Nordhausen (also Nordhausen am Harz; Nordhusen in northern
Thuringia) is a town in the Nordhausen district (Thuringia) and a
former imperial city. As a university location and as a cultural and
industrial center in Northern Thuringia, the district town has the
status of a medium-sized center with partial functions of a regional
center. The seventh largest city in Thuringia by population is
located on the southern edge of the Harz Mountains in the north-west
of the Golden Aue. The Zorge flows through the urban area.
Nordhausen, first mentioned in 876, was named in 929 as Nordhuse in
a deed of donation from Henry I to his wife Queen Mathilde, who set
up a women's monastery here in 961. From 1220, Nordhausen was one of
two free imperial cities in Thuringia, alongside Mühlhausen, until
it fell to Prussia in 1802 as a result of the
Reichsdeputationshauptschluss. In addition, it belonged to the
Thuringian tri-city federation with today's state capital Erfurt and
Mühlhausen. The Nordhausen Roland as the town's landmark symbolized
the freedom of the empire. In the 15th century the city was a member
of the Hanseatic League. From 1937 to 1945 the V2 weapon was
produced underground in the Mittelwerk Dora armaments center and
from 1943 in the Mittelbau concentration camp. At the beginning of
April 1945, three-quarters of the city, dominated by half-timbered
houses, was destroyed by two air raids by the Royal Air Force; over
8,800 people died and tens of thousands were left homeless.
The Nordhausen townscape is characterized by many hills, green
spaces, loose urban development with post-war buildings, various
monuments and churches. The most important building is the
Romanesque-Gothic Cathedral of the Holy Cross. Parts of the city
were modernized on the occasion of the State Garden Show 2004. The
city is known nationwide for its spirits production, especially the
Nordhäuser Doppelkorn. The Nordhausen train station links the
Harzquerbahn at the beginning of the south-north axis of the Harz
narrow-gauge railways with the west-east axis of the Kassel – Halle
railway line and on site with the Nordhausen tram.
The figure of the Nordhäuser Roland on the old town hall commemorates the fall of the council in 1375. It is the town's landmark. The town hall itself got its current appearance around 1610. Parts of the old town wall can be found around the town centre. The Roland standing at the Old Town Hall is a plaster copy; the wooden original can be seen in the New Town Hall, directly opposite.
The fabric of late medieval Nordhausen showed four parts that arose
in an interpenetration of gradual growth and some adaptation to terraces
and slope. There were:
The old town with an irregular floor plan. Two
main streets running in flat ground after a drop in the terrain
(Rautenstraße, Kranich-Barfusserstraße). This old town in the narrower
sense forms an oval of 500 × 750 meters, the larger axis of which runs
northwards. It contains the castle (cathedral) and Petersberg, in the
middle the market, the town hall and the main church of St. Nikolai,
which was destroyed in 1945.
The Frauenberg on the mountain spur
south of the Petersberg.
The new town between Mühlgraben or Zorge and
the hillside of the upper town.
Altendorf between Geiersberg and
Mühlgraben.
These four elements were united in 1365 by city
fortifications.
The character of the houses in Nordhausen was
given by the predominant half-timbered construction. As an agricultural
town, the city showed predominantly Central German forms, but with
increasing trade relations increasingly adopted Lower Saxon construction
methods, with Goslar and Hildesheim serving as models (Nordhausen stands
in contrast to the neighboring town of Heiligenstadt, which shows
Franconian forms in its houses). This architectural character and the
spatial structure were essentially preserved in the area of the old
upper and lower town through the various town fires until the
destruction of Nordhausen in April 1945.
The post-medieval
expansions, mainly from the 19th and 20th centuries, spread more widely
and followed the pattern of the chessboard. The types of construction
used were no longer those of Lower Saxony, but of the time, as could be
seen throughout the empire. At the same time, these penetrated the old
town to a considerable extent, promoted by the generally very positive
economic development. An example is the "Altendorf 30" demolished in
2017, the first solid house in Nordhausen.
The 1930s were
characterized by the development of the outskirts of the city. In 1932
the first homes were built in the Niedersalza settlement, and under
National Socialism the Hans Maikowsi settlement (today the Erich Weinert
settlement) followed with the NSKK and Weddigen settlements (today the
flower settlement).
In 1940, the Reich Homestead Office published
an expansion plan that provided for development of the Geiersberg and
its slopes; the mountain was to be built loosely on one floor, the
height emphasized by a two-storey core, and a sports facility was to be
added in the city park. In an economic plan drawn up for the city in
1941, 70,000 inhabitants were expected for the years 1960-70.
Accordingly, an additional 5100 apartments were expected and 220
hectares of land were reported. Above all, the Geiersberg project from
1940 was taken over.
After the Second World War, the further
development of the city was determined by the state housing programs in
the GDR. The completely destroyed city center was rebuilt in the 1950s
and 1960s, with the historical settlement structure being ignored; broad
thoroughfares such as Rautenstrasse (1958/59) and Töpferstrasse were
laid out. The buildings designed by the city planner Friedrich Stabe
(1912-2000) were particularly formative for the cityscape. In 1949 the
first block of flats was built on Weinberg, followed in 1950 by three
blocks of flats on Hohekreuzstrasse. The
Jüdenstraße-Predigerstraße-Königshof-Lutherplatz residential area was
built between 1950 and 1954. 1954-56 Blödau-, Körner-, Lindenstraße and
Morgenrote were developed.
However, large areas of the city
center remained undeveloped until the 1980s. Many buildings that had
survived the air raids in 1945 had to be demolished in GDR times due to
dilapidation.
From 1966 to 1968, large slabs of residential
panels were erected in the Töpferstrasse. Later, the two large
settlements Nordhausen-Nord (1978 to 1982) and Nordhausen-Ost (from
1984) with apartment blocks in prefab construction were built.
The town expanded at the beginning of the 21st century with the
development of the Rössingsbach in Nordhausen-Ost and in the Gumpetal in
the north of the city.
Theatrical life in Nordhausen can look back on more than 400 years of
tradition.
In the spring of 1913, construction of the new
neoclassical theater building on the promenade began at its present
location according to the plans of the architect Gustav Ricken, who
lived in Nordhausen, and under the direction of the engineer Nerlich.
North of the building there was the "New Tivoli Theater" on the city
wall of the promenade from 1882 to 1913. Despite the difficult general
conditions in the course of the First World War, the newly completed
municipal theater was opened on September 29, 1917 with a delay of
almost three years. However, the original plan was not fully realized: A
planned northern extension, in which, among other things, the workshops
of the theater were to be housed, was not built. The theater was
destroyed in the bombing raids of April 1945 and rebuilt. The merger in
1991 with the Loh-Orchester Sondershausen to form Theater
Nordhausen/Loh-Orchester Sondershausen GmbH initiated the formation of a
three-section theater (music theatre, drama and ballet). In 2004, the
company's own acting department had to be wound up for cost reasons.
Since then, the Nordhausen Theater (music theatre, ballet) and
Rudolstadt (drama) have exchanged their productions. In 2006, the
theater once again struggled to survive. The orchestra, musical theater
and ballet were initially retained until 2016, despite necessary staff
reductions.
Almost all churches in the urban area of Nordhausen were built in the
Romanesque era, whereby no building has been preserved in its original
style.
The parish church of St. Blasii is now used as a
Protestant church. A 1234 in a document of Henry (VII.) Mentioned
predecessor, remains of which can still be found in the substructure of
the church towers, was largely replaced in 1487-1490. Damage from the
1945 air raids was repaired in 1949. In 2004 the building was
reconstructed on the outside, in 2014 and 2015 the interior was
renovated.
There are hardly any traces of the previous buildings
of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Nordhausen, which were built from
the second half of the 10th century. Today's building goes back to
conversion and new construction measures from the 13th century. While
the early Gothic chancel was built between 1230 and 1267 (consecration
date), the late Gothic nave was built around 1450. The interior of the
church was renovated in the 1970s and the building repaired in the 2000s
(completed in 2008).
The Church of St. Maria im Tale (“Altendorf
Church”) goes back to a previous building from the late 13th century. In
1353 it was rebuilt as a three-aisled hall church with a high Gothic
choir. Due to underestimated difficulties with the building subsoil,
parts of the church had to be renewed repeatedly in the following
centuries. In 2017, the multi-year conversion to the Herzschlag
Jugendkirche ended. The building was the only church in Nordhausen that
was spared the air raids of 1945.
Four churches were mostly
destroyed in the heavy air raids on April 3rd and 4th, 1945. The
Frauenberg Church of St. Maria auf dem Berg was badly destroyed by bombs
on April 4, 1945. In the years 1953 to 1955 the ruins were cleared and
the masonry that was still preserved was then secured by putting on
roofs and putting in vaults. The interior work began in 1968. In the
run-up to the 2004 State Horticultural Show, the outside area of the
church was restored and redesigned. The St. Petri Church was also
completely destroyed in the air raid on April 3, 1945. The tower was
preserved, it received an emergency roof in 1954, on April 4, 1987 again
a roof or a spire and was restored as a Petri tower for the 2004 State
Garden Show. Since the Church of St. Jacobi was destroyed in an air raid
on April 3, 1945, only the (uncovered) foundation walls remain. After
the war, the remains of the nave were removed and later the ruined tower
was removed. The so-called market church of St. Nikolai was also
destroyed in the air raids on April 3, 1945.
The gatehouse of the
donation churchyard, built in 1667, is the only remnant of the former
barefoot monastery. The Dominican monastery on Predigerstraße, founded
in 1287, was dissolved in 1525 when its inmates emigrated. The
buildings, which from then on were intended for school purposes, lasted
until 1866 as a result of some repairs. After their demolition, the
buildings of today's Humboldt Gymnasium were erected. The Augustinian
monastery was built around 1300. The rich church treasury fell to the
city during the Reformation and was sold in 1532 to finance the Turkish
tax. The church of the monastery burned down in 1612 due to lightning.
The Walkenrieder Hof, founded in the middle of the 12th century, has
also gradually perished since the Reformation. From the middle of the
19th century it served as the main customs office, main tax office and
city archive. Today used as a museum depot and seat of parts of the
Nordhausen city administration.
Of the four former hospitals in
the city, only the hospital with the Cyriaci chapel is used by the
district music school. The remains of the hospital of the St. Elisabeth
Church, demolished in 1828, were demolished in the early 1980s. The
tower of the hospital and the church of St. Martini was demolished in
1808 and the church demolished in 1835. The hospital and the chapel of
St. George were already destroyed during a town fire in 1612.
The municipal antiquity museum was opened in 1876 in the premises of
the former secondary school for girls on Blasiistrasse. Three years
later, the move to the elementary school on Taschenberg took place. In
1890 the museum had 17 exhibition rooms. Other locations were the
municipal elementary school on Predigerstrasse (1892–1906) and the
Töpfertorschule on what was then Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz (1907–1934). At
that time, the pottery gate school also housed the archive and library.
In 1926 the city acquired the Villa Becker in the upper town, where ten
period rooms were presented until 1938. In 1934 the municipal museum
moved to the Villa Lindenhof. At the same time, the Stilzimmermuseum was
renamed the Meyenburg Museum. In 1938 the City Museum moved into the
Meyenburg Museum, as the Lindenhof was used as the headquarters of the
Army Construction Office from then on. The period furniture had to give
way. The Second World War caused great losses in the collection. In 1951
the Meyenburg Museum was reopened. On June 30, 2012, the city history
museum opened in the Flohburg.
flea castle
Mittelbau-Dora
Concentration Camp Memorial
Kunsthaus Meyenburg
Tobacco Storage
Museum
Südharzer Fachwerkzentrum Nordhausen e. V. (renovation
property Altendorf 48)
traditional distillery
Death march stele
Stolberger Straße
Memorial stone at the former site of the synagogue
at Pferdemarkt
Stele in front of the town hall to commemorate the
8,800 victims of the air raids on Nordhausen on April 3rd and 4th, 1945
Memorial stone, since 1993 in the garden of the Meyenburg Kunsthaus,
with the inscription: "Memorial stone of the northern houses and
southern Harzers, erected in Bad Sachsa in 1955 as a memorial against
the division of Germany 1945-1989. Found a home in Nordhausen in 1993"
Nordhausen has numerous parks and green spaces (a total of 80
hectares) and is a city that is green all the way to the center. Around
18,000 trees line the streets in the city area. In 1874 the Hohenrode
Park was created, a ten-hectare area planned by Heinrich Siesmayer and
Philipp Siesmayer, which the manufacturer Carl Kneiff had built as a
private villa park. This park, which is freely accessible today, is
considered the most important and dendrologically most valuable in the
city. The oldest nature park in Nordhausen is the 18-hectare enclosure
on the Geiersberg. The area was originally bare and was reforested from
the mid-18th century. Over the decades, a high forest park with a large
stock of oak and beech trees was created. In 1817, Carl Friedrich
Salomon, a student of gymnastics father Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, laid out
one of the first gymnastics arenas in Germany in the enclosure. A
memorial stone at the entrance to the enclosure commemorates the first
gymnastics area in Nordhausen. From 1830, concerts were held here
regularly, fountains and concert halls were built, and there was gas
lighting from 1861. In 1892 the enclosure was laid out in its current
form and the first bars were built around it. At the beginning of the
20th century, the enclosure became a "pleasure forest" and events are
still held here today.
