Görlitz is the easternmost city in Germany, district town of the
district of Görlitz in the Free State of Saxony and the largest city
in Upper Lusatia. It lies on the Lusatian Neisse, which has formed
the border with Poland since 1945. The border separated the eastern
parts of the city on the other side of the river. These districts
form the independent Polish city of Zgorzelec.
Görlitz,
together with Bautzen and Hoyerswerda, forms a central network of
cities, is also a member of the Neisse Euroregion and has been a
European city with Zgorzelec since 1998.
Görlitz was almost
completely spared from destruction during the Second World War. The
historic old town was preserved. All the main phases of Central
European architectural styles (late Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque
town houses) can be seen in their houses. The old town is surrounded
by extensive Gründerzeit quarters. With more than 4000 mostly
restored cultural and architectural monuments, Görlitz is often
referred to as the largest contiguous monument area in Germany.
Görlitz owes its status as a popular and frequently used film
backdrop to this special cityscape.
Görlitz has one of the best-preserved old towns in Central Europe.
For 2010, Görlitz and Zgorzelec applied together to be European
Capital of Culture. One of the key projects was the development of a new
center, the so-called “bridge park”. Along the Lusatian Neisse, objects
such as: B. the town hall, the synagogue, the university and on the
eastern bank of the Neisse the Upper Lusatian Hall of Fame were
architecturally developed together with other ideas to form an overall
design. Students from both countries have already thought about this in
several summer projects. The aim is to create a kind of “laboratory” in
which European thinking and action can be tested.
The Culture and
Management course at Zittau/Görlitz University (FH) as well as many
committed citizens and companies in the region supported the unifying
idea of Görlitz's application for Capital of Culture 2010. A visible
sign of this support are the five flags that fly on the state crown.
Essen was elected Capital of Culture 2010, with Görlitz coming in second
place. Jury members emphasized that the decision was extremely close. In
Essen, the integration of some Görlitz projects into the Capital of
Culture project was publicly proposed. However, through their
application and the concept behind it, Görlitz and Zgorzelec achieved a
considerable increase in their popularity at home and abroad. In April
2009 it was announced that Görlitz was applying for the title of UNESCO
World Heritage Site. Mayor Joachim Paulick wanted to close the gap that
arose after Dresden's Elbe Valley lost the title.
With its approximately 4,000 monuments, Görlitz is considered the
largest area monument in Germany, but strictly according to monument law
it is the widespread distribution of individual monuments. The monuments
include both secular and sacred buildings from all stylistic periods
between late Gothic and Art Nouveau.
Due to the high protection
status of the many individual monuments, conflicts occasionally arise
with the requirements of modern urban development, as happened, for
example, on Zeppelinstrasse, at the corner of Heiligen-Grab-Strasse.
Here, monument protection was subordinated to housing concerns and the
row of houses was demolished.
In the mid-1990s, the city passed a
conservation statute in accordance with the building code for the
districts of the old town, inner city, Nikolaivorstadt and Südstadt. In
these areas, the structure of both the individual buildings and the
overall urban ensemble is protected. Even when new buildings are planned
in this area, the shape and its symbiosis with the surrounding buildings
as well as the function and economic viability of the building are
examined beforehand. However, this does not mean that the monuments
outside this conservation area are dispensable. The overall urban
character is also checked before demolition or new construction is
carried out.
Together with ten other East German cities, Görlitz
became a model city for urban redevelopment between 1990 and 1994 due to
the critical condition of the buildings and the old town center that was
worth protecting. Following this, funding areas for urban renewal and
renovation were gradually established. Most of these still exist today.
The aim of these partially overlapping sub-areas is the revitalization
and further development of the inner and core city areas. There are the
following five redevelopment areas:
The inner city north is the
first redevelopment area and was defined in 1991. It is considered to
have been largely renovated. The second redevelopment area is the
historic old town. It was decided in 1994 and has developed positively
since then. Signs of the attractiveness of this area are the population,
which has been increasing against the trend since 1997, the youngest
residents on average in all parts of the city and the growing number of
guests. In this redevelopment area, it is difficult to make a prediction
about the duration of the redevelopment, as there are numerous striking
and structurally complex urban development cases, such as: B. there are
hall houses.
The Nikolaivorstadt redevelopment area was also
established in 1994. The renovation process in this area is not yet
complete, as the former industrial wasteland of the former gasworks has
not yet been revitalized. Despite everything, large areas of the once
industrial district have already developed into a sought-after
inner-city residential area. In addition to the modernized building
structure, the additional new buildings also fit moderately into the
urban development picture.
In 1997, the western edge of the
Wilhelminian-style city center, which was characterized by industrial
wastelands, was included in the funding framework. This redevelopment
area is officially called the Wilhelminian Style Quarter Downtown West.
In the mid-1990s, there were signs of increased social, demographic and
structural devaluation of this area. This trend was largely prevented by
numerous renovated buildings and streets as well as the promotion of
community facilities. However, the development of this area still
requires patience and persistence.
The last inner city
east/bridge park redevelopment area includes the central city center and
the development along the Neisse to the twin town of Zgorzelec.
The necessary adaptation of urban development structures to demographic
change is the goal of the Urban Redevelopment East funding program,
which is divided into the parts dismantling and upgrading. The entire
urban area was declared a dismantling area in 2003. This was partly due
to the idea of making the demolition of backyard buildings in the city
center eligible for funding to improve the living environment. The
Integrated Urban Development Concept (InSEK) declares the new
development areas Königshufen, Rauschwalde and Weinhübel to be priority
areas for dismantling.
The use of urban development funding
between 1990 and 2004 shows a trend reversal in the allocation of funds
by district. While 70.4% of the funding went to the old town between
1990 and 1996, in the current funding period it is only 19.3%. The
Wilhelminian era area, on the other hand, received 78.9% of the funding.
From these figures one could conclude that the old town was in
particularly poor structural condition in the early 1990s, but this is
not true. The numbers are an expression of a strategy to renew the city
structure from within.
70% of the residential buildings in the city center are now
considered to have been renovated and the focus is now shifting to
improving the living environment of the individual districts, the
design of public space as well as the establishment and expansion of
community facilities, such as: B. Kindergartens. This has already
happened in part with the conversion of squares (see e.g.
Marienplatz) and streets (conversion of Berliner Straße has begun)
as well as, for example, the new extension to the city library on
Jochmannstraße or the new daycare center on Mittelstraße.
The
city and its monument preservationists have an unknown patron who
has had exactly 1,000,000 DM (from 2002 €511,500, €340,000 in 2016)
transferred every year through a Munich lawyer since 1995. Over the
years, the term Altstadtmillion emerged in the city. The Old Town
Foundation manages the money and the Board of Trustees for Monument
Preservation measures awards it to developers and institutions.
Since 2004, the objects supported in this way have been marked with
a plaque. In addition to numerous private houses, public
institutions were also supported by the Altstadtmillion, such as the
“Jugendbauhütte Görlitz”, the Open Monument Day in Görlitz, the
object depot of the monument protection authority and the Cultural
History Museum. A total of 1,651 applications were approved by the
end of 2017.
In an open letter to the then mayor Joachim
Paulick, the managing director of the German Foundation for Monument
Protection, Wolfgang Illert, criticized the city of Görlitz's plans
for a new shopping center on the area between Salomonstrasse and
Berliner Strasse on behalf of the foundation's scientific
commission. The statements of the investor, Florana KG in Weimar,
revealed a “lack of respect for the preservation of the
architectural heritage”. Florana KG planned a total demolition of
the affected property in the immediate vicinity of the train
station, which would also destroy eleven listed buildings. According
to its managing director, the German Foundation for Monument
Protection also refused to participate in a design advisory board
because it wanted to “critically accompany the developments from an
independent position”.
As early as January 2012, the chairman
of the Scientific Commission of the German Foundation for Monument
Protection, Horst von Bassewitz, warned in the Sächsische Zeitung
against this “radical treatment of the building structure”. Like the
foundation, the State Office for Monument Preservation of the Free
State of Saxony and the monument protection authority of the city of
Görlitz rejected the plans to build a new shopping center.
Berliner Straße was a busy commercial street as the main axis from
the train station to the city center. After reunification,
“controversial real estate sharks secured the properties on the
former boulevard and thus prevented any development.” The Görlitz
district office is planning to build an administrative campus on the
former Florana properties. Modern work spaces are to be created
behind the historic facades and space is to be given to new shops on
the ground floor.
Görlitz survived the Second World War with almost no damage and, with
numerous historic, partly listed buildings, has one of the
best-preserved old towns in Europe. The old town and the Nikolaivorstadt
are predominantly characterized by buildings from the late Gothic as
well as the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
In Nikolaivorstadt,
outside the old city walls, there is the executioner's house with the
Finstertor. It is the only completely preserved half-timbered house in
the city. The house is dated 1666 and has been completely renovated. The
frames of the courtyard door are decorated with sgraffitos, as is the
corner block on the outer wall of the ground floor. A sandstone plaque
commemorates Lorenz Straßburger, the executioner of Görlitz, who lived
in this house. The house is used by the Görlitz Youth Building Hut of
the German Foundation for Monument Protection.
