Osnabrück is a city in Lower Saxony and the seat of the district of
Osnabrück. The independent city is a regional center in Lower Saxony and
the center of the Osnabrück region. With around 170,000 inhabitants
(169,108 according to the municipal register), it is one of the four
largest cities in Lower Saxony, alongside the similarly sized Oldenburg
and the larger cities of Hanover and Braunschweig, making it the largest
Westphalian city on Lower Saxony soil. The approximately 28,000
university and college students make up around 14% of the total
population.
The city arose in the early Middle Ages around the
bishopric of the diocese of Osnabrück, founded in 780, which lay at a
junction of old trade routes. In the late Middle Ages and the early
modern period, Osnabrück was a Hanseatic city, more precisely a
principal city of the Westphalian quarter of the Hanseatic League.
Osnabrück, together with Münster, which is about 50 km away, also became
known as the place where the Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648
determine the cultural and political life in the city. This should also
be made clear by the slogan Osnabrück - The City of Peace, which z. B.
used in the corporate design of the city of Osnabrück.
After the
Congress of Vienna, a "dewestfalization" began in Osnabrück and the
surrounding area (see History of Westphalia). However, the Westphalian
character of Osnabrück can still be clearly seen in the standard German
spoken by the local population, in the architecture in and around
Osnabrück and in the regional cuisine (see Westphalian cuisine).
Osnabrück is still at the intersection of important European economic
axes. As a result, the city developed into a logistics center. In
addition, an important car, metal and paper industry has settled.
By plane
The nearest airport (approx. 30 km away in Greven) is
Münster Osnabrück Airport (IATA: FMO). Lufthansa flies several times a
day from Munich and Frankfurt am Main, AIS Airlines from Stuttgart.
Osnabrück can be reached from Münster/Osnabrück Airport via the A 1
and A 30 motorways. There are several well-known car rental companies at
the airport. A direct bus connection between the airport and Osnabrück
was discontinued in March 2023, since then there have only been
connections with changes (e.g. hourly by bus line S50/D50 to Ibbenbüren
and from there by train (RE 60/RB 61) to Osnabrück).
By train
Two main railway lines meet at Osnabrück Central Station, the
north-south connection Basel - Hamburg and the east-west connection
Berlin - Amsterdam. Osnabrück is thus excellently connected to the
international railway network. Osnabrück main station is mostly
barrier-free. There is direct access to the train tracks from the
adjacent parking garage.
Direct local trains follow
Wilhelmshaven (RE 18),
Bremen (RE 9 and RB 58),
Bielefeld (RB 61
and RB 75),
Braunschweig via Hanover (RE 60),
Münster (Westphalia)
(RE 2 and RB 66),
Dusseldorf via Essen (RE 2),
Rheine (RE 60 and
RB 61) and
Bad Bentheim (RB 61).
Due to the almost
right-angled crossing of the railway lines, Osnabrück main station is
the only tower station in Lower Saxony.
Regional trains towards
Oldenburg (RE 18), Bremen/Vechta (RB 58) and from the routes Bad
Bentheim - Osnabrück - Bielefeld and Rheine - Osnabrück - Hanover -
Braunschweig also stop at the 2nd stop "Osnabrück Altstadt", which is
barrier-free.
By bus
Coaches stop next to the train station,
somewhat hidden on Eisenbahnstraße. Flixbus as well as lines to Eastern
Europe drive here. With the bus companies Sindbad, Zawadzkie or
Eurolines you can travel cheaply to Poland, but also to countries that
used to belong to Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union.
In the street
In Osnabrück, environmental zones have been set up in accordance with
the Fine Dust Ordinance. If you don't have the appropriate badge, you
risk a fine of €100 when entering an environmental zone. This also
applies to foreign road users. Date of the measure: 03.01.2012
Entry
ban for vehicles of pollutant groups 1+2+3 (Info Federal Environment
Agency)
Coming from the Ruhr area and northern Germany, Osnabrück
is best reached via the A1, from Amsterdam and Hanover via the A30, and
from Bielefeld via the A33. Other important trunk roads are the B51
(Stuhr - Sarreguemines) and the B68 (Cloppenburg-Stapelfeld -
Warburg-Scherfede).
The exemplary Osnabrück parking guidance
system shows the direct way to all free parking spaces in the city.
By boat
From the Mittelland Canal (at km 30.4) a branch canal
leads directly to Osnabrück. Osnabrück can be reached by private boats
via this canal (several locks).
The Hase, which flows through
Osnabrück, is a suitable area for water hikes.
By bicycle
The
EuroVelo 3 (corresponds to the cycle route D7) leads on its way from
Flensburg via Bremen through Osnabrück and on via Münster and Cologne to
Aachen.
The following cycle routes also lead through Osnabrück:
the bridge cycle path Osnabrück - Bremen
the Hase-Ems Tour
the
Lower Saxony mill route
On foot
Hikers on the European
long-distance hiking trail E11 also come through Osnabrück.
By bus
Osnabrück has a well-developed bus network, in addition to
the city buses, there are buses to the surrounding area. Many places in
the Osnabrücker Land and Münsterland can be reached with these lines -
also across the state border to North Rhine-Westphalia. Within the city,
buses run every ten minutes on main lines and every twenty minutes on
secondary lines during the day. Many lines run through the main station,
but the central hub is Neumarkt. At weekends, hourly night buses depart
from the Kamp-Promenade stop, not far from Neumarkt, at 1:00 a.m., 2:05
a.m. and 3:10 a.m., with different routes to the daytime bus lines. The
bus lines are operated by Stadtwerke Osnabrück, Weser-Ems-Bus and other
companies in the Osnabrück Transport Community. More information at
vos.info or in the mobility center of Stadtwerke Osnabrück on Neumarkt.
Mobility Center Neumarkt (Stadtwerke Osnabrück), Neumarkt 9-10,
49074 Osnabrück. Phone: +49 (0)541 2002-2211. Open: Mon-Fri 9am-5pm.
The buses are not always on time, which the bus companies honestly
admit. It must be due to the many construction sites and heavy traffic.
But: Some buses, especially in regional traffic, even leave too early.
On foot
The city center is clear and can be visited on foot. The
pedestrian zone, with numerous branches, stretches from Neumarkt to the
historic old town. Even if you get lost in the city center, you will
eventually always end up on the wide ring road (Wall).
By bicycle
If you want to see something more than just the city center, you can
also do this by bike. Despite the (still) poor infrastructure and the
hilly urban area, the bicycle is becoming more and more popular as a
means of transport in Osnabrück.
Most major roads have bike lanes
or bike lanes on the carriageway, but these are often built to old
standards and are therefore very narrow. There have been accidents
involving cars at some intersections in recent decades, in which
cyclists have been killed or seriously injured. As a reaction, the city
has discovered the expansion of cycle paths for itself in recent years,
which was also promoted by a referendum. Several dangerous spots have
been defused (also at the expense of car lanes) and some streets
including the wall ring are to be made bike-friendly. Wherever possible,
it is nevertheless recommended to turn to quieter side streets or to
green areas such as the riverside path along the Hase.
Bicycles
can be parked, repaired, washed and rented for a fee at the bike station
that opened in April 2023 at the main train station.
Radstation
Osnabrück Hbf, Theodor-Heuss-Platz 10, 49074 Osnabrück (In the basement
of the station garage, accessible via Theodor-Heuss-Platz (station
forecourt) and also within walking distance via platform 1). Phone: +49
(0)541 80 06 70 65, email: info@radstation-osnabrueck.de. Open: Mon-Fri
5 a.m. to 11 p.m., Sat, Sun and public holidays 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.
The rental fee for a bicycle is €9 per calendar day or €42.50 per
week and for an e-bike €25 per calendar day or €130 per week.
The Osnabrück town hall is the symbol of the city. It was completed
in late Gothic style in 1512 after 25 years of construction. In this
town hall, next to the Münster town hall, the Peace of Westphalia was
negotiated in 1648. Today, 42 portrait paintings of the rulers and
European envoys from that time hang in the Hall of Peace. A replica of
the 1648 peace treaty can be seen in the treasury.
The Osnabrück
Castle in baroque style dates from the second half of the 17th century.
