Quedlinburg is a town on the Bode north of the Harz Mountains in
the Harz district (Saxony-Anhalt). Documented for the first time in
922 and granted city rights in 994, the city was from the 10th to
the 12th century the seat of the royal palace visited at Easter by
secular rulers and for almost 900 years a (initially clerical, after
the Reformation secular) convent for women.
Quedlinburg's
architectural heritage has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List
since 1994, making the city one of the largest area monuments in
Germany.
In the historic old town with its cobblestone
streets, winding alleys and small squares there are over 2100
half-timbered houses from eight centuries. The Renaissance town hall
with the Roland statue is located on the market square, to the south
is the Schlossberg with the Romanesque collegiate church and the
cathedral treasury as evidence of the Quedlinburg women's convent.
The Münzenberg with the Romanesque monastery church of St. Marien
and in the valley between the Romanesque church of St. Wiperti, the
adjoining abbey garden and the Brühl Park are also part of the world
cultural heritage.
City Museums Quedlinburg
The exhibition of the castle museum shows
the development of the castle hill with the convent and facets of the
city's history. Outstanding exhibits are the Bronze Age hoard from
Lehof, the gold disc brooch from the Great Order (desert), the so-called
robber count case and a medieval ballista. Since 2002, an exhibition on
the reception of the Ottonian period during National Socialism has been
shown in the so-called Ottonenkeller.
The poet Friedrich Gottlieb
Klopstock was born in 1724 in the Klopstockhaus, which was built in
1570. Through his work, Klopstock became one of the founders of
classical German literature and was famous far beyond the borders of
Germany. A library and an archive are attached to the museum in the
Klopstockhaus.
The half-timbered museum is one of the oldest
half-timbered houses in Quedlinburg. More recent investigations resulted
in the year 1325 being felled.[73] Parts of Klink 6/7 from 1289 (d),
Hölle 11 from 1301 (d), Breite Str. 12/13 1330 (d) are older. The
exhibition shows the history of post and half-timbered construction from
the 14th to the 20th century and individual styles of Quedlinburg
half-timbered construction using models.
Other museums and
galleries
The Lyonel Feininger Gallery, which opened in 1986, shows
works by the New York Bauhaus artist Lyonel Feininger (1871–1956), which
had been saved from destruction by the National Socialists by Hermann
Klumpp from Quedlinburg, a Bauhaus student. The collection, one of the
artist's most extensive complete holdings of graphics, etchings,
lithographs and woodcuts, documents his creative periods from 1906 to
1937.
There are also three other galleries in the city: Galerie
Weißer Engel, Galerie im Kunsthoken and the "Galerie im Kleinen
Kunsthaus".
In the Central German Railway and Toy Museum there
are over 3,000 exhibits on the subject of historical toys from around
1900 and a collection of historical model railways in gauges I, 0, S and
H0, mainly from Märklin, but also from foreign model railways.
The "Museum for Glass Painting and Crafts", housed in the restored
Wordspeicher, a warehouse building from the 17th century, offers an
exhibition on the importance and history of Quedlinburg glass painting
as well as a demonstration workshop and an interactive experience room.
The " Münzenberg Museum " shows the history of the medieval
Marienkloster on the Münzenberg and the settlement and social history of
this quarter in the early modern period.
The Collegiate Church of St. Servatii is enthroned on the Schlossberg
above the city and can be seen from afar. The current, fourth church
building on the same spot was started after a fire in 1070 and
consecrated in 1129. The Romanesque church interior is characterized by
the Lower Saxon column change and an imposing relief frieze running
inside and outside. The High Choir was rebuilt in the Gothic style under
the abbess Jutta von Kranichfeld by 1320. During the comprehensive
restoration under Ferdinand von Quast from 1863 to 1882, the church
received two Romanesque towers with Rhenish helmets that were contrary
to the style. From 1936 to 1945 the church was occupied and profaned by
the SS under Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler. After World War II, the
damaged spires were replaced with stylistically more appropriate
pyramidal roofs. The Quedlinburg cathedral treasure with the parts
stolen in 1945 and returned from Texas in 1992 can be seen in the two
treasury chambers. Among other things, the Servatius reliquary, the
Catherine reliquary, fragments of the Quedlinburg Itala, the Servatius
or abbess staff covered with gold sheet and the knotted carpet from the
12th century are on display.
The St. Wiperti Church was
reconsecrated as a Catholic branch church in 1959. Remains of the
sanctuary date back to the middle of the 10th century. The Romanesque
crypt was added to this building around 1020. In 1146 the entire canon
convent (since 961/964) was converted into a Premonstratensian convent.
This monastery survived several destructions in four centuries (1336,
1525) before it was abolished in the course of the Reformation in 1546
at the latest. The church was used as a Protestant parish church for the
Münzenberg and Westendorf communities. With the dissolution of the
convent in 1802, the Wipertikirche was first leased, later sold and used
as a barn. From 1936 to 1945 it was also profaned as a Nazi sanctuary.
Restored between 1954 and 1958, it has been used for Sunday High Mass in
the summer months since 1959. In 1995 a support association was founded,
which takes care of the structural and historical substance.
The
remains of St. Mary's Church on the Münzenberg are not used as a sacred
space. However, they have been made accessible again through a private
initiative by Siegfried Behrens and his wife. The Romanesque church,
which was abandoned in 1525, was founded in 986 as the monastery church
of a Benedictine monastery thanks to the intervention of the abbess
Mathilde. In 1017, after a fire, it was reconsecrated in the presence of
Henry II. After the destruction in the Peasants' War, the monastery was
abandoned, and since the 1550s simple people (musicians, etc.) settled
on the Münzenberg. These sprawled the former monastery grounds with many
small houses, so that the church was divided into 17 individual
buildings. A large part of the church was made accessible again in its
original form and handed over to the further responsibility of the
German Foundation for Monument Protection.
The Stiftskirche, the
Wipertikirche and the Marienkirche are the Quedlinburg stations on the
southern route of the Romanesque Road.
St. Aegidii in the north of the old town, a late Gothic three-nave
church with its massive, fortress-like towers, was first mentioned in
1179. The Evangelical parish of Quedlinburg currently only rarely uses
it for reasons of monument protection. Visiting options are restricted
for the same reason. The market church of St. Benedict with the
adjoining Kalands chapel is built on Romanesque remains and was first
mentioned in 1233. It is used by the evangelical parish as a parish
church. The building is a hall church with octagonal pillars, a late
Gothic chancel from the 14th century and a baptismal font from 1648. The
roof and roof truss of the church are designated as a fauna-flora
habitat (FFH) for the greater mouse-eared bat.
St. Nikolai in der
Neustadt was first mentioned in 1222 and, with its 72 meter high towers
and high three-aisled building, is an imposing example of an early
Gothic church interior. Archaeological investigations have so far been
unable to confirm or refute whether the Romanesque predecessor building
was erected on rammed Ellern piles in order to find a foothold in the
swampy subsoil. According to chronicle reports from the 13th century,
two shepherds looked after their flocks on the so-called pan meadow and
found a treasure that they donated to the construction of the church.
That is why two corners of the tower are decorated with figures of a
shepherd and his dog. The hall church has differently structured
pillars, a single-nave choir and twin towers.
St. Blasii in the
old town, of which only the Gothic towers (with spolia from a Romanesque
predecessor building) are still standing, while the nave is from the
Baroque period, was handed over to the city because it was not used by
its own parish and is mainly used as a concert and concert venue
showroom used. The wooden bank fixtures from the 16th and 17th centuries
have been completely preserved. century.
Neo-Gothic churches
St. Mathilde in Neuendorf was built between 1856 and 1858 according to
the plans of Friedrich von Schmidt, who worked at the Cologne cathedral
building works. Consecrated in 1858 by Bishop Konrad Martin (Paderborn)
and dedicated to Mathilde, the wife of King Heinrich I, it is the parish
church of the Catholic community.