The promenade is north of the
Stadttheater. The site was originally a moat bordered by the inner and
outer city walls. At the beginning of the 19th century, the moat was
used as a rubble dump, and from 1835 the area was leveled and planted.
In June 1900 the Bismarck monument was unveiled in the northern area and
in October 1901 the Kaiser Friedrich monument on Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz
(today Theaterplatz). From 1902, the area was extensively redesigned
into a park, so several copper beeches were planted, among other things.
In 1917 the municipal theater was inaugurated at the foot of the park.
In 1935 the Neptune fountain was erected. Another transformation took
place in the same year.
The city park with the Kastanienallee on
the outskirts of Nordhausen was built in 1880 and was originally a
swampy floodplain of the Zorge. Thousands of trees and bushes have been
planted, circular paths and two ponds have been laid out, which are
connected by an artificially created watercourse. There has also been an
animal enclosure in the park since the 1950s.
In 1927 the rose
garden was inaugurated in the north of the city, not far from today's
Südharz Clinic.
In the course of the incorporations, there are
three designated nature reserves in today's urban area of Nordhausen:
the Rüdigsdorfer Schweiz (Rüdigsdorf), the Sattelkopf (Hörningen) and
the Pfaffenkopf (Petersdorf).
The best-known natural monument in
Nordhausen was the Merwigslinde, which was located above the enclosure
on the Geiersberg. The linden is said to have been a stately tree even
before the Reformation. The Merwigslinden legend recalls a Thuringian
tribal prince or king named "Merwig", who had also made a name for
himself as a skilful shoemaker before his election as king. In his
honor, the Nordhausen shoemakers made a pilgrimage every seven years to
the lime tree, where a messenger is said to have informed Merwig about
the result of the royal election. Since December 1833 the upper half of
the linden tree had been broken off by a storm. In 1896 its trunk was
lined with stones and the branches were held with iron bars. In 1972 the
Merwigslinde finally had to be felled. A recently installed plaque
showed the linden tree to be 9 meters in circumference and over 700
years old. Today's Merwigslinde was replanted in 1972 and is fenced.
Another natural monument is the oak tree in the Krimderode district,
which at around 600 to 1000 years is one of the oldest natural monuments
in the southern Harz. In 2015, the chest circumference was 7.25 meters
at a height of 21 meters. The pedunculate oak known as Flehmüller's oak
stood in a forest that had been gradually felled since 1829. In 1840,
the then Krimderöd manor owner Drechsler applied to the High Count
Stolberg-Hohnstein Consisorium for the preservation of the oak. Since
1992, the "Oak Festival" has been held under the tree in June.
With the "Antiquar-Oak" there is another pedunculate oak in the city
area; it is more than 300 years old, has a height of 20 meters and a
circumference of 5.50 meters.
At the beginning of the 16th century, Prior Johannes Pilearius began
to set up the Himmelgarten monastery library, which had ended up in the
St. Blasii Church in 1525 as a result of the turmoil of the Peasants'
War. After the Second World War, the library was first temporarily
stored in the Wolkramshausen potash shaft and then found its domicile in
the vicarage of St. Blasii. After that she was transferred to Naumburg
and from there she went to the Evangelical Preacher Seminary in
Lutherstadt Wittenberg in 1989. In 2014 the library returned to
Nordhausen and is housed in the Flohburg Museum.
In the 19th
century, the first privately operated lending libraries emerged, which
offered almost exclusively trivial literature. The public library was
founded in 1877 with the participation of the Municipal Association and
the Society for the Promotion of Public Education, which was founded in
1871. Today it is the “Rudolf Hagelstange” municipal library.
When the Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences was founded in 1997,
the university library was created with around 112,000 media (2020).
The beginnings of the city archive in Nordhausen cannot be
reconstructed with certainty due to a lack of sources and probably go
back to the 13th century. The archive library probably emerged from the
former "council library" (16th century). The secondary school teacher
and local historian Ernst Günther Förstemann (1788–1859) looked after
the archive and the library on a part-time basis and contributed to the
inventory being systematically organized for the first time from 1834
onwards. In the year of the millennium celebrations in 1927, the archive
and the historical library moved to the former city prison at
Mauerstraße 15. Under the tutor and local historian Hans Silberborth,
the archive library was reorganized in 1939 and adapted to modern
principles (including cataloging). The air raids on Nordhausen on April
3rd and 4th, 1945 destroyed the archive building and the library. At the
beginning of May 1945, most of the files, chronicles and other
manuscripts stored in the basement of the savings bank were looted and
destroyed by former Polish forced labourers. Holdings of the scientific
library and newspaper volumes were stored in the orphanage and hidden
from the looters in the basement of the Heinrich Middle School by
Nordhäuser. In 1947, Hans Silberborth made the "modest remainder of the
once stately archive library" available again in an orderly fashion.
Almost all documents survived the war, losses were recorded in the
files, very large losses in the official books and other bound
manuscripts, guild files and chronicles. In February 1952 the archive
first moved to three rooms in the newly created Old Town Hall, in 1975
to the upper floor of the Walkenrieder Hof in Waisenstraße, and in the
summer of 1997 to the New Town Hall. The inventory of the city archive
amounts to 1305 running meters.
The district archive with around
3000 running meters (2012) is located at Grimmelallee 20 at the
historical district office.
In 1876, the city's first municipal cemetery was opened on the road
to Leimbach.
The main cemetery on Stresemannring was created in
1921 as a park-like forest cemetery and was completed in 1927 with the
crematorium. With its functional architectural design, the cemetery
complex is an expression of the cemetery reform movement of the early
20th century and is one of the most important representatives of
Thuringia from this time. A memorial grove laid out in 1997 in the
southeastern part of the main cemetery commemorates the 565 named
victims of the air raids on Nordhausen and about a thousand fallen
German soldiers in World War II.
In mid-April 1945, a total of
2,259 prisoners from various nations, primarily from the Boelcke
barracks, found their last resting place opposite the main cemetery. In
1946 a memorial with 215 graves for Soviet citizens was built in the
southern area.
The Jewish cemetery in Nordhausen with 320
gravestones is located on the Ammerberg.
The numerous stairs in Nordhausen are a characteristic feature of the
townscape. The following list contains important outdoor staircases that
are located in the urban area of Nordhausen. On some of these stairs
there are works of art in public space, the so-called stair beetles.
Sights and cultural monuments
Old chewing tobacco factory
Old
post office
Old municipal water works
calibration office
Harzquerbahnhof
Jewish Tower on the Petersberg
Lindenhof
The
old Roland from 1717 in the new town hall
The new 1993 Roland
(replica of the 1717 Roland)
The giant at Lutherplatz (mentioned in a
document since 1375)
Old town with half-timbered buildings
Domstraße 12, built in 1327 (d) and 1555 (d)
Altendorfer Kirchgasse
3, built around 1370.
Finkenburg, built around 1444 (d)
Altendorf
55, house in Bochum, built around 1450.
Gumpertstraße 1, built around
1712 (old core building from 1643)
Gatehouse built in 1667.
Altendorf 48, built in 1668 (d) (two plank rooms, bakery oven from 1900,
well in the basement)
Altendorf 49, built around 1680.
Orphanage,
built 1715 to 1717 (below)
Pfaffengasse 2, built in 1719.
Altendorf 50, rococo half-timbering around 1770.
Altendorf 30, built
around 1850, late classic plaster building in palazzo style, demolished
in 2017
Altendorf 24, distillery building, historicism, built in 1842
(i) and 1849 (b)
Altendorf 27, distillery building, historicism,
built in 1873 (below)
Rhenania-Ossag AG tank station, built in
1930/31 in the New Building style
Tripe stairs, with a gate through
the city wall
Primariusgraben, with remains of the city
fortifications, built around 1415, Zwinger with old bulwarks, including
the ruins of the Marterturm
New path, old driveway to Walkenrieder
Hof on the edge of the city fortifications
The tradition of bridal couples planting a memorial tree on the
northern outskirts of the city, Im Gehege – the city forest of
Nordhausen – developed into a custom in the city of Nordhausen. The
forest park, which was created in the last two centuries, offers the
opportunity for walks, especially in summer and autumn. At the highest
point of the enclosure is the location of the legendary Merwig lime
tree, the current tree was replanted in 1972. The Merwigslinde, which
was probably already stately in the pre-Reformation period, was regarded
by the Nordhausen population as a hat tree and was the venerable center
of the Nordhausen Linden Festival, which was often celebrated in excess.
The Merwig lime tree is reminiscent of a Thuringian tribal prince or
king named Merwig, who had also made a name for himself as a skilful
shoemaker before his election as king. In his honor, the Nordhausen
shoemakers made a pilgrimage every seven years to the lime tree, where a
messenger is said to have informed Merwig about the result of the royal
election.
Martini is part of the centuries-old festival culture
of Nordhausen. The Martins celebrations (or the Martinsfest) are
celebrated in the northern houses on November 10th - Martin Luther's
birthday - at 5 p.m. with an ecumenical service in front of the
Blasiikirche. Then children go from house to house singing with a
lantern. Prayer, sermons and the singing of Luther's hymn "A strong
castle is our God" on Lutherplatz near the town hall are part of the
customs of this evening. In tradition-conscious families, roast goose
with dumplings and red cabbage or carp is served as a celebratory meal.
The festival had a purely family character until 1846 and has since been
connected with a public elevator.
The three-day Roland Festival,
which takes place every year in June, has the highest public response.
The folk festival, which has existed since 1955, with music events,
historical parades and numerous other performances, attracts around
100,000 visitors. The Roland group that appears consists of four figures
(“originals”): Nordhäuser Roland, Brockenhexe, Professor Zwanziger and
the old Ebersberg.
Another city festival that started in 1994 is
the annual old town festival held in August with medieval and modern
handicraft stands, music and children's programs. Here, too, originals
appear with "Altstadt-Manne", "Hannichen Vogelstange" and the "Rote
Arschloch von Salza".
The district music school in Nordhausen has been located in the
Cyriaci chapel since 1995.
In the mid-1980s, an initially private
music festival was set up in what later became the Steinbrücken district
of Nordhausen, and within a very short time it was a fixture in the East
German blues and alternative scene. Bands like Freygang, Engerling and
Monokel played here, as did Die Firma and Feeling B, but West German
groups like Normahl, Rausch and Abwärts also performed. The Rammstein
group, which was still unknown at the time, also gave one of their early
concerts on May 1, 1994 in Steinbrücken, the year they were founded.
Between 2000 and 2004, the Roland Parade, a techno parade modeled on the
Love Parade in Berlin, took place in the city area.
The
Nordhausen youth clubhouse is located in the historic Harmonie building
on the promenade and caters to all mainstream genres and age groups. The
KARZER student club is located on the campus of the Nordhausen
University of Applied Sciences. A classic large discotheque was the Alte
Weberei, founded in 1995 in the Salza district, with a focus on house
and electro music. After renovation work, different names and changing
owners, the discotheque opened in 2018 as the Salt Club.
Nordhausen is home to various singers and bands, such as the Auld Corn
Brigade and Maroon.
Venues for major events: Wiedigsburghalle at
the Herder-Gymnasium and the open-air stage in the enclosure. The
council hall in the community center is used for city events.
The “Thomas Mann” clubhouse on Wilhelm-Nebelung-Strasse is available for clubs. In the middle of the 19th century, active club life began to develop in Nordhausen. As early as 1790, the Masonic lodge "Zur crowned innocence" (Johannisloge) was founded. The art association was founded in 1853, and the scientific association was established in 1855. The Nordhausen History and Antiquity Association was founded in 1870. The oldest existing association in Nordhausen is the Nordhäuser Schützenkompanie von 1420 e. V. In 1897 there were around 175 clubs, in 1914 there were over 240.
The most successful football club in the city is Wacker Nordhausen,
which has played in the Northeast Regional Football League since 2013.
Nationally, the club appeared through several DFB Cup participations.
The club plays its home games in the Albert-Kuntz-Sportpark, which has
space for 8,000 spectators. There is also the football club FSG '99
Salza-Nordhausen, which plays in the district Oberliga Nordthüringen.
Historical clubs include SpVgg Preußen Nordhausen and BSG Motor Süd
Nordhausen.
In December 2014, the Bundesliga boxers from
Nordhäuser SV became German team champions for the first time.
