Halberstadt (Low German Halwerstidde) is a district town and
industrial town in the Harz district in Saxony-Anhalt with almost 40,000
inhabitants (as of 2022). The city on the Holtemme in the northern Harz
foreland is well connected by the A 36. It is also known as the gateway
to the Harz Mountains because of the meeting point of several historic
long-distance roads from the west of Goslar and Wolfenbüttel, in the
north of Magdeburg and in the east of Halle (Saale) and Leipzig.
From the 9th century to 1648, the city was the seat of the Bishop of
Halberstadt. Halberstadt is known nationally for its bishop's cathedral
in the French Gothic style and the Martini Church as well as for the
Halberstadt sausages.
In the 18th century, the local Jewish
community comprised about a tenth of the city's population, making it
one of the largest and most important in central Germany and, along with
Frankfurt am Main, a center of Jewish orthodoxy in Germany until the
20th century.
More than 80 percent of downtown Halberstadt was
destroyed in an air raid on April 8, 1945. During the GDR era, there was
little interest in the historic building fabric, but many buildings have
been renovated since 1990. Especially in the northern old town around
the Voigtei and in the district of Westendorf, some half-timbered houses
worth seeing have been preserved.
Since 2001, the performance of
the composition ORGAN²/ASLSP (“As Slow as Possible”) by John Cage in the
Sankt Burchardi Church, which at 639 years is the longest-lasting piece
of music in the world, has achieved international fame.
The Stadttheater, which burned out during the air raid on April 8, 1945, was demolished in 1949 and replaced by the newly built "Volkstheater". Today, the Nordharzer Städtebundtheater plays in the big house as well as the chamber stage and the small venue "Alte Kantine", as well as the stages of Quedlinburg and the Bergtheater Thale as well as other stages in the region.
The Heineanum is one of the largest ornithological museums in Germany with over 18,000 skins, more than half of all bird species at all, including rare extinct specimens. The Gleimhaus is one of the oldest literature museums in Germany. There is also the municipal museum, the Berend Lehmann museum for Jewish history and culture, the cathedral and the cathedral treasury and the screw museum, in which bourgeois living culture from around 1900 is exhibited. The reopening of the cathedral treasury was celebrated on April 13, 2008 with a festive service, including with Federal President Horst Köhler.
In addition to the Nordharzer Städtebundtheater (three-genre theater with a large and small stage), the organ work ORGAN²/ASLSP by John Cage (1912-1992) with a total playing time of 639 years has been performed in the St. Burchardi Church since September 5, 2001. The performance is conceived as the world's slowest and longest-running piece of music by extrapolating the eight-page score to the intended playing time - since the piece begins with a pause, the first organ note was not heard until February 2003. Since 2012, the Gröninger organ by David Beck from 1596 has been reconstructed in St. Martini, the front of which is still preserved.
The most important buildings in Halberstadt are located on
Domplatz, a historic ensemble bordered by the cathedral to the east
and the Church of Our Lady to the west. On the north side are the
historic canons' curia, which today house the municipal museum, the
cathedral builders' hut, the Heineanum and the Gleimhaus. In the
south are the former cathedral grammar school and the cathedral
provost, both of which belong to the Harz University of Applied
Sciences, as well as the neo-Romanesque post office building. On the
northwest side are the Petershof and the Peterstreppe. The cultural
monuments of Halberstadt are listed in the Halberstadt monument
register.
The Petershof is a former bishop's palace,
construction began around 1059. After the renovation, the Petershof
is the seat of the city administration and the Heinrich Heine city
library.
The historic old town is limited to the preserved
streets of Voigei, Bakenstrasse, Gröperstrasse, Rosenwinkel,
Grudenberg, Grauer Hof, Steinhof and Westendorf. It consists of
around 450 houses, mostly built in the Lower Saxon half-timbered
style.
The town hall is a new building with a reconstruction of
parts of the facade and the town hall of the previous building that
was destroyed in the war. The statue of Roland stands in front of
the building. Since 2004 there has been a new porcelain glockenspiel
made of Meissen porcelain with 25 bells on the west facade of the
town hall.
The Wassertorturm was built in 1444 and is the only
surviving gate tower in Halberstadt.
The Bismarck Tower,
inaugurated on March 22, 1907, is a 22 m high observation tower. It
is located on the western edge of the Spiegelsberge and was built in
memory of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
The Belvedere observation
tower is also on the Spiegelsberge.
The oldest and largest
preserved wine barrel in Germany with a capacity of around 144,000
liters is stored in the Spiegelsberge hunting lodge.
The Klaus
synagogue in Rosenwinkel was built by Berend Lehmann in 1703 as a
residence and study for three Jewish scholars. Today this building
is part of the Moses Mendelssohn Academy and is used for conferences
and exhibitions.
Built in 1879, Villa Koecher is a historicist
Italian-style villa with a cast-iron banister. It is a monument.