The oldest secular
building in the city is the Waidhaus, also known as the Renthaus. It was
built in 1131 and was the storage and stacking place for the cloth
dyeing plant woad in the 15th century. Until 1426 the building still had
a tower. From 1447 to 1530 the house was used as a school. The
inscription “Nil actum creades, cum quid restabit agendum 1479”, which
can still be read today, was attached to the gable and is reminiscent of
a serious fire in 1479. Today it is the headquarters of the Training
Center for Crafts and Monument Preservation. v.
Neißstrasse runs
south of the Waidhaus; it is part of the old Via Regia and the eastern
gate to the old town. Next to the Biblical House, whose sandstone facade
shows illustrations from the Old and New Testaments, is the Baroque
House at Neißstraße 30, the former social house of the Upper Lusatian
Society of Sciences (OLGdW) with the historical hall of the Upper
Lusatian Library of Sciences (OLB). The house from the Baroque period
was the most important residential and commercial building in Görlitz
and Upper Lusatia at the time. It was completely renovated in 2011.
The Untermarkt, which is characterized by its Renaissance
facades, opens at the western end of Neißstrasse. It is lined with a
city-specific house type, the hall house, in front of closed
arcades. The best-known representative of this type is the Schönhof,
built in 1525 by Wendel Roskopf. It is considered the oldest civil
Renaissance building in Germany. Also on the lower market is the
striking council pharmacy with the two sundials by Zacharias
Scultetus. The Gothic core of the building was remodeled in the
Renaissance style in 1558. The hands cast their shadows on different
colored lines that illustrate different time scales, the so-called
civil, Italian and Babylonian hours.
In the center of the
submarket is the so-called row. This has been structurally changed
again and again over the centuries and today consists of a connected
block of houses. At that time it housed traders and shopkeepers and
offered space under the arcades to sell goods. The once
half-timbered part on the northern side of the row was replaced in
1706 by a new administration building, the so-called stock exchange.
Merchants held their weekly meetings there. The building is now used
as a hotel.
The town hall is located on the entire western
front of the Untermarkt. It was commissioned in 1369 as a place of
municipal administration and still serves this purpose today. The
clock in the town hall tower has two dials, the bottom of which is a
twelve-hour clock with a man's head whose jaw drops every full
minute. The top clock shows the day, hour and moon phase. The
northern part of the town hall, the New Town Hall, was completed in
1903 in the Neo-Renaissance style. The new building was also
provided with arcades. The facade is adorned with the six coats of
arms of the cities of the Upper Lusatian Six-City Association.
From the Untermarkt heading west you can reach the Obermarkt via
Brüderstraße. There are also Renaissance and Baroque facades there.
All the houses on the northern side are characterized by the Baroque
period. The Obermarkt was originally used as a trading area for
spices, especially salt. It was stored in the salt house, which was
first mentioned around 1424. It was centrally located on the market
and stretched from the junction with Steinstrasse to Brüderstrasse.
In 1851 the salt house was demolished. The French general Napoleon
Bonaparte lived in the baroque house 29 in 1813 and watched a
military parade on the square from the balcony. Since then it has
been popularly known as the Napoleon House.
Integrated
fortification wall and thus connected to the Reichenbacher Tower.
The walls were not removed until 1848. The Kaisertrutz then served
as the main guard of the Prussian garrison. Today it is part of the
Görlitz Cultural History Museum. In addition to the Reichenbacher
Tower, the Nikolaiturm and the Frauenturm, also known colloquially
as the Thick Tower, are among the three remaining of four defensive
towers. The Ochsenbastei and the Nikolai kennel are the only two
remaining parts of the double Görlitz city wall ring. The
Hotherbastion is the last corner bastion of the city wall.
From the Obermarkt, following Steinstrasse southwards, you reach the
Wilhelminian style and Art Nouveau districts of the city center.
Over the centuries, the center moved further south to Berliner
Strasse. At the beginning of the 20th century, many streets were
adapted to this trend. In 1913, the Görlitz department store on
Demianiplatz was opened as the Grand Bazar zum Strauß based on plans
by the architect Carl Schmanns. It was modeled on the Wertheim
department store in Berlin. Restorations on the exterior facade
began in 1984. Inside, the department store has free-hanging stairs
and handrails carved from real wood. The decorated glass roof is
also one of the special features of this building. Together with the
atrium, it allows a large amount of light to enter the entire
building. There are Art Nouveau ornaments on the supporting columns.
Huge, ornate chandeliers hang from the ceiling. The department store
has been largely empty since 2009.
As early as 1887, Otto
Straßburg founded the Strasbourg Passage on Berliner Straße, which
is now named after him. It was initially called a specialist shop
for linen and cotton goods, curtains, Gera clothing fabrics and
trousseau items of all kinds. In 1908 the passage was expanded into
a passageway. Visitors were now able to switch between
Berlinerstrasse and the parallel Jakobstrasse. If you follow
Berliner Straße further south, you will reach Görlitz train station.
The first train station in Görlitz with two tracks was opened on
September 1, 1847. The tracks running east lead to the Neisse
Viaduct, which opened in 1847. From 1906 to 1917 the station was
completely rebuilt. During the GDR era, the building was placed
under monument protection in 1984. The station hall has ten large
windows, five each on the north and south sides. Together with the
impressive ceiling chandeliers, they provide the hall with light.
The three-aisled station hall spans platforms II–IV with tracks 7 to
12. Only platform I with tracks 3 and 4 is outside the platform hall
and has a separate platform roof. Only tracks 7 to 12 are still used
for passenger traffic.
On the western edge of the old town,
construction began in 1906 on a music hall for the Silesian Music
Festival. It was opened on October 27, 1910, two years later than
originally planned, as a town hall with a large concert hall,
banquet hall, concert garden and a restaurant. Around 2,200 guests
took part in the celebrations. The Great Hall offers space for 1,400
guests. The Stadthalle is the largest concert hall between Berlin,
Prague, Dresden and Wroclaw. It has been closed since January 1,
2005 due to necessary renovations.
In addition to the Upper
Lusatian Science Library on Neißstrasse in the old town, there are
other libraries in Görlitz. In 1876, the Görlitz city library was
founded in the orphanage on Annengasse with the aim of educating the
people and disseminating the knowledge collected. As early as 1902
there were over 475 registered members who had 4,700 books at their
disposal. From 1905 onwards, the Art Nouveau library building was
built on Jochmannstrasse. The mayor at the time, Georg Snay, opened
the new building in 1907 as a municipal public library and reading
room. It offered 150 places to the 1,311 registered readers in the
first year.
Outside the city center, in what is now the
Biesnitz district, is the Scultetus Observatory. Bartholomäus
Scultetus, mayor, astronomer and teacher at the Augustum high
school, gave the institution its name. An observatory tower was
originally inaugurated on October 15, 1856 at the Augustum on
Klosterplatz. From the 1960s onwards, with the observatory's
expanded area of responsibility and the increasing illumination of
the city center, it was decided to move out of the city. A new
observatory was built between 1967 and 1989. In the planetarium
inside, 40 to 60 visitors can observe an artificial starry sky under
a dome with a diameter of eight meters. The approximately 3000 m²
site has two observation stations with retractable roofs. Two
telescopes with mirror diameters of 40 and 15 cm are housed in the
domes of the main building.
One of the most recent new
buildings is the Old Town Bridge, which opened on October 20, 2004.
It was built slightly offset from the bridge that was blown up by
the Wehrmacht as they retreated during the Second World War.
Construction began on April 28, 2003. The total construction costs
amounted to 2,659,100 euros. It serves as a pedestrian crossing into
Poland.
The Nikolaikirche, whose foundations can be dated back to 1100, is
the oldest church in the city. It was outside the medieval wall, as was
the adjacent Nikolaivorstadt, which is considered the oldest settlement
center in Görlitz because of this church. The construction of the
current building began in 1452, but initially progressed slowly because
the completion of the Church of St. Peter and Paul took priority. The
construction of the Nikolaikirche was completed by the Görlitz master
builder Wendel Roskopf as his last late Gothic building. It was
consecrated in 1520. However, it was probably never used as a parish
church because of its proximity to St. Peter and Paul. The church was
destroyed in the Thirty Years' War in 1642 and rebuilt shortly after the
end of the war in 1649. After a fire in 1717, the church was rebuilt and
a flat ceiling was added to the nave. This was only removed again in the
early 20th century and equipped with an expressionist vaulted ceiling by
Martin Elsaesser in 1925/26. The Nikolaifriedhof is located directly
adjacent to the St. Nicholas Church. The graves and crypts date from the
17th to 19th centuries. Stylistically, they can be assigned to
Mannerism, Baroque and Rococo as well as Classicism.