St. John's was built in
Süderstadt in 1906, which is located on the site of the former hospital
with the old St. John's chapel. The St. John's Chapel, mentioned as
early as the 13th century, is part of the Way of St. James. It was once
the church of a hospital far from the city of Quedlinburg.
The largest part of the housing stock in the historic city center are
half-timbered houses, which are subject to urban monument protection in
a special way. They have been divided into five major areas based on
their shapes. According to this, at least 11 (1 percent) half-timbered
houses were erected before 1530, another 70 (5 percent) between 1531 and
1620, more than 439 (33 percent) between 1621 and 1700, more than 552
(42 percent) between 1700 and 1800 and 255 ( 19 percent) built in the
19th and 20th centuries. Altogether there are more than 1327
half-timbered houses in Quedlinburg. For comparison, 624 half-timbered
buildings have been preserved in Wernigerode, 354 in Stolberg and 353 in
Osterwieck.
In recent years, building research has been able to
use dendrochronology to identify more than twenty houses and roof
structures from the period between the 13th and 15th centuries that were
previously unknown.
From 1989 to 2005, around 650 of the 1,200
listed half-timbered houses in Quedlinburg were renovated thanks to
various funding programs. The German Foundation for Monument Protection
has made a special contribution to the promotion. A preservation plan
published in 2012 speaks of 2119 half-timbered buildings, of which 1689
are classified as monuments. A total of 2050 of the 3562 buildings are
regarded as defining the townscape.
From 1990 to 2010,
Quedlinburg received over 120 million euros in funding from state,
federal and EU funds. The city's financial situation is considered
tense.
The list of monuments published by the city of Quedlinburg in 1989 lists over 1200 individual monuments. As a result, the following particularly striking buildings are only a small selection:
There are inscriptions on around 400 half-timbered houses, which
usually name the builders and – as a Quedlinburg specialty – the
craftsmen who carried out the work.
Gildehaus Zur Rose, Breite
Straße 39 (colorful half-timbered house from 1612)
So-called stock
exchange, Steinweg 23 (representative half-timbered house from 1683)
Former inn and merchant's house Weißer Engel, Lange Gasse 33, corner
half-timbered building from 1623, unique ceiling with eleven stucco
reliefs (scenes from the Old Testament) in the half-timbered upper floor
Around 1660 the Kaufmannshof was built at Breite Straße 34.
The
tanner's house on the west side of the market was built in the middle of
the 17th century.
The Grünhagen house was built on the east side of
the market square in 1701.
Medieval half-timbered buildings: Klink
6/7 (1289 d), Breite Straße 12/13 (1330 d)
The house at Schmale
Straße 47 was built in the late Gothic style around 1485, while the
buildings at Schmale Straße 33 and 7 were built in the Baroque style.
The Schlossmühle Quedlinburg (first documentary evidence 1412, hotel
since 1997)
Stone town hall building (13th/14th century) with statue of Roland
and other plastic decoration
Hagensches Freihaus – Quedlinburg City
Palace, Bockstraße 6 / Klink 11 (stone building, built 1564-1566)
Salfeldtsches Palais, Kornmarkt 5 (owned by the German Foundation for
Monument Protection)
Höllenhof, Hölle 11 (secular building built in
1215/1301 d, 3rd Federal Prize for Craftsmanship in the Preservation of
Monuments 2008)
Ambitious Art Nouveau building at Steinbrücke 11 from 1903 by architect Max Schneck
The ring of the medieval city wall with its city towers can still be
seen in large parts. On the other hand, none of the medieval city gates,
the Hoher Tor, the Gröperntor, the Öringertor and the Pölkentor have
been preserved, whereas the former Kaiser Gate has been preserved as a
city tower. The Dread Tower is the largest surviving tower. Easily
recognizable by its green roof, the Lindenbein Tower has a gallery and
is open to visitors. Two towers have been converted into apartments,
including the Kaiserturm. Some towers are privately owned, some in poor
structural condition. These include the Gänsehirtenturm, the
Kuhhirtenturm, the Schweinehertenturm, the Kruschitzkyturm, the
Pulverturm, the Mertensturm and the Spiegelsturm.
Of the eleven
watchtowers in the field around the city, which were built at important
strategic positions along the Landgraben or the Landwehr, six towers,
here called field watchtowers, have been preserved: the Bicklingswarte,
the Lethwarte, the Altenburgwarte, the Gaterslebener Warte, the
Steinholzwarte and the Seweckenwarte. The Lehof, Aholz, Heidberg,
Anamberger and Sulten lookouts have largely disappeared due to stone
robbery. They were surrounded by fortified farms, which served as a
refuge for the farmers and shepherds working in the fields. The watch
towers were built on mountains at the district boundary as an early
warning system and reported dangers to the tower of the market church in
the city by means of smoke and fire signals.
The largest park is the Brühl, an old piece of forest that was already called broil around 1179 and in the 16th/17th century was planned. The Brühlpark is part of the 40 garden complexes project Garden Dreams Saxony-Anhalt. Between Brühl and Schlossberg, the historic abbey garden was redesigned in 2006 and a Demeter garden was added. Another park in the immediate vicinity of the city, the Worthgarten, is open to walkers. In the Süderstadt, the former Johannisfriedhof was redesigned into the Johannishain park in the 19th century. Nearby excursion destinations include the Altenburg, the Lehof, the Steinholz, the donkey stable acquired in 1913 and the Hamwarte. The tourist restaurants that were there in the 19th century have completely disappeared.
The Nordharzer Städtebundtheater is active with two venues each in
Halberstadt and in the Municipal Theaters of Quedlinburg, as well as
with summer performances in the Bergtheater Thale. Further visits to the
theater are possible in the Waldbühne Altenbrak, the Seebühne Magdeburg
and the Schlossbühne Wolfenbüttel.
The Quedlinburg Music Summer,
founded in 1981 by church music director Gottfried Biller, offers a
weekly concert during the summer months as part of a thematic concert
series in the Collegiate Church of St. Servatii in Quedlinburg.
The various choirs include: the Fritz Prieß Choir, the Quedlinburg
Oratorio Choir and the Ecumenical Youth Choir.
Quedlinburg now has an increasingly popular program of events. Advent
in the courtyards is emerging as the biggest event at the time, with
over 50,000 visitors coming to the city every weekend in 2006 and 75,000
to visit Gotthilf Fischer in 2007. Traditionally, on the second and
third weekend of Advent, up to 24 otherwise mostly closed courtyards
invite you to buy gifts, eat, drink mulled wine and linger.
The
series of events begins in spring with the so-called Imperial Spring at
Easter and Pentecost, a medieval spectacle in the historic old town. The
Long Night of Museums, which is spread throughout Germany, follows in
mid-May. The Magic of the Trees program, an art and music installation
in Brühlpark, takes place on the first Saturday of July. The various
performances of the Quedlinburg Music Summer take place throughout the
summer, from June to September. The guild festival of the Quedlinburg
merchants usually takes place in August. On the second weekend in
September, the Day of the Open Monument for Germany opens in
Quedlinburg. In the city, over 70 Quedlinburg monuments are open to
visitors free of charge, which are otherwise mostly closed, and a
Quedlinburg flower fair is held at the Mathildenbrunnen in Neustadt. In
addition, every three months, the Quedlinburg Dixieland and Swing Days
invite you to travel from one concert venue to the next to hear the
music; Furthermore, a so-called milonga, a dance evening with Argentine
tango, takes place monthly, which is organized by Braunschweig
milongueras. In the summer of 2009, the worldwide free music festival
Fête de la Musique took place for the first time.
In 2021, the city applied to host a four-day program for an international delegation to the Special Olympics World Summer Games 2023 in Berlin. In 2022 she was selected to host Special Olympics Tanzania. This made it part of the largest municipal inclusion project in the history of the Federal Republic with more than 200 host towns.
By plane
The nearest airports are Leipzig Halle Airport (IATA:
LEJ), 112 km and Hanover Airport (IATA: HAJ), 124 km) with domestic
German and European scheduled flights. There is an airfield for
small-engine aircraft in Ballenstedt (8 km).
