Neustadt an der Weinstraße is located on the eastern edge of the
Palatinate Forest and is one of the most famous and, with around
2,000 hectares of vineyards, also one of the largest wine-growing
towns in Germany in terms of area under cultivation.
The town
was probably founded around 1220 by the Rhenish Count Palatine Otto
von Wittelsbach; The city rights are securely documented from 1275
through the official city census, and various city privileges were
probably exercised before then. The district of Winzingen is older
in the city center area and has probably existed since the eighth
century.
In the Middle Ages, Neustadt had the status of a
main residence in the Palatinate territory (alongside Heidelberg).
Since the administrative reform of the state of
Rhineland-Palatinate in 1969, the previously independent communities
of Diedesfeld and Hambach an der Weinstrasse in the south of the
city, the towns of Haardt, Gimmeldingen, Königsbach and Mußbach in
the north and Lachen-Speyerdorf with Geinsheim in the east have been
districts of Neustadt the wine route.
Neighboring communities
in the Palatinate Forest are Lindenberg (Palatinate), Lambrecht,
Frankeneck. Neighboring communities in the Vorderpfalz are:
In
the area of the German Wine Route: Deidesheim, Ruppertsberg,
Meckenheim (Palatinate), Kirrweiler, Maikammer.
In the rest of
the Upper Rhine Plain: Haßloch, Hanhofen, Harthausen, Gommersheim,
Böbingen, Altdorf (Palatinate).
churches
1 Neustadt Collegiate Church, Marktpl. 3, 67433 Neustadt
an der Weinstraße. Former. Collegiate Church of St. Giles. The late
Gothic church was built in 1368; the substructure of the south tower
comes from the previous church from 1220.
2 Herz-Jesu-Kloster
Neustadt, Waldstraße 145, 67434 Neustadt an der Weinstraße. Tel.: +49
6321 875-0 . Founded in 1920 as a retreat and pastoral center by the
Congregation of the Sacred Heart Priests. Church, conference center,
group accommodation.
Castles, palaces and palaces
Hambach
Castle in the Hambach district
Wolfsburg castle ruins, 13th century
Structures
1 Elwetritsche fountain, Marstall, 67433 Neustadt an
der Weinstraße.
2 Old Town Hall, corner of
Kellereistrasse/Hauptstrasse, 67433 Neustadt an der Weinstrasse. built
in 1589; Rebuilt in 1888/89.
3 Casimirianum, Ludwigstraße 1, 67433
Neustadt Neustadt an der Weinstraße. The Calvinist University in
Neustadt was founded in 1578 by Count Palatine Johann Casimir as an
alternative university for the reformed Heidelberg and at the time the
most important Calvinist university in Europe. Later converted in the
Renaissance style and used as a high school and today for events.
4
Rathaus, Marktplatz 1, 67433 Neustadt an der Weinstraße. Former Jesuit
college. It was built in 1729 and used as a Jesuit college until 1773.
The seat of the city administration since 1838.
Museums
5
Neustadt an der Weinstraße Railway Museum, Schillerstraße 3, 67434
Neustadt an der Weinstraße. Tel.: +49 (0)6321 303 90, Fax: +49 (0)6321
39 81 62, Email: info@eisenbahnmuseum-neustadt.de . The Railway Museum
is a museum of the German Society for Railway History (DGEG). It is
located immediately south of the main train station in a former
locomotive shed that used to serve the Neustadt railway depot. The focus
of the museum is on vehicles from the former southern German state
railways. The last two original steam locomotives from the Palatinate
Railway era are preserved here, the Palatinate T 1 “Schaidt” and a
Palatinate T 5. Vehicles from the time of the German Reichsbahn are an E
17, an ET 11 and the 18 505. Next to them The Neustadt Railway Museum
still has a number of passenger trains and freight cars as well as a
steam snow blower built in 1942. Open: Tue-Fri: 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.;
Sat, Sun + public holidays: 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Price: adults €5,
children (4-14 years) €2.