It was the residence of the Protestant Prince Bishop Ernst August I of
Brunswick-Lüneburg and his wife Sophie von der Pfalz. The palace was
destroyed down to the outer walls in World War II and rebuilt after the
end of the war. It served as a teacher training college from 1953 and
has been the seat of the University of Osnabrück since 1974. The palace
park to the south is modeled on Versailles and was restored between 1966
and 1969.
The Bucksturm was built at the beginning of the 13th
century as a watchtower on the city wall. In the Middle Ages the town
prison was housed in the tower. In addition, during the witch hunts in
the 16th and 17th centuries, the function of a torture chamber was
added.
The appearance of today's Heger Tor is reminiscent of a
fortification. The original fortifications, consisting of a tower, gate,
bastion, kennel and passage, were largely demolished around 1815. The
Waterloo Gate was built here in 1817, two years after most of the actual
fortifications had been demolished. It commemorates the Osnabrück
warriors of the King's German Legion who fought at the Battle of
Waterloo. The gate was donated by Gerhard Friedrich von Gülich, who
commissioned Johann Christian Sieckmann to design the gate. It bears the
inscription "The Osnabrück warriors, who showed German courage at
Waterloo on June 18, 1815, dedicated this monument to G. F. v. Gülich
D.R.D.R.”. On the gate there is a viewing platform from which you can
look over the roofs of the old town. The platform can be reached via
ramps and stairs. The square around Waterloo Gate is still called
Heger's Gate today, as it marks the entrance from the Old Town into the
Heger Laischaft.
In contrast to the cathedral, the Church of St.
Mary was the church of the citizens. Based on burials that took place
around 800, it is assumed that there was a previous wooden building on
the current site. However, this is not proven. In the 10th/11th In the
19th century, a single-nave hall with a tower was built, which was
extended by the two side aisles as early as the 13th century. In the
first half of the 15th century the choir and choir vault were added.
Since the 13th century it has been rebuilt in the style of a Gothic hall
church. Even today, this appearance is characteristic of the Osnabrück
market square, since the church forms an architectural unit with the
town hall and the city scales. Inside are the triumphal cross from the
13th century and the main altar, which was made in Antwerp between 1510
and 1515. In the ambulatory gravestones are embedded in the ground,
including the gravestone of Justus Möser, an important Osnabrück
statesman and lawyer. The 79 meter high tower can be climbed over 190
steps and offers a view over Osnabrück. The copper spire, which was
completely destroyed in World War II, was rebuilt in the early 1960s.
St. Peter's Cathedral was consecrated in 785 at the current
location. The current building was built between 1218 and 1277. The
cathedral church was built in the late Romanesque style. The cathedral
originally had twin towers, but the north-west tower was replaced by a
thicker Gothic tower in the 15th century. Inside there is a bronze
baptismal font from 1225 and a large triumphal cross, made towards the
end of the 12th century. With a height of almost six meters and a body
length of 3.80 meters, it is one of the largest of its kind in Europe.
From 1210 to 1233, the hermit Reiner von Osnabrück, who came from
Groningen and was later canonized, lived near the cathedral. The statue
of the lion poodle stands in front of the cathedral.
The
monasteries founded in the Middle Ages include the Gertrudenberg
Monastery and the Dominican Monastery of the Holy Cross. They were
abolished in 1803 as part of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss and the
buildings that have survived to this day were used for other purposes.
The construction time of the Pernickel Tower is unknown. It was
first mentioned in the first half of the 13th century and served as a
watchtower and to protect the Pernickel mill, as can be seen from the
loopholes. The tower has been used as a residential building since the
19th century, which is why its interior no longer corresponds to the
original. The Pernickelmühle was destroyed in 1891 and rebuilt shortly
thereafter on the other bank of the Hase.
Another tower of the
historic city fortifications is the Bürgergehorsam, built at the
beginning of the 16th century.
The building epoch of classicism
began in 1785 with the completion of the prince-bishop's office. The
Tenge residential and commercial building and the building at Große
Straße 43 are also classicist buildings.
Gertrudenkirche of the former monastery Gertrudenberg
churches
St. Peter's Cathedral (Osnabrück), see above
Catholic parish
church of St. John
Catherine Church
Luther Church
Melanchthon church
St Joseph
St. John
citizen well
Romanesque stone works Dielinger Straße, Bierstraße and Ledenhof
Krahnstrasse 4, the oldest half-timbered house in town
Former
buildings in Osnabrück are the Petersburg Fortress and the Old Town
Hall, which was demolished in 1836.
One of the best-known monuments in Osnabrück is the Haarmannsbrunnen
on Herrenteichswall. The steelworks director and senator August Haarmann
donated the fountain in 1909 to commemorate the miner's profession. The
fountain with the bronze sculpture of a miner, which is slightly larger
than life, is often incorrectly associated in Osnabrück with the
Piesberg mine accident of 1893, in which several miners died when water
ingressed during coal mining on the Piesberg.
The
Ebert-Erzberger-Rathenau memorial on Herrenteichswall commemorates the
three important politicians of the Weimar Republic. The abstractly
designed memorial sculpture symbolizes democracy and is probably the
only memorial in Germany that honors these three personalities. In 1928,
when the monument was erected, there were protests from the political
right, and on May 15, 1933 the sculpture was removed by SA members. It
was only rebuilt by the city in the early 1980s. A scroll of
inscriptions, which a courageous citizen secretly secured when the
monument was demolished, was integrated into the sculpture when it was
restored.
The memorial on Straßburger Platz, designed by the city
master builder Emil Hackländer (1830-1902), is dedicated to the memory
of those who died in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1871 from the
Principality of Osnabrück. It was built on the Neumarkt in 1880 and
moved to Straßburger Platz in the Westerberg district in 1928. The
allegorical Germania sculpture was melted down during World War II. With
the sculpture "The protective torsion" based on a design by students of
the Ratsgymnasium, it is now setting a monument to Franco-German
friendship.
The palace gardens were laid out in the 17th century and largely
designed by Sophie von der Pfalz. Today it is a popular meeting point in
the city centre.
The oldest public park in the city of Osnabrück is
the Bürgerpark on the Gertrudenberg north-east of the old town with
valuable old trees. The signage on the trees gives the Bürgerpark the
character of an arboretum.
Since 1984, the University of Osnabrück
has been running the 5.6-hectare Osnabrück Botanical Garden in an old
quarry on the Westerberg.
In the southwest of the Eversburg district
or on the border between Atter and Westerberg there is a large local
recreation area with the Rubbenbruchsee.
Since the decommissioning of
the local landfill site in 2005, the former colliery site of Piesberg
has been gradually expanded into a cultural and landscape park.
Along
the rivers Hase, Nette and Düte there are green areas that are used for
local recreation. There is a system of riverside paths for pedestrians
and cyclists along the Hase River within the city limits.
The
Herrenteichswall, a preserved section of the historic city wall, with a
listed avenue of winter linden trees, is also located on the Hase in the
city centre.
Zoological Garden
Osnabrück Zoo is located in the
Schölerberg district. This was opened in 1936 as a home zoo and is now
the largest zoo in Lower Saxony in terms of area and visitor numbers.
The zoo is located in the forest area on the Schölerberg mountain of the
same name. As a result of intensive construction and renovation work in
recent years, the zoo has been redesigned to be barrier-free and
animal-friendly with high-altitude paths and new animal areas. The
number of visitors has been at just over a million visitors a year for
several years.
Historical cemeteries are the Johannisfriedhof and the Hasefriedhof.
Both cemeteries were created in 1808 and were then located outside the
city for hygienic reasons; the Hasefriedhof in front of the Hasetor and
the Johannisfriedhof on Iburger Straße. A decree issued by King Jérôme
Bonaparte in 1808 prohibited inner-city burials.
A tour of the
oldest sections reveals that the burials are predominantly of members of
wealthy, long-established families buried along the walls. Inside, the
socially disadvantaged found their final resting place.
The
oldest gate of the Hasefriedhof shows a symbol typical of the early 19th
century: two childlike figures on the gate pillars, genies as symbols of
death and sleep. The floral design of the stones should also be
emphasized - as a profound symbol, for example poppy seed capsules as a
symbol of eternal sleep, wine as the blood of Christ. The last burial
took place in 1995.