During the GDR era, the building was used, among other things, as
the seat of the district board of the NDPD.
The villa at
Magdeburger Straße 37 is a listed building. It was built in 1861 as
a late classicist building typical of the time by order of the
factory owner Gölte and is of particular importance as one of the
few villas in the Wilhelminian eastern expansion of the city that
survived after the war.
The Villa Klamroth is a building in the
home style of Hermann Muthesius, which is used as a hotel.
The Cathedral of St. Stephen and St. Sixtus is one of the most
important Gothic cathedrals in Germany. Construction began in 1236 and
consecrated after 255 years in 1491. The Halberstadt cathedral treasury
is considered to be one of the most precious treasures of sacred
medieval art in the world.
The Winter Church in the early Gothic west
wing of the Domklausur, Domplatz 16a, Halberstadt. Since 2002, the
Winter Church has had a new organ made by Reinhard Hüfken.
The Church
of Our Lady was built in 1146. It is a four-tower Romanesque pillar
basilica that is unique in central and northern Germany.
The Martini
Church was built between 1250 and 1350. The Gothic hall church has a
massive double-tower facade. The northern tower was deliberately built
lower to give the guard in the southern tower an all-round view.
The
St. Moritz Church, built around 1246, is a three-aisled pillar basilica.
The Burchardi Church was built around 1210. It is a Romanesque towerless
basilica with a rare, rectangular ambulatory choir, in which John Cage's
organ piece As slow as possible has been performed since 2001.
Built
in the 13th century as part of the Franciscan monastery, St. Andrew's
Church is a towerless Gothic hall church.
St. John's Church,
completed in 1648, is a half-timbered church with a polygonal chancel
and Gothic windows.
St. Catherine's Church, dedicated to St.
Catherine and St. Barbara, was built in the 14th century. The
three-aisled, tower-less hall church was a Dominican monastery church
until 1810 and is now a Catholic parish church.
The St. Laurentius
Church was built around 1194 and is a Romanesque village church in the
district of Wehrstedt. The ruins of the church destroyed in World War II
were rebuilt in 1993 in just 60 hours on the remains of the old wall in
a spectacular campaign by the ARD television program “Now or Never”.
The chapel in the Campestift of the Zion community, Am Johannesbrunnen
36, Halberstadt
Mass graves in the main cemetery for the more than 2,000 victims of
the bombing raids on Halberstadt in 1944 and 1945, especially on April
8, 1945.
Mass grave in the main cemetery commemorating bomb victims
among foreign workers and victims of forced labour.
Memorial stone
for the Italian bomb victims in Halberstadt
In the cemetery in the
district of Emersleben, two collective graves and one single grave
commemorate 13 Soviet prisoners of war, nine children of Soviet forced
laborers and one forced laborer, who all died under the most miserable
living conditions during the Second World War.
Memorial grove for
those persecuted by the Nazi regime, where 164 prisoners from the
Langenstein-Zwieberge subcamp are buried
Gravestone on the grave of
the social democratic member of parliament Minna Bollmann, who was
driven to suicide by the persecution of the National Socialists in 1935
Family grave of Hans-Georg Klamroth as an accomplice of the
assassination attempt of July 20, 1944, murdered in Berlin-Plötzensee
Memorial stone from 1988 to the Jewish victims of the Shoah
Collective grave in the cemetery of the Wehrstedt district for eleven
Serbian people who were not named and who became victims of forced labor
during the Second World War
Memorial at the foot of the Spiegelsberge
for 864 Red Army soldiers (according to other information 559) and
Soviet prisoners of war as victims of forced labor
Grave fields in
the main cemetery for 403 German soldiers of the First World War and 500
soldiers of the Second World War buried here.
There are three Jewish cemeteries in Halberstadt:
The old cemetery
on Sternstraße, on the so-called "Red Stocking", was laid out in 1644.
There are still around 150 weathered tombstones there today. The oldest
surviving tombstone dates from 1659. In 1938 the cemetery was desecrated
by the National Socialists, and some of the tombstones were used for
splinter protection trenches. Most of the more than 1,800 tombstones
were only used in the spring of 1945 to build anti-tank barriers against
the Allies advancing from Braunschweig. In the documents of the city
archive there is a gravestone plan from 1945; that is, the tombstones
were then registered for the purpose of "tank obstacles".
At the Am
Berge Cemetery (opened in 1695) there are still around 400 tombstones in
good condition, including those of deserving personalities such as
members of the Hirsch family and Berend Lehmann. This second cemetery
was opened in 1696 next to the oldest cemetery. It was occupied until
the 1930s.
The third and youngest cemetery, laid out in 1895, is
located on Klein-Quenstedter Chaussee as part of the municipal cemetery.
It is under monument protection. There are still 384 graves with about
300 gravestones in this cemetery. The "mourning hall" was burned down
and blown up during the Reichspogromnacht in 1938, but the graves
remained untouched with a few exceptions.