The women's handball team from Nordhäuser SV should also be mentioned,
which has been successfully participating in the Thuringia League for
several years.
The men's team of SVC Nordhausen is represented in
the volleyball regional league east.
The Roland Rally has been
taking place in and around Nordhausen since 1971. Today it is one of the
Rallye 200 and is part of the Schottercup. The event is organized by the
Nordhäuser MSC e. V. in the ADAC Hessen-Thuringia.
Nordhausen
also has a long-standing triathlon tradition. The international ICAN
Nordhausen Germany has been held at the Nordhäuser Theater since 2013.
In the last ten years, the Scheunenhof Triathlon has already made it
well known beyond national borders. The event is organized by the
Nordhausen Triathlon Association.
On the southern edge of
Nordhausen are the Sundhäuser See and other quarry ponds, which are used
today for diving, among other things, and are accessible through two
diving bases. In addition to several wrecks, divers can visit the
underwater town of Nordhusia with Germany's first underwater church.
By plane
The nearest airports with scheduled air traffic and
international connections are in Leipzig/Halle (IATA: LEJ), Frankfurt am
Main (IATA: FRA), Hanover-Langenhagen (IATA: HAJ) and Berlin Brandenburg
(IATA: BER). All of these airports are connected to the rail network,
possibly with a transfer. Leipzig Airport can be reached in about two
and a half hours; it takes three to four hours to get to the other
airports.
By train
The main transport axis between Kassel and
Halle (Saale) runs through Nordhausen station. In this relation, it is
used every two hours by regional express trains. Additional regional
trains every two hours between Halle and Nordhausen and some additional
RE trains, also to Nordhausen, increase the frequency on the eastern
section.
There are also hourly connections from Erfurt via
Sondershausen (alternating RB/RE) and hourly connections from Göttingen
via Northeim and Herzberg am Harz.
Since 1898, Nordhausen has
been the southern terminus of the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways (HSB) with
the Nordhausen-Nord train station. However, the train density is very
low if you ignore the dense traffic on the southern section between
Ilfeld and Nordhausen (see mobility).
By bus
There are
currently no long-distance bus connections to Nordhausen.
On the
street
Nordhausen can be reached by car from the east and west via
the A38. From the south and north via the B 4, which connects the
Thuringian state capital of Erfurt with the Harz Mountains and
Braunschweig (A 395).
The B 80, which has since lost its status
as a long-distance route, runs parallel to the A 38. Furthermore,
Nordhausen is the end point of the B 243, which leads to the A7 via
Osterode and Seesen.
On foot
The Karstwanderweg Südharz leads
through Nordhausen on its way from Osterode to Sangerhausen.
The 18 km long tram network has 3 lines and is connected to the Harzquerbahn of the HSB via a connecting track. Hybrid trams have been running on this track to Ilfeld since 2004. Almost all city bus and regional lines run from the city bus station on the station forecourt.
1 Südharz Gallery, Landgrabenstraße 6a, 99734 Nordhausen. Phone: +49
(0)3631 90940, fax: +49 (0)3631 909420, e-mail:
info@suedharz-galerie.de. Open: Mon - Fri 9 a.m. - 7 p.m., Sat 9 a.m. -
6 p.m.
2 Marktkauf, Darrweg 67, 99734 Nordhausen. Tel.: +49 (0)3631
9210. Open: Mon – Fri 8 a.m. – 9 p.m., Sat 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.
The Nordhäuser bratwurst is additionally seasoned with caraway and
raw, chopped onions are added.
Cheap
1 Tokyo sushi, Lange
Strasse 4D, 99734 Nordhausen. Phone: +49(0)3631 9797133, email:
info@tokyosushi-ndh.de. Asian specialties. All take-away food. Open: Mon
– Sun 10.30 a.m. – 10.00 p.m.
2 Western Grill, Darrweg 100, 99734
Nordhausen. Phone: +49(0)3631 901912, email:
info@westerngrill-nordhausen.de. Huge selection of burgers at affordable
prices, including an outdoor area with a beer garden. Open: Mon – Fri 11
a.m. – 9 p.m., Sat 4 p.m. – 9 p.m., Sun 4 p.m. – 9 p.m.
3 Bella
India, Am Salzagraben 4a, 99734 Nordhausen. Phone: +49(0)3631 461537,
fax: +49(0)3631 461537, email: info@bella-india-nordhausen.de. Italian
and Indian specialties. Open: daily 11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. + 5:00 p.m. –
10:30 p.m.
Medium
4 Restaurant Acropolis, Grimmelallee 45,
99734 Nordhausen. Phone: +49(0)3631 982435, email:
sofoklis1968@hotmail.de. Greek specialties, beer garden available. Open:
daily 11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. + 5:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m., closed on
Mondays.
5 bare feet - Restaurant - Café - Lounge, Altendorf 1, 99734
Nordhausen. Phone: +49(0)3631 6515870, email:
info@barfuss-nordhausen.de. Stylish, elegant and comfortably furnished
ambience. Open: Mon – Fri from 10 a.m., Sat from 3 p.m., Sun 10 a.m. – 4
p.m.
6 Zur Goldenen Kugel, Geseniusstraße 2, 99734 Nordhausen. Phone:
+49(0)3631 604079, email: info@ZurGoldenenKugel.de. Open: Tue – Sat from
5 p.m.
7 Ristorante Rustica, Barfusserstrasse 36, Nordhausen. Phone:
+49(0)3631 994180, email: info@ristorante-rustica.de. Italian
restaurant. Open: Mon 5.30pm - 11.30pm, Tue - Sun 11.30am - 2.30pm,
5.30pm - 11.30pm (Sun until 10pm).
8 Parkschloss, Parkallee 8, 99734
Nordhausen. Tel: +49(0)3631 6511588. Chinese restaurant with buffet.
Open: Mon-Fri 11:30-15:00, 17:30-22:00.
Upscale
9 Nordhäuser
Ratskeller - Steakhouse & Restaurant, Markt 15, 99734 Nordhausen. Phone:
+49(0)3631 462244, fax: +49(0)3631 460906, email:
info@ratskeller-ndh.de. Schnitzel day every Monday + Tuesday. Open: Mon
– Fri 11.30 a.m. – 2.30 p.m. + from 5 p.m., Sat from 5 p.m., Sun +
public holidays 11.30 a.m. – 2.30 p.m. + from 5 p.m.
Student club KARZER, Weinberghof 2/Haus 9, 99734 Nordhausen (on the
campus or grounds of the Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences).
Tel.: +49 (0)3631 4185710, e-mail: studclub@hs-nordhausen.de . Open:
KARZER café Mon–Thu 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m., Fri 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.;
Theme parties Tue 22:00-03:00; Darts Thurs 4:00-7:00 p.m.; Band, game
evenings and much more Thurs 7pm-12am.
Echte Nordhäuser Fürstenhof
Lounge, Bahnhofstrasse 12-13, 99734 Nordhausen (in the Hotel Nordhäuser
Fürstenhof). Tel.: +49 (0)3631 6250, fax: +49 (0)3631 625111, e-mail:
hotel@nordhaeuser-fuerstenhof.de . The "Echte Nordhäuser Fürstenhof
Lounge" is located on the 4th floor of the hotel with a view over the
city's rooftops. Open: Mon-Sat 18:00-24:00.
NekroWerk Club,
Industrieweg 11, 99734 Nordhausen. Tel.: +49 (0)3631 48451289, mobile:
+49 (0)173 7291736, e-mail: info@nekrowerkklub.de . party and concert
events.
Cheap
1 Hotel am Stadtpark, Parkallee 8a, 99734 Nordhausen. Phone:
+49(0)3631 982175, email: Hotel-am-Stadtpark@gmx.de. Attached restaurant
with home-style Thuringian cuisine. Price: Overnight stay from €29 per
person.
2 Hotel Avena, Hallesche Strasse 13, 99734 Nordhausen. Phone:
+49(0)3631 602060, fax: +49(0)3631 6065404, email: info@avena-hotel.de.
Right in the center of Nordhausen, conveniently located on the B80.
Price: Single room from €41, double room from €65 (each including
breakfast).
3 Rolandstuben, August-Bebel-Platz 36, 99734 Nordhausen.
Tel.: +49(0)3631 478535, fax: +49(0)3631 478536, e-mail:
info@rolandstuben.de. Feature: pension. Open: Rolandstuben: Tue – Sat 11
a.m. – 11 p.m., Sun 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. Price: Single room from €42, double
room from €64 (breakfast €6 extra!).
4 "Am Kesselberg" inn,
Wehrstrasse 7, 99734 Nordhausen. Tel.: +49(0)3631 600951, fax:
+49(0)3631 437960, e-mail: service@am-kesselberg.de. The inn also has a
restaurant, a beer garden and a party service. Feature: pension. Price:
Single room from €37, double room from €60 (each including breakfast).
Medium
5 "Wolfsmühle" holiday hotel, Zur Wolfsmühle 20, 99734
Nordhausen-Rodishain. Tel.: +49(0)34653 348, fax: +49(0)34653 83226,
e-mail: info@wolfsmuehle.de. Is about 8km outside. The company runs its
own Galloway breed. Open: Restaurants: daily from 11.30 a.m. Price:
Single room from €49, double room from €59.
Upscale
6
Nordhäuser Fürstenhof, Bahnhofstrasse 12-13, 99734 Nordhausen. Tel.: +49
(0)3631 6250, fax: +49 (0)3631 62 51 11, e-mail:
hotel@nordhaeuser-fuerstenhof.de . The hotel is a design hotel, all
facilities are sophisticated and authentically reminiscent of the style
and personalities of the 1920s. The bar "Echte Nordhäuser Fürstenhof
Lounge" on the 4th floor is also interesting with a view over the roofs
of the city of Nordhausen. Features: ★★★★, WiFi. Price: SR from €89/BB,
double room from €119/BB.
Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences, Weinberghof 4, 99734 Nordhausen. Tel.: +49 (0)3631 4200. Founded in its current form in 1997. The university has two faculties (engineering and economics and social sciences) with currently seven courses.
State Police Inspectorate Nordhausen - Inspection Service, Darrweg 42, 99734 Nordhausen. Tel.: +49 (0)3631 960, fax: +49 (0)3631 61509, e-mail: lpi-id.nordhausen@polizei.thueringen.de. The inspection service is responsible for the city of Nordhausen and the district of Nordhausen. Open: 24/7.
Hospitals
1 Südharz Klinikum Nordhausen, Dr.-Robert-Koch-Strasse
39, 99734 Nordhausen. Phone: +49 (0)3631 41-0, fax: +49 (0)3631 412142,
email: info@shk-ndh.de. The hospital with a 24-hour emergency room is
enthroned on a hill on the western outskirts and can be seen from afar.
It is also the terminus of tram line 1. The Nordhausen hospital is a BG
accident clinic and a teaching hospital for the universities of Jena and
Halle.
Pharmacies
2 Cranach Pharmacy, Reichsstrasse 22, 99734
Nordhausen. Tel.: +49 (0)3631 90420, fax: +49 (0)3631 904243, e-mail:
cranachapotheke@web.de. Open: Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat 9 a.m. - 1
p.m.
3 City Park Pharmacy, Bochumer Str. 157, 99734 Nordhausen.
Phone: +49 (0)3631 988701, fax: +49 (0)3631 4765939, email:
stadtpark-apotheke-ndh@t-online.de. Open: Mon - Fri 7 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat
8 a.m. - 12 p.m.
4 Kreuz Apotheke, August-Bebel-Platz 34, 99734
Nordhausen. Phone: +49 (0)3631 895050, email:
kreuzapotheke@meine-apotheke-nordhausen.de. Open: Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6
p.m., Sat 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
5 Grimmelhof Pharmacy, Grimmelallee 4,
99734 Nordhausen. Phone: +49 (0)3631 4611476, email:
grimmelhofapotheke@apotheken-nordhausen.de. Open: Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6
p.m., Sat 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
6 Sonnen Pharmacy, Conrad-Fromann-Strasse
21, 99734 Nordhausen. Tel.: +49 (0)3631 895177, e-mail:
sonnenapotheke@meine-apotheke-nordhausen.de. Open: Mon - Fri 7.30 a.m. -
6 p.m.
7 Sophien Pharmacy, Bahnhofstrasse 18, 99734 Nordhausen. Tel.:
+49 (0)3631 4656644, email:
sophienapotheke@meine-apotheke-nordhausen.de. Open: Mon - Fri 8 a.m. - 6
p.m.
8 Mohren pharmacy, Markt 7, 99734 Nordhausen. Phone: +49 (0)3631
902310, fax: +49 (0)3631 902311, e-mail: mohren@apotheke-ndh.de. Open:
Mon - Fri 8.30 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat closed.