Both the Hase and the majority of the
Johannisfriedhof have now been deconsecrated as cemeteries and are
available as green spaces. The historic graves and facilities are still
under monument protection and should be preserved.
theatre
Osnabrück has several theaters.
The Theater Osnabrück
has the divisions music theater, drama, dance theater and theater for
children and young people. The main venue is the Theater am Domhof, next
to it there is the smaller Emma Theater on Lotter Straße.
The
rehearsal stage is Osnabrück's first amateur theater with its own venue
in the Commandery Church
The first untidy room theater is located in
a courtyard on Lohstrasse
The figure theater Osnabrück is located in
the "Alten Fuhrhalterei" in the old town.
The theater association
Ostsensibles performs English-language theatre.
The theater education
workshop offers prevention programs for children and young people.
choirs
Bach Choir Osnabrück e. V
Caroline cantat
Female
Choir Viva la Musica e. V
Johannis Choir e. V
Marienkantorei
Osnabrueck
Original Osnabrück windjammer shanty choir
Osnabrück
Cathedral Choir
Osnabrück Youth Choir e. V
Vocal Consort Osnabrück
e. V
music clubs
Alando Palace
Bastard Club
blue note
bridges
Hyde park
Little freedom
cubic club
NEO Club &
Cuisine
Rosenhof
sundeck
Virage discotheque
Works
52°
Club
The Ocambo Club, which existed from 1959 to 1969, is considered
the first German nightclub.
cultural centers
Warehouse
Osnabrueck
Self-governing center SubstAnZ on Frankenstraße
OsnabrückHalle (formerly "Stadthalle Osnabrück")
Freiraum Petersburg
e. V., also known as a cultural protection area, operates an independent
cultural center at the former goods station. The association now also
has premises on the site of the former Winkelhausen barracks at the
port.
In addition to the cultural sites mentioned above, there are
several urban youth and community centers in Osnabrück in various parts
of the city, including the Haus der Jugend in the city center, the
community centers at Ziegenbrink and Lerchenstrasse, the Ostbunker and
Westwerk youth centers and the Heinz-Fitschen-Haus.
The Museum Quarter Osnabrück (MQ4) at Heger-Tor-Wall/Lotter Straße
includes:
Felix Nussbaum House
Cultural History Museum Osnabrück
Villa Schlicker
excise house
Further:
Cathedral Treasury in
the Diocesan Museum
Erich Maria Remarque Peace Center
Kunsthalle
Osnabrueck
Museum on the Schölerberg: nature and environment,
planetarium
Museum of Industrial Culture at Piesberg
Museum for
field-gauge industrial railways Osnabrück-Piesberg
Cinema Arthouse - Five screen multiplex cinema
Hall of Fame
Osnabrück (formerly Cinestar-Filmpalast and UFA-Palast) - multiplex
cinema with seven screens
Filmtheater Hasetor – art and program
cinema with one screen
Film screenings also take place regularly in
the cinema in the warehouse and, thanks to the Uni-Film initiative, in a
university lecture hall.
stumbling blocks
In December 2006,
the city council of Osnabrück decided to adopt the idea of the Cologne
artist Gunter Demnig to lay stumbling blocks. They are intended to
commemorate the victims of the National Socialist dictatorship and are
laid in front of their former homes or workplaces. This project has been
implemented since November 15, 2007 and by November 2017 284 stumbling
blocks had been laid.
January: Hand Poison Day
February: Osnabrück Meal, the green
cabbage meal of the gentlemen of the Osnabrück Tourist Office (since
1954)
Saturday before Shrove Monday: Ossensamstag (large carnival
parade with around 100,000 visitors).
Before Easter: spring fair at
the Gartlage hall
Before Easter: Osnabrück Chamber Music Days
April: European Media Art Festival
April–May: Osnabrück Stock
Exchange and major exchange day for stamps and coins (OsnabrückHalle)
May: May week and Hasestrasse festival in the city centre
May: Gay in
May – gay and lesbian culture days
May and September: large night
flea market (Saturday evening to Sunday afternoon) in the city center on
one of the first weekends
Summer: cultural nights, Osnabrück folk,
rifle and homeland festival
June: Africa Festival (every two years)
End of June, beginning of July: International motorcycle grass track
race on the Nahner Waldbahn in Osnabrück-Nahne
July: St. John's
Street Festival
June–August: Osnabrück summer in the city – municipal
summer culture program
August: always on the first Saturday: The
Golden Saw – the Osnabrück street music festival
August: The
Schlossgarten Open Air (two-day music festival with national stars of
pop and rock music) has been held annually in the Schlossgarten over a
weekend in August since 2015.
End of August: Wine Festival
End of
August/beginning of September: Festival of Lights on the Hase every two
years since 2007
Early September: Theater Festival of the First Messy
Room Theater
September: Morgenland Festival Osnabrueck
September:
Osnabrück job fair (annually since 2004)
September: Real Estate Fair
Osnabrück (annually)
September: Bergfest am Piesberg (Piesberger
Gesellschaftshaus, museum for field-gauge industrial railways
Osnabrück-Piesberg e. V., museum for industrial culture) and Osnabrück
under steam at the Piesberg colliery station (steam locomotive festival
of the Osnabrück Steam Locomotive Friends e. V.), alternating annually
September–October: inter.kult – culture weeks every two years
October: Independent FilmFest Osnabrück
October: Hobby horse riding
and chiming town hall (peace festival and customs)
End of
October/beginning of November: Autumn fair at the Gartlage hall
November: Osnabrück Cabaret Festival
November: New Japanese Film
Festival, every two years
December: Christmas market and illumination
of many houses in the old town
December: Osnabrück Stock Exchange and
major exchange day for stamps and coins (OsnabrückHalle)
Osnabrück
peace talks several times a year
Regional association Osnabrücker
Land
The Regional Association of Osnabrücker Land, a registered
association under the sponsorship of the district and the independent
city of Osnabrück, takes care of cultural issues.
In the area of today's Sandforter Straße in the district of Voxtrup, an old street ran from the Neolithic Age to the Middle Ages, which served trade and crossed the Hase with a ford. In the vicinity of the ford there are several Neolithic megalithic tombs, such as the Gretescher Steine, the Sundermannsteine and the Teufelssteine, as well as other burial sites. In 2016, the approximately 5,000-year-old Lüstringen copper hoard was found in the area. Traces of human activity from the Neolithic period can also be found in other places in today's urban area.
In ancient times, today's Osnabrücker Land was in Germania magna,
i.e. the area of influence and settlement of the Germanic tribes north
of the Roman Empire. For a long time the Romans tried to expand their
sphere of influence to the north. The clashes with the Germans reached
their climax around 9 AD in the Varus Battle, in which the Cheruscan
general Arminius and Germanic fighters destroyed three Roman legions
under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus. The battle itself, or a
combat event related to it, probably took place in the Kalkriese find
region north of Osnabrück. In particular, the Roman helmet mask found in
Kalkriese in 1990 became a symbol of the Varus Battle in the Osnabrück
area.
The name researcher Jürgen Udolph suspects that Osna (or a
similar form of name) was once the name of a section of the Hase and was
later replaced by the river name Hase, but remained in the place name
Osnabrück.
The popular derivation of the Low German word 'Ossen'
for oxen - a long-distance trade route crossed the Hase at a ford
through which the oxen of the farmers were also driven and where a
bridge was later built - is also seen by the Osnabrück writer Ludwig
Bäte in his chronicle of the city Osnabrück as implausible as the city's
name did not originate centuries after it was founded.
In any
case, it is striking that the determining part of the name corresponds
to the name of the ridge mountains of Osning, which reach from the
south-east to near the city, since the late 19th century in connection
with the cult surrounding the Battle of Hermann, preferably in recourse
to the Latin place name 'Saltus teutoburgensis' as called Teutoburg
Forest.
founding of a diocese
In the early Middle Ages, the West Germanic
tribes of the Saxons traded with the Frankish Empire, but lived
independently and represented pagan worldviews. The Osnabrück area
belonged to the tribal area of Westphalia. Since the Saxons repeatedly
carried out raids in Frankish territory, efforts were made especially
under the Frankish King Charlemagne to subdue the Saxons and incorporate
their tribal areas into the Frankish Empire. On the one hand, this was
intended to end the raids and, on the other hand, to convert people to
Christianity.