In the north
of the walled old town, just south of the Vogtshof, is the parish church
of St. Peter and Paul, colloquially known as Peter's Church, a
five-aisled late Gothic church that was built between 1425 and 1497. It
is the largest late Gothic hall church in Saxony. Its towers shape the
image of the old town, which is why it is considered one of the
landmarks of Görlitz.
Between 1234 and 1245, the Trinity Church
was built at the gates of the city, on today's Obermarkt. The monks of
the Franciscan order initially used it as a monastery church. In 1715 it
was dedicated to the Holy Trinity and serves as a Protestant church.
Today the building serves as part of the Augustum-Annen-Gymnasium.
Towards the southwest, where the old town merges into the
Wilhelminian style district, the Atonement Church of Our Lady was built
in 1349. When it was destroyed in the Hussite Wars in 1429, the
Frauenkirche was built as a three-aisled hall church with an elongated
choir and late Gothic vaulting. Until 1831, this late Gothic building
was surrounded by a cemetery, some of the graves of which are still
preserved today.
South of the train station, the Cathedral of St.
James was consecrated on October 6, 1900. The neo-Gothic building lasted
from 1898 to 1900 and was made entirely of brick. The church was badly
damaged during the Second World War. By 2012, the four small side
towers, the roof structures and the frieze made of yellow and red roof
tiles should have been reconstructed. It is the main church of the
diocese of Görlitz. It was finally completed in spring 2016.
Also
in the city center is the Luther Church, consecrated in 1901. It is the
first new Protestant church to be consecrated in Görlitz after the
Reformation. The foundation stone was laid on November 10, 1898, on
Martin Luther's birthday. Stylistically, the building references the
imperial cathedrals on the Rhine and is designed in the neo-Romanesque
style. The facade consists of red bricks with different colored
decorative inlays made of glazed stones. Their richly decorated windows
are particularly striking.
The synagogue near the city park gives
an impression of the importance of the Jewish community before 1933. It
was built between 1909 and 1911 and is the only one in what is now
Saxony to survive the pogrom night of 1938 undamaged. Today it is a
place for encounters and learning.
The replica of the Holy
Sepulcher of Jerusalem from 1504 is of considerable art-historical
importance. Together with the replica Stations of the Cross, it is a
popular pilgrimage site. It is located on the northwestern edge of the
old town.
In 1988, a memorial plaque was placed at the Otto-Müller-Straße 3 synagogue to commemorate the Jewish victims of the Shoah and the devastation of the church during the November pogroms in 1938. A memorial in the Jewish cemetery on Biesnitzer Straße commemorates 323 concentration camp prisoners from the Görlitz subcamp of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp. A memorial stone was erected in the municipal cemetery for the Italian military internees who fell victim to forced labor during the Second World War. The memorial plaque on the left wing of the court on Postplatz commemorates the victims of the popular uprising on June 17, 1953. The memorial from 1948 on Wilhelmsplatz (Karl-Marx-Platz in GDR times) is dedicated to all victims of fascism. Another plaque at the former Hossner cloth factory, on the Neisse in the Weinhübel district (Leschwitz until 1936), commemorates the victims of a protective custody camp set up there in 1933 for almost 1,300 prisoners. For the artist Johannes Wüsten, who died in prison in Brandenburg-Görden in 1943, there are memorial plaques on the houses at Johannes-Wüsten-Straße 7 and 23 as well as portrait busts in the permanent exhibition of the art collections and on the corner of Johannes-Wüsten-Straße and Curie-Straße been attached. The memorial plaque at Bismarckstrasse 32 commemorates the social democratic politician Rudolf Breitscheid, who died in the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944. A plaque was put up at his birthplace, Konsulstrasse 1, for the anti-fascist trade unionist Kurt Steffelbauer, who was murdered in Berlin-Plötzensee in 1942. Another memorial plaque commemorates the communist resistance fighter Herbert Balzer, who was murdered by SS men in 1945. It is located at James-von-Moltke-Straße 7.
The Görlitz vintage park railway was built in 1976 as the eleventh pioneer railway in the GDR. Your train, which runs on a gauge of 600 mm, is a replica of the first German railway from 1835, along with its Adler locomotive. At the opening, around 70 Görlitz students started working in the new pioneer house working group. The Deutsche Reichsbahn repeatedly released employees to provide railway technical support; until 1990, the train drivers were provided by the Görlitz railway depot.
The Görlitz Nature Conservation Zoo is a sophisticated, natural
ensemble. Over 500 animals such as small pandas, otters and yaks live in
enclosures that are partly accessible to visitors. With its five hectare
area, it is one of the smaller zoos in Germany. In 2007, the park
celebrated its 50th birthday and recorded more than 100,000 visitors for
the first time in ten years.
Near the town hall is the town park,
whose special attractions are a large wooden playground and the meridian
stone for the 15th degree of east longitude. In addition to the city
park, there are numerous other green spaces in the old town and city
center, e.g. B. the vineyard area that runs along the Neisse from the
Obermühle in the north past the Neiße Viaduct to the Weinlache in the
south, the Ölberggarten at the Holy Sepulchre and the green spaces in
the Nikolai and Ochsen kennels. There are also larger green spaces in
the surrounding districts, such as: B. the birch forest between
Rauschwalde and Südstadt, the Kreuzkirchenpark in Südstadt, the
Kidrontal in Königshufen and the Loenschen Park between Biesnitz,
Kunnerwitz and Weinhübel.
The cultural island of Einsiedel is
located approximately 17 km north of Görlitz. It is a combination of
art, culture and nature. The detailed adventure playground features
tunnels, climbing frames and a large pirate ship. In 2005 a hotel was
opened on the Kulturinsel. It consists of several tree houses eight to
ten meters high.
The landmark of Görlitz, the Landeskrone, is a 420 m high basalt cone
of volcanic origin. It is the only notable elevation in the Görlitz
area. From the Landeskrone there is a wide view over the Lusatian
mountains to the Zittau Mountains and, when visibility is good, to the
Krkonoše Mountains with the Schneekoppe. The first development dates
back to the Bronze Age, followed by an early medieval and a high
medieval castle complex with a settlement. Slavic craftsmen and traders
settled behind stone walls of a rampart that were up to eight meters
thick. The Bohemian Duke Othelrich conquered this main castle in 1015
and captured a thousand of the defenders.
The 13 m high Bismarck
Column has stood on the southern summit since 1901 in honor of Prince
Otto von Bismarck, who is an honorary citizen of the city of Görlitz.
The first small inn opened on the mountain in 1844. The larger successor
building from 1863 burned down in 1946. It was not until 1951 that the
current summit development was built, into which a restaurant and the
castle hotel moved after the last renovation in 1994.
The city
acquired the state crown from previous noble owners in 1440 and almost
completely cut down the trees on the mountain. It was not until 1840
that today's lime tree avenue was laid out, which begins at the foot of
the Landeskrone. The linden avenue leads up 178 steps to the road, which
in turn leads to the summit. The remaining mountain base was planted
with copper beeches in 1883. The dense deciduous forest on the mountain
that emerged over time was declared a nature reserve in 1953. It belongs
to the FFH area of basalt and phonolite peaks in eastern Upper Lusatia.
In the area of culture, the MonumentAkademie e. V. to name. The
Görlitz Training Center for Crafts and Monument Preservation. V., which
has its headquarters in the former Waidhaus, is dedicated to the care
and preservation of the old town. The Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences
in Görlitz e. V. collects and stores the knowledge of Upper Lusatia. The
Berzdorf–Oberlausitz e. V. was founded in October 2001 in Görlitz. The
aim of the association is to preserve the history of the Berzdorf
opencast mine for posterity.
On July 12, 2021, after many years
of renovation, the Görlitz synagogue was reopened as a cultural forum
for cultural events such as concerts and readings in the dome hall and
as a prayer room in the weekday synagogue.
In the 1920s, theater performances took place in a private event room
on Neißstrasse, which was converted by a citizen in 1838 and closed by
the police for theater purposes in 1846 due to inadequate fire
protection. On March 1, 1850, the city council decided to build a public
theater. The Görlitz Theater was built on Demianiplatz in 1851 and
expanded in 1927. Gerhart Hauptmann (1862–1946) was a frequent guest in
Görlitz and the theater's namesake until 1988. On January 1, 2011, the
Görlitz Theater merged with the Theater in Zittau. The joint company is
called Gerhart-Hauptmann-Theater Görlitz-Zittau GmbH. In 2002 the
auditorium was reconstructed and equipped with modern technology that
also allows simultaneous translations. Since September 2002, the north
facade that originally faced the old town has also been restored. The
theater hosts premieres that were written specifically for this purpose,
such as the opera Death of a Banker, the musical Radio Babylon and the
Moritz Eggert opera Linkerhand. Works of all genres (opera, operetta,
musical, dance, drama) are performed together with the New Lausitz
Philharmonic.