City information Nordhausen, Markt 1, 99734 Nordhausen. Phone: +49 (0)3631 696797, fax: +49 (0)3631 696799, email: stadtinfo@nordhausen.de. Open: Mon-Fri: 09:00-16:00, Sat 10:00-13:00.
Early documented name forms are Nordhusa (876), Nordhuse (929), Northusun (965, 1075, 1105), Northuson (993, 1042, 1105), Nordhusen (from the 12th century) and Northusia (1200, Latinized). Between the 12th and 15th centuries, the Northusen spelling predominated in chronicles and statutes, from 1480 the sounding Northausen and later Nordhausen with early New High German diphthongization is attested. According to Germanistic name research, there is a formation from “Nord” and “-hausen” (originally a dative plural, ie “at the houses”); the meaning of the place name is therefore "in the northward settlement". The name-related counterpart is the village of Sundhausen, which was founded around the same time in the immediate vicinity of Nordhausen and whose name means "at the settlement located southwards" (sunt is Middle High German for south). The inhabitants of the city are correctly called "Nordhäuser" (in the dialect "Nordhisser"). Because of its centuries-old tradition of making spirits, Nordhausen also bears the local names “Branntwienpisser” and “Schnapshausen”. Another nickname is "Priemköppe" because of the former chewing tobacco production.
Early settlements
in the region were known as early as the 19th century through
"excavations", albeit with unsuitable means and with inadequate
documentation, such as at the burial mound necropolis of Auleben
(Solberg). One of the few graves in Thuringia from the late
Neolithic, probably the bell-cup culture, was found near
Windehausen, southeast of Nordhausen. There was a three-quarter
circle ditch about 12 m in diameter. About 300 m away there is a
late Bronze Age settlement, the grave there possibly represents the
founding burial of this settlement. The warrior grave with numerous
additions shows influences from the Middle Lüneburg Bronze Age and
can be assigned to the early (West Central German) Late Bronze Age.
Other end-Neolithic and Bronze Age graves are known in the area,
which prove that in the late Middle and early Late Bronze Age the
custom was widespread to dig graves in the eastern part of circular
trenches. The Early Bronze Age site of Nohra has been known for a
long time.
The Nordhausen area was subject to both Celtic and
Germanic influences, with the archaeologically recognizable elements
being mixed and locally transformed. Accordingly, it is a mixed zone
with numerous (Celtic) Latène culture elements, such as turntable
ceramics or glass arm rings. At the same time, numerous elements of
the Polish Przeworsk culture that do not occur further south were
found in the Nordhausen district, plus a total of seven settlements
of this culture in the Nordhausen area. These may go back to
immigrants from Silesia who came to the southern Harz as
specialists. A hierarchy can be demonstrated in the settlements,
namely into the three types of hilltop castle, which are perceived
as central locations, i.e. as economic, social and cultic focal
points, then larger settlements, which functioned as exchange
locations and specialized production, and finally smaller, open ones
Settlements. After the 1st century this settlement structure
disappeared, probably due to migration processes.
The area
around Nordhausen belonged to the short-lived Thuringian Empire in
the late 5th century and became Franconian by conquest around 531.
Between 650 and 700 Sorbian groups settle in the Bielen district.
Slavic places are also proven. After the former Nordhausen city
archivist and museum director Robert Hermann Walther Müller, the
settlement of the West Slavic groups, then known as Surbi, began in
640 as a result of a peace and friendship treaty between the Slav
King Samo and the Thuringian Duke Radulf. First, the areas west of
the Saale were settled by Sorbian colonists. Müller relies in
particular on the research by Christoph Albrecht on The Slavs in
Thuringia. A current analysis of the Hersfeld Tithing Directory by
Christian Zschieschang shows a significant Sorbian settlement in
Friesenfeld and Hassegau. A comparable current study on the Sorbian
settlement west of Kieselhausen and Sangerhausen is currently not
available, although Robert Hermann Walther Müller warned it at the
time.
According to Robert Hermann Walther Müller, Bielen is clearly of Slavic origin in addition to Windisehen spreads. In accordance with the state of research at the time, he sees the villages of Sittendorf, Rosperwenda, Windehausen and Steinbrücken as Slavic places, the latter having meanwhile also been incorporated into Nordhausen. There are also the desert areas of Alt-Wenden, Nausitz, Lindeschu, Tütchewenden and Ascherwenden. He mentions Nenzelsrode and Petersdorf as other Slavic towns, whereby Petersdorf is now part of the city of Nordhausen. Rudolf Virchow discovered the remains of a fishing settlement near Berga in 1872. The villages of Görsbach, Sülzhayn, Branderode, Buchholz and Leimbach can be recognized by Wendish impact, whereby the last two have meanwhile also been incorporated into Nordhausen. In Branderode there is even evidence of a windy door in the church, as well as in Kleinfurra and Trebra. Field names of Sorbian origin can be found in Kraja, Thalwend, Worbis, "Wyndischen Luttera", between Petersdorf and Steigerthal and near Stempeda, the latter two now also belonging to Nordhausen. In the city of Nordhausen itself, he traces the Grimmei street and the Grimm mill (later the Kaisermühle) to Sorbian origins. Also in the Zorgedorf Krimderode, today also in Nordhausen, there was a Grimme brook, which has now dried up, with the same Sorbian name: 'on the sand; on the Kiese '(cf. Upper Sorbian křemjeń, "[river] pebbles"). Robert Hermann Walther Müller even traces the name for the Zorge and the Mühlgraben back to Sorbian. For him, the Nordhausen linden legend also has its origins in the Sorbian colonization, as the linden tree is the symbol tree of this people.
In the absence of written sources and few archaeological findings,
the development of the place and city is not certain. It is believed
that a Carolingian royal palace was built on the "Frauenberg" at the
end of the 8th century. The old town later developed north of it.
Nordhusa is already mentioned in a diploma from Ludwig the German
dated May 18, 876. Heinrich I built the first fortified complex
between 908 and 912. According to the younger Vita Mathildis, the
son of Heinrich I and Mathilde, Heinrich, was born here around 921.
On September 16, 929, Heinrich I gave Nordhuse to his wife Mathilde
in a deed of donation. On June 25, 934, Heinrich I issued a
certificate during a stay in Nordhausen. Mathilde founded a women's
monastery in 961, in which she institutionalized a number of other
sacred institutions such as the canons 'convent in Quedlinburg, in
addition to the castle built by Heinrich I, which was converted into
an Augustinian canons' monastery in 1220. In the vicinity of these
institutions, the castle and the monastery, craftsmen and
tradespeople subsequently settled around the Blasius Church. In the
week after Whitsun 993 Otto III kept himself. in Nordhausen and
issued two certificates there. When the Frauenstift was founded by
Otto III in 1000. received a Romanesque grand cross (which has been
kept in Duderstadt since 1675), the Cathedral of the Holy Cross
developed into the spiritual center of the monastery. The second
version of Queen Mathilde's biography was probably written in the
women's monastery in Nordhausen, where Richburga was appointed first
abbess in the winter of 967. Mathilde tried again and again to the
place. After Mathilde's death in 968, their property fell under the
control of the emperor again. In the marriage certificate of Empress
Theophanu, Otto I and Otto II handed over Nordhausen in 972 as one
of several assignments of the dowry to the wife Theophanu. A
merchant settlement around the Nikolaikirche from the early 12th
century developed into the actual city. This was extended by a
Flemish cloth weaver settlement built on the other side of the city
wall at the end of the 12th century to include the Petrikirche, in
the 13th century by a new town that remained outside the wall around
the Jakobikirche.
Nordhausen was in the medieval county of
Helmegau, which was mentioned in a document of Charlemagne in 802.
From 1144 to 1225, German kings stayed in Nordhausen several times. In 1158, Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa donated all imperial possessions in Nordhausen to the cathedral monastery, which gained considerable influence as a result. In 1180 the city was destroyed by the troops of Henry the Lion because of a rift between Henry and the Emperor. During the subsequent reconstruction, the city fortifications were reinforced around 1206 in order to be able to stand up to the counts and knights of the surrounding area. They felt that their rights were restricted by the city and feuded them several times. On July 22nd, 1212, Emperor Otto IV, son of Henry the Lion, married Beatrix of Swabia from the Staufer family in Nordhausen, which brought about a reconciliation between the two rulers. As early as 1234, a major fire destroyed large parts of the city.
On July 27, 1220, Nordhausen was
raised to the status of a free imperial city by King and later
Emperor Friedrich II, which remained until it was mediatized in
1802. The city received its first seal in 1225, a council was formed
for the first time around 1260 and the first town hall was built at
the current location around 1280. At the end of the 13th century,
the council prevailed against the Vogt and Schultheiß, who had
already been occupied around 1220: in 1277 there was a revolt of the
craftsmen and petty bourgeoisie against the imperial knights. The
Reichsvogt was expelled and the Reichsburg destroyed. In 1290 the
Roman-German King Rudolf von Habsburg confirmed the imperial freedom
of Nordhausen and placed the city under his protection in order to
be reconciled with the citizens. Due to its favorable economic and
geographical location, Nordhausen probably enjoyed considerable
wealth in the 13th century.
In the 13th and 14th centuries,
the Counts of Schwarzburg, von Stolberg, von Hohnstein and the
knights of Klettenberg Castle attacked Nordhausen several times.
When knights of the Counts of Hohnstein zu Sondershausen, the Counts
of Stolberg and Klettenberg Castle tried - ultimately unsuccessfully
- to penetrate the city through the Barfüßertor and the Altentor in
1329, the mayor of Nordhausen, Helwig von Harzungen and three
citizens, fell Defending goals. In another uprising on February 14,
1375, the council was overthrown and its members banished. The city
received a new constitution and the artisans took power. During this
time, some orders settled in Nordhausen, for example Augustinians,
Dominicans and Franciscans. The neighboring monasteries in
Walkenried and Ilfeld also founded monastery courtyards in the city.
As early as the 14th century, the imperial city of Nordhausen
required its citizens' sons who wanted to join one of these orders
to renounce their inheritance in writing in order to prevent the
church's tax-free property (“dead hand”) from increasing.
The
highest warlord of the free imperial city of Nordhausen was
originally the imperial bailiff, later the council, who appointed
two warlords (so-called arrow masters) from his ranks. The city army
consisted of the well-fortified citizenry (statutes 1350) and
recruited mercenaries (city unification 1308). Once upon a time, the
Arrow Masters were also city governors. From 1350 chivalric captains
were taken into city service. The citizenship was divided into
rotten based on the parish and parish division (arrow master list
1443-1545). So there were 21 squads with two foremen each, the squad
strength fluctuated (1491-1499) from 17 to 48 men. In 1499 there
were 577 citizens capable of arms. Since the beginning of the 17th
century there were city soldiers under one captain, who in 1794
numbered around 70 men. The vigilante group consists of two
companies.
Proof that Nordhausen was active as part of the
Hanseatic League dates back to 1430. In 1500 Nordhausen became part
of the Lower Saxony Empire. At the end of the Middle Ages, Saxony
was the protective power over the city. Probably after 1277 a wall
was built that covered an area of 35 hectares. This walling was
renewed between 1350 and 1450. In 1365 the settlements were also
legally united. Around 1500 the city had about 5000 inhabitants.
In 1507 the production of brandy in the city was first mentioned in a document. At peak times there were 100 distilleries in town. Chewing tobacco was also produced in Nordhausen. Vitriol oil was also produced in the 16th century; after the first production site in Nordhausen, the product was called "Nordhäuser Vitriol".
The Reformation prevailed in Nordhausen in 1523/24. The driving
force here was the mayor Michael Meyenburg. That year Thomas Müntzer
was in the city. Nordhausen was the first city to officially join
the Reformation by council resolution in 1524, after a follower of
Martin Luther had already given one of the first Protestant sermons
in Germany in 1522 in the St. Petri Church. In the following period,
all parish and monastery churches in the city became Lutheran and
the church property was secularized, with the only exception of the
Holy Cross Monastery, which continued as a Catholic body until 1810.
Although two city fires (1540 and 1612), the plague epidemics
and the Thirty Years War hampered the development of the city, it
continued to grow. The plague raged repeatedly in Nordhausen in the
years 1393, 1398, 1438, 1463, 1500, 1550, 1565 and 1682. In 1550 a
first register of the dead was drawn up, which lists over 2,500
victims. In 1626 there were over 3,000 deaths and in 1682 3,509
victims are recorded.
Nordhausen was persecuted by witches
from 1559 to 1644. 27 people were involved in witch trials, eight
were executed, five sentenced to expulsion from the country and four
died in torture or in prison.
There were further city fires
in 1710 - the burnt down rectory was replaced by today's orphanage
by 1717 - and in 1712, so that little of the medieval building
fabric was preserved. Of the twelve churches in the Middle Ages,
only the cathedral, the Blasiikirche, the Frauenbergkirche and the
Altendorf church remained. During the Thirty Years' War the city was
temporarily occupied by the Swedes, high contributions were extorted
and all of the city's cannons and some of the church bells were
stolen. As a result, the city secretly supported the Harzschützen
with money, room and board.