Halberstadt Roland in front of the town hall
Statue of the poet
Anna Louisa Karsch, created in 1784 by J. C. Stubnitzky in the
Spiegelsberge mountains as the first poet statue in Germany, today with
a head supplemented by Daniel Priese in the foyer of the Gleimhaus
Plaque on a gym at the Wehrstedter Bridge in memory of 124 victims of
forced labor during the Second World War
Memorial from 1982 at the
cathedral for the Jewish victims of the Shoah
Stones of remembrance
from 1992 by the sculptor Daniel Priese on the cathedral square to
commemorate all the Jews who were killed in Halberstadt by name
Showcase at the secondary school "Anne Frank" in Hans-Neupert-Strasse to
commemorate the life of Anne Frank
Memorial plaque on the ruins of
the police prison on Gerhart-Hauptmann-Strasse to the victims of an
early concentration camp
Ruins of the French Church: since 1968 a
place of remembrance for the victims of the bombing raids on
Halberstadt. On April 8, 1945, around 70 people died in the air raid
shelter of the former church.
Memorial (from 2004) in front of the
town hall for the rubble women of Halberstadt, who cleared away the
masses of rubble as a result of the bombing raid on April 8, 1945
Monument on the tower side of the Martini Church in memory of the
Peaceful Revolution in Halberstadt in 1989
Thingstein (lying stone,
devil's stone) from pre-Christian times, near the cathedral entrance.
Today's cathedral square was a Germanic thing site.
Recreational facilities
Leisure and sports center at the summer
pool
Halberstadt Lake
Camping at the lake
Cinema (Cinema Park
Zuckerfabrik)
The Halberstadt Mountains include the Theken, Klus and Spiegelsberge.
They are to the south of the city and, with a total area of around 400
hectares, form the largest contiguous recreation area in the Harz
foothills. The Spiegelsberge Landscape Park is part of the Saxony-Anhalt
Garden Dreams network.
The Halberstadt Zoo has been in the
Spiegelsberge since 1961 and is home to more than 250 animals of 75
species.
The plantation is west of the center and is a park for
recreation, in the inner city.
The Ententeich is located north of the
Bailiwick and is a pond with a park created in the Middle Ages, in which
ducks and swans still live today. In the past, the duck pond was a place
of inspiration for poets, such as Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim.
Therefore, the path along the pond is also called Poetengang.
In Halberstadt there is the Friedensstadion, which is used as the
home ground of the regional football club VfB Germania Halberstadt,
which also includes the departments of athletics (four-time German
runner-up in the German men's team championship), judo, gymnastics and
cheerleading.
Leisure and sports center
Sugar Factory Sports
Factory
Inclusion
In 2021, the city applied to host a four-day
program for an international delegation to the Special Olympics World
Summer Games 2023 in Berlin. In 2022 she was selected to host Special
Olympics Madagascar. This made it part of the largest municipal
inclusion project in the history of the Federal Republic with more than
200 host towns.
Culinary specialties
The Halberstadt sausages
are known as a specialty of the city. The Halberstadt sausage was the
first canned sausage in the world.
By plane
For those arriving by plane, the airports in Hanover
(IATA: HAJ), Berlin Brandenburg (IATA: BER) and Leipzig Halle (IATA:
LEJ) are similarly far away. Then you have to drive to Halberstadt by
car or train. The journey time is about two and a half to three hours
each way.
By train
Halberstadt can be reached directly by
train from Magdeburg, from Halle (Saale) via Aschersleben, and from
Goslar via Wernigerode. Trains also run from Halberstadt to Thale via
Quedlinburg and to Blankenburg. Abellio trains run in the region. As a
rule, the destinations mentioned are served hourly. During the day there
is a clock node on the hour with connections to and from all the
directions mentioned.
At the weekend there are three direct train
connections to/from Berlin with the Harz-Berlin-Express (HBX). This runs
on Friday evenings, Saturday evenings and Sunday evenings from Goslar or
Thale via Halberstadt to Berlin and on Saturday mornings, Sunday
mornings and Sunday evenings from Berlin to Halberstadt. The journey
from Berlin to Halberstadt takes 2:40 hours. Outside of Saxony-Anhalt,
no network or DB tickets are valid in the HBX. A one-way trip to or from
Berlin costs €16; tickets are available from the train staff.
And
once you're at the train station, you should take some time to take a
closer look at this train station, which was voted Train Station of the
Year in 2011. Other stops in the city are Halberstadt-Oststraße and
Halberstadt-Spiegelsberge, both on the route towards Blankenburg.
By bus
Flixbus connects Halberstadt with Berlin a few times a
week. The long-distance buses depart from the train station.