In addition to the Philharmonic concerts, the house
offers a complete three-part program with musical theater, dance and
drama.
In addition to the large house, which is also called the
Little Semper Opera, the theater has had a smaller studio stage, the
Apollo, since 1999.
Various museums exhibit exhibits on history, art and nature. The
Görlitz collections for history and culture, consisting of the Upper
Lusatian Library of Sciences and the Görlitz Cultural History Museum,
are the largest municipal cultural institution. They include several
listed buildings (Baroque house Neißstraße 30, Kaisertrutz,
Reichenbacher Turm) and present works of art and cultural treasures from
the region as well as art and science history collections in permanent
and special exhibitions.
The Senckenberg Museum of Natural
History emerged from the Görlitz Ornithological Society, founded in
1811. The focus of his exhibition is the natural region of Upper
Lusatia. This includes general introductions, such as geological
formations or life forms in African savannahs, similar to regional
communities with typical plants and animals, which are presented in
dioramas. There is also a live animal area. A model of a floor column,
enlarged thirty times, runs through the stairwell and offers an insight
into this living space. There is also an exhibition on the history of
evolutionary research. An audio guide system in German, English and
Polish is available for the permanent exhibitions.
A permanent
exhibition on a thousand years of Silesian history has been on display
in the Silesian Museum since 2006.
A technical monument was set
with the opencast bucket wheel excavator No. 1452 and the exhibition on
the history of brown coal mining in the Berzdorf opencast mine from 1835
to 2000 in the Hagenwerder train station.
The Museum of
Photography under the direction of the Society for the Museum of
Photography Görlitz e. V. gives an insight into the history and art of
photography.
Together with the University of Church Music, organ concerts take place in Upper Lusatia, including in churches in Görlitz where the restored organs are used. The orchestra of the New Lausitz Philharmonic is one of the most important institutions in the Upper Lusatia/Lower Silesia region. It offers chamber and symphony concerts and is part of all productions at the Görlitz Theater. A particular focus is the music of the Sorbs. The Landskron Heralds were created in 1996 to celebrate the 925th anniversary of the city of Görlitz. They form a procession with Görlitz fanfare music on festive occasions. The regimental marching band was founded in 1969 and plays marching band and modern music pieces at festive occasions and major events.
Of the numerous sports clubs here are the sports and football club
NFV Gelb-Weiß Görlitz 09, which plays in the Saxony State League, and
the handball club SV Koweg Görlitz e. V. mentioned, whose first women's
team plays in the Oberliga Mitteldeutschland and the first men's team
plays in the Saxony League. The latter had its greatest success to date
in the 2009/2010 season, as all three men's teams and the second women's
team were promoted to higher leagues. The sports club in the city with
the largest number of members is Post SV Görlitz.
Since 2004, the
European Marathon has taken place at the end of May as a run through two
countries with the marathon, half marathon distances for inline skaters,
runners and wheelchair users/hand bikers, and since 2008 also for
scooter riders as well as ten kilometers and five kilometers for
runners. In 2009 the cycling race around the state crown took place for
the 74th time. The autumn run in the Berzdorfer Halden is a
cross-country race that has been held since 1997. Since 1978, the
Görlitz New Year's Eve Run has taken place on the Eiswiese sports field
every year on December 31st. The headquarters of the Lausitz Dart League
is located in Görlitz. The game is played in several restaurants.
Before the First World War, there were three bathing establishments
in the city: the Hoffmann'sche Badeanstalt on Lindenweg, the Zentralbad
on Hospitalstraße and the Freisbad on what is now Dr.-Kahlbaum-Allee.
The public swimming pool opened on Fichestrasse in 1972. The outdoor
pool and the public swimming pool were the only public bathing
establishments after reunification. The outdoor pool closed in 1996.
Operations in the public swimming pool ceased in 2007. In the same year,
however, a new swimming pool, the Neißebad, was opened not far from the
old swimming pool. The Helenenbad still existed north of the city center
until 2002. The area around the pool of the former outdoor swimming pool
has been used as an air bath since 2007.
With around 100,000 visitors, the Old Town Festival is the largest
cultural event in the city. The Old Town Festival was initiated as an
annual city festival after the second Saxon Day in Görlitz in 1993 and
has taken place annually on the last weekend in August since 1994. It is
common for visitors to appear in medieval clothing alongside the
performers and jugglers. A large part of the old town will be closed to
traffic for this purpose.
The summer theater took place annually
on the Untermarkt. From 2011 it will be held in the courtyard of the
Landskron brewery. In 2004 the first historical play The Treacherous
Rotte Tor was released. The Clothmakers' Uprising in Görlitz was
performed in 1527 and the summer theater was founded on the Untermarkt.
The Powder Conspiracy and the Holy Sepulcher in Görlitz were performed
in 2005 and 2006. This historical play by Hermann Rueth deals with the
legend of the patron of the Holy Sepulchre, Georg Emmerich. The play
Jakob Böhme and the Plague in Görlitz was performed in 2007 and 2008.
The play by Herrmann Rueth with music by C. M. Wagner focuses on the
shoemaker and mystic Jakob Böhme.
The film days and the opera
ball kick off the event year in February. In March, the music night and
the spring festival of the nature conservation zoo with the traditional
dung cart race take place. In spring there is International Heritage Day
on April 19th. The Dreiland Short Film Festival takes place in April
with contributions from Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, followed
in May by the Jazz Days, the Muschelminna Festival, the Stork Festival
in the Nature Conservation Zoo and the Görlitz Organ Night. In summer,
in addition to the vintage railway, there is the Campus Open Air in
June, the Fête de la musique on June 21st, the open day for renovations
on the 3rd Sunday in June, the brewing festival of the Landskron
brewery, the Silesian music festivals (every two years ), the
International Minstrels' Meeting (every two years), the Collegium PONTES
Görlitz-Zgorzelec-Zhorelec and the adventure day at Lake Berzdorf. The
Silesian Tippelmarkt and the music event 15°-Rock follow in July. The
summer events end with the international street theater festival ViaThea
and the already mentioned old town festival. In September there are the
Lower Silesian Culture Days, the Open Monument Day, the Long Night of
Museums and the International Summer School of the Arts. The Görlitz
Rock Night and the awarding of the International Bridge Prize follow in
November. The event year ends with the Silesian Christmas market.
As part of the European Capital of Culture event in Wroclaw 2016, an
exhibition took place in public space in Görlitz under the name
Görlitzer ART. It was a temporary project of the cities of Wrocław and
Görlitz under the artistic direction of the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of
Fine Arts Wrocław and coordinated by the Görlitz Cultural Service
Society. The works of young Wroclaw and Lower Silesian artists were
exhibited in the old and inner city between April 1, 2016 and April 9,
2017. A second round of the exhibition series in public spaces for
artists from the Dresden University of Fine Arts will take place from
July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022.
The Society for the Awarding of the International Bridge Prize of the
European City of Görlitz/Zgorzelec (Bridge Prize Society) awards the
International Bridge Prize, worth €2,500, at a ceremony every year.
Since 1993, it has been honoring personalities who have made
contributions to international understanding in Europe through their
life's work. Prize winners include Marion Countess Dönhoff and the
former Saxon Prime Minister Kurt Biedenkopf. Günter Grass was nominated
for the prize by the jury in 2006. However, he withdrew his promise
again in order to "discredit neither Görlitz nor the price", after
criticism of his confession of his past in the Waffen-SS, especially by
the Görlitz CDU parliamentary group leader Michael Hannich and other
supra-regional CDU- Politician. Despite Grass' withdrawal, the jury saw
no reason to question its awarding of the prize to Günter Grass and
regretted a one-sided portrayal in the media.
Last year's winners
were the British historian Norman Davies (2009), the former Polish Prime
Minister. D. Tadeusz Mazowiecki (2010) and the former president of the
European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) Gesine Schwan (2011). On
October 5, 2012, the prize was to be awarded to the Ukrainian
professional boxer and politician Vitali Klitschko for his “personal
commitment […] to humanity and democracy […] as well as his commitment
to children and young people”, but the award ceremony had to take place
in Gerhart -Hauptmann-Theater Görlitz will be postponed for Klitschko's
personal reasons. The award ceremony took place on February 3, 2013 and
Klitschko personally accepted the Bridge Prize. The 2013 prize went to
the cabaret artist Steffen Möller. He was followed in 2014 by the former
Prime Minister of Luxembourg and, from November 2014, by the President
of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker. In 2015 and 2016, one writer
received the prize - in 2015 the Polish Olga Tokarczuk for her literary
bridges between people, cultures and generations and in 2016 Timothy
Garton Ash for his examination of authoritarian and totalitarian
structures, their effects and their overcoming in Middle East. and
Eastern Europe. In 2017, Bishop Emeritus of Opole Alfons Nossol received
the prize for his mediation work between people of different origins,
nationalities and different faiths - especially between Poles and
Germans.