Brandenburg occupied the city
from 1703 to 1714.
As a result of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1802,
Prussia received Thuringian areas as compensation for territories on
the left bank of the Rhine that were lost to France. The city of
Nordhausen was occupied by Prussian troops on August 2, 1802 and
incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia, which lost its imperial
freedom. On February 7, 1803, the city lost the right to mint. From
1807 to 1813 Nordhausen belonged to the Kingdom of Westphalia, which
Napoleon had built for his brother Jérôme Bonaparte, and then again
to Prussia, which was confirmed by the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
Nordhausen remained a Prussian city until 1945.
In the third
book (second chapter) of his novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame from
1831, Victor Hugo Nordhausen praises Nuremberg, Vitré in France and
Vitoria in Spain as a model Gothic city that, in contrast to Paris
in the early 19th century, was able to retain its originality .
Because of its chewing tobacco factory G. A. Hanewacker (founded in
1817), Nordhausen was the center of chewing tobacco production in
Germany.
Nordhausen was briefly a garrison town under
Prussian rule: 1832–1848 IV. Jägerabteilung, 1868–1870 II. Battalion
67th Infantry Regiment.
In the period up to 1866, a smuggling
activity that was hitherto unknown in Thuringia flourished in
Nordhausen. Above all, coffee, tea and tobacco were smuggled because
these luxury foods were taxed much less in the neighboring Kingdom
of Hanover than in Prussia. Even the strictest threats of punishment
could not change anything. The border ran along today's street at
the enclosure. At times smoking tobacco and the consumption of
brandy in public were banned.
In 1867 Eduard Baltzer founded
the German vegetarian movement in Nordhausen. The first congress of
German vegetarians in the city follows in 1869.
In the middle
of the 19th century, industrialization began in Nordhausen and
initially extended to chewing tobacco, grain brandy (Nordhäuser),
wallpaper manufacture, weaving, ice machines and coffee substitutes.
The economic basis broadened around 1900 mainly in the machine,
engine and shaft construction industry.
In 1866 Nordhausen
was connected to the railway from Halle (Saale), the continuation to
Heiligenstadt and Kassel was opened a year later. Rail routes to
Northeim and Erfurt followed in the next few years. The tram has
been in Nordhausen since August 25, 1900. The commissioning of a
modern water pipeline (1874), a hospital (1888), the Harzquerbahn
(1897/99) and the construction of the Nordhäuser Dam mark further
municipal progress up to the First World War.
From 1815 to 1945 Nordhausen belonged to the Prussian province of
Saxony, in which it had been a separate urban district in the
administrative district of Erfurt since 1882. In addition, the
district office of the Grafschaft Hohenstein district was located
here.
At the beginning of the World War 3,000 conscripts were
drafted, in 1916 the number rose to over 5,000 and in May 1918 to
around 6,500. The war memorial erected in 1925 commemorates 1,048
fallen north houses. Although economic development was interrupted
by the war, it continued to develop positively. expressed in lively
construction activity; the new city theater and the stadium with
outdoor pool were built.
From May 27 to 29, 1927 the city
celebrated its millennium, on the occasion of which special
postmarks, postage stamps, festival postcards and medals as well as
a two-volume and richly illustrated history of the city were issued.
The Reich Ministry of Finance also approved the issuance of a
marketable 3-mark commemorative coin with a circulation of 100,000
pieces.
In 1933 the
NSDAP took control of the city. In the Reichstag election on March
5, 1933, she received 46.7 percent of the vote in Nordhausen. By the
summer of 1933 at least 20 members of the KPD and SPD had been taken
into protective custody, but several were released after a brief
detention. Some of the arrested were interned in the Siechenhof,
others in the court prison, but the majority were taken to the
police prison in Erfurt and from there to concentration camps. In
March 1933, the NSDAP and DNVP held almost 60 percent of the seats
in the city council. This was followed by the synchronization of the
city administration. Mayor Curt Baller, who is considered to be
left-wing liberal, tried in vain to stay in office. On July 1, 1933,
the lawyer Heinz Sting was appointed Lord Mayor by the district
government. In September 1933, the social democrat and editor of the
“People's newspaper” Johannes Kleinspehn was arrested and sentenced
to three years in prison.
In June 1933 the local group of
German Christians was founded under the pastor of the St. Blasii
community.
After the death of District Administrator Gerhard
Stumme, a fierce power struggle broke out in the spring of 1934
between Sting and the NSDAP district leader Heinrich Keizer, which
also caused a sensation in the staff of the Führer’s deputy. On
October 19, 1934, Heinz Sting was given leave of absence as Lord
Mayor, and Keizer was transferred to Saalfeld-Rudolstadt in 1935.
After the introduction of compulsory military service, the
Boelcke barracks with accommodation buildings and vehicle hangars
were built for the air force in the south-east of Nordhausen in
1935/36. The air base served primarily as a training and test site,
and an aircraft yard was also in operation here at times.
During the November pogroms in 1938, apartments and shops were
destroyed and the synagogue on the horse market was set on fire. The
400 or so Jews from Nordhausen emigrated or were later deported. On
April 14, 1942, the deportation of the Jews who had remained in
Nordhausen began.
From December 1939 to June 1940 around
9,000 Saarlanders were housed in private households and collective
accommodation in Nordhausen. The first Polish prisoners of war
arrived in autumn 1939. At the beginning of 1942 around 450
prisoners of war were registered, in March 1945 there were 700
prisoners of war.
From 1937 to 1945 the armaments center
Mittelwerk Dora was located near Nordhausen and from August 1943 the
Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp with 60,000 prisoners (20,000 of
whom were killed by 1945), in which, after the attack on Peenemünde,
the production of so-called retaliatory weapons, above all, was
located the new A4 (rocket), but also the older Fieseler Fi 103,
took place. In addition, 10,000 German prisoners and foreign forced
laborers who were housed in 38 camps were forced to work in various
companies. The largest forced labor camp with a maximum of 6,000
inmates, some of whom had to work for the Junkers aircraft and
engine works, was in the Boelcke barracks. From the end of January
1945 this became a “sick and death camp of the Mittelbau complex”
and was located in the south-east of Nordhausen. It was badly hit in
the British bombing raids on April 3rd and 4th. The US Army forced
the residents of Nordhausen to rescue, transport and bury the dead.
The 1,300 victims were buried in the cemetery of honor on
Stresemann-Ring. A memorial erected in 1999 commemorates them. Next
to it is a cemetery of honor for 215 Soviet victims, which was laid
out in 1946.
On the night of August 25 to August 26, 1940, Nordhausen was
first targeted by an air raid when two bombers attacked the
airfield. Smaller attacks were flown on April 12, 1944 and July 4,
1944. On February 22, 1945 at around 12:30 p.m. US bombers attacked
the marshalling yard, but hit the lower town, some facilities in the
industrial area and the former Luftwaffe telecommunications school
in the Boelcke barracks. A total of 296 multi-purpose bombs were
dropped, killing 40 people. On February 26, the Südharzer Kurier
published an obituary notice for the “fallen soldiers of the
terrorist attack” with the announcement that the city would be
buried with a memorial service.
On July 1, 1944, the
Reichsstatthalter in Thuringia was entrusted with the exercise of
the duties and powers of the Upper President in the state
administration of the Erfurt administrative district. On October 29,
1944, the age groups 1884 to 1928 were recorded for the Volkssturm
and divided into 29 battalions. The first 200 Volkssturm men were
called to the front on February 21, 1945.
At the beginning of
March 1945, 42,207 residents were registered in Nordhausen. In
addition there were 23,467 “non-residents” (659 prisoners of war,
503 wounded soldiers in 5 hospitals, 420 members of the navy, 6082
foreign workers in mass quarters).
A week before the US armed
forces marched in, the city was 74 percent destroyed by two British
air raids on Nordhausen on April 3 and 4, 1945, killing around 8,800
people and leaving more than 20,000 homeless. The bombing was
ordered by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force on
April 2, 1945. They called for an attack in support of the 1st US
Army with priority at the earliest opportunity. The purpose of the
RAF attacks in April 1945 was to clear the way for an unhindered
advance from the resistance expected in the southern Harz region.
The first major attack on April 3 at 4 p.m. was carried out by 247
Lancaster bombers and 8 mosquitos of the 1st and 8th Bomb Groups,
which dropped 1,170 tons of high explosive bombs in 20 minutes,
especially on the southeast quadrant of the city. Around 1200
prisoners also died. The second major attack on April 4 at 9 a.m.
with 243 Lancaster bombers of No. 5 bomber group and 1,220 tons of
bombs are considered to be the heaviest attack and aimed as area
bombing, also with a firestorm triggered by phosphorus bombs on the
inner city area. Mainly residential areas (10,000 apartments), the
hospital and numerous cultural monuments of outstanding importance
were destroyed. The city hospital, which had already been evacuated
on the evening of April 3, moved to the Kohnstein tunnel on April 8.
There were from 3./4. April also many thousands of northern houses
fled. With the exception of the earlier Boelcke barracks, no targets
that could be identified as military or important to the war effort
were hit. The train station, the airfield, the railway tracks, the
industrial plants and the Dora concentration camp, where the A4
rocket was also produced, remained undamaged. The St. Blasii Church,
the Cathedral and the Frauenberg Church were badly damaged. The
Frauenberg monastery, the Neustadt parish church of St. Jakobi, the
market church of St. Nikolai, and the St. Petri church were
destroyed (tower partially preserved). The remains of these
buildings were demolished after the war. The city wall including the
partly used towers and Wiechhäuser was badly hit, the town hall was
destroyed except for the surrounding walls. Large numbers of the
bourgeois half-timbered buildings from the Gothic, Renaissance,
Baroque, Rococo and early Classicism styles characteristic of
Nordhausen were destroyed. In the city center, numerous fires raged
for days, bombs with time fuses exploded, and the urban area was
under fire from low-flying aircraft. Initially only a few residents
tried to bury the dead or to salvage their belongings.
The
losses of the permanent population amounted to 6,000 people, those
of the non-permanent population to 1,500, plus 1,300 prisoners from
the Boelcke barracks, which together results in an estimated number
of victims of 8,800. This refers only to the closer urban area of
Nordhausen, without the losses in the later incorporated
districts. There are also higher estimates of over 10,000 deaths,
for example by the Antifa Committee in June 1945. Of the 8,800
deaths, around 4,500 were women and children.
At the
beginning of April 1945 the Volkssturm made preparations to defend
the city. A majority of the officers and airmen set off in the
direction of the "Harz Fortress" in the following days. Shortly
after the police and party officials had left the city, the
Volkssturm, which had been decimated by the air raids, dissolved.
On the morning of April 11, 1945, the 104th US Infantry Division
(1st US Army) advancing via Werther occupied Nordhausen without a
fight with tank support. Around 11 a.m., the soldiers encountered
the survivors of the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in the badly
destroyed Boelcke barracks. About 1200 prisoners died in the bombing
of the city in the accommodation blocks. The concentration camp to
the northwest was reached on the same day. Mittelwerk Dora itself
had never been bombed and fell into the hands of the US troops
undamaged with all secret weapons and documents. There were smaller
firefights in the area around the Kohnstein and in the village of
Crimderode. Around 200 German soldiers and suspicious people in the
city were captured and brought together in the Rothleimmühle
assembly camp. The city was officially handed over in the afternoon.
Military governor became Captain William A. McElroy.
On April
12, the military administration released Nordhausen for eight days
to be looted by former prisoners and foreign forced laborers.
Activities of the werewolf (Nazi organization) became known at the
end of April and some weapons and ammunition stocks were
confiscated. On May 8, 1945, the mayor appointed by the Americans,
the Social Democratic workers' leader Otto Flagmeyer, had to
threaten all looters with the death penalty. On May 13th, a memorial
service for the victims from the Boelcke barracks took place in the
cemetery of honor. All adult northern houses had to take part in it,
after which they received personal documents and ration cards. Since
the Nordhausen hospitals had all been destroyed, an auxiliary
hospital was set up in Ilfeld from April 1945. In Nordhausen, too,
typhus ruled from spring 1945, which exacerbated the desolate
situation in the city.
On June 16, 1945, the former Prussian administrative district of
Erfurt and thus also Nordhausen were incorporated into the state of
Thuringia. The Red Army replaced the US Army as the occupying power
on July 2, 1945.
In July 1945 there were over 7,200 people in
the city and rural district who had their place of residence in the
three newly formed Western Allied occupation zones. They sought
protection from the air raids in the region during the war. In
December 1945 their number was 1,411. In the course of the
expulsion, the number of refugees in June 1945 was 10,463, in
December 1945 a total of 18,054. They came from Berlin and the Mark
Brandenburg, from Pomerania, East and West Prussia, a great many
from the Sudetenland and the vast majority from Silesia; they were
initially housed in larger camps.