By train
Quedlinburg station, south-east of the city centre, is on the
Halberstadt–Thale route and is served by regional trains operated by the
Dutch state railway subsidiary Abellio every hour. This means that
connections to and from the state capital of Magdeburg are possible
without having to change trains.
There is also a direct
connection to Berlin on weekends with the Harz-Berlin-Express. The
trains run from Berlin to Quedlinburg on Saturday and Sunday mornings
and Sunday evenings; In the direction of the federal capital, the trains
run without changing trains on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. In
particular, weekend trips from Berlin to Quedlinburg and the Harz
Mountains are possible. Tickets cost from €15 (single journey) or €19
(return journey) and are independent of the boarding or alighting
station.
Furthermore, the Selketalbahn of the Harzer
Schmalspurbahnen runs a narrow-gauge line via Gernrode-Alexisbad to
Hasselfelde, since spring 2010 there has been a journey to/from the
Brocken (with one change). In summer there are special trips with trains
running to the Brocken and back without changing trains.
By bus
Flixbus offers connections from/to Berlin, Goslar, Düsseldorf, Munich
and Hamburg from Quedlinburg train station.
On the street
Quedlinburg is on the four-lane A36 autobahn, so it is connected to the
A14 (Leipzig-Halle-Magdeburg) in the east and to the A39
(Braunschweig/A2) in the north-west. The federal highway 79
(Quedlinburg-halberstadt-Braunschweig) is still outgoing. Both the
Quedlinburg-Mitte and Quedlinburg-Ost exits lead to the inner city ring
road from which all destinations can be reached.
The inner city
consists largely of one-way streets (especially in the west-east
direction) and resident parking lots. It is therefore advisable to park
in the signposted parking spaces or to use the streets along the
Quedlinburger Null (inner ring road) (subject to a fee). There are
parking spaces for buses at Marschlinger Hof (near the city center) and
Turnstraße, for mobile homes at the Fischteichen or Schlossblick (both
subject to a charge).
By bicycle
The signposted cycle routes
of the Europaradweg R1 (Calais–St. Petersburg; see also
www.euroroute-r1.de), the Harzrundweg and the Harzvorlandweg lead
through Quedlinburg or along the city limits.
The outer ring road
is continuously equipped with cycle paths or combined walking and
cycling paths. There are no cycle paths in the center, here it is
possible to use the streets through the general 30 km/h zone, but the
pavement (cobblestones) should be taken into account. The area around
the market is a pedestrian zone, bicycle use is only permitted here from
6 p.m. to 10 a.m.
The Quedlinburg road network essentially consists of two city rings:
the outer closed ring (former B6, B79) and the one-way ring road in the
city center (not continuously passable). The city center is difficult to
navigate for strangers due to the many narrow streets with one-way
streets, dead ends and pedestrian zones. Some navigation systems have
problems with impassable roads.
Wheelchair users and people with
reduced mobility should note that the inner city is completely paved,
mostly still with cobblestones. Barrier-free access to footpaths is
currently being integrated, and the area around the market square was
redesigned to be barrier-free in 2014. Tip: people with restricted
mobility should call a local taxi company to climb the Schloßberg, they
can drive on the Schloßberg (private vehicles are not possible).
Barrier-free Quedlinburg is a flyer available from the city information
(PDF version).
The city bus of the Harzer Verkehrsbetriebe drives
through the city five times on weekdays. However, the stops in the city
center and the city ring are primarily served hourly by the regional
lines. Overnight visitors automatically have the Hatix (Harz holiday
ticket) with paid tourist tax, which allows free travel on bus, train
and tram traffic in the Harz district and in the Stollberg area.
The first traces of settlement go back to
the Paleolithic. The area was almost continuously populated. The
productive soils made the area particularly interesting for settlers
during the Neolithic, which can be proven by more than 55 settlement
remains from this era in the city and the surrounding area alone.
There are Neolithic burial mounds on the prominent mountain peaks
such as the Moorberg, the Bockshornschanze or the Brugesberg, which
rise up on the side walls of the Bodetal as if on a chain. About two
kilometers north-west of Quedlinburg, west of the desert of
Marsleben, a circular moat system made of stitchery ceramics was
examined in 2005, which is not inferior to the circular moat system
of Goseck in terms of age, size and shape.
At the end of the
8th century, documentary reports about places in the vicinity of
Quedlinburg pile up: Marsleben, Groß Orden, Ballersleben (all
desolate), Ditfurt and Weddersleben. The Wipertikirche as a branch
of the Hersfeld Abbey was probably founded around 835/863.
Quedlinburg gained importance when it became the royal palace in the
10th century, where the Ottonian rulers celebrated Easter. It was
first mentioned as villa quae dicitur Quitilingaburg in a document
from King Henry I of April 22, 922.
Heinrich later designated
the place as his burial place. After his death in Memleben in 936,
his body was transferred to Quedlinburg and buried in the Palatine
Chapel on the Schlossberg. His widow Queen Mathilde had Heinrich's
son and successor Otto I confirm the establishment of a women's
foundation with the task of memorizing the dead. For thirty years
she headed the founding of the monastery herself, without having
become an abbess. Otto I visited Quedlinburg at irregular intervals
to celebrate Easter and to commemorate his father. In 941 he
narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by his younger brother
Heinrich. On the Easter court day in 966 Otto's daughter Mathilde
was entrusted as abbess with the management of the women's
monastery. Two years later, on March 14, 968, her grandmother died
and was buried with her husband. Her grave and stone sarcophagus
have been preserved, while Heinrich's burial place is empty.
Otto the Great's largest and most glamorous court day took place in
973. Among the international participants were Boleslav I, Duke of
Bohemia, and Mieszko I, Duke of the Polans, who swore allegiance to
the emperor. Shortly afterwards Otto I. His son Otto II. Visited
Quedlinburg only twice in his ten-year reign.
After his death
in 983 Otto III. only three years old. His uncle Heinrich the
quarrel wanted to rise to the rank of king in Quedlinburg and
kidnapped the young king. Above all, the intervention of Otto's
grandmother Adelheid, Otto I's second wife, and his mother
Theophanu, Otto II's wife, forced Heinrich two years later, the
young Otto III. to pay homage in Quedlinburg. Otto III. granted the
monastery market, coinage and customs rights in 994, still under the
leadership of his aunt, Abbess Mathilde. This created an important
condition for the further urban development of Quedlinburg.
The later so-called Quedlinburg Annals, which were written on site,
testify to the further importance of Quedlinburg in terms of
imperial politics in the 11th and 12th centuries. These record
Litua, the name of Lithuania, for the first time in written sources
in 1009. For the period from the 10th to the 12th century, when
Quedlinburg was the Easter Palatinate of the East Franconian /
German rulers, 69 documented stays of a king or emperor have been
counted.
In the first decades after its foundation, the
women's monastery also received distant places, such as Soltau, 170
km away, the church of St. Michael des Volkmarskeller (956),
Duderstadt (974), Potsdam (993) and Gera (999), but also other
treasures. In addition to the 48 places donated by Otto I, eleven
were added under Otto II and eleven under Otto III. ten and under
later rulers another 150 places.
In 1326, the city
merged with Halberstadt and Aschersleben to form the Halberstadt
Tri-City Union, which lasted 150 years.
Quedlinburg
experienced an economic boom in the following four centuries. As in
other cities (Braunschweig, Halberstadt) in the region, the
tailoring and merchant sectors were particularly intense. Around
1330 the old town was enfeoffed with the new town founded in the
12th century; from then on both always acted together as the city of
Quedlinburg.
The economic success was joined by a political one in 1336, when
the city was able to imprison the latter in a regional conflict
between the Halberstadt bishop and the Count of Regenstein. The city
gained greater independence from the city mistress, the abbess of
the women's monastery, and was subsequently allowed to massively
expand its defenses. The new self-confidence was demonstrated to the
outside world in the form of many city alliances. As the culmination
of this development, the city joined the Lower Saxony City
Association in 1384 and the Hanseatic League in 1426.