Charlemagne therefore led the Saxon wars and, after
the Paderborn Reichstag in 777, founded the first bishoprics in Saxony,
including the Osnabrück diocese around 780 (Latin Dioecesis
Osnabrugensis) on the Hase. In 783 Charles defeated the Saxon Duke
Widukind in the Battle of the Hase near Osnabrück. This was one of the
decisive battles of the Saxon Wars, the outcome of which ultimately led
to the Saxons being Christianized and their area being dominated by the
Franks from then on. The tribal area of the Saxons merged into the
tribal duchy of Saxony. The first church on the site of the bishopric of
the Osnabrück diocese was consecrated around 785; it was the first
predecessor of today's St. Peter's Cathedral. In 804, Charlemagne is
said to have founded the Carolinum diocese school, which by this date
would be one of the oldest schools in Germany; the document that is
supposed to prove this is possibly an early medieval forgery.
After the Franconian Empire was divided by the Treaty of Verdun, the
tribal duchy of Saxony and thus Osnabrück belonged to the East
Franconian Empire. Due to the favorable location at the crossroads of
important trade routes and a ford through the Hase, the first traders
and residents quickly settled around the bishopric. In order to protect
against attacks by attackers, the area around the bishop's seat was
expanded with ramparts and moats as a Domburg. Today's Domhof and Große
Domsfreiheit squares were also within this area. Despite the
fortifications, the young settlement, like others in Saxony before it,
was attacked by Normans around 880 and the Domburg and church were
destroyed. Around 900 the mission base was rebuilt. Around the same
time, the diocese received market rights. The market was initially held
inside the Domburg, but since there was soon not enough space there, the
market place was laid out to the west outside the fortifications on an
island-like sandy hilltop. The predecessor church of today's
Marienkirche was built there. The city fortifications were expanded in
the 11th century so that the market area was also separated from the
surrounding area and protected from attackers. It then included the area
between today's Krahnstraße-Bierstraße-Lohstraße in the west and the
Hase in the east. In 1011 the Johanniskirche was founded south of the
city walls as a church for the local farms.
After a fire in the
cathedral church around 1100, which was badly damaged as a result, the
seat of the Osnabrück bishops was moved to Iburg Castle. From the 12th
century, the cathedral was gradually expanded to its current size and
design. Due to the growth of the population, the space within the city
walls became scarce again and people also settled in front of the
fortifications. These organized themselves into groups, from which the
lay communities emerged. At that time, the area within the city
fortifications was known as the Binnenburg, and the outside as the
Butenburg (cf. Low German binnen = inside, buten = outside). In the 12th
century the city fortifications were enlarged again, to the extent of
the area known today as the old town within the streets Hasemauer,
Bocksmauer, Rolandsmauer and Neuer Graben as well as the Hase.
In 1171, Osnabrück received court and city rights in a document from Frederick I “Barbarossa”, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. As a result, the first town hall in the city was the predecessor of the so-called Old Town Hall on the south side of the market square, on the site of today's town library. The courts of the diocese of Osnabrück, such as B. the Gogericht, which was held in front of the cathedral, was presided over by the Saxon Duke Henry the Lion. The lion poodle monument in front of the cathedral may go back to these dishes. After Henry the Lion had been deprived of the rule over the Duchy of Saxony with the Gelnhausen document of 1180, the bailiwick and jurisdiction in the diocese of Osnabrück went to the Counts of Tecklenburg. Since this led to power struggles between the Counts of Tecklenburg and the bishops of Osnabrück, King Heinrich (VII.) awarded jurisdiction to the bishop of Osnabrück in 1225. In 1236, after a dispute with the archbishopric of Cologne, the Count of Tecklenburg also ceded the bailiwick, i.e. the secular rulership over the diocese of Osnabrück, to the bishop. This resulted in the Bishopric of Osnabrück, also known as the Prince Bishopric of Osnabrück. The area of the Bishopric largely corresponded to the extent of today's Osnabrück Land, but it still included the Amt of Reckenberg as an exclave.
In 1171, Osnabrück received court and city rights in a document from Frederick I “Barbarossa”, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. As a result, the first town hall in the city was the predecessor of the so-called Old Town Hall on the south side of the market square, on the site of today's town library. The courts of the diocese of Osnabrück, such as B. the Gogericht, which was held in front of the cathedral, was presided over by the Saxon Duke Henry the Lion. The lion poodle monument in front of the cathedral may go back to these dishes. After Henry the Lion had been deprived of the rule over the Duchy of Saxony with the Gelnhausen document of 1180, the bailiwick and jurisdiction in the diocese of Osnabrück went to the Counts of Tecklenburg. Since this led to power struggles between the Counts of Tecklenburg and the bishops of Osnabrück, King Heinrich (VII.) awarded jurisdiction to the bishop of Osnabrück in 1225. In 1236, after a dispute with the archbishopric of Cologne, the Count of Tecklenburg also ceded the bailiwick, i.e. the secular rulership over the diocese of Osnabrück, to the bishop. This resulted in the Bishopric of Osnabrück, also known as the Prince Bishopric of Osnabrück. The area of the Bishopric largely corresponded to the extent of today's Osnabrück Land, but it still included the Amt of Reckenberg as an exclave.
At the beginning of the 13th century, the Bucksturm was built as a
watchtower on the city wall. The city prison was housed in the tower.
The original Heger Tor, a fortification consisting of a tower, gate,
bastion, kennel and passage, also dates from this period. The name Heger
Tor, which was later built on this site, has survived to this day. The
construction of today's Gothic parish and market church of St. Marien
also began in the 13th century and was completed in 1430/40. The
Johanniskirche also received a new building, which was consecrated in
1293. A place of its own had developed around the church, independently
of the old town, which was consequently called Neustadt. The town was
also fortified by a city wall that bordered on that of the old town and
ran roughly along today's Schloßwall, Johannistorwall, Petersburger
Wall, Pottgraben and Kollegienwall streets.
In order to protect
each other from possible reprisals by the bishops as sovereigns,
Osnabrück founded the Ladbergen City League in 1246 with the other
Westphalian cities of Coesfeld, Herford, Minden and Münster. In 1265,
both the old and the new town received the right from the bishop to hold
their own courts, but they never received market rights. In 1268,
Osnabrück joined the Werner Cities League with Dortmund, Lippstadt,
Munster and Soest. In 1287 an Augustinian monastery was settled in
Neustadt, on today's Neumarkt.
Since the two cities that had developed in parallel were getting
closer and closer and the new townspeople also had to use the market in
the old town, the unification was decided on August 3, 1306. The
fortification at the Neuer Graben, which separated the two towns, was
torn down and the administration was placed under a joint magistrate,
who met in the old town hall and was elected by the citizens every year
on the first working day after the New Year. The legal relationship
between the old and new towns and the powers of the magistrate were laid
down in the first Osnabrück town constitution, the Sate, in 1348. In
their tradition, Hand Poison Day is still celebrated today. According to
Sate, the Neustadt was allowed to carry out individual administrative
tasks independently, such as lower jurisdiction, road construction and
its own financial administration, and retained its own council for this
purpose. Therefore, a separate town hall, the Neustädter Rathaus, was
built in the Neustadt, south of the Johanniskirche.
Around 1350
the Black Death raged in Osnabrück. Since, as elsewhere, Jews were
identified as the scapegoats of the epidemic, the city's Jewish
population was decimated in plague pogroms. In the period that followed,
Jews were only able to resettle in Osnabrück to a limited extent.
A militia was set up between the 13th and 15th centuries to protect the urban Feldmark, i.e. the parts of the city area outside the city walls, from enemies, cattle thieves and robbers. This was a few kilometers from the city walls and formed a ring around 18 kilometers long. In the west, south and east, the Landwehr consisted of two to three parallel ramparts and ditches each, in the south-east and north the Hase and Nette rivers partially fulfilled the function of the Landwehr. At the points where roads crossed the Landwehr, there were watchtowers, e.g. B. the Heger Turm (Rheiner Landstrasse) and the Wulfter Turm (Sutthauser Strasse). The moated castle in Eversburg was also part of the Landwehr.