Because of its intact old town and the closed Wilhelminian style
buildings, Görlitz is a popular filming location for films with a
historical backdrop, which gave the city the popular nickname
“Görliwood”. The tourism company Europastadt GörlitzZgorzelec GmbH has
held the trademark rights since the end of 2013.
As early as
1954/55, Kurt Maetzig took outdoor shots of Ernst Thälmann - son of his
class and Ernst Thälmann - leader of his class. In 1980, The Grim
Reaper, a fairy tale film based on the original of the same name, was
shot in Görlitz. The romantic drama Rosen-Emil was directed by Radu
Gabrea in 1993. In 1998, director Fred Kelemen shot some of the scenes
for his film Abendland there. The recently restored facade of the
Görlitz department store also offered a historical impression. In 2002,
Görlitz became the Paris of the 19th century in the film Around the
World in 80 Days. The historic brick building of the Landskron Brewery
served as the New York harbor building.
The Babelsberg film
studios also chose the city as the setting for the film adaptation of
the novel The Reader, in which Kate Winslet plays the main role. For
this film, several streets were closed and the entire tram schedule was
adjusted.
Filming for Quentin Tarantino's war film Inglourious
Basterds took place in November 2008, among other places on the
Untermarkt. Brad Pitt played the role of Lieutenant Aldo Raine, a
scalping Nazi hunter.
Director Philipp Stölzl (Nordwand) shot the
film Goethe! from August 2009, which is about Charlotte Buff, one of
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's first great loves. Several filmings took
place in 2011.
Scenes from the film The Tower based on the novel
of the same name by Uwe Tellkamp were filmed on Emmerichstrasse, among
other places.
The film Measuring the World based on the novel of
the same name was filmed in the old town in 2011.
The film Lore,
shot in Görlitz, received the audience award at the 65th International
Film Festival in Locarno.
The director Wes Anderson had scenes
for Grand Budapest Hotel recorded in the Art Nouveau department store on
Demianiplatz and in the Stadthalle in the winter of 2012/2013. In 2013,
for scenes from the film adaptation of the book “The Book Thief”, the
sets at the Untermarkt and in the platform hall were flagged with
swastika flags.
In 2015, filming of Hans Fallada's novel
adaptation of Everyone Dies Alone took place. In this film, Görlitz
depicts Berlin during the Nazi era.
A villa in Görlitz served as
the backdrop for the film Werk ohne Autor in 2016. The world premiere
took place as part of the competition at the 75th Venice International
Film Festival. In it, Florian Henkel von Donnersmark (writer and
director) tells the story of the artist Kurt Barnert, who was able to
escape from the German Democratic Republic. Living in the Federal
Republic of Germany, he remembers his childhood during the Nazi and SED
era.
The TV series Wolfsland has been filmed in Görlitz and the
surrounding area since 2016.
Görlitz is located in the Prussian-Lower Silesian part of
Upper Lusatia on the western bank of the Lusatian Neisse, which breaks
through the eastern edge of the Lusatian granite massif with the
foothills of the Bohemian-Lusatia border mountains. It forms the
transition between the northern Upper Lusatian heath and pond area and
the southern Lusatian Uplands. The former districts on the east bank of
the river have formed the Polish city of Zgorzelec since 1945. Görlitz
and its sister city Zgorzelec call themselves a European city.
The town center is at an altitude of 201 m above sea level. The highest
elevation in the Görlitz urban area - the Landeskrone - is 420 m above
sea level. The lowest point in the city at 185 m above sea level. The
average for the urban area is 220 m above sea level. The water level of
the Berzdorfer See in the south of the city is at an altitude of 185.6 m
above sea level. The lake is 72 m deep at its deepest point.
The
meridian of longitude 15° east of Greenwich, on which the time zone of
Central European Time is based, crosses the city. As a result, the
Central European Time coincides with the mean solar time of Görlitz. The
city is located at 51° 09′ north latitude. In honor of Yuri Gagarin, the
first man in space, a meridian monument was erected in 1961 southwest of
the town hall directly at the road bridge to Poland. According to
today's measuring methods, however, the location of the stone is no
longer exact. The 15th meridian then runs about 137 m away on the Neisse
meadows below the town hall.
The urban area stretches 19.4 km
from north to south and 7.3 km from east to west. The nearest major
cities are the Czech Liberec (Reichenberg) about 50 km south, Cottbus
about 80 km north-west, the Silesian Legnica (Liegnitz) about 80 km east
and Dresden about 90 km west of Görlitz. It is about 50 km to Bautzen.
During the Tertiary, bog forests formed in sinks with no
outflow. Flooding, the death of plants and the resulting deposits led to
the formation of lignite basins as in the former Berzdorf opencast mine.
The basalt and phonolite peaks, like the Landeskrone, are of volcanic
origin.
The geological subsoil in the Görlitz area consists of
Lusatian greywacke in the north. It is composed of biotite, gray quartz
and light-colored feldspar with layers of fine-grained greywacke and
dense greywacke slates. East Lusatian granodiorite determines the south
of the city area. The boundary between the different types of
underground runs roughly along the line Ochsenbastei, Neißstraße,
Peterstraße, Heiliges Grab and beyond Girbigsdorf. The narrowing of the
Neisse valley caused by the hard granodiorite ends at the Obermühle.
Four areas according to the Fauna-Flora-Habitat Directive
(FFH area) and a bird sanctuary extend partially over the city area. The
bird sanctuary Neissetal and the FFH area Neissegebiet overlap in large
parts. They extend from the Obermühle in the north, through the
Neißetal, the Neißeauen to the southern city limits in the district of
Hagenwerder. They include i.a. the vineyard area with its wooded valley
slopes, the Weinlache and the Neisse meadows and the farmland between
the district of Weinhübel and the district of Hagenwerder. In the bird
sanctuary, 26 bird species have been identified according to categories
1 and 2 of Saxony's Red List. These include u. the kingfisher, the
sandpiper, the middle woodpecker and the ortolan. For these four bird
species, the bird sanctuary is one of the most important breeding areas
in the Free State of Saxony. The FFH area Pliessnitz area borders on the
areas in the districts of Hagenwerder and Tauchritz. It includes the
flood plains of the Pliessnitz - a tributary of the Lausitzer Neisse.
The Landeskrone (see also the section Die Landeskrone) belongs to
the FFH area of basalt and phonolite peaks in eastern Upper Lusatia. The
city is also part of the FFH area Separate bat roosts and habitats in
Lusatia. The aim is to protect the nursery roosts, roosts and feeding
habitats of barbattle bats and greater mouse-eared bats as well as
numerous other endangered bat species.
With the ordinance on the
designation of natural monuments in the urban area from 1997 and the
amended ordinances from 2001 and 2005, 27 natural monuments were named
by the city.
The urban area of Görlitz is divided
into nine city and five districts. The districts have grown
historically, arose from the settlement of displaced persons after 1945
or were incorporated as previously independent communities or districts
until 1952. The five districts were added to the city during the most
recent municipal reform in the 1990s and are located at a distance from
the core city area.
Districts are the old town, Biesnitz,
downtown, Klingewalde, Königshufen, Nikolaivorstadt, Rauschwalde,
Südstadt and Weinhübel (until 1937 Posottendorf-Leschwitz).
The
following formerly independent localities also belong to the urban area:
Deutsch Ossig, Hagenwerder (until 1936 Nikrisch), Klein Neundorf,
Kunnerwitz, Ludwigsdorf, Ober-Neundorf, Schlauroth and Tauchritz. The
following formerly independent places each form a common district:
Hagenwerder and Tauchritz, Kunnerwitz and Deutsch-Ossig with Klein
Neundorf as well as Ludwigsdorf and Ober-Neundorf. The place
Deutsch-Ossig is uninhabited due to the expansion of the Berzdorf
opencast mine after the population was resettled. A large part moved to
the new housing development south of Kunnerwitz.
The surrounding area of Görlitz is mainly rural, the nearest larger
towns are Weißwasser in the north, Bautzen and Löbau in the west, Zittau
in the south and Lubań (Lauban) and Bolesławiec (Bunzlau) in the east.
Of the five towns, Löbau is the closest town at a distance of around 20
km.