The
city council's plan to free itself from the powers of Abbess Hedwig
von Sachsen resulted in a violent conflict in 1477. The
Quedlinburgers tried to drive Hedwig out of the city by force of
arms. She then asked her brothers, the Wettin dukes Ernst and
Albrecht, for help. The dispatched troops stormed the city without
losses of their own, while 80 Quedlinburgers fell. The citizens then
submitted and withdrew from all alliances. Roland, a symbol of
market freedom and a symbol of urban independence, was erected in
front of the dressmaker's house on the market square around 1435 and
was overthrown and smashed. In 1569 the council had this Roland
figure re-erected in the courtyard of the Ratskeller and in 1869 the
fragments of the Roland statue were put up in front of the town
hall. In 2013 the figure was cleaned and completed.
During
the Peasants' War, four of the city's monasteries, the
Premonstratensian monastery of St. Wiperti, the Benedictine
monastery of St. Mary, the Franciscan monastery in the old town and
the Augustinian monastery in the new town, were destroyed. The
Reformation was enforced in Quedlinburg in 1539 and the monastery
was converted into an evangelical free secular monastery.
The
city experienced its greatest urban development from the Thirty
Years War. Most of the 2159 preserved half-timbered houses were
built during this time. Two city fires devastated large parts of the
city in 1676 and 1797.
In 1698, Brandenburg troops occupied
the city, which made Prussia a protective power. In 1802 the women's
monastery, which had existed since 936, was dissolved. The monastery
buildings on the Schlossberg became the property of the Prussian
state.
In the course of the 18th and especially the
19th century, the cultivation of plants and the propagation of seeds
resulted in considerable prosperity, which found expression in a
number of Art Nouveau villas in urban planning. When the first sugar
factory in the administrative district of Magdeburg was set up by G.
Chr. Hanewald in Quedlinburg in 1834, this led to the rapid
development of agricultural suppliers and large businesses. The
development of breeding methods, the connection to the railway
network and the separation (1834-1858) are stages in the world
economic importance in the field of seed breeding. In addition to
the cultivation of ornamental and agricultural plants, the
importance of vegetable cultivation increased from the beginning of
the 20th century.
From 1815 to 1938 Quedlinburg was a
garrison town.
From 1865 to 1888 fragments of the oldest
known illustrated biblical manuscript (Quedlinburger Itala) from the
5th century were found in Quedlinburg.
In the
early 20th century, the seed companies were the largest employers.
In 1907 Rosa Luxemburg spoke to 800 Quedlinburg seed-breeding
workers. In 1911 Quedlinburg, which until then was the seat of the
district of Quedlinburg, became an independent city.
During
the First World War, up to 17,000 prisoners of war were forced to
work in agriculture and housed in a prisoner-of-war camp on the
Ritteranger northeast of the city. This camp was established in
September 1914 and was used as an emergency shelter for Tsarist
soldiers after the war until it was burned down in June 1922. In the
same year, a celebration of the thousandth anniversary of the first
documentary mention (922) took place in Quedlinburg.
A
devastating flood of the Bode in 1926 destroyed all bridges and
paralyzed the infrastructure. Later floods repeatedly hampered the
reconstruction work.
At the time of National Socialism, the millennium (936–1936) of
the death of King Henry I was viewed by the National Socialists in
the form of the SS as a propaganda gift. Heinrich Himmler developed
a cult around the king from 1936 and was regarded as a reincarnation
of Heinrich himself, which is said to have flattered him, as his
personal physician Felix Kersten reports. In Quedlinburg, the
Wiperti crypt and the Church of St. Servatii were confiscated and
converted into sanctuaries for the SS. Himmler's personal appearance
(until 1939) at the annual festivities on July 2, which took place
until 1944, was, for example, upgraded in 1937 with news about the
discovery of the lost bones of Heinrich I After the war, when the
(new) sarcophagus was opened, the “finds” presented by the SS were
exposed as crude forgeries.
On the morning after the
destruction of the “Reichspogromnacht”, the shopkeeper Sommerfeld
put his iron crosses from the First World War (EK 1 and 2) in his
destroyed shop window and a sign: “You can be sure of the thanks of
the fatherland.” Soon afterwards, the deportation of Jews began
Residents. There were three outposts of concentration camps in the
urban area: the district court prison and one prison camp each in
the Kleersturnhalle and in the air base in Quarmbeck.
Since
1943/1944, over 8,000 wounded people have been cared for in the
sports halls and emergency hospitals in Quedlinburg. In the week
before American troop units (RCT 18) were able to take the city
almost without a fight on April 19, 1945, parts of the V2, which
were stored on wagons at the Quedlinburg train station, were
successfully removed from the city. This prevented a bombing; so the
war damage was limited to artillery hits.
After the war,
Quedlinburg was part of the state of Saxony-Anhalt founded in 1945,
and since 1952 of the Halle district in the GDR.
The
demonstrations of June 17, 1953 in Quedlinburg and Thale could only
be stopped by using armed forces of the Soviet Army.
Although
there was hardly any significant war damage, the efforts made by the
GDR were by no means sufficient to stop the threatening natural
decline of the old town. Thanks to the work of experienced Polish
restorers from Toruń, it was only possible to restore certain
houses. Since 1957 St. Wiperti has been restored and rededicated in
1959. The original plans of the GDR in the 1960s to completely tear
down the historic old town and replace it with a central square and
socialist prefabricated buildings failed due to a lack of funds.
Attempts to adapt the prefabricated building method to the
historical conditions can be seen in the area of the Marschlinger
Hof, in Neuendorf and in the Schmalen Straße north of the market.
For this, the so-called Hallesche monolith construction (HMB) was
modified and implemented as the Hallesche monolith construction type
Quedlinburg (HMBQ). Only after the reunification in 1990 were
single-minded half-timbered structures restored.
In autumn
1989 there was hardly any other city where as many people
demonstrated as in Quedlinburg, measured by population. Non-violent
demonstrations during the "Wende" always took place in Quedlinburg
on Thursdays. The demonstration on November 2, 1989 with 15,000
participants was an example of non-violence despite the provocative
behavior of the SED leaders on site. The largest demonstration with
over 30,000 participants took place on November 9, 1989.
None
of the participants suspected that the wall was being opened at the
same time. The district office of the Ministry of State Security was
dissolved on December 12, 1989 after the real names file and the
most sensitive files (for example on church matters) had been
destroyed in the days before.
On January 6, 1990, a large
city festival with numerous dignitaries and 50,000 guests took place
as thanks for the overwhelming reception when crossing the border.
During a spontaneous visit in January 1990, Helmut Kohl promised the
city aid to secure the extremely endangered building fabric, and the
state of Lower Saxony donated 100,000 roof tiles in the spring for
immediate measures.
A social low point were xenophobic
attacks in the Quedlinburg Neustadt in autumn 1992. A response from
Quedlinburg residents was the establishment of the still active
prevention measure "Old Town Project". A planned NPD demonstration
15 years later was prevented by a markedly colorful demonstration by
committed Quedlinburgers.
Of the twelve parts of the
cathedral treasure stolen in 1945, ten returned from the USA to the
Quedlinburg cathedral treasury in 1993. Two pieces of loot are still
missing.
For the millennium of the granting of market, coinage and customs rights, large parts of Quedlinburg's old town and the royal court complex were placed on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites on December 17, 1994 at the request of Germany, as an ensemble that meets the requirements of Criterion IV , "An outstanding example of a type of building or architectural ensemble or landscape that represents significant periods in human history". (IV). Gerhard Schröder visited the city in 1999 with the French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and in 2001 with the Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar.
The Swedish royal couple, Carl XVI.
Gustaf and his wife Silvia, visited the Quedlinburg collegiate
church in 2005. Quedlinburg station has been connected to the
Selketalbahn network since 2006. After several years of restoration,
the crypt of the collegiate church has been open to the public again
since March 2009.