On
the street
Halberstadt can be reached directly via three main roads:
B79 Wolfenbüttel - Halberstadt - Quedlinburg
B81 Magdeburg -
Halberstadt - Harz
B245 Haldensleben/Helmstedt - Halberstadt
The A36 motorway (“Nordharzautobahn”) runs south of the city, which has
been continuously expanded from the A395 near Bad Harzburg to the
connection to the A14 near Bernburg. Travelers coming from the direction
of Goslar or Wernigerode use the Heimburg exit and then continue on the
B81 to Halberstadt. From the direction of Bernburg (Saale) you can
already use the Quedlinburg-Nord exit and then take the B79 to
Halberstadt.
Coming from Helmstedt you can use the following
interesting alternative: In the small town of Neudamm you leave the
B245, drive in the direction of Schlanstedt, continue via Eilsdorf on
the country road over the Huy to Halberstadt.
The German
half-timbered road runs through the town.
Halberstädter Verkehrs-GmbH operates a tram network consisting of two
lines:
1 Central Station–Holzmarkt–Cemetery
2 Central Station -
Herbingstrasse - Holzmarkt - Sargstedter Weg
There are also the
following bus lines:
11 Sargstedt settlement - wood market -
Herbingstrasse - Porta
12 Klusberge-Holzmarkt-Central
Station-Wehrstedt
13 Sargstedt-Klinikum-Holzmarkt-Behind the sports
field
14 Holzmarkt-Friedhof-Klein Quenstedt
15
Sargstedt-Voigtei-Holzmarkt-Herbingstraße-Klusberge-Herbingstraße-Central
Station (evening traffic)
16 Ströbeck-Voigtei-Holzmarkt
In the middle of the city, right next to the town hall, which was rebuilt according to the historical model, adjacent to the fish market and the wood market are the town hall passages, which not only invite you to shop, but also to linger in cafés. From the Kühlinger Straße you can drive into the adjoining multi-storey car park and reach these passages in just a few steps with dry feet. You can also reach this place by tram or bus.
Medium
1 Halberstadter Hof, Trillgasse 10, 38820 Holberstadt.
Tel.: +49 3941 27 080. Centrally located near Cathedral Square.
Upscale
2 Hotel Unter den Linden (Villa Klamroth), Klamrothstr. 2 A
four-star hotel with a remarkable history.
Gymnasium Martineum
High School Käthe Kollwitz
Harz University
HALKO - Halberstadt sausage factory
Halberstadt Information, Hinter dem Rathause 6, 38820 Halberstadt. Phone: +49 (0)3941 55 18 15, fax: +49 (0)3941 55 10 89, e-mail: halberd-info@halberstadt.de.
In 2013, a mass grave was discovered in Halberstadt that dates from the same period - from the linear ceramic culture - as other well-known sites where massacres or executions took place, such as Herxheim or Talheim, Wiederstedt or Schöneck-Kilianstädten in Germany and Asparn / Schletz in Austria. In Halberstadt, young men were apparently killed and then buried in a mass grave. According to the excavators, it is conceivable that the men who came from a distance from the village were attackers themselves, but who had failed in their attack.
The origin of the name
Halwerstidde (or Halverstidde) "requires a thorough, yet to be
carried out investigation". A relationship to halba (ahd. Side,
half) or a river section name Halver der Holtemme is assumed.
Charlemagne made the mission base in 804 a bishopric. The Bishop
Hildeward of Halberstadt (968-996) was 989 by King Otto III. the
market, coin and customs rights conferred. He also received the ban
on blood and army, that is, secular power in the Harzgau and thus
over the residents of Halberstadt. In 1005 the construction of the
Liebfrauenkirche began. Heinrich the Lion destroyed the city,
cathedral and cathedral castle in 1179. In 1192 the Templars came to
Halberstadt and founded a commander in the Burchardi monastery. In
1236 the new construction of the cathedral began, which was
consecrated in 1491. A few years before 1297 the mendicant order of
the Servites came to Halberstadt and founded a monastery in the New
City in front of the water gate.
In 1326 the city merged with
Aschersleben and Quedlinburg until 1477 to form the Halberstadt
Tri-City Alliance. In 1387 Halberstadt also joined the Hanseatic
League. In 1433 the city roland was set up.
The Protestant
doctrine was introduced at Halberstadt Cathedral in 1591 by the
first Protestant Bishop of Halberstadt, Heinrich Julius. But until
the end of the Thirty Years' War there was a mixed denominational
cathedral chapter.
During the witch hunts, around 24 people
in Halberstadt were sentenced to death in witch trials. During this
time, the Protestant lawyer and diplomat Justus Oldekop (1597–1667)
worked in Halberstadt from 1650 to 1660 as the syndic of the
estates. He was an early bird and, two years after Friedrich Spee,
advocated a much more humane penal system in German (and not
anonymously in Latin). He also referred to witch trials.