The municipality of Schöpstal with the districts of
Girbigsdorf, Ebersbach and Kunnersdorf as well as the municipality of
Neißeaue with the district of Zodel border the city area to the north
and Markersdorf to the west. East of the Neisse is the Polish town of
Zgorzelec (Görlitz) and the rural community of the same name with the
towns starting in the north and heading south with Żarka nad Nysą
(Sercha), Jędrzychowice (Hennersdorf), Koźlice (Köslitz), Osiek Łużycki
(Wendisch-Ossig) and Radomierzyce (Radmeritz). The municipality of
Schönau-Berzdorf auf dem Eigen is located in the south-west, and the
country town of Ostritz with the district of Leuba is in the south.
Northwest of Görlitz are the small towns of Niesky and Rothenburg, but
they do not directly border the urban area.
With the exception of
the sister city of Zgorzelec, all neighboring communities and towns
belong to the district of Görlitz. On today's Polish territory, the
Görlitzer Heide adjoins to the north-east of the neighboring Polish
town. Until April 30, 1929, it was a separate estate district, the
Görlitzer Kommunalheide. The majority of the Görlitzer Heide is now in
the Polish powiat Zgorzelecki (district of Zgorzelec). It also includes
the next larger country towns Pieńsk (Penzig) and Węgliniec (Kohlfurt)
in the north-east.
More than 60% of the Görlitz urban area consists of green spaces. 1484.6 ha are available as building area, which is divided into several types of use and development. In the city center the development is very dense. The old town and the Nikolaivorstadt in particular are characterized by narrow streets and tall old buildings. Some of the buildings reach right up to the banks of the Neisse. In the districts of Königshufen, Rauschwalde and Weinhübel, on the other hand, apartment blocks of municipal and cooperative housing dominate the picture, with the typical WBS 70 prefabricated building mainly being found in Königshufen. These districts enclose the city center in the north, west and south. In Biesnitz there are more and more private homes, which condense the suburb, which originally consisted of villas. The structure of the recently incorporated districts is rural. The largest industrial and commercial area in the city is located on the former power plant site in Hagenwerder in the extreme south. Another commercial area is located between Königshufen and the federal highway 4. Water surfaces account for about 11%. The flooded Berzdorf open-cast mine is located south of Weinhübel and reaches as far as the towns of Hagenwerder and Tauchritz.
The average daily high temperature in the summer months is over 20
°C, the average nightly low values in the winter months are 0 to -5 °C.
The average air temperature in Görlitz is 8.2 °C, the annual
precipitation is 657 mm. On average, the highest rainfall is in August
with 74 mm, while February is the driest month with around 37 mm.
July has the longest sunshine duration with around 7 hours a day.
December, on the other hand, averages just 1 hour and 30 minutes a day.
The urban climate of the city is particularly influenced by the
dense development of the city center. This is the reason for a higher
air temperature and less air circulation than in the surrounding area.
During the warmer season, the heat load and mugginess increase. The
exchange of air in the city center is severely restricted. A heat island
can form during the night. Compared to the cold air areas in the
surrounding area, this heat island can differ by 10 °C. However, these
effects are typical for cities. Görlitz has open spaces that are
effective in terms of climate ecology and air quality, which intensify
the exchange of air with the built-up areas and thus improve the urban
climate.
Archaeological finds
in the urban area prove a settlement since the late Neolithic (Cord
Pottery culture). Finds from cremation burials date from the time of the
Lusatian culture. In addition, copper and bronze coins from the late
Roman Empire were recovered. After the Germanic population had left the
area of eastern Upper Lusatia during the Migration Period in the 4th and
5th centuries, the region was only resettled by Slavic groups in the
late 7th and 8th centuries, which can still be seen today in the
numerous place and field names Sorbian origin can be read, including
"Görlitz" himself. It is uncertain whether these were Besunzane, of whom
nothing else is known. Ceramic finds in today's Nikolaivorstadt and the
eastern Old Town date from this period.
In the early 1960s, the
Margrave of the Saxon Ostmark Gero subjugated the Slavic tribes in Lower
Lusatia. It was not until 990 that Margrave Ekkehard I of Meissen was
able to subjugate the Milzener in Upper Lusatia. For a long time,
however, Lusatia remained a hotbed of conflict between Bohemia, Poland
and the Holy Roman Empire. Görlitz was first mentioned in a document
from King Heinrich IV in 1071. In it, the Bishop of Meissen received the
Slavic village of Goreliz as a gift. The area of today's Upper and Lower
Lusatia came under the rule of the Bohemian dukes and later kings in
1075 as a pledge and in 1089 as an imperial fiefdom.
Yzcorelik
Castle, which was probably in the area of St. Peter's Church, was
expanded in 1126 and 1131 together with other castles on the Bohemian
border by Duke Soběslav I.
Based on the village settlement or the
castle, a settlement of merchants with the Nikolaikirche at its core
developed on the Via Regia, probably in the middle of the 12th century.
Around 1200, a systematic urban layout was created around the Untermarkt
in the area of today's old town. A representative of the Bohemian king,
who came from the circle of leading families from which the large
landowners and long-distance traders emerged, resided in the city in
1234 and 1238. By 1282 at the latest, they were freed from the power of
the city seigneurs.
Under the rule of the Ascanians, who had
received the eastern part of the state of Bautzen with the city of
Görlitz as a pledge from the Bohemian king in 1253, the city complex was
expanded to the west and city fortifications were built, which now also
included the Franciscan monastery founded in 1234.
In 1268, under
the Brandenburg margraves, an ancient mint in Bautzen was mentioned in a
document, which was supplemented in the same year by a newly founded
Görlitz mint, with which it was to mint alternately every year.
For the period shortly before 1300,
there is a town council with a mayor, twelve councilors and four lay
judges. In 1303, Görlitz was the first town in the region to be granted
independence from the sovereign bailiwick court and received supreme
jurisdiction, which is considered the date of town independence. A
little later, a Jewish community developed. After the town fell back to
Bohemia in 1329, King John of Luxembourg confirmed the developing
settlement of the Jews and endowed Görlitz with numerous rights, in
particular the coinage regime.
In 1339, the city also received
the staple right for a dye plant that was in demand throughout Europe,
the woad, for the color blue in cloth dyeing. The city became the most
important trading city between Erfurt and Breslau due to its booming
trade and because of the monopoly position for the woad trade in the
Bohemian countries and thanks to a flourishing cloth production. In the
middle of the 14th century the council had the municipal court in its
hands. From that time a double ring of walls is attested, enclosing an
area of 24 ha.
Supported by their economic power and royal
privilege, Bautzen, Görlitz, Kamenz, Lauban, Löbau and Zittau founded
the Upper Lusatian League of Six Towns on August 21, 1346, on behalf of
the sovereign, the King of Bohemia and later German Emperor Charles IV
to keep the peace of the country. Legally, Görlitz was hardly inferior
to the free imperial cities. With the economic boom, the guilds rose to
become local power factors. They rejected the Council's foreign policy
and in 1369, 1390 and 1405 rebelled in vain against the Council's
authorities.
In the years 1377 to 1396 the city was the center of
the Duchy of Görlitz, which Charles IV had founded for his
seven-year-old son Johann. In 1389 he allowed the Jews to be expelled
from Görlitz. After his death in 1396 the duchy was dissolved again.
During the Hussite Wars in 1429, the southern and eastern suburbs
were burned down, but the walled city was not besieged. After numerous
feuds that led to the city in the 14th and 15th centuries to maintain
the peace and its extensive privileges, it was also involved in the
disputes between church and nobility in the 15th century with the
Kalixtine king of Bohemia, Georg von Poděbrady involved, which led to
the Görlitz powder conspiracy in 1466/68. Görlitz was also involved in
the dispute over the Bohemian throne between George of Podebrady and
Matthias Corvinus. For this reason, the suburbs were also surrounded by
a moat and stockades until 1477, and the city fortifications were
modernized and strengthened.
The tensions between Görlitz and
Zittau, which had already begun after the end of the Hussite wars,
erupted in a beer war in 1491, which was about the right of the Zittau
people to import and sell beer duty-free to Görlitz. However, Görlitz
refused to import and sell foreign beer and confiscated it. Zittau then
reacted by attacking villages in the vicinity of Görlitz. The feud
between the two towns could only be ended by an arbitration ruling by
the bailiff, who forbade the two towns from attacking each other and
obliged Zittau to make amends for the damage done.
Under the
reign of the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus, the city flourished in
the late 15th century and lasted well into the 16th century. Numerous
late Gothic and Renaissance town houses and churches date from this
period. At the same time, the citizens of Görlitz had been acquiring
extensive land holdings since the 1440s. Around 1500 the city had around
10,000 inhabitants.
The revenues from the hunting duties reached
a high point even later, namely around 1560 (with 600 duty-carrying
vehicles from Thuringia per year) and then fell rapidly. Cloth making
also reached a peak at that time. Since 1609 no revenue from hunting
duties has been recorded; later woad was treated like other trade goods.