With Alles Klara played for the first time
from 2011 to 2017 an early evening series of the ARD in Quedlinburg
and the surrounding area. From 2011 to 2014, extensive redesign work
was carried out on the market square, in the area of Breiten
Straße and the stone bridge. In the run-up to this work, pavement
remains of a market were discovered during archaeological
excavations, which are dated to the 10th century. In 2014, the city
council decided to put the general designation World Heritage City
in front of the unique city name. After approval by the responsible
district and UNESCO Germany, the designation World Heritage City of
Quedlinburg has been in effect since March 29, 2015.
Since
spring 2015, the former crypt of St. Mary's Church on the Münzenberg
has been accessible again after almost 500 years. For the first time
on May 26, 2017, 81 stumbling blocks were laid in front of the
Steinweg house for Berta and Bruno Sommerfeld, who lived here
temporarily and who were murdered after their deportation to the
Auschwitz extermination camp in 1943. There are currently three
stumbling blocks in Quedlinburg. Angela Merkel spoke on
Quedlinburg's market square during the 2017 federal election
campaign. In June 2018, the interior ministers' spring conference
was held in Quedlinburg under Federal Interior Minister Horst
Seehofer.
Since Quedlinburg did not grow beyond its medieval (city wall) limits for a long time, the population remained from the Middle Ages to the 19th century at a maximum of 8,000 to 10,000 people. Only with industrialization did the number start to grow and reached its highest value in 1950 with 35,426 / 35,555 inhabitants. It then fell continuously by 21 percent (7459) from 1950 to 1990 and was back below 30,000 by 1975. Since the non-violent revolution and the opening of the border in 1989/1990, the city has again lost 20 percent of its residents (5,500 people) due to high unemployment, the relocation of many residents to the surrounding area and the decline in the birth rate. On June 30, 2006, the official population of Quedlinburg was 22,481 according to the state statistical office of Saxony-Anhalt (only main residences and after comparison with the other state offices). On January 1, 2011, the city expanded from 78.14 km² to 141.82 km² through the incorporation of the city of Gernrode and the municipalities of Bad Suderode and Rieder; the population rose from just over 21,000 to over 28,000. However, due to a formal error, this integration had to be reversed on February 19, 2013 due to a court decision. Bad Suderode and Gernrode have been part of Quedlinburg again since January 1, 2014.
The city lies in the northern Harz foreland on average 123 m above sea level, 50 km southwest of the state capital Magdeburg. The immediately adjacent heights reach about 181 m above sea level. The city lies in the river bed of the Bode, with the larger part west of the river. The urban area has an area of 78.14 square kilometers.
Quedlinburg is located in the middle of the Quedlinburger saddle,
a narrow saddle that crosses the city from northwest to southeast.
This includes the Quedlinburger Schlossberg with its extension over
the Münzenberg-Strohberg, the hamwarte located to the north and the
Altenburg located to the south.
The Harz North Rim Fault lies
further to the south. Parallel to the northern edge of the raised
Harz, the Mesozoic rock layers are bent up and partially broken off.
The changing layers of differently resistant Mesozoic rocks
(Jurassic, Chalk, Muschelkalk) form partially exposed stratified
ribs, which are cut across by the Bode as striking ridges. The most
striking ridge is the Teufelsmauer.
During the Elster and
Vistula glacial periods, the ice had reached the edge of the Harz,
while the region was not covered with ice in the last glacial period
(Saale glacial period). Aeolian ceilings formed during the high
glacial phases. These loess layers, which were blown up over a large
area, overlaid the older solid and loose rock and were later
converted into high-quality black earth soils. These are the
southern foothills of the fertile Magdeburg Börde.
The city is located in the temperate climate zone. The average
annual temperature in Quedlinburg is 8.8 ° C. The warmest months are
July and August with an average of 17.8 and 17.2 ° C and the coldest
January and February with an average of 0.1 and 0.4 ° C,
respectively. Most of the precipitation falls in June with an
average of 57 millimeters, the lowest in February with an average of
23 millimeters.
The Harz is an obstacle in the westerly wind
drift coming from the southwest. Due to the height (Brocken at
1141.1 m above sea level) the air masses are forced to rise and rain
down in the process. The northeast side lies in the rain shadow of
the Harz Mountains. Quedlinburg is located in this area with one of
the lowest annual precipitation in Germany of only 438 millimeters
(for comparison: Cologne approximately 798 millimeters). Since the
months of December, January and February have the lowest
precipitation values and the strongly decreasing trend already
begins in late autumn, one can speak of a Quedlinburg "winter
dryness". During the overall evaluation of the 2100 measuring
stations of the German Weather Service, which was carried out for
the first time in 2010, it was found that Quedlinburg was the driest
place in Germany in August 2010 with 72.4 liters per square meter (=
mm). There are 177 frost-free days per year, while permafrost
prevails on 30 days. A closed snow cover is available on less than
50 days and the sunshine duration is 1422 hours per year.
The historic core city is divided into the former
royal property with the Westendorf, the Burgberg, the St. Wiperti
Church and the Munzenberg. To the north is the old town, founded in
994, and to the east is the new town, founded in the 12th century.
In between, in the 13./14. In the 19th century the stone bridge was
laid and the Word drained. North of the old town is the medieval
suburb Gröpern.
A belt of villas in Art Nouveau style was
built around this medieval core at the transition from the 19th to
the 20th century. In the course of industrialization, new districts
emerged outside this belt, such as the Kleysiedlung, the new
building area in the Süderstadt (19th / 20th century) and the one on
the Kleers (1980s).
In addition to this core city,
Quedlinburg also includes the districts of Münchenhof (four
kilometers north), Gersdorfer Burg (three kilometers southeast),
Morgenrot (four kilometers east) and Quarmbeck (four kilometers
south) and, since January 1, 2014, Bad Suderode and Gernrode again
the districts of Haferfeld and the forester's house Sternhaus.
On July 1, 2014, the new municipal constitution law of the state
of Saxony-Anhalt came into force. In its § 14 (2) the municipalities
are given the opportunity to assign this designation to the
districts that were towns before the incorporation. The city of
Quedlinburg has made use of this regulation. Your amended main
statute dates from March 12, 2015. In § 1 (3) the districts and
localities are listed with their official names.
Quedlinburg is a town in the Harz district and borders eight cities and towns in Saxony-Anhalt (clockwise, starting in the northeast): Harsleben town, Wegeleben town, Ditfurt and Selke-Aue town, Ballenstedt and Thale town.
Christianity
The majority of Quedlinburg's population does not
belong to any religious community. The former five Protestant
communities comprise around 16% of the city's population; they have
joined together in the Quedlinburg Evangelical Church Community, which
belongs to the Evangelical Church in Central Germany. About four percent
of the city's population belong to the Catholic St. Mathildis community,
a parish in the Diocese of Magdeburg. Other Christian communities belong
to the Seventh-day Adventists, the Evangelical Free Church (Baptists) or
other Evangelical Free Churches and the New Apostolic Church. In
addition, members of the Blankenburg congregation of the Old Catholic
Church live in the town.
Judaism
Already in the 11./12. Jewish
merchants are said to have settled in Quedlinburg in the 19th century.
They have been documented since the early 13th century. They acted as
independent lenders to the Quedlinburg Abbess and other local magnates.
In 1514 all Jews had to leave Quedlinburg. Although three protected Jews
were allowed in the 18th century, they only settled in Quedlinburg again
after the monastery was dissolved in 1802. From 1933 to 1945 fewer than
100 "non-Aryans" lived in Quedlinburg. Of these, at least 13 met violent
deaths, 14 managed to emigrate and 34, mostly “half Jews”, survived and
died of natural causes. The other fates are unknown. There hasn't been a
Jewish community in Quedlinburg since the Nazi era.
