Landau in der Pfalz (Landaach in the southern Palatinate dialect) is an independent city with 46,881 inhabitants (December 31, 2019) in southern Rhineland-Palatinate and part of the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region. The former Alsatian imperial city is the administrative seat of the district of Südliche Weinstrasse, to which it does not belong. In terms of population, Landau is the sixth largest city in the Palatinate. In terms of area, Landau is even the third largest city in the region after Kaiserslautern and Neustadt an der Weinstrasse. The city is a middle center with partial function of a regional center. The next big cities are Karlsruhe, Ludwigshafen am Rhein and Mannheim.
Emergence
Landau was founded around 1260 by Count
Emich IV von Leiningen-Landeck. He had a fortification built in
front of the plain as additional protection for his Landeck Castle.
In 1274, Landau received city rights from King Rudolf I of Habsburg.
The king granted Landau the status of an imperial city in 1291. In
1324 Landau was pledged to the Bishop of Speyer Emich von Leiningen.
It was only triggered again in 1511 by Emperor Maximilian I and
placed under the Bailiwick of Hagenau. In 1521 Landau joined the
Dekapolis, the Alsatian League of Ten Cities. Mayor Hans Hitschler
signed the Lutheran Agreement of 1577 for the city council in 1579.
Early modern age
As a result of the Peace of Westphalia,
large parts of Alsace came to France in 1648. Landau and the other
cities of Alsace remained formally German, but were abandoned by the
empire. The Decapolis was too weak to assert itself against the Sun
King Louis XIV. From 1680, Landau belonged to France like the whole
of Alsace. It was expanded into a fortress by Vauban from 1688 to
1691. Most of the medieval city was burned down. Assumptions that
the fire was started by order of the French fortress builder could
never be proven. In the new building, straight streets, right-angled
building squares and the market square were created. With the
construction of the fortress, the lives of the residents changed.
Entrance into the city was only possible through the city gates and
was no longer possible after sunset.
During the War of the
Spanish Succession, the French fortress of Landau changed hands
several times after extensive sieges. In 1702 the Imperial troops
replaced the French, in 1703 the French won Landau back after the
Battle of the Speyerbach, in 1704 Landau became imperial again. From
March 12, 1709, Karl Alexander von Württemberg was in command of the
fortress. In 1713 the city was besieged by Marshal Jacques Bazin de
Bezons (1646–1733) from June 6, 1713, and the French regained the
fortress on August 20, 1713. In the Peace of Rastatt in 1714, the
reversal of Landau to France was the most important gain for Louis
XIV.
As in the rest of France, the French Revolution ruled
Landau from July 20, 1789. Like the Lower Alsace, the city belonged
to the Bas-Rhin department from March 4, 1790. Even in 1814, after
the first victory in the War of Liberation over Napoléon Bonaparte,
Landau initially remained French. Due to the agreements in the
Second Paris Peace of November 1815, the area north of the Lauter,
and thus Landau, initially came under the sovereignty of Austria.
Landau was now a federal fortress. As early as June 1815, at the
Congress of Vienna, Austria had been awarded the remaining
Palatinate, which had previously belonged to the Département du
Mont-Tonnerre (Donnersberg Department). In April 1816, the entire
Palatinate was finally ceded by Austria to the Kingdom of Bavaria in
a state treaty.
Development since 1871
After the war in
1871, Landau was no longer a border town, as the western border of
the German Empire had shifted significantly to the west as a result
of the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. The fortress was razed and new
streets were built. With the Reich Law on Equal Opportunities for
Jewish Citizens in 1871, Jewish families moved in. Landau became the
center of the Palatinate wine trade and was soon considered to be
the wealthiest city in the Palatinate. This can still be seen today
in the architecture, which is comparatively magnificent for a small
town. Representative town houses were built along the newly created
Ringstrasse and its side streets. The predominant building material
was sandstone.
Landau relied less on the development of an
industry than on the Bavarian military. Extensive barracks were
built for the 5th and 12th field artillery regiments and the 18th
and 23rd infantry regiments.
During World War II, Landau was
targeted 35 times by Allied, particularly American, air raids. The
heaviest took place on "Black Friday", March 16, 1945. A total of
1,045 tons of bombs were thrown on Landau, 40% of the city was
destroyed and 586 people fell victim to the air war.
After the First and Second World War, Landau was again a French
garrison town, as part of the occupation of the Rhineland until 1930
and as part of the French-occupied zone after 1945. After the
Federal Republic of Germany had become sovereign after the Paris
Treaties came into force on May 5, 1955 the stationing is regulated
by the NATO troop statute.
On April 1, 1937, the previously
independent communities of Mörlheim and Queichheim were
incorporated. The city became part of the French occupation zone
after World War II. The establishment of the state of
Rhineland-Palatinate was ordered on August 30, 1946 as the last
state in the western occupation zones by decree No. 57 of the French
military government under General Marie-Pierre Kœnig. It was
initially referred to as the “Rhineland-Palatinate Land” or “Land
Rheinpfalz”; the name Rhineland-Palatinate was only established with
the constitution of May 18, 1947.
In 1949 the city of Landau
organized the Southwest German Garden Show (SÜWEGA) as the first
garden show with a supraregional effect in post-war Germany, to
which an art show was also attached. The Federal Garden Show later
developed from this.
In the course of the first
administrative reform in Rhineland-Palatinate, the communities of
Arzheim, Dammheim, Nussdorf, Godramstein, Mörzheim and Wollmesheim
were incorporated on April 22, 1972, giving Landau its current size.
As early as June 7, 1969, part of the community of Nussdorf with 387
inhabitants was reunified to Landau. In 1990, the
Rhineland-Palatinate University of Education, which was partly
located in Landau, was converted into a university. Since then,
Landau has been one of the smallest university towns in Germany. In
1999 the last French soldiers withdrew from Landau.
In the
years 1997 to 1999 France released the majority of its 34 military
properties; Thus, the city of Landau obtained planning sovereignty
for 100 hectares of built-up and 231 hectares of undeveloped areas.
Three barracks and 15 properties with around 860 residential units
were vacated.