Speyer (until 1825 also Speier) (Latin Spira) is an independent
city in Rhineland-Palatinate and part of the Rhine-Neckar
metropolitan region. As a Roman foundation, then called Noviomagus
or Civitas Nemetum (capital of the Nemeter tribe), it is one of the
oldest cities in Germany and, as Spira, became the center of the
Speyergau around 600. As a free imperial city, Speyer was one of the
most important cities of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
in the Middle Ages. Between 1816 and 1945 the seat of the Bavarian
administration of the Palatinate, Speyer today belongs to
Rhineland-Palatinate and has 50,561 inhabitants (as of 2019).
Speyer is widely known for its imperial and Mariendom cathedral,
which is also the cathedral of the Roman Catholic diocese of Speyer.
It is the world's largest surviving Romanesque church and has been a
UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981.
Numerous finds from the
Neolithic, Bronze Age, Hallstatt and Latène Age suggest that the
terraces in Speyer, especially the lower terrace tongue in the
immediate vicinity of the Rhine, have always been interesting places
to settle. In the second century BC, the area around Speyer was the
settlement area of the Celtic Mediomatrics.
After the
subjugation of Gaul by the Romans in 50 BC. The Rhine became part of
the border of the Roman Empire, even if the area was still outside
the military scene. 10 BC A camp was probably built for a 500-strong
infantry force. This Roman military post became the impetus for city
building. Around 150 the city appeared under the Celtic name
Noviomagus (Neufeld or Neumarkt, see all Noviomagus) in the world
map of the Greek Ptolemy; the same name is in the Itinerarium
Antonini, a travel guide of Antonius from the time of Caracalla
(211-217) and on the Tabula Peutingeriana, a road map from the 3rd
century. From 260 onwards, the constant attacks by the Alamanni as
part of the migration of peoples to the Limes could no longer be
repelled, the Roman imperial border had to be withdrawn to the
Rhine, and Speyer became a border town again. Jesse is documented as
the first Speyer bishop for the 4th century; the diocese probably
went under during the migration period.
In 406 the Suebi,
Vandals and Sarmatian Alans crossed the Rhine under pressure from
advancing Huns and overran Speyer on their way to inner Gaul. A
richly decorated “princely grave” in Altlußheim on the right bank of
the Rhine, about four kilometers from Speyer, testifies to the
presence of Alano-Sarmatians, Huns and East Germans.
In a
battle of 496/497 near Zülpich and another battle in 505, the Franks
under Clovis defeated the Alamanni and Speyer became part of the
Frankish kingdom. With this Speyer got again connection to the
Gallic-Roman culture. As part of the reorganization of the
administration, Romanised officials and bishops from southern Gaul
came to the Rhine. In terms of the administrative structure, too,
the Franks largely adhered to their predecessors, for example in
setting up the districts. The new Speyergau corresponded roughly to
the civitas Nemetum. The name Spira, introduced by the Alemanni, is
mentioned for the first time in the "Notitia Galliarum" from the 6th
century, although it can be deduced as early as 496/509. From the
7th century, Speyer is mentioned again as a bishopric.
In
969, Emperor Otto the Great granted the episcopal church the
privilege of immunity, its own jurisdiction and control over coins
and customs. From 1030, Emperor Konrad II had construction work on
the Speyer Cathedral begin.
In the 11th century, at the
instigation of Bishop Rüdiger Huzmann, one of the first Jewish
communities in the Roman-German Empire settled in Speyer. In
addition to the other ShUM cities of Worms and Mainz, Speyer is one
of the birthplaces of Ashkenazi culture.
On the day his
father was buried in the Speyer Cathedral, Heinrich V granted the
city extensive privileges in 1111. The Great Letter of Freedom was
the first city in Germany to grant its citizens personal freedom.
Together with his picture, the letter was affixed in gold letters
above the cathedral portal, where it was lost in the course of the
later damage to the cathedral.
The 13th century in Speyer was
to be marked by the dispute over the rights of the city. The second
half was marked by violent disputes between the city and the bishop,
and above all the foundations, which were only exacerbated by the
investiture dispute. It was in particular the cathedral chapter that
developed into the actual adversary of the citizenship. In the
middle of this century it was first documented that there was
“public property” in Speyer in the form of municipal property.
In the 14th century the generalis discordia, the dispute between
the citizenry and the clergy, played only a subordinate role. In the
Wittelbach-Habsburg throne dispute, Speyer was once again the focus
of imperial politics. Against this background, a power struggle
developed over the occupation of the council between the Münzer
members of the household and the guilds. The members of the
household had to forego their last privileges in 1349, when the
principle of the pure guild constitution prevailed in Speyer. From
this point on, the members of the household had to establish
themselves as a guild and were thus only one group among 14 other
guilds.