Quedlinburg has had a coat of arms for centuries, but there is no
evidence that this national emblem was lawfully awarded. The coat of
arms of the heraldist Johann Siebmacher shows the coats of arms of the
imperial cities and other cities in 1605; he does not name a Quedlinburg
coat of arms. There are also no historiographical references to a coat
of arms being awarded in the archives. It can therefore be assumed that
Quedlinburg developed a customary coat of arms from the original seal
image in the course of its town history. This also explains the fact
that the image of the coat of arms has changed frequently over the
centuries and there can be no question of a binding appearance.
The coat of arms, which was in use until 1998, was not approved by the
state government and was therefore changed in its design. However, these
changes only affected details and hardly the heraldic appearance. The
creative modification was justified by the fact that it was precisely
the changed details that would turn an image into a correct coat of arms
image.
The model for the eagle was the coat of arms designed by
Adolf Matthias Hildebrandt in 1882 from the "Document Book of the City
of Quedlinburg". The graphics of the inner shield were adapted to
current heraldic conventions and traditional stylistic forms. The
graphic design and documentation was carried out by the heraldist Jörg
Mantzsch.
Blazon: "In gold, a red-armored black eagle with a
gold-contoured red breastplate, in it a silver castle with a black
jointed battlement wall and a battlemented gate tower with an open
arched window in the pitched roof, open gate wings and raised
portcullis, the gate tower flanked by two peaked battlement towers, each
with an open arched window, in the gate a sitting silver dog with a
black collar.”
The city's flag consists of the city's colors in stripes with an applied city coat of arms.
Quedlinburg has had a town twinning with the small town of Aulnoye-Aymeries in north-eastern France since 1961 and a town union with the four historically significant towns of Herford in North Rhine-Westphalia and Celle, Hann. Münden and Hamelin in Lower Saxony. Together with these, a so-called city union house (Hohe Straße 8) was set up, in which meetings take place regularly. Since 2000 there has been a city contact with Torbay in Great Britain.
Road traffic
The city is located at the intersection of federal
highways 79 and 6 and the A 36 (Brunswick - Bernburg (Saale)). The
northern connection (Quedlinburg center) to the A 36 above the medieval
settlement of Marsleben (desert) has been under traffic since 2006; the
closure of the gap between Quedlinburg center and Quedlinburg east was
opened for traffic on December 1, 2007. The A 14 motorway is 40
kilometers east of the city, the A 2 50 kilometers north and the A 7 75
kilometers west of the city.
rail transport
Quedlinburg
station, built in 1863 as a through station, has been the link between
the Halberstadt–Thale railway and the Harz narrow-gauge railways since
2006.
Since 1863, Quedlinburg had been a through station for the
North Harz railway network connecting Halberstadt to the Harz Mountains
near Thale. The regional express of Abellio Rail Central Germany runs
hourly on this connection from Magdeburg via Halberstadt to Thale. On
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, individual trains are extended to Berlin
as the Harz-Berlin-Express.
The previous traffic on the branch
line via Quarmbeck, Gernrode, Ballenstedt, Ermsleben to Aschersleben,
the oldest standard gauge branch line in the Harz Mountains, the
so-called Balkans, was discontinued in 2004. In 2006, the
Gernrode–Quedlinburg section was reactivated as a narrow-gauge railway.
This branch line from Frose to Ballenstedt was built in 1868 by the
Magdeburg- Halberstadt Railways (MHE) at the urging of the Duke of
Anhalt, who wanted to reach his palace in Ballenstedt. After Deutsche
Bahn AG had shut down the standard-gauge section of line to Aschersleben
via Gernrode, work began on April 18, 2005 to extend the Selketalbahn
from Gernrode to Quedlinburg. For this purpose, the Gernrode terminus
was first converted into a through station. The HSB Selketalbahn was
extended by 8.5 kilometers from Gernrode to Quedlinburg by the end of
December 2005. On March 4, 2006, the first narrow-gauge train of the
Harz narrow-gauge railways pulled into Quedlinburg station, and since
June 26, 2006 there has been a scheduled train service on the Harz
narrow-gauge railways to Quedlinburg with at least two pairs of steam
trains a day.
bus transport
Local public transport is
provided, among other things, by the PlusBus and TaktBus of the
Saxony-Anhalt state network. The following connections run from
Quedlinburg:
Line 140: Quedlinburg ↔ Hoym ↔ Reinstedt ↔ Aschersleben
Line 230: Quedlinburg ↔ Westerhausen ↔ Blankenburg ↔ Wernigerode
Line
240: Quedlinburg ↔ Gernrode ↔ Ballenstedt ↔ Meisdorf ↔ Aschersleben
The Harzer Verkehrsbetriebe (HVB) operates other lines from
Quedlinburg as well as city transport in Quedlinburg. The station
forecourt is the central stop for long-distance bus lines operated by
Flixbus.
air traffic
In the 1920s, a regional airport was
opened in Quarmbeck, two kilometers to the south, which was expanded
into a military airfield in the 1930s and renamed Römergraben. During
the GDR era there was a Soviet military base there. Flight operations
have been discontinued.
To the south-west, four kilometers away,
is the Ballenstedt airfield, which has an 800-metre-long asphalt runway
and is licensed for night flight operations. The Aschersleben airfield
is a small special landing field (approved for aircraft up to 5700
kilograms) three kilometers north of Aschersleben. Magdeburg-Cochstedt
Airport, which was reopened on September 1, 2006, is located about 22
kilometers north-east of Quedlinburg.
The nearest international
airports are Leipzig/Halle Airport, 90 kilometers south-east, and
Hanover Airport, 120 kilometers north-west.
The first evidence of a Latin school in the Benedictine Church and
the Nikolai Church goes back to 1303. The rectors have been known since
the 1530s. The Latin school in the old town was called Gymnasium
illustre from 1623 and Princely Gymnasium from 1776. In addition, until
1787 there were also eight so-called German schools that taught basic
reading, writing and arithmetic. A girls' school was also mentioned as
early as 1539.
In the 19th century a Catholic private school,
several secondary schools for girls and a Jewish private school were
founded. In addition to the old-language grammar school and the high
school, a modern-language lyceum developed.
In GDR times, the
schools were unified into ten so-called polytechnic high schools, which
taught the middle school certificate in ten classes. The Abitur could be
obtained in two more years at the Extended High School (EOS) in the
convent (“GutsMuths-Gymnasium”).
In 2022 Quedlinburg had five primary schools, two special needs
schools (Sine Cura School for the mentally handicapped and David Sachs
School for the learning disabled), two secondary schools (Bosse and
Bansi School), one grammar school and the district music school.
The Kleers elementary school (from the 2008/2009 school year: Am Kleers
integration school) was created as part of the construction of the new
Kleers development area in the 1980s and has had its name since 1991.
Since 2004 it has been an integrative school with cooperative classes,
integrative classes and extensive afternoon care, which has won several
state competitions in the areas of school newspapers and school theatre.
The Bosseschule (from 1983 to 1991: Maxim-Gorki-Oberschule) is a
secondary school in the middle of the old town and has been named after
the German politician Robert Bosse since 1955. Since 2005, the school
has been taking part in a pilot project for productive learning, which
aims to link lessons and practical work. Due to the closure of the
Carl-Ritter-Secondary School in 2004, the Bosse School had to be
remodeled in order to be able to accommodate some of the additional
students. The school uses parts of the former Franciscan monastery. The
Ernst Bansi secondary school mainly caters to students from the southern
part of Quedlinburg and the surrounding areas.
The
GutsMuths-Gymnasium consists of two buildings: the listed main building
in the convent, built in 1903, and the Erxleben-Haus in Süderstadt,
which was called the Süderstadt-Gymnasium from 1991 to 1998 and the
Dorothea-Erxleben-Gymnasium until 2004. Both schools merged in 2004.
Classes 5 to 9 are housed in Süderstadt and classes 10 to 12 in the
convent. Since 2006, the school has held the title School without
Racism, School with Courage. It has been an all-day reference school in
Saxony-Anhalt since 2007.