The tensions between the guilds and the council continued into the
16th century and culminated in the dispute over the Reformation. From
1521 onwards, evangelical preaching was given in Görlitz, even if the
council resisted for a long time. A Protestant church order was
introduced in 1539. As a result of the Schmalkaldic War, the city was
affected by the Upper Lusatian Pönfall in 1547, since the Six Cities had
been very hesitant to provide troops for the war, which also left the
imperial camp before the Battle of Mühlberg. The city was ordered to pay
a large fine and lost numerous rights and all land holdings. Although
many possessions and privileges could be bought back in the years that
followed, the power of the cities in the Upper Lusatia Republic of
Estates was broken in favor of the sovereign and the great noble
families.
In April 1636,
Görlitz, together with Upper Lusatia, whose estates had joined the
rebellious Bohemia, was given to the Electorate of Saxony to compensate
for the emperor's war debts. In 1637, the Emperor confirmed the existing
denominational conditions with the traditional recess, whereupon he
accepted the homage in Görlitz. In the further course of the Thirty
Years' War, Görlitz, which was occupied by Sweden, was successfully
besieged in 1641. It suffered serious damage. During the Seven Years'
War, the area around the town was again the scene of military conflicts
at the Battle of Moys.
The Upper Lusatia Society of Sciences was
founded there in 1779, which later grew into the largest civil society
of its kind in Germany.
When Napoleon's army returned from the
Russian campaign, army units moved through the Görlitz area and
plundered the surrounding villages, regardless of whether they were
allies or opponents. Within a year, more than 30 troops marched past
Görlitz; the allied French had to be quartered and fed. Mayor Samuel
August Sohr primarily reported on the rapidly spreading epidemics. After
Napoleon's defeat, the Saxon army defected to the Allies, but Saxony was
treated as an enemy. Therefore, Saxony was not represented at the
Congress of Vienna. There, in 1815, Upper Lusatia was divided and
Görlitz was added to the Prussian province of Silesia and at the same
time it was the seat of the district of Görlitz within the
administrative district of Liegnitz.
Second flowering in the
Prussian state
The affiliation to Prussia had a significant influence
on the political and social development of the city. Prussian city
rights were introduced in 1833, and the city flourished again under the
first mayor, Gottlob Ludwig Demiani. In 1847 it received a railway
connection to Dresden and at the same time was connected to Berlin and
Breslau via a branch line. In 1867, the Berlin-Görlitzer
Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft opened its Berlin-Görlitz railway line from
Görlitzer Bahnhof in Berlin. In 1873 a separate city district was formed
for Görlitz.
This was associated with rapid industrialization.
Numerous large public buildings, industrial plants and housing estates
from the Gründerzeit still characterize the cityscape south of the old
town. With the division of Silesia into the provinces of Upper and Lower
Silesia, Görlitz became part of the western province of Lower Silesia in
1919.
During the National Socialist era, like everywhere else in the German Reich, the Jewish population was systematically deprived of its rights and deported to concentration camps. However, the Görlitz fire brigade thwarted the attempt to set the Görlitz synagogue on fire during the Night of Broken Glass in 1938, making it one of the few synagogues in today's Saxony to remain largely unscathed. In 1944, the concentration camp Görlitz was set up. There is evidence that over 400 Jewish prisoners from Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia were murdered there or died of illness and exhaustion. During the war and especially towards its end, a total of 37 houses were destroyed and, depending on the source, between 78 and 89 were badly damaged. All seven Neisse bridges were blown up at around 7 p.m. on May 7, 1945 – the last day of the war – by retreating Wehrmacht troops. These blasts also affected numerous adjacent buildings, including the windows of the Church of St. Peter and Paul near the Old Town Bridge. The city was occupied by the Red Army and thus part of the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) and from 1949 of the GDR.
After the Second World War, Görlitz was divided by the
Oder-Neisse border. The part of the city east of the Neisse came under
Polish administration and has since been called Zgorzelec. The local
population was expelled from June 21, 1945. 650 people who were born in
Görlitz or had their last place of residence there were arrested by the
Soviet secret police of the NKVD. About 250 of them died in the special
camps. Due to the refugees and expellees from the areas east of the Oder
and Neisse, the urban population in the western part of the city rose to
over 100,000 for a short time. The larger part of the city that remained
with Germany became part of the state of Saxony, which was dissolved in
1952. After that, the city belonged to the district of Dresden.
With the signing of the Görlitz Agreement on July 6, 1950, the German
Democratic Republic and the People's Republic of Poland recognized the
Oder-Neisse border as their state border. The reunified Germany
recognized the border under international law with the Two Plus Four
Treaty and the bilateral German-Polish border treaty between Germany and
Poland in 1990.
On June 17, 1953, after a rally with 30,000
people, there was an initially successful “uprising” in Görlitz, which
was crushed by units of the Ministry for State Security and the
Barracked People’s Police after the Soviet occupying power declared a
state of emergency.
From 1975 the new development areas in
Königshufen and Rauschwalde emerged, while the building fabric in the
old and inner city fell into disrepair. At the end of the 1980s,
comprehensive demolitions were planned, but this did not happen due to
the political change in 1989. There are very few cities in Germany that
can be compared to Görlitz in terms of population and that can boast
such a density of well-preserved monuments. The city center in
particular was able to benefit from the construction and renovation boom
after reunification, which was mainly supported by state and European
Union subsidies. However, the ongoing population decline in the eastern
federal states is also making itself felt in this region.
In the re-established Free State of
Saxony, the urban district of Görlitz became an independent city in the
newly formed government district of Dresden. In the course of the
district reform in 1994, the district of Görlitz surrounding the city
was merged into the new Lower Silesian Upper Lusatia district. Görlitz
initially became the district seat, but soon lost this function to
Niesky. In the course of the Saxon district reform in 2008, the
Niederschlesische Oberlausitzkreis, the independent city of Görlitz and
the district of Löbau-Zittau merged on August 1, 2008 to form the
district of Görlitz. District seat was Görlitz. This eliminated the
status of an independent city. Görlitz was given the title of major
district town.
Since 1991, the city has been a member of the
Working Group on Historic Cities, to which the cities of Bamberg,
Lübeck, Meissen, Regensburg and Stralsund also belong. Goals include the
mutual exchange of experiences, the determination of common positions
towards political leaders and decision-makers on urban development in
Germany and urban development with a focus on sustainable concepts for
historical city structures and their building fabric. With the founding
of the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences on July 13, 1992,
Görlitz became one of the two university locations of the University of
Applied Sciences. From September 3rd to 5th, 1993, the city organized
the second day of the Saxons under the motto We in Saxony. Around
270,000 visitors attended. In 1996 the 925 year celebration took place.
The celebration was opened with a parade and scaffolding in the basic
form of the former salt house was erected in the middle of the Obermarkt
and covered with tarpaulins. In the early 1990s there were
considerations to rebuild the building, but this was rejected on the
grounds that the function of the square as a link between the old town
and the Gründerzeit district would be destroyed.
After the
political turnaround there were serious changes, especially in the
economic field. The former state-owned enterprises (VEB) in the city
should be privatized according to the principles of the social market
economy. On May 1, 1990, for example, VEB Waggonbau Görlitz became the
DWA subsidiary Waggonbau Görlitz GmbH. VEB Görlitzer Maschinenbau was
taken over by the Treuhandanstalt as Siemens Turbinenbau GmbH by the
Siemens group. The privatization of the former VEB condenser factory in
Görlitz failed and the company had to file for bankruptcy in 1992. The
fine-optics factory in Görlitz was also taken out of VEB Carl Zeiss and
converted into a GmbH. For a short period of time, it again supplied
lenses with the brand name Meyer-Optik. Due to a lack of investors, the
Treuhandanstalt liquidated the Feinoptik Görlitz factory on June 30,
1991.
Between January 1991 and December 28, 1997, sections I to
III of the Hagenwerder lignite-fired power plant were shut down because
e.g. the demand for electricity fell, more economical new power plants
made the retrofitting of dedusting and desulfurization systems seem
unprofitable and the lignite supply from the neighboring lignite
opencast mine Berzdorf was only guaranteed for a maximum of 15 years.
Opencast mining was also discontinued on December 28, 1997 after more
than 170 years of lignite mining. In the years that followed, extensive
renovation work took place for the subsequent flooding of the former
opencast mine. Most of the structures of the decommissioned power plant
were demolished or blown up and the site was rededicated as an
industrial park. With the closure of the power plant and opencast mine,
a total of around 6,000 employees lost their jobs.
In 2001,
Görlitz and Zgorzelec applied together for the title of “European
Capital of Culture 2010”. In the final jury decision, the twin city was
defeated by the city of Essen, which had applied on behalf of the Ruhr
area.
When the Lusatian Neisse flooded in August in 2010, the dam
wall of the Witka reservoir broke. The Witka is a tributary of the
Neisse and flows into it south of the Görlitz district of Hagenwerder.