With the rise of Heidelberg, only a good 20
kilometers away, in the 13th and 14th centuries, which among other
things became a residential and university town, the situation in
the region shifted.
City law and Reichstag
In the second half of the 14th century it also became apparent
that the Speyer bishops had never given up their claim to the city
rulership. To represent their interests, they won the support of
Emperor Charles IV and, above all, the Count Palatine near the
Rhine, whereas the city could no longer fully rely on the support of
the emperors.
In 1434 came with the Elector Ludwig III. From
the Palatinate, a protection and umbrella contract for ten years.
From 1439 the region was threatened by marauding Armagnaks,
mercenaries dismissed from the French service. In 1439 Speyer
concluded an alliance with Mainz, Worms and Strasbourg, which
envisaged the formation of an army of 100 Gleven, 30 each from Mainz
and Strasbourg and 20 from Worms and Speyer. City and clergy moved
closer together, possibly due to external danger. From 1459 to 1462
Speyer again had to take part in a war in the Palatinate, this time
in connection with the Palatinate War and the Mainz collegiate feud
against Kurmainz.
With Matthias von Rammung, a bishop took
over the office in Speyer in 1464, who again made concrete efforts
to expand or regain the powers of the church. In 1465, through no
fault of its own, the city came into conflict with the church
because, at the behest of the imperial court, it was supposed to
help a citizen gain his rights against the bishop. In 1470/71 Speyer
again found itself in a situation in which it had to laboriously
strive for a neutral stance. Once again, Elector Friedrich I got
cross with the Kaiser because he seized the city and the Weissenburg
Monastery and both Elector and Kaiser demanded Speyer's military
help in the war that broke out.
In the first half of the 16th
century, Speyer became the focus of German history. The importance
of the city in those days becomes clear when a total of more than 50
court days took place within its walls and five of the 30 Reichstag
that existed in this century were held in Speyer (see Reichstag zu
Speyer). In addition, Reich Deputation Days took place in Speyer,
1558, 1560, 1583, 1595, 1599/60, Electoral days, 1588 and Reich
Moderation Days, 1595.
In 1525 the Rhine area was covered by
a farmers' survey that reached the Speyer Monastery on April 20th.
The uprising was mainly directed against church property and the
peasants turned against the tithe, the interest and the validity. On
April 30th they planned “to go to Speyer and there to destroy the
nests of the clergy, which had been preserved much with disadvantage
and great harm to the poor”. The Lutheran influence on this survey
is evident. On the approach to Speyer, the intention was announced
to "occupy the city of Speier and to reform the clergy in it if they
please" and they even expected the support of the city for this.
Citizens should not be bothered. As a result, some Reichstag took
place in Speyer.
Modern times
Except for one event in
1552, the time in Speyer between 1530 and 1620 was comparatively
peaceful. Yet the city was not spared from misfortune. There were
repeated epidemics of the plague, for example in 1539, 1542, 1555
and 1574. The Schmalkaldic War of 1546 had no direct impact on
Speyer.
In 1564 Wilhelm Eisengrein published the first
printed history of the city of Speyer, which, as he himself wrote,
was based on the handwritten chronicle of the cathedral vicar
Wolfgang Baur († 1516). In 1612, after ten years of work, the first
edition of the Chronica of the free imperial city of Speier by
Christoph Lehmann was published. The work was very popular, as it
dealt intensively with the history of the empire, and saw four
editions in the course of the following century. In 1618 Speyer
participated with an army from the Palatinate-Baden region in the
demolition of the Udenheim bishop's fortress, which was soon
rebuilt.
In the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648),
the walled, but hardly defensible Speyer was caught in the tension
between the often contested fortresses Frankenthal, Friedrichsburg,
Philippsburg and Landau. Thus, the city constantly played the role
of refuge, hospital, supply station and / or troop camp. In
addition, there were occupations by Spaniards, Swedes, French and
imperial troops, which changed at short intervals. Not until 1650
did the last soldiers leave the city, leaving behind debts, hunger
and epidemics.
In 1689, as part of the War of the Palatinate Succession and the
planned de-fortification of the Palatinate under General Melac, the
city was completely destroyed by French troops. Two days after the
French general Joseph de Montclar had inspected the fortifications
of the city on January 30, 1689, the demolition work began, in which
the townspeople had to take part. The citizens suspected that the
French wanted to burn the city down. On the afternoon of May 23rd,
the French war director informed the two mayors and the councilors
that the city had to be evacuated within six days: "However, nobody
should conclude that the city would be burned." Montclar had the
dean and the bishop On May 27, 1689, governor Heinrich Hartard von
Rollingen reported that he had received the order “to set fire to
the city, including all the churches and monasteries in it, with the
exception of the high cathedral”. The commander-in-chief of the
French in Mainz, Marshal Count Jacques-Henri de Durfort, duc de
Duras, was asked by the cathedral chapter to ensure that the
cathedral would be spared.