The Johann Heinrich Rolle Music School,
a branch of the Harz District Music School and a member of the
Association of German Music Schools (VdM), emerged in 1952 from the
State Conservatory, which had existed since 1945. The musical education
of children and young people is their main goal. To this end, around 560
pupils are taught instrumental and vocal in 30 subjects in Quedlinburg
and at the supervised branch offices in Thale, Ballenstedt and
Harzgerode.
Further education is made possible by the vocational school, the
adult education center, the state technical school for horticulture, the
German Fachwerkzentrum and a number of educational institutions, such as
the Harz regional competence center of the Europäische Bildungswerk
fürberuf und Gesellschaft e. V., the training center for the hotel and
catering trade Ostharz GmbH, the education work of the economy
Sachsen-Anhalt e. V. and the Harzland-Stassfurt District Craftsmen’s
Association. Since 2007, the vocational school has carried the name of
the Quedlinburg company founder and seed breeder Johann Peter Christian
Heinrich Mette (1735-1806). The American Texas Tech University offers
(German) courses for their students in Quedlinburg.
The state
college for agriculture, forestry and horticulture, department of
horticulture of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment is located
in Quedlinburg. It offers one- and two-year technical training courses
(state-certified technician, economist, housekeeping manager) in the
areas of gardening and landscaping and home economics, as well as
preparatory courses for the master craftsman examination in the areas
mentioned. It was closed in 2013 due to insufficient student numbers.
Since 1999, the IBB – Institute for Vocational Education, A. Gesche
has been training state-certified beauticians at the vocational school
for cosmetics. In addition, the IBB offers nursing, cosmetic and
commercial training as well as vocational training at the vocational
school for geriatric care and geriatric care assistance and the
state-recognized school for podiatry (podologist).
The German
Half-Timber Center Quedlinburg was founded in 2002 as a supporting
association of the German Foundation for Monument Protection, the state
of Saxony-Anhalt and the city of Quedlinburg with the help of the German
Federal Foundation for the Environment. The center oversees ecological
renovations and building research and enables young people to spend a
voluntary year in the preservation of monuments in a youth building hut.
52,000 media are available for loan in the Quedlinburg district
library.
In the city there is an indoor swimming pool opened in 1903 and a modern three-field hall opened in 2004. A number of sports halls are available for school sports, some of which are older. The Kleersturnhalle was built in 1910. The largest public sports fields are on Moorberg, south of the city, and on Lindenstraße, north-east of the city. In 2001, the outdoor pool built in the 1950s was closed and leveled not far from the latter sports field and has been rebuilt in the same place since 2021. The judo hall on the police premises is partially accessible for popular sports.
The Harz Clinic Dorothea Christiane Erxleben is located on the eastern outskirts of the city. The hospital, which was inaugurated in 1907, was expanded in the 1990s to house primary care. It is also the teaching hospital of the University Hospital of the Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg. The clinic with 481 inpatient and 50 semi-inpatient beds has twelve inpatient departments and three day clinic facilities. The clinic's skin tumor center is the only certified one in Saxony-Anhalt alongside the one in Dessauer. Approximately 20,000 inpatients and 20,000 outpatients are cared for every year.
The largest municipal cemetery is the central municipal cemetery on
Badeborner Weg, established in 1906. It is located in the southeast of
the city and its network of paths is aligned in a star shape with the
chapel. During the First World War, more than 700 soldiers who died as
prisoners of war and the majority of the more than 160 Quedlinburg
soldiers who died were buried here. The same happened in World War II
with at least 110 POWs and an unknown number of Quedlinburgers. During
this time, the crematorium (built in 1928) was also used to burn at
least 912 victims of the Langenstein-Zwieberge concentration camp.
The historic church cemeteries were located in the immediate
vicinity of the respective church. They were located within the city
walls at the following locations:
St. Aegidii Cemetery north-east of
the church, it has almost completely disappeared apart from a few late
tombstones
the St. Benedikti-Kirchhof lies under the modern paving
and is partly used as a parking lot (a mausoleum has been preserved)
the St. Nikolai churchyard is a green space
Another cemetery
belonging to the St. Nikolai community lay between the eastern
(northern) part of Ballstrasse and the city wall (this green space has
been preserved as a private garden).
All cemeteries within the
city walls were closed at the beginning of the 19th century. According
to state law, they subsequently laid out new cemeteries outside the city
gates for hygienic reasons.
Cemetery of the market parish in
Weststraße (since 1843, chapel 1915)
Cemetery of the Blasii parish at
the Zwergkuhle (rebuilt 1841 to 1843)
Cemetery of the Aegidii parish
at Ziegelhohlweg (mid-19th century)
Weststrasse Catholic Community
Cemetery (since 1868)
Wiperti- and Servatiikirchhof left and right of
Wipertistraße (chapel 1934/1935). At this point there is a Quedlinburg
specialty: the three-storey terraced tomb complex carved into the rock
of the chapel hill with over twenty tombs on each floor and side of the
mountain.
In addition, the cemetery of Quedlinburg's Jewish community
was relocated from Weingarten Street to the location of today's
Quedlinburg Jewish Cemetery at the Zwergkuhle in the 19th century.
At the time of industrialization, economic power also grew in
Quedlinburg. In the south of the city, numerous businesses, businesses
and companies settled, which were particularly at home in the fields of
metal processing or agricultural seed breeding. The increase in
employees during this time was accommodated in the newly built
residential area in Süderstadt. After the Second World War, all of these
factories were expropriated and converted into state-owned companies or
agricultural production cooperatives. The largest employer was the
Mertik plant, the successor company to Hartmann & Sons, which employed
more than 3,000 people in the meantime. Another former company that
should be mentioned is the VEB Union, which produced pressure cookers
(also for export) and cutlery for the National People's Army. The former
state-owned August Bebel estate produced seed for agricultural needs and
special crops. The Wilhelm Brauns paint factory founded in 1874, since
1959 VEB Farb-Chemie Quedlinburg, produced paints and adhesives until
2004. Many of these companies, whose production was geared almost
exclusively to the member states of the socialist council for mutual
economic aid, went bankrupt after reunification in 1990. Some of the
empty factory buildings and warehouses are still standing.
For
some time now, at the beginning of Hell, near the market square, there
has been the Rubia plant dye works, which traditionally dyes fabrics
made from natural fibers with plant dyes.
One of the few
companies that has managed to adapt to the market is the Walzengiesserei
& Hartgusswerk Quedlinburg GmbH, which was founded in 1865 and is one of
the few foundries in Saxony-Anhalt.
After 1990, the successor
institutions to the seed breeding farms expropriated in 1945 were
converted into sub-institutes of the Federal Institute for Breeding
Research on Cultivated Plants (BAZ), a research institution assigned to
the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection. Five
of the nine sub-institutes of the BAZ are in Quedlinburg. These are the
Institute for Horticultural Crops, the Institute for Epidemiology and
Resistance Resources, the Institute for Resistance Research and Pathogen
Diagnostics, the Institute for Plant Analysis and the Research and
Coordination Center for Plant Genetic Resources. Since the beginning of
2008, the newly founded Julius Kühn Institute - Federal Research
Institute for Cultivated Plants (JKI), which emerged from the Biological
Federal Institute for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA), the BAZ and the
Federal Research Institute for Agriculture (FAL), has had its
headquarters in Quedlinburg. In addition to the function of the
headquarters of this research institution, there are now six main
research areas: epidemiology and pathogen diagnostics, ecological
chemistry, plant analysis and stored product protection, resistance
research and stress tolerance, safety of biotechnological processes in
plants, breeding research on horticultural crops and fruit and breeding
research on agricultural crops in Quedlinburg. Private companies such as
satimex Quedlinburg, Quedlinburger Saatgut or International Seeds
Processing (ISP) have also been able to establish themselves.
The economic sectors are divided into: 2 percent agriculture, 19.29 percent industry and 78.71 percent service sector. Agriculture specializes in seed breeding, industry in the construction industry with special services for restoration and renovation, construction element production, wood processing, metal processing and pharmacy as well as printing, the service sector primarily in tourism.
