Neunkirchen is a Saarland district town on the Blies, about 20 km northeast of the state capital Saarbrücken. With around 46,000 inhabitants, Neunkirchen is the second largest city in Saarland after Saarbrücken. It is the district town of the district of the same name in the east of the Saarland.
Already in prehistoric times, Kännelkohle / Gagat was mined in
the Heinitz district on the Riedberg in the seam Tauentzien, for
example in the Hallstatt period (700–450 BC) and Roman times (3rd
century AD). This coal mine, the oldest in Germany, is still
recognizable today by a pinging train and the memorial stone "An der
Keltengrube" not far from the road from Elversberg to Heinitz. The
Wiebelskirchen district was first mentioned in a document in 765.
"Wiebelskirchen" is the oldest recorded Christian place name in
Saarland. The first written mention of Neunkirchen comes from the
year 1281. Almost the entire city area belonged to the Principality
of Nassau-Saarbrücken. The Princely House built two castles one
after the other in the wooded area, which have now disappeared. The
renaissance castle on Obere Markt, built from 1575 onwards, was
demolished in 1752; the new Jägersberg Castle, begun in the same
year, was ruined during the coalition wars.
In 1593, the
Neunkircher Eisenwerk was built in Bliestal, which had a significant
impact on the town's fate. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who traveled
to Neunkirchen as a student in 1770, describes in poetry and truth
the picturesque location of the place, the Jägersberg Castle and the
iron smelting.
The industrialization of Neunkirchen was
closely linked to the Stumm family of mining entrepreneurs. On March
22, 1806, the Stumm brothers took over the Neunkirchen ironworks. In
the early days of industrialization, hard coal deposits were tapped
from the König pit from 1820 onwards, which, together with the iron
ores (minette) found in nearby Lorraine, led to the development of
an important iron industry at the Neunkirchen location. Under Carl
Ferdinand von Stumm-Halberg, the company rose to become a market
leader in the iron and steel industry.
The Stumm family
managed their property for a long time as a separate community of
Niederneunkirchen, which was separated from Neunkirchen. During the
independence of Niederneunkirchen, Neunkirchen was also called
Oberneunkirchen. By contract of December 19, 1921, the four
communities Kohlhof, Neunkirchen, Niederneunkirchen and Wellesweiler
merged into one community, which four days later was granted city
rights with effect from April 1, 1922.
Although Neunkirchen
had a large working-class population, social democracy and the
socialist movement were barely able to gain a foothold here until
1918. However, in the November Revolution of 1918, a workers'
council was formed. The red flag was hoisted on the town hall, and
the council temporarily took over power in the city, but in the
further course mainly took care of the food supply.
During
the League of Nations mandate over the Saar (1920-1935) there was a
domain school in Neunkirchen.
On February 10, 1933, a
gasometer exploded near the ironworks. 68 people died and 190 were
injured. A special grave field was laid out for the victims at the
main cemetery in Scheib. Many houses became uninhabitable and a new
schoolhouse was almost completely destroyed. There were soon special
postage stamps that were used to collect for the victims, and the
Red Cross helped build a settlement on today's Storchenplatz for
those who had become homeless in the accident.
On March 15,
1945, large parts of the city center were destroyed in a bomb
attack.
The decline of heavy industry in the 1970s hit
Neunkirchen hard. The last coal mine closed in 1968. When the
ironworks closed in 1982 (only the rolling mill continued to
operate), the city led the German unemployment statistics for a
while. The former importance of Neunkirchen as a railway junction
has also declined after the partial closure of the marshalling yard.
Parts of the former ironworks are still preserved as an
industrial monument "Old Hüttenareal".
At the end of the
1980s, with the construction of the Saarpark Center on the
industrial wasteland of the ironworks, the city center of
Neunkirchen was greatly changed. The inauguration took place in
1989. With up to 25,000 visitors on normal days and up to 50,000 at
Christmas time, it is the best-visited shopping center in Saarland.
Since April 2012 the city of Neunkirchen has been calling itself
"Musical City Neunkirchen". Mayor Jürgen Fried gave the impetus for
this. He described the musical project Neunkirchen, which was
created in December 2002, as a unique selling point of the city. Due
to its great success, the musical theme established itself in
Neunkirchen, and the project became the pillar on which the concept
of the musical city was built. Another mainstay was created by the
Neunkircher Musical School, which opened in 2010 alongside the
existing music school.
Incorporations
In 1922 the previously independent communities
of Kohlhof (with Furpach), Niederneunkirchen and Wellesweiler were
incorporated; on January 1, 1974 also the communities Hangard,
Münchwies and Wiebelskirchen. At the same time, areas of Bexbach
(Ludwigsthal, Haseler Mühle, Hirschbergsiedlung), Kirkel-Neuhäusel
(Eschweilerhof), Limbach (Bavarian Kohlhof) and Spiesen (human
house) were added.
Outsourcing
The new community of Kirkel
and the former communities of Kirkel-Neuhäusel and Limbach had
lodged a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court of
Saarland against the assignment of Bayerisch Kohlhof and
Eschweilerhof. However, this was rejected by the judgment of
November 17, 1975. After the Saarland government announced in 1979
that it would review the disputed reorganization measures again, in
February 1980 the municipality of Kirkel made major efforts to
regain the ceded areas. The city of Neunkirchen was not ready to
negotiate. On May 10, 1983, the Saarland government issued an
ordinance to reclassify the inhabited parts of the Bavarian Kohlhof
to the community of Kirkel. The city of Neunkirchen took legal
action against it and was ruled on January 30, 1984, because the
Constitutional Court upheld the claim. Thus the disputed area
remained with Neunkirchen. Finally, the Saarland Landtag passed a
law on January 23, 1985, with which the inhabited parts of the
Bayerischer Kohlhof settlement were finally assigned to the
community of Kirkel with effect from April 1, 1985. The area came to
the district Limbach.