In
1629 there was a second occupation of Halberstadt by Wallenstein's
troops. With the help of the Edict of Restitution, the imperial
commander-in-chief made the cathedral and the Liebfrauenstift
Catholic again for a short time. On January 18, 1630, Wallenstein
was personally in Halberstadt. The prince-bishopric of Halberstadt
became part of Brandenburg-Prussia in 1648 as the duchy. In the
years 1681/82 the plague raged in the city. 2197 people died from
it.
From around 1750, the cathedral secretary Johann Wilhelm
Ludwig Gleim turned his house into a communication center for the
German Enlightenment (largest original library and collection of
letters on the German Enlightenment in the Gleimhaus, now Germany's
second oldest literary museum). There was also the Halberstadt
Literary Society from 1785 to 1810.
In 1761, the mirror
mountains were acquired by Ernst Ludwig Christoph von Spiegel and
redesigned into a landscape park. In 1778 Friedrich Eberhard von
Rochow founded Germany's first rural school teacher seminar in
Halberstadt. In 1807, Halberstadt became part of the Kingdom of
Westphalia created by Napoleon and the seat of a prefecture and
capital of the Saale department. In the fifth coalition war, in a
bloody battle on July 29, 1809, the black crowd of the Duke of
Braunschweig conquered the city and moved on with 2,000 prisoners.
After the Congress of Vienna, Halberstadt returned to Prussia
and became part of the new province of Saxony. As part of the
district formation in the administrative district of Magdeburg, the
urban district of Halberstadt was set up in 1816, which included the
town itself as well as the surrounding villages. The city district
of Halberstadt was expanded in 1825 to include parts of the
districts of Oschersleben and Osterwieck and converted into a normal
district with Halberstadt as the district town.
With the
opening of the railway line to Magdeburg by the
Magdeburg-Halberstädter Eisenbahn in 1843, Halberstadt was connected
to the constantly expanding railway network. Friedrich Heine founded
the Halberstadt sausage factory in 1883. The bathing establishment
was established in 1890. The first German trade union congress took
place in Halberstadt in 1892. In 1891 Halberstadt left the district
and again formed its own urban district.
In 1903 Halberstadt received an electric
tram. The City Theater and the City Museum were founded in 1905. As
early as 1812 there had been one of the first civil speaking
theaters in Germany in the former Nicolaikloster.
From 1912,
the German Bristol Works in Halberstadt built aircraft. During the
First World War, the former German-British joint venture, renamed
Halberstädter Flugzeugwerke, produced aircraft for the air force of
the German Army. After the end of the war in November 1918, due to
the terms of the Versailles treaties, aircraft construction in the
German Empire of the Weimar Republic had to be completely
discontinued and the former aircraft factory, which now belonged to
Berlin-Halberstädter Industriewerke AG, went bankrupt in early 1926.
As part of the armament of the Wehrmacht, a branch of the Dessau
Junkers aircraft factory was put into operation in 1935 on part of
the former factory premises in Halberstädter Klusstraße 30-38, which
manufactured wings for the Ju 88. This plant was the target of
American bombers several times during World War II.
The
synagogue in Bakenstrasse, donated by court Jew Berend Lehmann in
1712 in its baroque style, was one of the most beautiful in Europe
at the time it was built. During the pogrom night of November 9,
1938, it was looted by the National Socialists and all Torah scrolls
were burned on the street. Since it was closely integrated into the
existing half-timbered buildings, arson was avoided and the Jewish
community was forced to demolish its synagogue with their own hands.
On November 23, 1942, the last remaining members of the Jewish
community were deported.
During the Second World War, the SS
set up several subcamps in the city, including a subcamp of the
Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944 in the Junkers factory on
Harslebener Strasse for 400 to 900 prisoners who had to perform
forced labor there. A satellite camp of the Langenstein-Zwieberge
concentration camp existed below the Wehrstedter Bridge in the
Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk (RAW), where up to 200 prisoners were
deployed.
On April 8, 1945, 218 US bombers of the 1st Air
Division of the 8th Air Force of the type B-17 "Flying Fortress"
with 595 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs destroyed 82
percent of the city center in a devastating area bombing. On that
day 239 escort fighters escorted the 1st Air Division, whose main
target was Halberstadt. Around 2,500 people were killed in the
attack. The amount of debris was about 1.5 million cubic meters.
Just three days later, on April 11th, American ground forces
occupied the city. On May 18, the Americans surrendered the city to
the British and at the end of June 1945 the latter to the Red Army.
Halberstadt became part of the SBZ and, from 1949, the GDR.
From 1949 to 1989, the inner city, which was largely destroyed, was
partly rebuilt and rebuilt according to the "socialist understanding
of building"; the remaining half-timbered houses in the old town
were planned to be abandoned to decay and large areas were torn
down. The ruins of the Romanesque-Gothic Paulskirche were also
removed. At the turn of 1989 only small parts of the old town
existed.