The war-torn inner city of
Nordhausen was rebuilt in the 1950s and 1960s after clearing the
rubble in 1945. The historical settlement structure was completely
disregarded. Instead, wide main roads such as Rautenstrasse and
Töpferstrasse were created, in line with contemporary tastes. Only
in the north-west of the old town in the vicinity of the cathedral
was the old town structure preserved, which survived both the air
raids and the GDR era. The Bismarck monument in the promenade and
the military freedom monument on the Theaterplatz were demolished in
1945.
The Nordhausen Trial was conducted as a United States
Army war crimes trial in 1947. After the dissolution of the federal
states in the GDR, which was founded in 1949, the city belonged to
the district of Erfurt from 1952 until Thuringia was reconstituted
as a federal state in 1990. There it was the district town of the
Nordhausen district, which was converted into today's Nordhausen
district in 1994.
Nordhausen was a center of unrest in the
Erfurt district on and around June 17, 1953. As early as the first
days of June 1953 there were strikes against the decreed increases
in labor standards. On June 17th there was a mighty strike in the
VEB IFA tractor factory. However, the workers were unable to go to
demonstrations in the city because the plant had been surrounded by
the People's Police and the People's Police Barracked. There was
also a strike in the shaft construction and drilling operations.
Soon the slogans of the strikers became political: Away with the
government, free elections and lifting of the state of emergency
imposed by the Soviet Army. The strike leader was the union official
Otto Reckstat (1898-1983), who worked as an auxiliary fitter at
Nordhäuser VEB ABUS-Maschinenbau. Strikes and riots continued on
June 18, when people's police units occupied the factories under the
protection of the Soviet Army.
On August 22, 1961, Nordhausen was the destination of the 5th
stage (Jena - Nordhausen; 136 km) and the following day the start of
the 1st half stage (Nordhausen - Kyffhäuser; individual time trial;
24 km) of the 6th stage (Nordhausen - Dessau; 164 km) the 12th GDR
tour; on August 14, 1962 destination of the 1st stage (Magdeburg -
Nordhausen; 147 km) and on the following day start of the 2nd stage
(Nordhausen - Bad Langensalza; 100 km) of the 13th GDR tour; on
September 5, 1974 finish of the 6th stage (Dessau - Nordhausen; 143
km) and on the following day start and finish of the 7th stage
(“Across the Harz”; 134 km) of the 22nd GDR tour; on August 20, 1976
destination of the 7th stage (Jena - Nordhausen; 165 km) and on the
following day the start and finish of the 8th stage (“across the
Harz”; 119 km) of the 24th GDR tour.
On May 29, 1980, at a
meeting of representatives of the LSK / LV command and the GDR
border troops, it was decided to relocate Helicopter Squadron 16
from Salzwedel to the new location in Nordhausen due to the
increased number of personnel and technology. In the following
years, this air force air base, built in the mid-1930s, was expanded
and provided with concreted helicopter parking areas, taxiways and a
maintenance hangar. On October 14, 1986, the relay and staff
relocated. At this point there were 15 Mi-2 and three Mi-8 in stock.
On December 1, 1986, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the
GDR border troops, the helicopter unit was given the honorary name
"Albert Kuntz".
On September 22, 1987, in the
Albert-Kuntz-Sportpark, the GDR's Olympic soccer team competed
against the Dutch Olympic team in qualifying for the 1988 Summer
Olympics.
With 52,290 inhabitants (1989), the city was one of
the most populous in the Erfurt district and was the second largest
industrial center. Around 1989, around 25,000 people were employed
in the factories that manufactured numerous products for the entire
GDR. The most important ones included IFA Motorenwerke, VEB
Schachtbau and RFT Fernmeldewerk, in which all telephones for the
GDR were produced. The VEB Nordbrand was considered the "largest and
most modern spirits producer in the GDR", while VEB Tabak was the
"largest cigarette manufacturer in the republic"; until the end of
the 1990s, a. produced the cigarette brand Cabinet.
On
October 31, 1989, around 25,000 people met on August-Bebel-Platz for
the first open demonstration against the GDR regime; on November 7,
1989, around 35,000 to 40,000 participants gather. On December 4,
1989, members of the New Forum occupied the district office of the
AfNS - the former district office of the MfS - in
Dr.-Kurt-Fischer-Strasse (today Ludolfinger Strasse 13) and
prevented further destruction of files. After Peter Heiter (SED)
resigned as mayor in February 1990, Olaf Dittmann (NDPD) held the
office. On May 6, 1990, the doctor Manfred Schröter (CDU) became the
first freely elected mayor.
Since October 14, 1990, Nordhausen has belonged to the state of
Thuringia as a district town. The last Soviet soldiers left their
garrison by the end of July 1991. Almost all of the city's large
companies were unable to cope with the new market economy and there
was an enormous loss of jobs, which also caused the city's
population to shrink.
On July 1, 1994, Nordhausen received
the status of a large district town in the course of some
incorporations.
The Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences
was founded in 1997 and since May 1, 2004, Nordhausen has officially
been “University City”. After the connection to the federal autobahn
38 in 2002 there was an economic stabilization and realignment of
the Nordhausen companies.
Large parts of the city center,
such as the Petersberg, were renovated as part of the Nordhausen
State Garden Show in 2004. On December 1, 2007, Petersdorf,
Rodishain and Stempeda were incorporated.
On September 23,
2008, the city received the title “Place of Diversity” awarded by
the federal government. Nordhausen has been the 17th fair trade city
since June 5, 2010. In 2012 she was accepted into the "Hanse City
Association". Nordhausen was the first city to officially join the
Reformation by a council resolution in 1524 and is a member of the
Federation of Luther Cities. Since February 2015 she has been part
of the organization “Mayors for Peace”.
Nordhausen is a medium-sized town and is nestled
between the foothills of the Harz Mountains in the north, the
fertile Golden Aue in the southeast and Rüdigsdorf Switzerland in
the northeast. To the north is the South Harz Nature Park. The area
around Nordhausen belongs to the layered landscape which, as the
southern foreland of the Harz Mountains, occupies the space between
the mountain edge and the Hainleite. This foreland has wide and
flat, sometimes basin-like widened valley lowlands, a number of low
elevation ranges. Diluvial gravel over Upper Buntsandstein forms the
building site.
The Zorge - a tributary of the Helme - and the
Salza, which rises from the largest spring in Thuringia, the
Salzaspring, flow through the city. South-east of Nordhausen there
are six quarry ponds, which were created by gravel mining from the
1960s and are generally summarized as "Kiesschacht" or "Bielener
Kiesseen": Auesee, Bielener See, Forellensee, Möwensee, Sundhäuser
See and Tauchersee.
After Erfurt, Jena, Gera, Weimar, Gotha
and Eisenach, Nordhausen is the seventh largest city in Thuringia in
terms of population, almost on a par with Eisenach. The closest
major cities are Göttingen (around 60 km west), Erfurt (around 61 km
south), Halle (Saale) (around 81 km east), Braunschweig (around 87
km north) and Magdeburg (around 91 km northeast).
The
original urban area (today's old town) lies on a hill sloping to the
west and south. The altitude of the city varies between 180 and 250
m above sea level. M. Hence the characteristic names Upper and Lower
Town.
The area of the city is 105.62 km² (2019), which is
14.8 percent of the area of the district. The north-south
extension is 12.8 km and the east-west extension 19.0 km. The lowest
point of the urban area is 165 m above sea level and the highest 360
m.
Originally, Nordhausen had little land around the city. In
1315 the Hohnstein area around the city was purchased. In 1365 the
new town area was incorporated and efforts continued to acquire land
in the west and south beyond the Zorge to Helme and Salza (1368,
1370, 1559, 1578). In 1950 the villages of Krimderode and Salza were
incorporated, and from the 1990s onwards, a total of twelve more
incorporations followed, increasing the urban area from 79.14 km²
(1994) to 105.62 km² (2019).
Nordhausen is located in the northern Thuringian hill country, which consists entirely of red sandstone. The basin-like hilly landscape is mainly used for agriculture. In the valleys there are deposits of loess and other loose rock and numerous sinkholes due to underground leaching.
The area around Nordhausen is included in the so-called Börde
climate, which is characterized by the July mean of over 17 ° C, a
mild winter (January not below −1 ° C) and just sufficient rainfall
of 500–650 millimeters. Beech forest, oak and hornbeam are its
characteristics. To the west and north is the somewhat rougher
central German mountain and hill country climate, while the Upper
Harz and the Brocken have a special position due to its low mountain
range with a short vegetation period, abundant rainfall and
relatively low temperatures. The Harz plays a protective role for
Nordhausen; the Harz fuselage is so high and wide that it
effectively blocks the cold air masses advancing from the north and
northeast. Nordhausen is much more open to the westerly winds. In
the spring and autumn months a strong ground fog development can
occur. The city chronicle reports several years in which the mills
could not grind due to the lack of summer rainfall.
From 1900
to 1950 the average temperature was 8.1 ° C, from 1956 to 2005 it
was 8.6 ° C. In August 1998 a temperature maximum of 38.6 ° C was
measured, in January 1987 a temperature minimum of −27.2 ° C.
The historian Friedrich Christian Lesser recorded 22 severe
storms from 1615 to 1781. Three severe storms (1925, 1946, 1980)
were counted in the 20th century. At the turn of the year 1925/26
and in January 1946 floods caused great damage; the summer and
winter floods are due to the specific runoff conditions in the Harz
region.
A hurricane with wind force 12 and heavy rain damaged
numerous houses and uprooted trees on July 15, 1980. In the city
park 60 percent and in the enclosure a third of the trees were
destroyed. The valuable tree population in Hohenrode Park was also
significantly decimated. The hurricane raged particularly
devastatingly in the adjacent forest areas, where it caused 240,000
cubic meters of broken wood; about 70 percent of the trees hit were
beeches, the rest spruce. Many slopes became bare areas.
At 80.3 percent (2011), the majority of the population of Nordhausen does not belong to any religious community. The Protestant congregations comprise around 15.1 percent of the city's population. In the years 1522 to 1525 the Protestant creed was accepted in Nordhausen. 4.6 percent of the city's population belong to the Catholic community at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, a parish in the Diocese of Erfurt. Other Christian congregations belong to the Seventh-day Adventists (Chapel of the Adventist Church, Hesseröder Straße 4), the Evangelical Free Church Congregation (Baptists, Christuskirche, Grimmelallee 51) and the New Apostolic Church (Riemannstraße 2).
The history of the Jews in Nordhausen begins in the 13th century. The Nordhausen synagogue was built between 1843 and 1845. It was located at the horse market and was destroyed and burned out during the November pogroms of 1938. The number of community members peaked in 1910 with 452 Jews. The Jewish regional community of Thuringia now has a meeting center in the Thomas-Mann-Haus again in Nordhausen.
Until 1220 the city was headed by the Imperial Vogt (Advocatus), who
convened the Vogtthing three times a year. Under him there was the mayor
as administrator of internal affairs, the market court, etc., who was
also assisted by so-called market scoops. From these and the bailiff's
thing advisors grew the community of "Consules".
After 1220 the
Consules was constituted and gained independence from the Vogt and
Schultheiss (named 1266). From their midst, the consuls chose two
"magistri" (cited 1290). The members of the council created in this way
came from the sexes, and the old council elected a new one on January
6th. In this way, a "seated" council and two "common" councils emerged,
which alternated in three-year periods. From the beginning of the 14th
century, four representatives of the then districts and six master
craftsmen were consulted, as well as from about 1320 a citizens'
committee consisting of 24, then 42 men.
After 1375, the rule of
the families was abolished by a violent overthrow and the council seats
were occupied by the guilds (until 1802). The council division remained
essentially the same (one "sitting" council and two "common" councils).
Four mayors were elected from the sitting council, along with 14 “four
men” who formed an oversight authority over the entire council. After
1626 the number of councilors was limited (only two mayors, 14 city
councilors and the same three four-man lords per year).
Jurisdiction over life and limb was initially in the hands of the
Reichsvogt, who later appeared as chairman. Jurisdiction was based on
the statutes (from 1219), and from 1567 on the Constitutio Criminalis
Carolina. From 1546 jurisdiction was exclusively in the hands of the
council. The bailiff only participated in the public pronouncement of
the verdict.
The citizenry was initially made up of farmers and
craftsmen who had moved there. An upper class was created by
ministerials who had moved in and merchants who had become rich, who
provided the "consules" and from 1290 gained increasing independence
from the imperial bailiff and mayor. At the beginning of the 14th
century, the petty bourgeoisie and craftsmen tried to gain status and
seats in the council regiments and initially achieved little success
until the violent overthrow of family rule in 1375. From then on, the
guilds exclusively ruled until the end of imperial freedom in 1802.