The tidal wave flooded large parts of Hagenwerder in a short time. These
were mitigated by the undermining of the tracks of the
Görlitz–Hagenwerder railway line and the floods breaking through into
the nearby Berzdorfer See. However, the water level reached a height of
7.07 m and thus one of the highest values since it was recorded. The
average water level is 1.75 m. There was considerable damage, especially
in the lower-lying districts and districts south and north of the city
center, but also on the buildings near the bank in the city center and
old town, in the Neißetal south of the Obermühle and in the Zgorzelec
Neißevorstadt .
In the night from March 14 to 15, 2020, Poland
closed its border crossings to Germany as a result of the COVID-19
pandemic and thus also the border crossings in the Görlitz city
area.[80] The old town bridge was completely sealed off with
construction fences and guarded with machine guns by Polish border
guards from the Straż Graniczna. The border crossing at the Stadtbrücke
and the motorway border crossing in Ludwigsdorf remained open to Polish
returnees who had to quarantine for 14 days. During the border closure,
especially before the Easter and Pentecost holidays and before Ascension
Day, there were kilometer-long backlogs through the entire Görlitz city
area and up to 63 km long traffic jams on the Autobahn 4 to Burkau. The
borders were reopened on the night of June 12-13, 2020. Zgorzelec Mayor
Rafał Gronicz and his Görlitz colleague Octavian Ursu ceremoniously
opened the border fence on the Old Town Bridge in the presence of
several hundred people.
Before World War II, Rauschwalde was incorporated into Görlitz in 1925 and Moys (Polish: Zgorzelec-Ujazd) in 1929. After the end of the Second World War, the district of Moys and the urban area east of the Neisse fell under Polish administration in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. After the war, on January 1, 1949, Weinhübel and Klingewalde and on October 1, 1951, Groß and Klein Biesnitz became part of Görlitz. Deutsch-Ossig followed on January 1, 1994, and Hagenwerder/Tauchritz and Schlauroth on March 1 of the same year. Finally, on January 1, 1999, Kunnerwitz with Klein Neundorf, Ludwigsdorf with Ober-Neundorf and parts of the industrial estates of the municipality of Schöpstal (Girbigsdorf and Ebersbach) were added.
While Görlitz had just
under 10,000 inhabitants before the industrial revolution, the number of
inhabitants increased eightfold between 1825 and 1905 in just eight
decades from 10,724 to 83,766 inhabitants. With the strong increase in
population since the founding of the German Empire and in the following
founding years, the city burst its medieval borders and grew beyond the
city walls. Even after the end of the First World War, the population
continued to increase. In 1939 about 94,000 people finally lived in the
city.
In 1949, the population of the city of Görlitz exceeded the
mark of 100,000 inhabitants in the urban area west of the Neisse, mainly
due to the influx of numerous refugees and expellees from the former
eastern German territories, which made the city a major city for a short
time. At that time, the city's population also reached its historic high
of 101,742. By 1988, the population had dropped to 77,609. Since
reunification in the GDR, the city has lost almost a third of its
population based on its territorial status at the time due to emigration
and a decline in the birth rate.
On December 31, 2011, the
official population of Görlitz was only 54,691 (only main residences).
Compared with the last pre-war population census in May 1939 with 93,823
inhabitants, this corresponds to a drop of around 40 percent, although
the loss of living space east of the Neisse was compensated for by three
new development areas west of the Neisse built after 1945. Before the
war, around 8,800 citizens lived in the eastern part of the city. In
comparison, around 20,000 people lived in the three new development
areas in July 2011. This shows that the living space lost east of the
Neisse after the war was more than compensated for by 1990.
Due
to the population decline, around 2019 the city offered a month of free
living in the city to strangers in a project to get feedback on possible
improvements in the city's attractiveness.
A further decline in
the population was expected, with the State Statistical Office
forecasting a population of 46,400 for Görlitz in 2020. This would
correspond to about half of the pre-war population. However, the
prognosis of the state office is considered controversial, because since
2006 Görlitz has seen more immigrants than emigrants and in November
2017 it reached 57,228 inhabitants, with every tenth of the 2000 new
residents being over 60 years old. By 2007, over 1,000 seniors had
already moved to the city. For them, the city is a popular place to
retire due to its ambience, its culture, the quiet location and the up
to 20% lower cost of living, also due to the low rents. As early as the
19th century, Görlitz was given the nickname "Pensionopolis". It was
particularly popular with Prussian officials as a retirement home. This
development is now noticeable again, retirees are relocating to the old
town of Görlitz. Most of them come from the old federal states.
Görlitz and its neighboring Polish town of Zgorzelec together have
around 85,600 inhabitants, of whom around 30,000 live in Zgorzelec (as
of December 2020). This roughly corresponds to the population of the
entire city in the early 1920s.
As of 2022, only one in five residents belonged to a church, and the
proportion of Protestant Christians in the population has fallen to
16.2%.
Görlitz is the seat of the Catholic Diocese of Görlitz and
a Protestant regional bishop for the district of Görlitz of the
Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia.
The
Reformation took hold in 1521 and in 1525 the first evangelical mass was
said in Görlitz. Since the last third of the 16th century, Görlitz has
been a purely Lutheran town. Like all Lusatian Lutherans, the Görlitz
congregation did not belong to any regional church, but the town
administered its church affairs itself, although the Catholic dean of
the Bautzen cathedral chapter retained important rights as head of an
apostolic administration. Evangelical Lutheran piety in Görlitz was
heavily influenced by Pietism at the end of the 17th century. From 1815
the city belonged to Prussia and its church system was assigned to the
United Evangelical Church in Prussia.
The Old Lutheran
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia came into being as a reaction to
the union between the Lutheran Church and the Reformed tradition, which
was enacted by the Prussian state. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of
the Holy Spirit was founded in Görlitz, which today belongs to the
Lusatia church district of the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church.
With the election of parish priest Gert Kelter as provost of the parish
east of the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church (SELK) on January
27, 2007, Görlitz became the seat of the provost east of the
Altlutherans.
Otherwise, the city was part of the Silesian
Provincial Church of the Evangelical Church, whose seat was in Wrocław
at the time. As a result of the demarcation of the border after the
Second World War (Oder-Neisse border), only a small part of the
territory of the Silesian Provincial Church remained with Germany and
became part of the Soviet occupation zone. The former Görlitz urban area
east of the Neisse was combined to form the town of Zgorzelec. The
mostly Protestant German population living there was forcibly resettled
in 1945-1947. The town population that was newly settled in their place
was mostly Roman Catholic, so that the population of the former Görlitz
urban area, which has become the town of Zgorzelec, has been mostly
Catholic since about 1947.
The church leadership under Bishop
Ernst Hornig had to leave Breslau in 1946 and moved to Görlitz. In 1947,
the city became the seat of a state church, which initially kept the
name Evangelical Church of Silesia, but had to change its name to
Evangelical Church of the Görlitz Church District in 1968 and in 1992
received its current name Evangelical Church of Silesian Upper Lusatia.
On January 1, 2004, this regional church became part of the Evangelical
Church in Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia. Since then, Görlitz
has been the seat of the (third) district of this new regional church.
Within this district, the parishes of the city of Görlitz belong to the
Schlesische Oberlausitz church district.
At the beginning of the
19th century, more and more Roman Catholic believers moved into the city
and from 1853 they founded their own parishes. They belonged to the
Archdiocese of Breslau. When its territory was divided after the Second
World War as a result of the demarcation of the border, the part of the
Diocese of Breslau that remained west of the Lusatian Neisse in Germany
initially formed the Archbishop's Office of Görlitz. This resulted in
the Görlitz Apostolic Administration set up in 1972 on July 8, 1994 as
today's Diocese of Görlitz within the newly established ecclesiastical
province of Berlin, whose cathedral was the St. James' Church built in
1898. Within the diocese of Görlitz, the parishes of the city of
Görlitz, St. Hedwig and Holy Cross, belong to the deanery of the same
name.
In addition, there are also free church congregations of
the Apostolic Community in Görlitz, the Baptists, the Seventh-day
Adventists, the Pentecostals, the United Methodist Church and the
Federation of Free Evangelical Congregations in Germany.
Other
religious communities are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints (Mormons), Jehovah's Witnesses, the New Apostolic Church and a
congregation of the Apostle ministry of Jesus Christ.
Since 2005
there has been a Jewish community in Görlitz again. The community was
recognized by the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Saxon state
rabbi Salomon Almekias-Siegl. She uses the weekday synagogue in the
synagogue on Otto-Müller-Strasse for her services and prayers.
In
2018, the Assalam (engl. peace) association opened an intercultural
center as a meeting place on Bahnhofsstraße. The premises are to be
used, for example, for Muslim Friday prayers, but according to the
association are also open to cultural events of various kinds, including
those of other denominations and origins.