6 Neustadt Adventure Bible Museum,
Stiftstraße 23, 67434 Neustadt an der Weinstraße. Tel.: +49 (0)6321 847
72, Fax: +49 (0)6321 837 12, Email: kontakt@bibelverein.de . The
Palatinate Bible Museum is located in the so-called Bible House. Here
the Bible in general, its history and individual historically valuable
copies can be “experienced”, so to speak. Very well-preserved copies and
fragments of Reformed, Lutheran and Catholic Bibles are presented. There
are also archaeological finds from Israel. The Neustadt Bible Museum
offers a lively encounter with the Bible and its history. Open: Tue, Thu
9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
By plane
Mannheim City Airport, 1 hour travel time by train
Saarbrücken Airport (2½ hours via Kaiserslautern and St. Ingbert)
Frankfurt am Main Airport (almost 2 hours via Mannheim)
Stuttgart
Airport (2½ hours via Mannheim)
By train
IC to Saarbrücken,
Stuttgart, Frankfurt am Main, regional transport to Wissembourg,
Karlsruhe, Grünstadt, regional express to Mannheim and Koblenz, and also
S-Bahn every half hour to Heidelberg via Mannheim and Homburg via
Kaiserslautern
Further stopping points: “Böbig”, at the east end on
the route to Mannheim, and “South” on the route to Karlsruhe for
regional traffic and S-Bahn.
On the street
From East, North
and South; Neustadt an der Weinstraße has its own exit and is located
directly on the A65 motorway from Ludwigshafen to Wörth am Rhein.
From the west, the city can be reached from Kaiserslautern via the
B37 and B39 on a winding but scenic route through the Palatinate Forest.
In a north-south direction on the German Wine Route tourist route
Transport is served by several bus lines that reach the city area and
the surrounding area where there are no rail connections. There are bus
connections until around 9 p.m. Afterwards there are scheduled taxis
until around 1:00 a.m. They must be pre-ordered 1/2 hour before
departure. There are also excursion and hiking bus lines to Hambach
Castle, Kalmit and the Kurpfalzpark. The Rhineland-Palatinate ticket is
also recognized on all bus routes.
All buses meet on the station
forecourt.
At large special events such as B. the vintage
festival, the normal bus service is increased and also offered after 9
p.m.
The oldest traces of settlement and
finds indicate that the Celts already lived in the area of today's
city. Celtic ramparts, clay pots, coins and weapons have been
preserved that are dated to around 150 BC. Presumably around the
year 20 AD, the Romans took possession of the area. Around 400 the
conquest of land by the Alemanni took place, around 500 these were
in turn replaced by the likewise Germanic Franks.
There is no
precise information about the centuries after the end of Roman rule.
So much is certain, however, that there were already villages before
the actual “Neustadt”: Winzingen, now part of the city, was
mentioned in a document in 774. The districts of Mußbach,
Lachen-Speyerdorf, Geinsheim, Duttweiler and Hambach are also
considerably older than today's core town. In general, one can say
that the history of Neustadt is closely tied to the history of the
Palatinate.
Just a few decades after the town
was founded in the early 13th century, Neustadt received city rights
on April 6, 1275 based on the model of Speyer:
“We, Rudolf,
by God's grace Roman King, at all times multiples of the empire,
offer all the faithful to the Roman Empire, who look at this letter,
Our grace and all the best.
Because We consider ourselves to be
called to this purpose by the highest judge to be the king of kings
and placed on the summit of royal dignity, that we consider
everything that serves the common good and that of all those who are
faithful to the kingdom, wherever it may be , should promote
generously and carry out with zeal and effectiveness, so in view of
this we have found ourselves most moved, the requests of Our dear
loyal ones, the citizens of Neustadt, subjects of Our beloved son
Ludwig, Count Palatine near the Rhine, Dukes in Bavaria, who ask
them humbly submitted to Us their right and liberty to receive
graciously; in such a way that We have freed the aforementioned city
from the highest royal power according to the present letter by
freely granting the citizens of the same city all the rights and
freedoms that the city of Speyer enjoys ... "
- King Rudolf von
Habsburg in the award document from 1275
District
In the
late Middle Ages Neustadt was divided into four districts, the names
of which provide information about the status and occupations of the
relevant residents or important locations:
The tanners worked
in the Lauerviertel (from "Loheviertel") close to the Speyerbach.
The Kesselringviertel was named after an influential family from the
14th century. In the women's quarter there were church properties
that were under the patronage of Our Lady. The Jewish community
lived in the Jewish quarter.
Towards the end of the 15th
century, further quarters were added outside the fortifications, the
Stadtgasserviertel, the Kirschgartenviertel and the Egypt suburb.
During the Peasants' War on May 6, 1525, the
rebellious peasants were able to enter the city without resistance.