Tourism is one of the most important economic variables for
Quedlinburg, and so the creation of a modern tourist infrastructure is
one of the main projects. In terms of overnight accommodation in
Quedlinburg, 62 accommodation establishments (guest houses, hotels) with
over 10 beds and a youth hostel are available to guests from outside.
The number of overnight stays is strongly dependent on the season, with
peak values around Easter, from May to July, from September to October
and at Advent/New Year. The greatest weak period is from January to
March. During the peak times, the capacities in Quedlinburg and in the
entire pre-Harz region are very heavily utilised. A total of 3110 beds
are available, which were used for 473,145 overnight stays. Most of the
hotels were newly built or completely renovated after 1994.
Since
1994, Quedlinburg has been part of the southern route of the Romanesque
Road, a tourist route to the Romanesque monuments of Saxony-Anhalt. It
is also a location of the women's places. The St. John's Chapel has been
a station on the German extension of the Way of St. James since 2003.
The German half-timbered road and the German avenue road are very close
by.
Since November 12, 2008, the city has been a state-approved
resort.
The travel guide 1000 places to see before you die calls
Quedlinburg "a fairy tale made of half-timbered houses"; the travel
guide Lonely Planet speaks of an "unpolished jewel", and in 2006 the
city itself adopted the motto "Quedlinburg - cradle of Germany" (until
1990 "flower city Quedlinburg", until 2006 "curious about ...?").
In order to promote tourism, a WLAN has been installed in the city
since 2015, which can be received primarily in the shopping streets. It
is realized by the Freifunk Harz project.
sons and daughters of the town
Well-known personalities who were
born in Quedlinburg include Dorothea Erxleben (1715-1762), who was the
first German woman to receive a doctorate in medicine, Friedrich
Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803), the founder of adventure poetry and
German irrationalism, Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths (1759-1839),
who is considered the founder of modern physical education and the
father of gymnastics, and also the founder of scientific geography, Carl
Ritter (1779-1859). The following should be mentioned from more recent
times: the poet and painter Fritz Graßhoff (1913-1997), the writer
Volker von Törne (1934-1980), the former President of the Federal Audit
Office (1993-2001) Hedda von Wedel (* 1942), the film director Leander
Haußmann (* 1959, including Sonnenallee, Stasi comedy) and the
German-Israeli translator Ruth Achlama (* 1945).
Honorary citizen
Numerous personalities were made honorary citizens of the city of
Quedlinburg, partly depending on the political situation. During the
National Socialist period, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and on June 1, 1937
Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) were awarded honorary citizenship on April
20, 1933, and were immediately revoked after the end of the Second World
War.
The most well-known people who received honorary citizenship
through the city of Quedlinburg include: 1895 Otto von Bismarck
(1815-1898), the first German chancellor, 1910 Julius Wolff (1834-1910),
a poet and writer, and 1998 Gottfried Kiesow ( 1931-2011), Chairman of
the Board of Directors of the German Foundation for Monument Protection.
The Mitteldeutsche Zeitung has a local editorial office in
Quedlinburg. Furthermore, the local newspapers SuperSonntag,
Wochenspiegel and Harzer Kreisblatt.
The regional program of
public broadcasting is Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) with a regional
office in Halberstadt.
The transmitter of the regional television
Harz (RFH) can be received via the local cable network mainly in the
Harz region.
The action of some novels is located in Quedlinburg
and the surrounding area. This is how Wilhelm Raabe's Der Schüdderump
(1869) acts on the fertile soil of the historic Quedlinburg region.
Furthermore, the first part of Theodor Fontane's novel Cécile (1887)
takes place in Quedlinburg and Thale, as do the various novels about
Dorothea Christiane Erxleben and Julius Wolff's novel Der Raubgraf. A
story from the Harzgau (1884). Also by Gerhard Beutel The Governor of
Quedlinburg (Berlin 1972), by Helga Glaesener You sweet gentle murderess
(Munich 2000) or ten novels by Christian Amling (Quitilinga History
Land, 2005 to 2018) about the fictional private detective Irenäus Moll.
Due to the historical building fabric, Quedlinburg offers itself as
a background for various film and television projects. Several episodes
(64, 67-70, 76) of the RTL II series Anger in the Revier come from
Quedlinburg. From 2012 to 2017, the ARD evening series Heiter bis
deadly: Everything Klara was filmed in the city and its surroundings,
with 48 episodes in three seasons. The following list shows a selection
of films shot partly in Quedlinburg:
1938: Play in the Summer Wind,
directed by Roger by Norman
1954: Pole Poppenspäler (FRG: Village at
home), GDR, director: Arthur Pohl
1960: Five cartridge cases, with
Manfred Krug and Armin Mueller-Stahl, directed by Frank Beyer
1964:
Follow me, canaille!, with Manfred Krug, director: Ralf Kirsten
1971:
Police call 110, four episodes
1972: Don't cheat, darling!, with
Frank Schöbel, Chris Doerk, Christel Bodenstein, Dorit Gäbler, Rolf
Herricht, director: Joachim Hasler
1972: Lützower, with Jürgen
Reuter, director: Werner W. Wallroth
1974: Casimir the Great, in the
collegiate church and in the palace courtyard, with 800 extras
1974:
Hans Röckle and the Devil, director: Hans scratches
1975: Till
Eulenspiegel, with Winfried Glatzeder, director: Rainer Simon
1979:
Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot, director: Siegfried Hartmann
1981: Two
Lines in Small Print (Две строчки мелким шрифтом), directed by Vitaly
Melnikov
1982: The long ride to school, with Frank Träger and Iris
Riffert, directed by Rolf Losansky
1992: Miracle Years, with Gudrun
Landgrebe and Christian Müller-Stahl, director: Arend Agthe
2000:
picture book Germany, episode: From Quedlinburg to Halberstadt,
director: Carla Hicks
2003: Pfarrer Braun two episodes of the German
crime series with Ottfried Fischer
2003: When Christmas Comes True,
directed by Sherry Hormann
2006: 7 Dwarfs - The forest is not enough
with Otto Waalkes, director: Sven Unterwaldt
2010: Goethe! with
Moritz Bleibtreu and Alexander Fehling, directed by Philipp Stölzl
2011: The Big Dream with Daniel Brühl, Burghart Klaußner and Thomas
Thieme, Director: Sebastian Grobler
2012: The Medic, director:
Philipp Stölzl
2013: The little ghost with Uwe Ochsenknecht,
director: Alain Gsponer
2014: Till Eulenspiegel with Jacob Matschenz,
director: Christian Theede
2015: Heidi with Anuk Steffen, Bruno Ganz
and Quirin Agrippi, Director: Alain Gsponer
2016: Frantz with Pierre
Niney and Paula Beer, directed by François Ozon
2016: Stadtlandliebe
with Jessica Schwarz, Tom Beck and Uwe Ochsenknecht, directed by Marco
Kreuzpaintner
2020: Army of Thieves
Locally produced culinary specialties include beekeeping products
such as pure rapeseed honey, mustard products and brandy made from
regional fruits, and the only beer that is still brewed in Quedlinburg,
Pubarschbang, from the Lüdde brewery.
The ocean-going ship (Type
XD) MS Quedlinburg was launched in August 1967 at the Warnow shipyard in
Rostock and sailed for the VEB Deutsche Seereederei Rostock until
February 1991.
On May 4, 2004, ICE No. 242 (series 402/ICE 2) was
christened Quedlinburg at Magdeburg Central Station, and on September
24, 2008, a Lufthansa CityLine aircraft (Bombardier CRJ700) at Frankfurt
Airport. A Lufthansa Airbus A320 has also been christened Quedlinburg.
A 126-ton diesel locomotive (Voith Maxima 40 CC design) was given
the name Quedlinburg on May 27, 2011, as it is intended for transport
from the newly built loading station near Quedlinburg.
In 2018,
the game Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg, developed by the Austrian game
designer Wolfgang Warsch, was published by Schmidt Spiele and was voted
Kennerspiel des Jahres 2018.