From 1802 to 1808 a Royal Prussian city director was at the top,
with a mayor and the magistrate under him. Under the French rule of the
Kingdom of Westphalia until 1813, there was a prefect with a mayor,
magistrate and municipal council.
After 1814, the final
integration into the Prussian administration took place with a mayor at
the top and a city council as an elected body. During the National
Socialist period, this system was dissolved with the German Municipal
Code of 1935 in accordance with the principle of the leader. Important
new buildings for the city administration were the town hall (1909) and
the new town hall (1937).
After the end of the Second World War,
the Soviet occupying power re-established the city council with a mayor.
The Council was determined by a National Front unit list in non-free
elections.
After the GDR joined the Federal Republic of Germany
in 1990, the body, initially known as the city council and now as the
city council, was freely elected again. Since 1994, the Lord Mayor has
been directly elected by the citizens for six years. He is both the
chairman of the city council and the chief executive officer of all city
officials, employees and workers. The city also has one full-time and
two honorary deputies, with the former being the deputy mayor at the
same time.
The city's debt level has been declining since 2012 and was still 878 euros per capita at the time. By 2015, per capita debt had fallen to 699 euros. Through key allocations, the city received an amount of 9,701,682 euros in 2017. The trade tax revenue in 2015 was 14,631,684 euros.
The Lord Mayor has been directly elected for a regular six-year term
since 1994.
Since October 2017, the independent Kai Buchmann has
been mayor of the city of Nordhausen. In the run-off election on
September 24, 2017, he prevailed with 66.2% of the valid votes cast,
compared to 33.8% for Inge Klaan (CDU). The turnout was 61.2% and was
the highest since 1994. On that day, in addition to the mayoral
election, the election for the 19th German Bundestag took place. In the
previous mayoral election on September 10, 2017, none of the five
candidates achieved the required absolute majority: Inge Klaan (CDU,
35%), Kai Buchmann (independent, 29.1%), Jutta Krauth (SPD, 18.7%),
Michael Mohr (left, 11.4%), Dirk Erfurt (independent, 5.7%). The turnout
was 44.8%. Buchmann has been temporarily relieved of his duties since
March 31, 2023 and is no longer allowed to conduct official business.
Mayor Alexandra Rieger (SPD) will represent him.
From July 2012
to May 2017, the long-serving Minister of Thuringia, Klaus Zeh (CDU),
was Lord Mayor of Nordhausen. In the run-off election on May 6, 2012, he
defeated Matthias Jendricke (SPD) with 51.1 percent (vote turnout: 39.8
percent). Previously, in the election on April 22, 2012, none of the
candidates had achieved an absolute majority: Klaus Zeh (39.3%),
Matthias Jendricke (37.1%), Hannelore Haase (Linke, 16.8%), Christian
Darr ( Greens, 4.2%), Martin Höfer (FDP, 2.6%). Voter turnout was 44.1%.
After Zeh resigned on May 18, 2017 for health reasons, the office was
temporarily held by Mayor Jutta Krauth (SPD) until October 2017.
The list includes the city's mayors since 1899:
1899-1924: Carl
Contag
1924-1933: Curt Baller
1933-1935: Heinz Sting (NSDAP)
1935-1942: Johannes Meister (NSDAP)
1943-1945: Herbert Meyer (NSDAP)
1945: Otto Flagmeyer (SPD)
1945: Richard Senger (independent)
1945-1946: Karl Schultes (KPD/SED)
1946-1952: Hans Himmler (SED)
1952-1953: Alfred Meyer (SED)
1953-1957: Heinz Andree (SED)
1957-1963: Friedrich Giessner (SED)
1963-1973: Kurt Juch (SED)
1973-1981: Fritz Lande (SED)
1981-1985: Herbert Otto (SED)
1985-1990: Peter Heiter (SED)
1990: Olaf Dittmann (NDPD)
1990-1994: Manfred Schroeter (CDU)
1994-2012: Barbara Rinke (SPD)
2012-2017: Klaus Zeh (CDU)
2017: (acting) Jutta Krauth (SPD)
since
2017: Kai Buchmann (independent)
Nordhausen has been part of the Bundestag constituency 189 since 1990
and has been represented by Direct MP Manfred Grund (CDU) since 1994,
who received 30.2 percent of the votes in the last federal election in
2017 in the city of Nordhausen. Other members of the Bundestag for
Nordhausen are Jürgen Pohl (AfD) and Kersten Steinke (Die Linke), who
were elected via the list.
In the Thuringian state parliament,
which was elected in 2019, Katja Mitteldorf (Die Linke) represents the
city of Nordhausen (see Nordhausen II constituency).
Blazon: "The city of Nordhausen has a full coat of arms, which
consists of a shield, helmet and crest/helmet cover.
Shield: In gold,
a crowned, right-facing black eagle with red tongue and armor.
Upper
coat of arms: Thorn helmet with black and gold helmet covers, on it two
golden buffalo horns, each decorated with six golden three-leaved linden
stalks.
Optionally, only the coat of arms with the eagle can be used
without the upper coat of arms.”
Description: The coat of arms of
Nordhausen shows the imperial eagle and a slanting shield with a richly
decorated helmet. The crest consists of two buffalo horns emerging from
the crown; both are decorated with six linden branches on the outside.
The helmet covers are black and gold.
According to the legend, the
helmet is said to have belonged to the lord of the Schnabelsburg am
Kohnstein. After the castle was built in 1366, he repeatedly attacked
travellers, carters and citizens. The Nordhausen council therefore
decided to lure him into the city on the pretext that they wanted to buy
the Schnabelsburg from him for a handsome price. When the knight arrived
in the city, a troop stormed his castle and burned it down. Furious, he
tried to get out of the city, but was stopped at the city wall. With one
blow his head was cut off and his helmet flew in a wide arc against the
gate of the wall.
Since 2003, the city of Nordhausen has had a
logo with which it presents itself publicly and which is used for city
correspondence. A slogan belongs to the logo: “Nordhausen am Harz | the
new middle |.
Nordhausen maintains town twinning agreements with the following
towns:
Bet Shemesh, Israel (since 1992)
Bet Shemesh near
Jerusalem is the only non-European and at the same time the youngest
town twinning of Nordhausen. Bet Shemesh was the first Israeli city to
have a partner municipality in the New Lands. The partnership was signed
on September 19, 1992 and in November of the same year the first
delegation from Israel arrived in Nordhausen. Since 1993, meetings
between citizens of both cities have taken place on an annual basis.
Among other things, youth exchanges, study and friendship trips and
meetings of local politicians are organised.
Bochum, Germany (since
1990)
Bochum is the largest city with which Nordhausen maintains a
partnership. After the political change, around 30 German cities showed
interest in a town partnership with Nordhausen. The city relationship
was sealed on June 17, 1990 and since then numerous activities have
developed, including administrative assistance, student exchanges and
the founding of associations to promote the partnership. With the help
of the city of Bochum, the second oldest house in Nordhausen at
Rosengasse 55 was restored in 1993 and has been called the "Bochum
house" ever since.
France Charleville-Mézières, France (since 1978)
In 2018 the 40th anniversary of the town twinning was celebrated.
Ostrów Wielkopolski (Ostrowo), Poland (since 1995)
Since January 21,
2004, there has been a town alliance with neighboring Sondershausen
(Kyffhäuser district) and since December 11, 2008, there has been a town
cooperation with neighboring Sangerhausen (Mansfeld-Südharz district).
The city has had market rights since 962. The economic development of
Nordhausen was initially based on agriculture and on the exchange of own
handicraft products in the market with the surrounding area and the
hinterland. The beer brewing trade, which was regulated in 1308 and
privileged in 1386 as an export factor, brought the first germs of an
industry. Attempts to make viticulture domestic failed at the beginning
of the 16th century, instead, from 1507 onwards, the distillery (rye)
grew into an extremely important branch of the economy.
Distilleries and breweries remained domestic industries up until the
Thirty Years' War (there were over 100 Nordhäuser breweries in 1612),
after which the grain trade dominated urban economic life until the end
of the 18th century. In 1750, 400 to 600 wagons loaded with fruit were
counted on market days, the shipment from Thuringia alone amounted to
700,000 bushels a year. At the same time, the brandy distillery
developed into an independent industry. Tobacco processing in Nordhausen
has been documented since 1721, in particular the manufacture of chewing
tobacco, which ceased after 1945.
After the heavy air raids on
Nordhausen in 1945 and the destruction of numerous businesses, the
city's economy was on the ground. Under the Soviet occupation, the
surviving companies, facilities and institutions, the reconstruction of
the infrastructure and vital objects and facilities were pushed.
Production was concentrated in just a few branches of industry
(mechanical and automotive engineering, electronic industry, mining and
the building materials industry). In the years that followed, the
companies were gradually nationalized. Some companies went to the
western occupation zones with some of their employees and made a fresh
start. The relatively quick reconstruction and recovery process of
Nordhausen's industry meant that the city was of great importance for
the entire southern Harz region and, in the early 1960s, also for the
district of Erfurt, and regained its position as the economic center of
northern Thuringia that it had before 1945. With around 25,000
employees, Nordhausen was the second largest business location in the
Erfurt district in the mid-1980s. The economy was characterized by a
concentration of production essential to the country, such as
telephones, engines for trucks, excavators, alcohol and cigarette
production.
After reunification, a process of reprofiling and
structural change began in the Nordhausen economy. Most of the companies
were privatized or reprivatized; Radical job cuts, especially in the
leading companies, took place as a result of restructuring. After the
renovation of the IFA industrial park, around 45 new companies settled
on the site of the former IFA engine factory. New commercial areas were
created, especially in the south of the city. The industry structure is
widely diversified and exclusively characterized by medium-sized
companies.
Brandy production has a long tradition in Nordhausen. It was first
mentioned in a document in 1507, when the city began to tax the
production of spirits and thus introduced the first spirits tax in
Germany. In 1545, grain distillery in Nordhausen was banned because of
bad harvests and the threat of famine; In 1570 the city allowed grain
burning again. Something similar happened a few more times over the next
few centuries (including during the world wars). After the Thirty Years'
War, the schnapps distillery achieved national importance; the so-called
Nordhäuser Korn brought the town back to wealth. In 1726, 1.3 million
liters of brandy were produced annually in 69 distilleries. A little
later, in the middle of the 18th century, the number of distilleries
reached its maximum of 100. In 1775 the council issued a ban on
emigration for Brenner.
In 1789, a purity law was laid down for
the ingredients of Nordhäuser Korn: at least two-thirds rye and a
maximum of one-third barley malt. In 1795, the entire area between the
Rhine and Elbe was supplied with Nordhäuser Doppelkorn. However, when
the Prussian state began to promote the production of brandy from
potatoes in 1819, many distilleries in Nordhausen added potato spirit to
the grain.
In April 1945 all distilleries were destroyed or
damaged during the bombing of the city. As early as 1948, 200,000 liters
of brandy were produced again. In 1949, when the GDR was founded,
associations of state-owned companies (VVB) were formed across the
country. The VEB Nordbrand pushed out the remaining distilleries in the
following years. From 1961, Nordhäuser Korn was also exported to West
Germany. At the end of the 1960s, more than 10 million liters of spirits
were produced annually in the company. This corresponded to 15% of GDR
spirits production. Korn production in Nordhausen reached its peak in
1986, when 60 million liters of brandy were produced annually. After the
political change in 1989/90 grain production halved. In 1991 the company
was taken over by Eckes AG, which made it easier to market the product
throughout Germany. In February 1994 work began on converting the former
museum of the history of the Nordhausen distillery into a working
technical monument with its own right to distill 103,500 liters of pure
alcohol. The spirits produced there are so rare that they cannot be sold
everywhere in supermarkets, but can only be obtained in a few liquor
stores.
Because of its chewing tobacco factory G. A. Hanewacker (founded in
1817), Nordhausen was considered the center of chewing tobacco
production in Germany. Grimm & Triepel Kruse-Kautabak, founded in
Nordhausen in 1849, was the last manufacturer of chewing tobacco in the
country until it was dissolved in December 2016.
"Montania AG
formerly Gerlach & König" has been building locomotives with internal
combustion engines since 1907. In 1912, Montania was taken over by the
mechanical engineering company Orenstein & Koppel and renamed "Orenstein
& Koppel AG - Nordhausen". Up to 1935, 5,299 locomotives were
manufactured, up to the last delivery in 1942 a total of 9,371 units,
probably including the class 50 of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and the class
52 wartime locomotive. After the end of the war, locomotive construction
in Nordhausen was not resumed.
From 1925 to 1935, small cars were
built in the Rudolf Weide vehicle factory.
