History
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Medieval times[edit]
The ruins of Syburg
The Hagen region first appears in historical records in the Lorsch Annals (Latin: Annales Laureshamenses): In 775, Charlemagne's troops conquered the Saxon Hohensyburg (then called Sigiburg) castle located near the city limits of Dortmund above the Ruhr-Lenne estuary.
Hagen itself was first mentioned around the year 1200, and is presumed to have been the name of a farm at the confluence of the Volme and the Ennepe rivers. After the conquest of Burg Volmarstein [de] in 1324, Hagen passed to the County of Mark.
Early modern period[edit]
After the Treaty of Xanten in 1614, it was granted to the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which became part of the newly founded Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.
A major fire destroyed a significant part of Hagen's buildings in 1724. With the help of the Prussian state administration, Hagen was rebuilt within a short time.
Hagen was granted town privileges on 3 September 1746.
19th and early 20th Century[edit]
After the defeat of Prussia in the Fourth Coalition, Hagen was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Berg founded by France from 1807 to 1813. It became part of the new Prussian province of Westphalia after the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
From 1817, Hagen was the seat of an office and a district within the administrative district of Arnsberg. In 1837, the revised town regulations and a magistrate were introduced.
In the course of industrialisation, Hagen was connected to the network of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahngesellschaft in 1848 and developed into an important railway junction.
By 1865, Hagen had overtaken Iserlohn, which had previously been the leading town in South Westphalia in terms of population and economic power.
Mittelstraße, 1912
During the German Empire from 1871 to 1914, Hagen experienced a period of prosperity. Through urbanisation and industrialisation of the 19th century, the city developed into the main centre for the entire region south of the river Ruhr. In 1887, Hagen was administratively separated from the district of Hagen and became an independent city (urban district).
In the years following the turn of the century, the banker and patron Karl Ernst Osthaus brought many later important architects to the city, including Henry van de Velde, Peter Behrens and Walter Gropius. They established Hagen's reputation as a link between Art Nouveau and Modernism (Hagener Impul). The centrepiece of this initiative was the Folkwang Museum and the (only partially built) garden city of Hohenhagen (Gartenstadt Hohenhagen).
Memorial to the Ruhr Uprising, Hagen
In reaction to the Kapp Putsch in March 1920, when rightists tried to overthrow the elected government and set up an authoritarian regime, tens of thousands of leftist workers in the Ruhr Valley, Germany's most important industrial area, used the opportunity for a revolutionary uprising from the Left. In the Ruhr uprising of 13 March – 2 April 1920, the 50,000-man Ruhr Red Army took control of the industrial district. Government and paramilitary forces were ordered against the workers, suppressing the uprising, and killing an estimated 1,000 workers. A memorial to the uprising was installed in Hagen.
By 1928, Hagen had developed into a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants.[citation needed]
During the Nazi regime[edit]
During World War II, forced laborers of the 3rd SS construction brigade were dispatched in the town by the Nazis in 1943.
Hagen was bombed repeatedly, by both the Royal Air Force and the United States Eighth Air Force. On the night of 1 October 1943, 243 Lancasters and 8 Mosquitoes from the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command attacked the city. According to the Bomber Command Campaign Diary, "This raid was a complete success achieved on a completely cloud-covered target of small size, with only a moderate bomber effort and at trifling cost."[citation needed] Hagen sustained severe damage from that raid, and hundreds of civilians were killed. After the war, the city centre was almost completely destroyed, so that only the surrounding districts still partially reflect the city's Wilhelminian architectural character.
The victims of the Second World War and National Socialism in Hagen: more than 2,200 people died in Allied bombing raids between 1940 and 1945. Over 10,000 Hagen citizens died on the various fronts of the Second World War. Dozens of Hagen citizens were murdered in concentration camps and prisons for racial, religious, ideological and political reasons.
In August 2021, discovery of a cache of Nazi artifacts from a house was announced. A history teacher revealed a painted portrait of Adolf Hitler and medals decorated with eagles and swastikas, a newspaper from 1945, a pistol, gas masks, brass knuckles, and stacks of documents. It is also found out that the house once served as the headquarters of the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt.
Post-war period[edit]
In April 1945, the US Army liberated the city, which was later part of the British occupation zone. In August 1948, Hagen was included in the new state of North Rhine-Westphalia and soon became part of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, also known as West Germany), founded in 1949.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Hagen experienced another period of rapid growth, spreading mainly into the flatter, northern plain. Today's city centre therefore lies somewhat to the south of the main residential areas.
Late 20th century to the present[edit]
At the beginning of the 1970s, the decline of heavy industry in Hagen began in the wake of the steel crisis. Hasper Hütte was completely shut down between 1972 and 1982, Gussstahlwerke Wittmann went bankrupt and two of the three plants of Stahlwerke Südwestfalen were closed. Further job losses affected the food industry with the breweries Bettermann and Andreas, the confectionery manufacturers Villosa and Grothe and the production plant of Zwieback Brandt.
The pedestrian zone in the city centre was opened in the 1970s.
In the early 1980s, Hagen made a name for itself as the ‘Liverpool of New German Wave (Neue Deutsche Welle)’. Many well-known musicians and bands of this musical genre (including Nena, Extrabreit and the sisters Annette and Inga Humpe) have their roots in Hagen.
Economically, Hagen came under renewed pressure in the 1990s due to increasing globalisation. A further wave of deindustrialisation began in the steel sector, while Hagen's population declined at the same time. Hagen's debt level was €1.383 billion on 31 December 2012.
Since the 2000s, major new construction and renovation projects have been realised that have significantly shaped Hagen's cityscape today. Examples include the Volme- and Rathaus-Galerie, the redesign of Friedrich-Ebert-Platz and the station forecourt (Berliner Platz) as well as the construction of the new town hall on the riverside.
In mid-July 2021, Hagen was affected by a flood disaster caused by heavy rainfall. In particular, damage was caused in the Volme valley and Hohenlimburg.