In 1989 prayers for peace were held in the Martini
Church. Thousands of citizens gathered in autumn that year under the
motto “Swords to Plowshares”. Demonstrations took place from the
church, which also initiated the peaceful political turnaround in
Halberstadt. One demand was the completion of demolition work in the
city center. A simple memorial on the tower side of the church
commemorates these events.
After 1990 the rest of the old
town was restored and, from 1995, a modern city center was built on
the foundations and the scale of the historic town center. The new
city center in the area of the marketplaces was completed in 1998
with the construction of the new town hall.
On June 8, 2007,
an attack on a troupe of actors caused a nationwide sensation, in
which five actors were so injured that they had to be admitted to
the Halberstadt clinic. The police failed to record the
perpetrators' personal details, even though they were still at the
scene. Four of the perpetrators, who belonged to the right-wing
extremist scene, received only extremely mild court judgments.
On September 23, 2008, the city received the title “Place of
Diversity” awarded by the federal government.
From 1623 to 1994 Halberstadt was garrison town
almost continuously for 372 years.
From 1815 to 1919
Halberstadt was the garrison of the Halberstadt cuirassiers
(cuirassier regiment "von Seydlitz" (Magdeburgisches) No. 7). The
most prominent member of the regiment was the later Chancellor Otto
von Bismarck, who often wore the uniform of this unit, and thus
appears in Anton von Werner's painting The Proclamation of the
German Empire (January 18, 1871).
An air base with a flying
school was established south of the city before and during the First
World War. In 1913 the Halberstadt aircraft factory was established.
Both had to be dismantled after the war.
During the Weimar
Republic, the regimental staff and the training battalion of the
12th Infantry Regiment of the Reichswehr were stationed in
Halberstadt. This was in the Prinz-Ferdinand-Kaserne on
Harmoniestraße. There was also the Bismarck barracks in the
Kürassierstraße with the artillery regiment 4 and the on-site
hospital on the Quedlinburger Straße.
From 1935 there was an
air force garrison in Halberstadt. The "Air Base Barracks" was built
at the air base. In 1944 the facilities were damaged by bombing
raids.
From April to May 1945 there was an American and from
May to June a British garrison in Halberstadt.
During the GDR
era, GSSD troops were stationed in Halberstadt (for example the
197th Armored Guard Regiment and 112th Reconnaissance Battalion).
These troop units, all subordinate to the 3rd shock army (see:
Structure of the WGT 1991), were in the garrison of the former air
base barracks. The site also included a site training area with
armored firing ranges.
The barracks are still fallow today,
the buildings formerly used by the Soviet Army have now been almost
completely demolished. The Martin-Schwantes barracks, which until
1990 was the seat of the GDR border troops (including border
regiment 20), has also been demolished. Part of the site is now used
by the Federal Agency for Technical Relief, among others. The Martin
Hoop barracks, former training barracks of the border troops
(Grenzausbildungsregiment 7), is now home to the central contact
point for asylum seekers in Saxony-Anhalt, including accommodation
options.
On December 29, 1994, the Bundeswehr Air Force
Material Depot 52, which was located in the former underground
facility (UTA) or the MALACHIT tunnel system near Langenstein and
which took over the NVA's complex camp 12 (malachite) in 1989/1990,
was closed. This ended the garrison history of Halberstadt after 371
years.
Evidence of the former garrison town of Halberstadt
can still be found in the urban area. These include the
Ebereschenhof (largely demolished), the grounds of the district
administration and Florian-Geyer-Straße.
Halberstadt is around 20 kilometers north of the Harz Mountains on the Holtemme and the Goldbach. North of the city is the Huy mountain range, in the east the Magdeburger Börde and in the south the Spiegelsberge, Thekenberge and the Klusberge. Halberstadt is the largest town in the Harz district.
In addition to the main town, the town of Halberstadt consists of the
following districts with a town council:
Aspenstedt
Athenstedt
Emersleben
Little Quenstedt
Langenstein
Sargstedt
Chess
village Strobeck
Other districts are:
Boehnshausen
Mahndorf
New Runstedt
Veltensmuehle
The districts of Böhnshausen and
Mahndorf belong to the village of Langenstein.
In addition, there
are the following three districts:
Wehrstedt (incorporated July 1,
1946),
Klussiedlung and
Sargstedt settlement
Clockwise, starting from north:
Municipality of Huy
City of
Schwanebeck and municipality of Groß Quenstedt (both in the Vorharz
association municipality)
City of Gröningen (Western Börde
municipality in the Börde district)
City of Wegeleben and
municipality of Harsleben (both in the Vorharz association municipality)
City of Thale
City of Blankenburg (Harz)
Municipality of North
Harz
City of Osterwieck
The city is located in the temperate climate zone. The average annual rainfall in Halberstadt is 727 millimeters. Most precipitation falls in July with an average of 81 millimeters, the lowest in February with an average of 44 millimeters. Average temperatures range from 1°C in January, the coldest month, to 19.1°C in July, when it is warmest.