In 1792 French revolutionary
troops captured Speyer. As the seat of a sub-prefecture in the
Département du Mont-Tonnerre (Donnersberg) it remained under French
rule until 1814. The wars of liberation against Napoleon and the
reorganization of the European world at the Congress of Vienna in
1815 brought about a change in the balance of power in the
Palatinate area. For a few hours Speyer was once again in the
limelight of great politics when, on June 27, 1815, Tsar Alexander
of Russia, Emperor Franz I of Austria and Prussia's King Friedrich
Wilhelm III. met at the Allied headquarters in the city. In 1816
Speyer became the district capital of the so-called Rhine district
in what followed. As a result of the Congress of Vienna, this fell
to the Kingdom of Bavaria as compensation for Salzburg, which had
been ceded to Austria. The administrative district (district)
Palatinate existed only since January 1, 1838 and replaced the Rhine
district.
In 1837 the expansion of the Rhine port was
completed. Speyer was connected to the German railway network in
1847. Among other things, social and charitable institutions were
created (work and educational institution for girls, charity
association of the Jewish community and a hospital). In the field of
education, the city had all kinds of facilities and the
best-developed school system in the Palatinate. The first clubs came
into being: the Schützengesellschaft, which had existed since 1529,
included a gymnastics club, a harmony society, a music club and a
song table. Until 1918 Speyer was the garrison of the 2nd Engineer
Battalion of the Bavarian Army. The Pfalz-Flugzeugwerke had been in
Speyer since 1913. During the First World War, they developed into
an important German armaments company and supplied several thousand
combat aircraft.
With the end of the First World War and the
occupation of the left bank of the Rhine, the French army again
moved into Speyer in 1918. France occupied large parts of Germany on
the left bank of the Rhine (Allied occupation of the Rhineland). As
early as the end of 1918, the French military under General Gérard
specifically supported a movement under the leadership of the
chemist Eberhard Haas, which called itself "Free Palatinate" -
together with several other separatist groups in the northern
Rhineland. In the early summer of 1919 the Free Palatinate attempted
a coup in Speyer for an autonomous Palatinate. This failed
miserably, mainly due to the resistance of the Deputy District
President Friedrich von Chlingensperg auf Berg (1860-1944). He had
the majority of the Palatinate parties by his side. After a few
hours the badly prepared campaign was over. In 1930 the French
occupation forces withdrew.
The Nazi seizure of power and the “Gleichschaltung” also affected
Speyer from 1933 onwards. The city initially belonged to the "Gau
Rheinpfalz", which was merged with the Saarland to form the Gau
Saar-Pfalz in 1935. The administrative seat of the district was in
Neustadt, which thus outstripped the Bavarian state seat of
government Speyer in importance during the Nazi period. The Speyer
synagogue on Heydenreichstrasse was burned down in the November
pogroms on November 9, 1938 and demolished shortly afterwards. The
Nazi regime carried out an unprecedented extermination of Jews in
Europe (“Holocaust”). More than 100 Jews from Speyer and the
surrounding area who were no longer able to escape were killed.
Resistance to National Socialism was made by the Speyer Comradeship
group around the Speyer Social Democrat Jakob Schultheis (1891–1945)
and his wife Emma (1892–1978). Apart from the station area, Speyer
suffered no major damage from air raids during the Second World War.
At the end of March 1945, Speyer was captured by US troops (see
Operation Undertone); withdrawing German troops blew up the Rhine
bridge. A Wehrmacht unit in Speyer fought doggedly.
After the
Second World War, the city became part of the French occupation zone
and the seat of a French garrison. The establishment of the state of
Rhineland-Palatinate was ordered on August 30, 1946 as the last
state in the western occupation zones by decree No. 57 of the French
military government under General Marie-Pierre Kœnig. It was
initially referred to as the “Rhineland-Palatinate Land” or “Land
Rheinpfalz”; the name Rhineland-Palatinate was only established with
the constitution of May 18, 1947. As a sign of growing friendship,
the St. Bernhard Church in Wormser Strasse was built in 1953/54 with
German and French funds. The occupation regime ended on May 6, 1955.
It was not until the 1990s that Speyer's history as the location of
the French army ended.
The year 1990 was marked by numerous
celebrations on the occasion of the two thousandth anniversary of
the city and the German-German reunification.
On November 9,
2011, the new Beith-Schalom synagogue was consecrated in the
presence of the then Federal President Christian Wulff. The old
synagogue was destroyed in the pogrom night of 1938
("Reichskristallnacht").
In 2015, Speyer was awarded the
honorary title of “Reformation City of Europe” by the Community of
Evangelical Churches in Europe.