The merchant lords from Osnabrück traded with Bremen and Hamburg from
the end of the 13th century, as well as with Friesland (via Oldenburg),
the Netherlands (via Nordhorn), Lübeck and London. Osnabrück merchants
also participated in the establishment of the Peterhof office in
Novgorod. The relationships were initially based exclusively on barter
and were organized by the merchants themselves. However, trade was
increasingly organized by the cities, which joined together in
individual alliances. The Westphalian town leagues from the 13th
century, in which Osnabrück was also a part (see above), can be seen as
the forerunners of the town Hanseatic League. Osnabrück joined the
Hanseatic League in 1412 by taking part in a Hanseatic Day for the first
time and benefited from membership in the major trading power. Osnabrück
belonged as the main town (principal city) to the Westphalian district
of the Hanseatic League.
Linen developed into an important
commodity in Osnabrück. From 1404, the size and quality of all linen
that was to be traded in the city had to be checked by the Legge and
provided with the Legge stamp in the form of the Osnabrück wheel. The
high quality of Osnabrück linen made the city's Legge stamp a national
seal of quality. Linen bearing the Osnabrück seal fetched higher prices
on the market, so linen traders from other cities also had their goods
checked at the Osnabrück Legge and the seal was often forged. As a
result, the city became an internationally important trading center for
linen fabrics.
Between 1450 and 1452, Osnabrück was temporarily
excluded from Hanseatic trade, as the city representatives had
repeatedly absentee from the Hanseatic Diets without excuse. When trade
with the Netherlands and England slowed down because they were
increasingly independent of the Hanseatic League, new sales areas in
southern Germany and northern Italy were opened up.
From 1477 to 1504 Ertwin Ertman (1430–1505) was mayor of the city. The late-Gothic town hall of Osnabrück was built in his time between 1487 and 1512. Bishop Konrad IV of Rietberg, who was in office from 1482, involved the town in feuds, which put a financial strain on him and the townspeople. Individual citizens led by the poor master tailor Johann Lenethun were so dissatisfied that they secretly stirred up other citizens against the city council and the bishop. On August 28, 1488, the situation escalated when the townspeople armed themselves and, together with the town guard, occupied the market square, plundered the Gertrudenberg monastery and burned down the fences around the episcopal estates. They then forced Mayor Ertman to implement their demands. He entered into negotiations with the bishop, which calmed the situation over the next few months. Lenethun tried in vain to start the uprising again. The council took an opportunity to seize him and had him executed by beheading on June 15, 1489 in the market square.
Another civil uprising in 1525
In 1525 there was another civil
uprising, which emanated from the guilds and was directed primarily
against the cathedral chapter. The 20 demands made by the guild masters
were of various kinds. The citizens with their leaders Johann von Oberg
and Johann Ertman (Ertwin Ertman's son) gathered in front of the town
hall on May 29th. Although the city guard, unlike in 1488, was on the
side of the council, they were unable to prevent the looting and acts of
violence against clergy that followed. Only when the bishop, Erich von
Braunschweig-Grubenhagen, wanted to put down the uprising with heavy
weapons and mercenaries did the acts of violence stop. Ertman was
arrested in the Bucksturm while von Oberg was able to flee the city. The
city had to pay a fine of 6,000 guilders, and Ertman was fined 500
guilders.
After the Diet of Worms in 1521, the Augustinian monk Gerhard Hecker,
who knew the reformer Martin Luther personally, held the first
evangelical sermons in Westphalia in the monastery on Neumarkt. Emperor
Charles V sent a letter to Osnabrück in 1528, in which he warned to
remain faithful to the previous (Catholic) faith. The reformer Adolf
Clarenbach, who was active in Osnabrück, was expelled from the city by
the council and later imprisoned and executed in Cologne because he did
not want to change his views. The cathedral chaplain Johannes Pollius
also had to leave the city.
At the beginning of 1529 an epidemic,
the so-called English sweat, came to Osnabrück and claimed many lives.
In April 1530 a large part of the old town was destroyed in a fire. A
number of buildings that the fire had spared were destroyed in July 1530
by a violent storm. The fruit and grain harvest was also partially
destroyed, which resulted in high food prices. These catastrophes were
interpreted by people as divine punishments; by some for the fact that
the Protestants have turned away from the old doctrine, by others for
the fact that the adherents of the old doctrine cling to their outdated
views.
From 1532 Dietrich Buthmann preached the evangelical
doctrine in Osnabrück and was able to gather a larger following behind
him. He publicly defended his views against a Catholic clergyman who had
nothing to oppose him in substance. The favor of the citizens made
Buthmann a priest at the market church of St. Marien, and from then on
evangelical preachers were also employed at the Katharinenkirche and
Johanniskirche. After the death of Bishop Erich in 1532, Franz von
Waldeck was elected his successor, who in turn put a temporary end to
the reformatory efforts in the city and drove Protestant preachers out
of the city. Hecker was allowed to stay, but died in 1536.
The
bishop, who had vowed to protect the old faith before taking office and
who violently ended the Protestant Anabaptist rule in Münster in 1535,
was not a staunch opponent of the Reformation, but probably acted more
out of political motives. From 1542 he sympathized with the
pro-Reformation Schmalkaldic League. In the same year he authorized the
Osnabrück Council to carry out the Reformation and gave the city the
Augustinian, Barefoot and Dominican monasteries. The council asked the
Lübeck superintendent Hermann Bonnus, who came from Quakenbrück, to come
to Osnabrück, who arrived in January 1543 and wrote the first Protestant
church ordinances for the city. Protestant pastors were now officially
employed at St. Marien and St. Katharinen. Johannes Pollius returned to
Osnabrück and became city superintendent. After Bonnus had written a new
church order for the bishopric, he returned to Lübeck and died there in
1548.
Although the Reformation in Osnabrück was implemented
comparatively cautiously (for example, confession and traditional
priestly clothing were retained), there was also criticism from the
population, especially about the dissolution of the monasteries and the
treatment of the monks. After the crushing of the Schmalkaldic League in
1547 and the decree of the Augsburg Interim in 1548 by Charles V, the
city finally had to return the monasteries to the bishop. Despite the
Cuius regio, eius religio regulation made in the Augsburg Religious
Peace of 1555, which allowed the sovereign, in this case a Catholic
bishop, to determine the denomination of his subjects, a return to the
old faith could not prevail among the Osnabrück population.
In 1575 the plague broke out again in Osnabrück and killed several
thousand people within two and a half years. A smallpox epidemic
followed the plague. A bad harvest in 1579 triggered a famine in 1580.
Around 75% of the city's population at the time, which was fewer than
10,000 people, fell victim to these events.
In the decades that
followed, the plague ravaged the city several times, for example in the
years 1597-1599 and 1609. On March 11, 1613, large parts of the city
were destroyed by fire, including hundreds of houses, the Dominican
monastery, St. Mary's Church and the city scales . At the same time,
there were economic difficulties, which can also be seen in the slow
decline of the Hanseatic League (in 1606, Johann Domann from Osnabrück
was appointed the last syndic of the Hanseatic League). Because this
increased the number of poor, the city council bought the Tecklenburger
Hof in the Große Gildewart in 1619 and set up a poorhouse and orphanage
there.
In the early modern period, supposed witches and magicians were persecuted in Osnabrück, sentenced in trials, tortured and executed. Since witches were also held responsible for the catastrophes of the years from 1575, the following years are considered to be the focus of witch hunts in Osnabrück. During the reign of mayor Hammacher (1565-1588) alone, 163 women were executed as witches, most of them burned. Under Mayor Pelster, towards the end of the Thirty Years' War between 1636 and 1639, more than 40 women died as witches. A total of 276 women and two men were executed for sorcery in witch trials. The use of the Protestant pastor of St. Marien and city superintendent Gerhard Grave against the witch trials carried out by the Protestant-dominated city council resulted in his subsequent expulsion from the city. The witch hunts ended in the course of the emerging Enlightenment. On September 25, 2012, the city council of Osnabrück announced a symbolic rehabilitation of the victims of the witch trials.
In the run-up to the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War, Westphalia
and the Bishopric of Osnabrück had already been affected by acts of war
against the Spanish during the Dutch War of Independence. From 1590
onwards, places of the bishopric were attacked and plundered several
times by troops passing through, but Osnabrück itself held out.