Lord Mayor
The Mayor of Halberstadt has been Daniel Szarata (CDU)
since January 1, 2021, who was elected in the runoff on July 19, 2020
with 58.26% of the votes. The previous Lord Mayor Andreas Henke (Die
Linke) received 41.74% of the votes in this election. Voter turnout was
35.5%.
In the previous election in 2013, Henke, who had been in
office since 2007, was re-elected in the first ballot with 53.65% of the
votes. The CDU candidate Daniel Szarata received 34% of the votes in
this election. Only 8.94% voted for Peter Köpke (SPD). The non-party
Volkmar Hofmann achieved a share of the vote of 3.41%. Voter turnout was
39.8%.
The economy of Halberstadt is characterized by small and medium-sized
companies. The city administration has designated three business parks
and one industrial park in the east of the city, where new businesses
will be located. At 4.7 percent (as of September 2019[43]), the
unemployment rate in the Harz district is slightly lower than the
average for the state of Saxony-Anhalt (6.7 percent in September 2019).
According to the Federal Institute for Building, Urban and Spatial
Research (BBSR), Halberstadt recorded above-average economic growth at
the beginning of 2023 and is assigned to the highest growth category.
Halberstadt is economically represented by several companies, especially
in the field of medical technology.
The Halberstadt sausages from
Halberstadt Würstchen- und Konservenvertriebs-GmbH are nationally known
products. There are also a number of smaller companies, including
mechanical engineering, agricultural machinery, plastics and medical
technology (Primed), a furniture factory (HMW) and, as the oldest
industrial company, a rubber factory (Teguma). Halberstadt is an
administrative location of national importance.
In GDR times, the
mechanical engineering in Halberstadt in the halls of the former
aircraft factory and the Reichsbahn repair shop (RAW) were of particular
importance. The plant played a key role in the design and manufacture of
the DR's UIC-Z and center entry cars, the "halberstadters". The plant
has continued to be operated as VIS Verkehrs Industrie Systeme GmbH
since 2002 and works on the construction and repair of rail vehicles. So
e.g. For example, the interior fittings of the Harz-Elbe-Express (HEX)
trains and the service for the Abellio diesel multiple units were
carried out by VIS.
The Halberstadt grain silo, which can be seen
from afar, is located on the outskirts of the city.
The Daimler
Truck company is planning to build a new international logistics
location with up to 600 jobs in Halberstadt by 2026.
The district court of Halberstadt had existed since 1849. This was repealed in 1879 and the Halberstadt district court, which belongs to the Magdeburg district court and the Naumburg district court, was created instead. Between 1952 and 1992 the district court of Halberstadt existed in the GDR instead.
In Halberstadt there are the following authorities and institutions
with importance beyond the city limits:
Office for Agriculture,
Land Consolidation and Forestry Center
Branch of the Federal Office
for Migration and Refugees (formerly the Federal Office for the
Recognition of Foreign Refugees)
Central reception center (ZASt) for
asylum seekers (as an initial reception facility in Saxony-Anhalt)
ecclesiastical administration office in Halberstadt
Saxony-Anhalt
State Office for Construction West branch
State agency for flood
protection and water management
Harz police station
Magdeburg
Public Prosecutor's Office, Halberstadt branch
State Labor
Inspectorate
The city is located on the federal highways B 79, B 81 and B 245 and
in close proximity to the federal highway 36 (Brunswick-Bernburg
(Saale)).
According to the Federal Transport Routes Plan 2030, a
northern bypass for the B79 and B81 is planned for Halberstadt.
In terms of rail technology, Halberstadt is the largest transport hub in the northern Harz region, with hourly direct connections in the direction of Magdeburg, Halle (Saale), Goslar via Wernigerode, Blankenburg (Harz) and Thale via Quedlinburg, which are operated by Abellio Rail Mitteldeutschland for passenger services. At the weekend, there are direct connections to Berlin with the Harz-Berlin-Express. The station in Halberstadt was voted “Station of the Year” in 2011 after it had been bought and renovated by the city.
Local public transport is provided, among other things, by the
PlusBus of the Saxony-Anhalt state network. The following connection
runs from Halberstadt:
Line 210: Halberstadt ↔ Ströbeck ↔ Dardesheim
↔ Osterwieck ↔ Vienenburg
The Harzer Verkehrsbetriebe operate bus
services in the Harz district. South-east of the train station is the
bus station, from which 9 lines operate in the current timetable.
Electric trams have been operating in Halberstadt since 1903, and
their future is secured after the renovation work carried out on
Friedrich-Ebert-Straße and the procurement of five brand-new low-floor
trams of the type "Leoliner" (NGTW6-H) between October 2006 and February
2007.
The Halberstädter Verkehrs-GmbH operates the city traffic,
consisting of two tram lines and six bus lines, one of which is a
so-called night bus line. The central transfer point next to the main
train station is the Holzmarkt stop, which is right in the city center
and where the lines meet.
