilometers.
Eisenach corners
A pastry made of wafers
developed in Eisenach around 1950 was called Eisenach corners.