After the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, Osnabrück continued to
upgrade its fortifications and hired its own soldiers to defend the
city. In the first years of the war, Osnabrück managed to avert threats
and occupations from the warring parties, primarily through diplomacy
and monetary payments, and thus remained officially neutral. However,
this had the disadvantage that around 1624 a request from the city to
the emperor to be allowed to use the title "Free Imperial City" was
rejected. Within the city, conflicts grew between the Protestant council
and the bourgeoisie, the cathedral chapter and the incumbent bishop,
Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg, who was on the side of the Catholic
League. After the Catholic troops were able to push back the Protestant
Danes under King Christian IV, neutrality could no longer be maintained
due to the Catholic superiority, which is why Osnabrück allowed itself
to be taken in 1628 without a fight. The city then had to accommodate
and supply occupation troops, which placed a heavy burden on the
citizens.
The bishop used the changed balance of power to
re-catholicize Osnabrück: he revived the monasteries and the evangelical
preachers had to leave their posts and the city. The Protestant council
school, which had been founded after the Reformation as a counterpoint
to the Catholic cathedral school (Carolinum), had to close. Children
could only be baptized Catholic. However, since there were no major
successes in re-catholicizing the city's population, the bishop had the
Petersburg citadel fortress built south of the city in order to be able
to better monitor the citizens. During the council elections at the
beginning of 1629, Franz Wilhelm intervened and, by threatening
punishment, ensured that a predominantly Catholic city council was
elected. The old councilors also had to leave the city because they
refused to change their denomination. In the same year he founded a
Jesuit university in the former Augustinian monastery on Neumarkt, which
opened in 1632.
With the entry into the war of the Protestant
Swedes under Gustav II Adolf and their victory at Breitenfeld in 1631,
the war situation changed. Swedish troops under the command of Georg von
Braunschweig-Lüneburg briefly occupied Osnabrück Abbey in 1633, which
put the now officially Catholic city and its occupiers on the alert.
After the Battle of Hessisch Oldendorf, the defeated imperial army of
Count Bronckhorst-Gronsfeld moved to Osnabrück and demanded admission to
regroup, which was granted by the bishop. A little later, the Swedish
army under Dodo von Knyphausen came again and began the attack on the
city. After a siege of around two weeks, which the city walls withstood,
the outnumbered occupiers agreed to negotiations. On September 12, the
leadership left the city, parts of the occupation troops withdrew to the
Petersburg and the city was taken by the Swedes. The imperial soldiers
on the Petersburg were besieged and shelled for a few more weeks and
finally surrendered, receiving no outside help. The Swedes withdrew
after the city made their financial demands, but also left a garrison
behind.
In the period that followed, the ecclesiastical and
political conditions from the time before re-Catholicization were
largely restored. Gustav Gustavson was appointed as the Swedish
administrator of the bishopric, Bishop Franz Wilhelm had fled to
Cologne. The Jesuit University was dissolved again. The imperial troops
were able to recapture Osnabrück Abbey by 1636, but refrained from
attempting to recapture the city. Aside from the continued occupation,
Osnabrück remained largely unaffected by warfare for the remainder of
the war.
Probably because of the comparatively little damage, Münster and
Osnabrück were chosen as the congress venues for peace negotiations in
1641 in the Hamburg preliminaries. For the period of the negotiations,
the two cities and a corridor connecting them were declared neutral
territory. This meant that the Swedish garrison had to leave Osnabrück
by the time negotiations began in 1643. The ambassadors from the
Catholic side resided in Münster, the Protestants in Osnabrück. The
peace negotiations also took place in the Osnabrück town hall. The
presence of the envoys meant, among other things, that street cleaning
was introduced in the city for the first time. A renewed attempt to
obtain imperial immediacy failed, instead permission was obtained in
1647 to raze the Petersburg, which was promptly implemented.
In
August 1648, the Peace Treaty of Osnabrück (Instrumentum Pacis
Osnabrugensis, IPO) was passed, which included the peace agreement
between the German Emperor and Sweden. After the Peace of Westphalia had
been signed in Münster on October 24, 1648, it was proclaimed to the
people a day later from the Osnabrück town hall steps.
Prince-bishops with changing denominations
After the peace
agreement of 1648, the year 1624 was set as the "normal year" to clarify
the ecclesiastical and secular conditions. Since the Bishopric of
Osnabrück was neither clearly Catholic nor clearly Protestant that year,
the so-called "Perpetual Capitulation" (Capitulatio Perpetua
Osnabrugensis) was decided as a special regulation on the Nuremberg
execution day in 1650. Accordingly, from now on, Catholic and Protestant
prince-bishops took turns in ruling the bishopric (alternative
succession). As before, the Catholic bishops were elected by the
cathedral chapter, while the Protestant rulers came from the Duchy of
Brunswick-Lüneburg. The religious affiliation of the subjects remained
unaffected. The Bishopric of Osnabrück thus became the first
denominational parity state in what is now Germany.
With the
death of Bishop Franz Wilhelm in 1661, Ernst August I of
Brunswick-Lüneburg, the youngest son of George of Brunswick-Lüneburg,
became the new prince-bishop. Like his predecessors, he initially
resided in Iburg Castle. However, since this did not meet his
requirements for comfort and safety, he decided to move to Osnabrück.
There was also no representative building in the city, so Ernst August
acquired a property on the Neuer Graben and had Osnabrück Castle built
there in the Baroque style as a new residence from 1667. In 1679, before
the final completion of the castle, including its outbuildings and
garden, Ernst August left the city with his family to succeed him in the
Principality of Calenberg.
On May 29, 1669, Osnabrück took part
as one of nine cities in the last Hanseatic Days in Lübeck. Ernst
August's Catholic successor as prince-bishop, Karl III. Joseph of
Lorraine also lived in Osnabrück Castle. In 1714 he had the first road
of the Bishopric built to Bad Iburg (today's Bundesstraße 51), but in
the short period of office (1698-1715) before his death, despite good
contacts in his native city of Vienna, he was not able to sustainably
change the city's politics in favor of the to shape Catholics.
In
1715 Ernst August II of Hanover, the youngest son of Ernst August I, was
elected as the second evangelical prince-bishop of the bishopric. He had
the castle expanded and tried, according to the theory of mercantilism,
to promote the economic development of the city by building new
production facilities. In 1727 he commissioned the construction of a
pleasure palace outside the city gates, which was to be called
Augustenburg. Today's Augustenburger Straße in the Weststadt district is
a reminder of this. On June 22, 1727, the reigning British King George
I, the brother of Ernst August II, died in Osnabrück Castle on the
journey from England to Hanover.
Ernst August II was succeeded in
1728 by Clemens August von Bayern, who was also Archbishop of Cologne
and governed many other bishoprics. Since he resided mainly in Bonn,
Ferdinand von Kerssenbrock formed his local representative, who lived on
Eversburg.
At the end of 1715 the organist, conductor and
composer Paul Ignaz Liechtenauer was employed at Osnabrück Cathedral, a
position he held until his death in 1756.
The Seven Years' War began during Clemens August's tenure. In the course of the war, Osnabrück had to accommodate and entertain troops from both warring factions several times, pay large sums of money and suffer from looting by the soldiers, which over time led to high levels of debt and impoverishment for the city and its residents. The fact that a Catholic prince-bishop governed a population that was still predominantly Protestant turned out to be disadvantageous for the city, which is why both warring parties regarded it as hostile. In addition, the city's population would have been able to defend themselves against attacks and sieges much worse than in the Thirty Years' War, since the city fortifications were no longer maintained after the peace treaty of 1648 and some of them had fallen into disrepair. The city gates were therefore no longer closed when troops approached and the city could always be occupied without a fight. In July 1759, in the run-up to the Battle of Minden, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Commander-in-Chief of the allied Hanoverian, British and Prussian troops, gathered his forces in and around Osnabrück. Only after the death of Clemens August in February 1761 was Osnabrück officially on the side of the Allies, but was then attacked three more times by French troops until the end of the war in 1763.
In February 1764, Friedrich August, only six months old, Duke of York
and Albany, second son of the British King George III, was elected
Clemens August's successor and thus the last Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück.