In the days of the
GDR, cable and hydraulic excavators, among other things, were
manufactured at VEB Schwermaschinenbau NOBAS Nordhausen. The company was
taken over by GP Günter Papenburg AG in the 1990s and operates as its
business unit GP Papenburg Maschinenbau GmbH (previously (1998-2015):
HBM-Nobas). Motor graders, components for construction machinery and
cable excavators are mainly manufactured. Engines for the W 50 and L 60
trucks were also built in the Nordhausen engine plant during the GDR
era. After privatization, the company was able to survive until 1996 and
has been insolvent ever since. The company premises were renovated by
the LEG-Thüringen and now houses the company BBM
Laserapplicationstechnik GmbH. The largest drilling company in Germany
at the time, H. Anger's Söhne, relocated to Hessisch Lichtenau in 1952.
The VEB Hydrogeologie was established on the premises.
Schachtbau
Nordhausen GmbH is internationally active, mainly in bridge
construction. Founded in 1898 as Gebhardt & Koenig, it went through
several renamings and changes of name, partly due to historical events,
until it was incorporated into Bauer AG in 1992.
Well-known is
Nordbrand Nordhausen GmbH, which developed from the former East German
company VEB Nordbrand Nordhausen and has belonged to the
Rotkäppchen-Mumm Sektkellereien since 2007.
The city of
Nordhausen is not only a center for industry, but also for retail, and
the many small craft and commercial businesses play a major role in the
city. Since February 2014, the city has had two shopping centers. In
addition to the Südharzgalerie on Bahnhofstrasse, there is another
shopping center in the upper town called Echte Nordhäuser Marktpassage.
The retail spectrum ranges from large department stores and discount
chains to small specialist retailers. Nordhausen is also the seat of the
Nordthüringer Volksbank eG and the Kreissparkasse Nordhausen. The
establishment of the technical college has also given rise to innovative
new companies in Nordhausen, some of which were spin-offs from the
college.
As of June 30, 2018, there were 22,106 jobs subject to social security contributions in Nordhausen and 15,586 residents of the city were employed subject to social security contributions. There were 11,683 commuters compared to 5,180 commuters. The average unemployment rate in 2017 was 9.4 percent (1925 people). In September 2018, 3,427 people were dependent on benefits to supplement their livelihood under SGB II ("Hartz IV").
The Halle–Hann railway line meets at the Nordhausen traffic junction. Münden, the Northeim–Nordhausen railway and the Wolkramshausen–Erfurt railway. In addition to several regional train lines, fast regional express trains run every hour to Halle Hauptbahnhof and Leinefelde and every two hours to Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe. The connection to the west via the Südharzbahn takes place every hour. No long-distance trains stop in Nordhausen. In the immediate vicinity, Nordhausen Nord station has also been the southern terminus of the meter-gauge Harzquerbahn (HSB) from Wernigerode since 1898. The Stadtwerke subsidiary Verkehrsbetriebe Nordhausen is responsible for public transport in Nordhausen. This operates three tram lines and eight city bus lines. Since 2004, the Nordhausen tram and Harzquerbahn tracks have been connected at Nordhausen Nord station. Since then, trams with hybrid drives have been running continuously as line 10 from the hospital in the center of Nordhausen to the neighboring town of Ilfeld.
The city lies on the A 38 Autobahn, which leads from the A 7 near Göttingen to Leipzig. The exits run via junctions 10 "Werther" (from the west), 11 "Nordhausen", 12 "Heringen" (from the east). Several federal highways lead through Nordhausen. The B 4 (A 36/A 369) connects the towns of Bad Harzburg with Erfurt. The former B 80 was downgraded to state road 3080. The former B 243 has also become Kreisstraße 28.
Nordhausen airfield is located between Nordhausen and the district of Bielen. It is suitable for gliders and small motorized aircraft with take-off and landing weights of up to 7.5 t. The nearest international airports are Erfurt-Weimar Airport, around 60 km away, Leipzig/Halle Airport, 100 km away, and Hanover Airport, 130 km away.
Two long-distance hiking trails lead through the urban area. The Kaiserweg is a thematic long-distance hiking trail with a length of 110 km, which leads from Goslar and Bad Harzburg on the northern edge of the Harz Mountains via Walkenried and Nordhausen to Tilleda am Kyffhäuser. The karst hiking trail is 233.2 km long and runs along the south side of the Harz along the central German karst landscape through the three districts of Mansfeld-Südharz, Nordhausen and Göttingen.
The first written mention of a school dates back to 1220. In the
1880s, Nordhausen was the only town in the province of Saxony, along
with Halle, to have two municipal higher boys' schools. As a large
district town, Nordhausen has its own school sponsorship for primary and
regular schools. The grammar schools located in the city (Humboldt and
Herder grammar schools as well as the vocational grammar school
belonging to the vocational training center) are sponsored by the
district of Nordhausen. The Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences
was founded in 1997.
There are a total of eight elementary
schools, four regular schools, two high schools, three vocational
schools and two special needs schools. This educational offer is
expanded by the district music school, the district adult education
center (KVHS), the district and city archives as well as the library of
the Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences and the city library
"Rudolf Hagelstange".
A daily newspaper is represented in Nordhausen with the local
editorial office of the Thüringer Allgemeine. The two
advertising-financed newspapers Nordhäuser Wochenchronik and Allgemeine
Anzeiger appear weekly. Both are free and are distributed by mail and
through retail outlets. There is also the news website NNZ-Online (Neue
Nordhäuser Zeitung), founded in 2000, which is also financed by
advertisements.
The Northäusische Adlers Relation is attested as
the first newspaper for 1690. From 1766 the Nordhäusisches
Intelligenceblatt was published with changing titles, most recently as a
circular and news sheet until 1851. From 1848 the new Nordhäuser
intelligence sheet was published, from 1858 until it was discontinued in
1943 under the name Nordhäuser Zeitung. Other Nordhausen newspapers
were:
(New) circular and news bulletin since 1855, as Nordhäuser
Courier until 1896
Nordhäuser Post 1896, since 1905 as Allgemeine
Zeitung until 1938
Nordhäuser Volksblatt 1890-1897
Nordhäuser
Volkszeitung 1906-1933
Thuringian Gauzeitung 1937, local edition
Nordhausen until 1945
The people 1946, local edition Nordhausen until
1990 (successor Thüringer Allgemeine)
In June 2000, the Offene
Kanal Nordhausen (OKN) was founded, which was renamed Radio Enno in
January 2016.
The local history website NordhausenWiki was
launched in 2012 and has developed into the largest regional wiki in
Thuringia.
Nordhausen is the seat of several public institutions, also of
national importance.
The District Court of Nordhausen is
subordinate to the District Court of Mühlhausen as part of the ordinary
jurisdiction. In addition, there is a labor court and a social court in
Nordhausen.
The Nordhausen state police station is the
northernmost of a total of seven state police stations run by the
Thuringian police. The protected area includes the districts of
Nordhausen, Kyffhäuser, Eichsfeld and Unstrut-Hainich (approx. 400,000
inhabitants in total). One of the three Thuringian motorway police
stations (AS) is also based in Nordhausen. The State Police Inspectorate
is located in a former barracks area on Darrweg. The buildings of the
barracks were supplemented by new buildings at the end of the 1990s.
Nursing facilities in Nordhausen have been documented since the 13th
century, such as the Sankt Georg Hospital (1289), the Sankt Martin
Hospital (1389) and the Sankt Elisabeth Hospital (1436).
In May
1888, the district hospital in Nordhausen am Taschenberg was inaugurated
with 28 sick rooms and 103 beds; An extension followed in 1913. The
building was destroyed during the air raids on Nordhausen on 3/4.
Destroyed April 1945.
Today's Südharz Klinikum Nordhausen is the
largest hospital in northern Thuringia with around 1900 employees. The
foundation stone for the building complex to the west of the
"Rosengarten" in the Nordhausen-Nord district was laid in 1976. Plans
for a large new hospital building on this site date back to the late
1930s, but construction was postponed in 1939 due to the outbreak of
war. When it went into operation in 1981/82, 850 beds were available. In
1982 the children's hospital with 135 beds and the polyclinic were
attached. In 1983 the hospital was given the name “Maxim Zetkin”, and in
1991 it was renamed “Südharz-Krankenhaus Nordhausen”. Since January 1,
1992, the hospital has existed as a non-profit limited company with the
district and city of Nordhausen as shareholders. A rescue helicopter has
been stationed on the site since October 1992. In the years that
followed, the hospital was expanded to include a ward block, among other
things. In 1999, the Südharz Hospital received first prize for the most
environmentally friendly hospital in a national comparison. The clinic
serves as a teaching hospital for the Jena University Clinic and the
Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg. According to its own
information, more than 31,000 patients are treated every year.
The water features of Nordhausen are among the "Seven Wonders of
Nordhausen". Up until the early 1970s, the city's water supply came from
nine public fountains and two fountains, the "Upper Art" and the "Lower
Art". The Oberkunst im Altendorf (today Altendorfer Kirchgasse 5), which
was laid out in 1546 by Hans Saxner from Niedersachswerfen and expanded
by Peter Günther from Halle in 1598, lifted the water from the
artificial ditch derived from the Zorge 52 meters up into the reservoir
on the Geiersberg, the so-called "scooper". From there the water ran
down its own gradient in wooden pipes to the individual water features
and gutter flushers. The Unterkunst was at the foot of the St. John's
Steps, was also created by Peter Günther in 1598 and drove the water
taken from the mill race 44 meters high into a reservoir attached to the
Neuen-Weg-Tor and was removed in March 1837.
In contrast to the
service water supply, the city's drinking water supply was largely
provided by natural springs. Such a spring was in the Rumbach (today
"Vor dem Vogel"), and the water from the Elisabeth fountain
(Elisabethstrasse) was considered the best in the city. In addition, the
"Tröppelbörchen" in Grimmel, below the water staircase, was very
popular; this fountain was removed around 1900. The "Judenbrunnen" or
"Wolfsbrunnen" (created around 1240) in the former Jüdenstraße and the
"Frankenborn" in Barfusserstraße were considered the oldest fountains in
Nordhausen. A very old fountain also seems to have stood in the royal
court; In 1434 the production of a new well is mentioned in a document.
Furthermore, there were at least seven public fountains since the
15th/16th Century existed and were removed or filled in in the 1890s.
In 1874 the city acquired the water works completed in 1873 by the
Neptun company. The Neustadt dam was built in 1904/1905.
The professional fire brigade and the volunteer fire brigades ensure
fire protection and general help in Nordhausen.
The technical
relief organization Ortsverband Nordhausen is also available for larger
operations.
The first well-known personality in the city was Gerberga, daughter
of King Henry I. Her mother was Mathilde, who founded a monastery in 961
next to the castle built by Henry I. The Roman-German Empress Beatrix of
Swabia married and died in Nordhausen.
Justus Jonas, born in
Nordhausen, paved the way for the Reformation. Other well-known
reformers were Johann Spangenberg and the mayor of Nordhausen, Michael
Meyenburg.
Important humanities scholars were Wilhelm Gesenius
and Friedrich Christian Lesser. In the 19th century the politician
Albert Traeger, the first kindergarten teacher Ida Seele and the
democrat, theologian and founder of the German vegetarian movement
Eduard Baltzer worked in the city. The mathematician Oswald Teichmüller
became known worldwide. Joachim Raack was a judge at the Federal Social
Court.
Honorary citizenship has been awarded in Nordhausen since 1865. Since then, 26 people have received this highest honor in the city. Four people are currently honorary citizens of Nordhausen: since 2004 Andreas Lesser, the founder and board member of the Friedrich Christian Lesser Foundation; since 2009 the provost (retired) Joachim Jaeger. In 2010, Lothar de Maizière, who was born in Nordhausen and was the last prime minister of the German Democratic Republic, became an honorary citizen of the city; in 2013 the writer Erika Schirmer.
The Nordhausen coinage history goes back to the 12th century; There
is evidence that a mint had been active in Nordhausen since at least
1130. Coinage in Nordhausen ended in 1685. To celebrate the millennium
in 1927, the Reich Ministry of Finance approved the issue of a
marketable 3-mark commemorative coin with a mintage of 100,000 pieces.
The Nordhausen was a Mercator-type cargo ship commissioned in 1976.
The Schöner apple variety from Nordhausen was put on the market in 1892.
The Nordhausen/Hesseröder Berg transmitter is a transmitter near
Hesserod. The Nordhäuser Dam is a dam near Neustadt/Harz. The name of a
shrub rose bred by Max Krause from Nordhausen in 1940 is Nordhausen, and
the name of an album by the synth-pop band And One is also Nordhausen.
The vitriol process is the oldest process for the production of sulfuric
acid. From the 16th century the demand for sulfuric acid increased,
which is why the vitriol process was used on an industrial scale and the
product was given the name Nordhäuser Vitriol after the focus of
production in Nordhausen.