The drinking water for Halberstadt is supplied to the end consumer by
the Halberstadtwerke. It is mixed water from two different sources: One
part is obtained from groundwater via four 40-metre-deep wells and is
treated in the Kluswasserwerk Welt-Icon. This is operated by the
drinking water supply Magdeburg GmbH. The other part comes from the
Rappbode dam in the Harz Mountains and is processed in the Wienrode
Welt-Icon waterworks, which belongs to the Elbaue-Ostharz remote water
supply. The Halberstadtwerke distribute 1.6 million m³ of drinking water
annually via a 288-kilometer-long pipe network.
The overall
hardness of 12.0 °dH is in the “medium” hardness range. The gross
consumption price is €2.11/m³.
Waste water disposal is taken care
of by the waste water company Halberstadt. The construction of the
300-kilometer-long canal network began at the end of the 19th century. A
good three-quarters of the urban area is drained in a separate system
(separate channels for dirty water and rainwater). The water is cleaned
in the central sewage treatment plant "Am Bullerberg" Welt-Icon. It was
put into operation in 1906 and last expanded in 2000. The facility has a
capacity of 60,000 population equivalents. The cleaned wastewater (2.5
million m³ per year) is discharged into the Holtemme.
The sewage
gas produced during the digestion of the sewage sludge is used to
generate electricity. The plant can now cover almost half of its energy
requirements itself.
Harz University of Applied Sciences (FH): Department of
Administrative Sciences
Church Music Seminar Halberstadt of the
Church Province of Saxony
Commercial private school Oskar Kämmer
Retail Education Center
Traffic Education Center
Planetarium of
the Gymnasium Martineum
elementary schools
Diesterweg
Baron
von Spiegel
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Miriam Lundner
Anne
Frank
Evangelical elementary school "St. Laurentius"
Secondary
schools
Anne Frank
At the Gröpertor
Freiherr Spiegel
Walter
Gem
High schools
Käthe Kollwitz
Martineum
From the
2023/2024 school year, both high schools will merge
Special
schools
Special school for learning disabled "Albert Schweitzer"
State Education Center for the Hearing Impaired
Special school
for the mentally handicapped "Reinhard-Lakomy-School"
Other schools
district adult education center
district music school
Schicker
music school
The Halberstadt People's Voice is published as a daily newspaper. Since 1990, the “General-Anzeiger” has been distributed twice a week. Harzzeit is a monthly magazine for the Harz district, which is published by Ideas: Gut OHG with a circulation of 120,000 copies. The same agency publishes the glossy city magazine Martini (22,000 copies) every month. The regional television station RFH is based in Halberstadt.
The Evangelical Lutheran church district of Halberstadt belongs to
the Evangelical Church in Central Germany. This includes St. Stephen's
Cathedral in Halberstadt, as well as the churches of St. Johannis,
Liebfrauen, St. Martini and St. Moritz, as well as the Cecilienstift
chapel and the church music seminar in Halberstadt. Other evangelical
churches are located in incorporated villages.
The Catholic
Deanery of Halberstadt belongs to the Diocese of Magdeburg. In
Halberstadt, this includes the parish of St. Burchard with the parish
church of St. Catherine and Barbara, the church of St. Andreas and the
Catholic churches in Adersleben and Gröningen and formerly Langenstein
(the church is now Protestant). At the Church of St. Andrew there is a
Franciscan monastery, at the Church of St. Catherine and Barbara there
is a convent of the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus.
The New Apostolic District of Halberstadt belongs to the New
Apostolic Church of Central Germany. In Halberstadt, the community of
the same name with its church on Gleimstrasse belongs to it.
The
Zionsgemeinde Halberstadt belongs to the Independent Evangelical
Lutheran Church. The congregation meets in the chapel in the Campestift,
their Zionskapelle fell victim to a bomb attack in April 1945 and was
never rebuilt.
The Evangelical Free Church Community of
Halberstadt (Baptists) belongs to the Federation of Evangelical Free
Church Communities, the Pentecostal Community of Halberstadt to the
Federation of Free Church Pentecostal Communities. The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) also has a congregation in
Halberstadt.
The Ursuline monastery, founded in the 17th or 18th
century, existed until 1810 and was destroyed in World War II. The
former monastery of St. Burchardi is now used for various cultural and
economic activities. The medieval Siechenhofkapelle St. Georg has been
preserved as a ruin and has been a listed building since 1992.
At
times in the 18th century, Halberstadt's inhabitants were 8% Jews. The
famous court factor Issachar Berend Lehmann lived here. The synagogue
was demolished in 1938 and the last members of Halberstadt's Jewish
community were deported in 1942. The three Jewish cemeteries (see
section “Jewish cemeteries”) and, since 1995, the Moses Mendelssohn
Academy and its facilities are reminiscent of the Jewish history in
Halberstadt.