Since such a young child can of course not yet carry out official
business, Georg III. two members of the noble families Von Lenthe and
Von dem Bussche with the representation of his son and provided them
with the experienced Osnabrück lawyer Justus Möser (1720-1794) to the
side. Since the two privy councilors knew nothing about the government
of the Bishopric, Möser de facto carried out most of the official
business. Despite his good contacts with the English court, Möser was
not officially given the government because he was not a noble.
In addition to various offices, Möser worked as a historian and writer
and published the Osnabrück History in 1768, a first draft on the
history and legal status of the city and the bishopric. From 1766 he
also published the Osnabrück Intelligence Sheets, a weekly newspaper
with official and private advertisements as well as an essay written by
Möser himself, in which he, among other things, Wrote regional about
economy, politics, culture and the everyday life of the people of that
time. Among the readers was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. A collection of
the essays appeared in 1774 under the name Patriotische Fantasien.
In 1783 Friedrich August officially took over the government of the
bishopric, but set up a privy council to conduct official business, to
which Möser belonged as a privy councillor. During this period, the
prince-bishop's chancellery was built next to the cathedral as a
government building. The city's linen trade, which had suffered from
declining quality and poor economic conditions since the beginning of
the early modern period, revived as a result of a tightening of legging
rules and the opening up of the newly formed United States as a new
market. It was also based on recommendations from Möser's essays. At the
end of the 18th century, the economic upswing, which also included other
economic sectors, brought modest wealth to the city. One benefited
indirectly from the Atlantic slave trade as part of the so-called
“triangular trade”.
With the secularization of ecclesiastical properties through the
Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803 and the transition of the
Bishopric to the Principality of Osnabrück, the city also came under the
Electorate of Hanover, but was occupied by French troops in 1803. In
1805 the last municipal copper change (1 Heller, 1, 1½, 2 and 3 Pfennig
pieces) was minted. In 1806 Osnabrück belonged to Prussia for a short
time. In 1807 the city came under the Kingdom of Westphalia created by
the French Emperor Napoleon I (Bonaparte) and on December 10, 1810 it
became part of the French Empire. As one of four Hanseatic departments,
Osnabrück was the seat of the department of the Upper Ems from 1811 to
1813, in which all previously separating national borders were abolished
and which extended to about 30 km to the south and more than 50 km to
the north, west and east. After Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated in the
spring of 1814, most of the Ober-Ems department fell to the Kingdom of
Hanover, which was created in the course of the Congress of Vienna in
October 1814. About 400 Osnabrück soldiers took part in the Battle of
Waterloo on June 18, 1815, which ended Napoleon's reign of the Hundred
Days. In honor of these warriors, Gerhard Friedrich von Gülich donated
the Waterloo Gate at the Heger Tor, erected in 1817, a triumphal gate
with the inscription: “The Osnabrück warriors who showed German courage
at Waterloo on June 18, 1815 dedicated this monument to G. F. v. Gülich
D.R.D." (sic).
In 1843 the so-called fortress law, which had
previously forbidden the erection of buildings outside of Osnabrück's
city fortifications, was lifted. The city walls as a means of defense
against attackers had become useless due to the development of modern
firearms and were being razed. In the course of population growth and
industrialization, this led to a strong spatial expansion of the city in
all directions in the coming decades. A boulevard was built along the
former fortifications, the ring road around the city center, now known
as the Wallring. There are only remains of the city walls, including
several defense towers and the Herrenteichswall.
With the opening
of the Hanoverian Western Railway on November 21, 1855 in the direction
of Hanover and on June 19, 1856 in the direction of Rheine, Osnabrück
was connected to the railway network. The Hannoversche Bahnhof was the
city's first passenger and goods station, which is still preserved today
as a monument. With the commissioning of the Hamburg-Venloer Bahn on
September 1 in the direction of Münster and on May 15, 1873 in the
direction of Hemelingen, another station was established with the Bremen
station on Klus Hügel. The distance between the stations complicates the
transfer, and the construction of the Oldenburg Südbahn and the Haller
Willem brought the two stations to their capacity limits. In 1895,
Kaiser Wilhelm II inaugurated the new central station as a tower station
at the crossing point of the railway lines.
In 1860 the
Osnabrücker Aktien-Bierbrauerei was founded on the Westerberg, which
produced beverages until 1987 and was demolished in 1992. At the
beginning of the 1870s, the Osnabrück steelworks went into operation,
which existed until 1989.
As a result of the German War in 1866,
the Kingdom of Hanover, and with it Osnabrück, was absorbed into the
Prussian province of Hanover. From 1880 until the end of the German
Empire in 1918, Osnabrück was represented in the Prussian mansion by the
respective Lord Mayor. The Pottgrabenbad was opened in 1883 as the first
public bath house in Osnabrück. After the swimming pool was closed in
1998, it was transformed into the Alando discotheque. In 1885, the city
became an urban district as well as the seat of the newly founded
administrative district of Osnabrück and is still the district seat of
the district of Osnabrück, which was also created in 1885.
From
the two leisure teams Antipodia Osnabrück and Minerva Osnabrück, FC 1899
Osnabrück was founded on April 17, 1899, from which VfL Osnabrück later
emerged, which is the largest and most important sports club for the
entire region. In the same year, the clubhouse on Kollegienwall was
opened, which is now also known as the Old Town Hall and was completely
destroyed in World War II. In 1905 the Osnabrück synagogue was built on
Rolandstrasse. In 1906, the tram started operating with initially two
lines. In 1916, the first ship coming from the Mittelland Canal entered
the newly built city harbor via the Osnabrück branch canal, which meant
that Osnabrück was also connected to the waterway network.
In
1930, Osnabrück hosted the 22nd Lower Saxony Day of the Lower Saxony
Homeland Association. The businessman Herbert Eklöh opened the first
self-service supermarket in Germany at Jürgensort 6/8 in downtown
Osnabrück in 1938.
A local group of the NSDAP had existed since the mid-1920s. She was
able to occupy her first seat on the city council in 1928 with Otto
Marxer. From 1932 to 1945 the party was based in the Villa Schlikker on
the Heger-Tor-Wall. The building had been made available to the NSDAP by
the previous owner. The building was officially called the
"Adolf-Hitler-Haus" at the time, but was popularly known as the "Brown
House". After the NSDAP seized power in January 1933, National Socialism
increasingly found its way into Osnabrück, which went hand in hand with
an anti-Jewish attitude and led to the persecution of the Osnabrück
Jews.
On the evening of the state elections in Prussia on March
5, 1933, the National Socialists burned flags on the Neumarkt. The
burned flags, which were fetched from the Schinkel and Sonnen Hügel,
came from the democratic left and were considered symbols of the Weimar
Republic.
On March 11, the Osnabrück SS briefly occupied the
trade union building on the Kollegienwall. During the occupation, a
plaque with the inscription "SS-Heim" was attached above the entrance.
Shortly thereafter, the building was handed over to the police, but a
few days later the SS occupied it again when SPD members removed the
swastika flag on the roof and threw it into the Hase. On May 2, 1933, as
in other places in the German Reich, the union building was finally
occupied and the union officials were taken into protective custody. The
Osnabrück Social Democrat Alwine Wellmann was also arrested. One of the
SS men present was the later war criminal Gustav Sorge.
The
editor-in-chief of the social-democratic Osnabrück daily newspaper Freie
Presse, Josef Burgdorf, was arrested by the SA on April 1, 1933,
mistreated and driven through Grosse Strasse with punches and kicks.
While running the gauntlet, he had to carry a sign that read, "I am
Ilex." Under the pseudonym Ilex (holly) he had published newspaper
articles directed against the NSDAP before the seizure of power.
The Alsberg department store, which opened in Osnabrück city center
(Große Straße 34) in 1910, was very popular with the population – also
for the fashion of the Golden Twenties. Since the owners were Jews, it
was forcibly sold in 1935 and since then has been run as the Lengermann
and Trieschmann fashion house. Before that, all customers who came to
shop were photographed and publicly denounced in a display case. Other
Osnabrück shops also had to be closed or sold as part of the
Aryanization.
The local department of the Secret State Police was
based in Osnabrück Castle. In the so-called Gestapo cellar under the
castle, people were imprisoned and sometimes tortured. During the
November pogroms of 1938, the synagogue on Rolandstrasse was set on fire
and demolition was ordered on the same day.