During the Reformation, Ludwig the Peaceful, who tried to find a
balance, ruled the Palatinate until 1544. His religious edict of
1538 allowed Lutherans to preach and to take chalice communion. His
brother and successor Frederick the Wise reigned just as
compensatory. Only their successors became strict Calvinists. When
Friedrich III. died in 1576, he decreed in his will that his
Lutheran son Ludwig VI. the offices of Lautern (Kaiserslautern) and
Neustadt should inherit, but rather his Calvinist brother Johann
Casimir.
Count Palatine Johann Casimir founded the Neustadt
University in 1578, the Casimirianum named after him, because his
Lutheran brother Ludwig in Heidelberg cleared the University of
Calvinists; Johann Casimir became involved as an advocate for the
Reformed Faith and offered asylum to the expelled professors and
students. When he moved to Heidelberg in 1583 in order to take over
the reign of his brother's still underage son after his brother's
death, Neustadt's seat of the university ended for a short time.
In the 17th century, religious disputes were sometimes carried
out at gunpoint. Neustadt was conquered six times during the Thirty
Years War alone: in 1622 by the Spaniards, 1631 by the Swedes,
1635 by the imperial troops, 1638 by the troops of Duke Bernhard von
Weimar, 1639 by the French under Field Marshal Henri II. D'Orleans,
Duke of Longueville, again from the French in 1644. The denomination
changed with each occupier.
In contrast to many other
Palatinate cities, there was almost no war damage in Neustadt during
the War of the Palatinate Succession (1689–1697).
Until the
17th century, as evidenced by Merian's Topographia Germaniae
(Topographia Palatinatus Rheni et Vicinarum Regionum, 1645), the
city was known for its abundance of fish (trout, gobies; also crabs)
and its fish enclosures. The Neustädter town clerk Johannes
Ritterßhofen wrote or edited a small treatise on the art of catching
fish before 1494, which was first published by Jakob Köbel in
Heidelberg in 1493 and reprinted in Augsburg in 1518.
In 1744 of the city's 2,496 inhabitants, 1,676
were Reformed, 620 were Catholics and 200 were Lutherans. Jews were
not included in these statistics.
In the 18th century, the
city lost its medieval appearance, as the city walls, which had
become superfluous due to the war, were torn down. After the state
road to Mannheim was built in 1722 (today the B 38), the northern
city wall was broken through in 1723.
The entire left bank of
the Rhine was occupied by French troops after 1792 and integrated
into the French state in 1798. Neustadt became the administrative
seat (chef-lieu) of a canton in the Donnersberg department. A
Neustadt peace court was set up as part of the judicial organization
of the Left Bank of the Rhine. Napoleon passed the city in 1808 on
his way back from Erfurt to Paris and was ceremoniously received. In
1813, parts of Napoleon's army, defeated in the Battle of Leipzig,
marched through the city.
After the Congress of Vienna held
in 1815, Neustadt first came to Austria and a year later on the
basis of a state treaty to the Kingdom of Bavaria, with which it
remained until the end of the Second World War; it belonged to the
Rhine district, which from 1837 was called Pfalz or Rheinpfalz. When
it was reorganized in 1818, the city became the seat of a regional
commissioner (called district office from 1862 and district from
1939). In 1832 the Hambach Festival took place near Neustadt. In
1847 Neustadt received a rail connection from the Palatinate Ludwig
Railway.
In 1920 the city, as well as six
other Palatinate cities, left its district office and became a
district direct city.
Since 1927 Neustadt was the seat of the
Gauleitung of the NSDAP. During the Nazi era, the city retained this
function de facto until 1945, although in 1939 Kaiserslautern was
proclaimed the "Gau capital" and the state authority, which was
formed in 1940 from the Palatinate and Saarland administrations in
Speyer and Saarbrücken and headed by the Gauleiter in personal union
, was also not based in Neustadt. In March 1945 Neustadt was
occupied by US troops as part of Operation Undertone.
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 regulation number 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.
The city received its function as the regular
Palatinate administrative seat on September 8, 1945; in 1946 it
became the seat of the Palatinate administrative district.
In
the course of the first Rhineland-Palatinate administrative reform
on June 7, 1969, the previously independent communities of
Geinsheim, Gimmeldingen, Haardt an der Weinstrasse, Hambach an der
Weinstrasse, Königsbach an der Weinstrasse, Lachen-Speyerdorf,
Mußbach an der Weinstrasse and Diedesfeld were incorporated.
Duttweiler followed on March 16, 1974.