From 1941, the city's
Jews had to wear the yellow Star of David. On December 13, 1941, the
first deportation of Osnabrück Jews took place, in which 34 Jews from
the city and 477 more from the region were taken to Riga. Before that,
they were herded together in the gymnasium of the Pottgraben school and
loaded onto wagons at the freight yard. The second deportation took
place in July 1942 to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The third
and last of the Osnabrück deportations took place on March 1, 1943
directly to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. With this
transport, the last Jewish house in the Kommenderiestraße was also
closed.
During the Second World War, 79 air raids on Osnabrück caused severe
damage. Osnabrück was a "popular" target for British bomber formations
because it was easy to reach from Great Britain and was also on the
return flight route from destinations further inland. More than 65
percent of the urban area was destroyed; the medieval old town was
hardest hit at 94 percent. Some of the air raid shelters built in those
days still stand to this day. Attempts were made to fend off the enemy
bomber formations from several anti-aircraft positions spread across the
city. B. on the Westerberg and in the Gartlage.
The first attack
with high-explosive bombs took place on June 23, 1940 on the Klöckner
steelworks in Fledder. While initially mainly military and industrial
targets such as factories and the main train station were attacked, the
bombardment was increasingly extended to residential areas from 1942 as
part of the Area Bombing Directive. Palm Sunday on March 25, 1945 went
down in the history of the city as Qualmarum (derived from Palmarum),
when the 4th and 8th British bomber groups flew the 79th and final air
raid on the city in the morning. This air raid, which is one of the
heaviest flown on the city, killed 178 people.
The last units of the Wehrmacht under command had left in the
direction of Belm by April 3rd. The leaders of the local NSDAP,
including the mayor Erich Gaertner, NSDAP district leader Fritz Wehmeier
and the previous district leader Wilhelm Munzer, fled the city and left
it to their fate. On the outskirts, one of the three murdered farmer
Anna Daumeyer, who was accused of raising a white flag. This final phase
crime was never punished.
The Volkssturm units and the police,
which had been set up in a hurry to defend the city, were disbanded when
the Volkssturm men fled or were sent home. The magazines of the army
catering office at the port and the abandoned barracks were looted by
Osnabrück residents and forced labourers. When a liquor factory was
looted, an explosion is said to have occurred, killing around 30 people.
In anticipation of fighting for the city, many people sought out one of
the numerous air raid shelters, which were used here for the last time.
On the morning of April 4, 1945, British and Canadian troops
occupied Osnabrück. The Allied soldiers marched in from the west and
went largely without a fight, only a few German snipers fired at them.
As early as April 2, some Allied formations had bypassed the city to the
north.
British and Canadians took around 450 prisoners of war. In
the days that followed, they searched the homes of the townspeople,
confiscated weapons and certain items of daily use, such as cameras.
Clearing tanks created aisles through the mountains of rubble so that
advancing forces could cross the city. A night curfew was imposed to
prevent further looting among civilians and displaced persons.
Occupation and British garrison
After the surrender, the
Bakker-Schut plan envisaged the city being annexed by the Netherlands;
however, this was omitted due to resistance from the occupying powers of
the USA and Great Britain. Immediately after the end of the war,
occupying troops from the British Army of the Rhine were stationed in
Osnabrück. In the years that followed, the location of the Osnabrück
garrison was continually expanded. In the meantime, Osnabrück was home
to the largest British garrison outside of the United Kingdom - for
decades, British soldiers and their family members were part of the
usual cityscape for the people of Osnabrück. On June 19, 1989 and June
28, 1996, the Irish underground organization IRA carried out terrorist
attacks on the British Quebec Barracks in the Eversburg district of
Osnabrück, causing considerable property damage. In 2005, the British
Ministry of Defense decided to completely disband the Osnabrück garrison
as part of restructuring measures. The deduction was gradually
implemented in subsequent years. On March 31, 2009, the last British
base commander, Colonel Mark Cuthbert-Brown, left Osnabrück.
After the end of the war, large parts of the destroyed old town were
rebuilt. The destroyed town hall on the historic market square was
reopened in 1948 on the 300th anniversary of the proclamation of the
Peace of Westphalia. The rebuilt Stadttheater am Domhof was inaugurated
in 1950. The 33rd Lower Saxony Day of the Lower Saxony Homeland
Association took place in 1951 in Osnabrück. Tens of thousands of people
marched through the city center for this occasion. Osnabrück also hosted
the Lower Saxony Day in 1962. In 1954 the Halle Gartlage multi-purpose
hall was opened, which is still an important event location in the city
today.
As in all of Germany, mass motorization began in Osnabrück
in the post-war period. Even before the autobahns were completed, two
important north-south connections, the federal highway 51 and the
federal highway 68, passed through Osnabrück. Due to mass motorization,
car traffic became decisive for urban planning. In order to make the
city car-friendly, many new buildings outside the historic old town that
were destroyed in the war were not built within the original property
boundaries, or existing buildings were demolished so that wider street
cross-sections were possible. Examples of this are Dielingerstraße and
the Neuer Graben-Neumarkt-Wittekindstraße street. The concept of a
car-friendly city continued to have an effect for a long time, for
example in 1991 an industrial hall on the Petersburg Wall was demolished
in order to be able to widen a street there.
The airfield in
Atterheide was opened in April 1959. In May 1959, the Ocambo Club, the
city's first nightclub and one of the first in Germany, opened in a
previous café on Herrenteichsstraße right by the Haarmannsbrunnen
fountain. Osnabrück stopped operating its trams in 1960. The Osnabrück
trolleybus network was discontinued in 1968. Local public transport was
completely switched to city bus transport with diesel buses. On May 5,
1968 (Europe Day), the City of Osnabrück was awarded the Flag of Honor
of the Council of Europe. On November 14, 1968, the city was connected
to the federal highway network with the release of the federal highway
1. The Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences was founded in 1971 and
was given the name Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences in 2010.
From 1972, the establishment of the pedestrian zone in the city center
began. The University of Osnabrück began teaching in 1974 and is based
in Osnabrück Castle. In 1977, Osnabrück lost its status as the seat of a
district government during a regional reform, when the Weser-Ems
district was created with its seat in Oldenburg. Only a branch of the
district government remained in Osnabrück. On January 1, 2005, all
administrative districts of the state of Lower Saxony were abolished and
replaced by government agencies of the state government, which in turn
were converted into offices for regional state development in 2014.
In 1979 the new town hall Osnabrück, today OsnabrückHalle, was
opened in the castle garden. In 1980 the city and the diocese celebrated
their 1200th anniversary. In the same year, Osnabrück joined the Neue
Hanse town association. On November 16, 1980, Pope John Paul II visited
Osnabrück and celebrated a service in front of 140,000 people in the
sports stadium on the Illoshöhe. In 1990, Osnabrück was again honored by
the Council of Europe, this time with the plaque of honour. The German
Federal Foundation for the Environment, founded in 1990, is based in
Osnabrück and moved into its new administration building in An der
Bornau in 1995.
The Felix-Nussbaum-Haus, designed by architect
Daniel Libeskind, opened in 1998. The museum contains over 180 works by
Felix Nussbaum, making it the Osnabrück artist's most comprehensive
collection. Numerous monarchs and heads of state visited the city to
celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia in 1998. In
1999 Osnabrück celebrated the 100th birthday of the artist Friedrich
Vordemberge-Gildewart with two exhibitions. In 2000, Osnabrück became an
external location for the World Exhibition Expo 2000. Since April 2002,
the Ledenhof stone works have been the seat of the German Foundation for
Peace Research. From November 25, 2005, Osnabrück and the surrounding
regions were hit by the Münsterland snow chaos for several days, with
extreme snowfall and partial interruptions to the power supply in the
city.
In 2006, Osnabrück hosted the 26th Hanseatic Days of Modern
Times. In 2008, Osnabrück hosted the 97th German Catholic Day, for which
tens of thousands of believers visited the city. Since 2015, Osnabrück
Town Hall has been awarded the European Heritage Seal as one of the
sites of the Peace of Westphalia. From May 30th to June 2nd, 2019 the
6th German Music Festival took place in Osnabrück.