History
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For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Mainz.
Roman Mogontiacum[edit]
Main article: Roman Mogontiacum
Remains of a Roman town gate from the late 4th century
The Drusus monument or Drususstein (surrounded by the 17th century citadel) raised by the troops of Nero Claudius Drusus to commemorate him
Remains of the Roman aqueduct of Mogontiacum
The Roman stronghold or castrum Mogontiacum, the precursor to Mainz, was founded by the Roman general Drusus, perhaps as early as 13/12 BC. As related by Suetonius the existence of Mogontiacum is well established by four years later (the account of the death and funeral of Nero Claudius Drusus).
Mogontiacum was an important military town throughout Roman times, probably due to its strategic position at the confluence of the Main and the Rhine. The town of Mogontiacum grew up between the fort and the river. The castrum was the base of Legio XIV Gemina and XVI Gallica (AD 9–43), XXII Primigenia, IV Macedonica (43–70), I Adiutrix (70–88), XXI Rapax (70–89), and XIV Gemina (70–92), among others. Mainz was also a base of a Roman river fleet, the Classis Germanica. Remains of Roman troop ships (navis lusoria) and a patrol boat from the late 4th century were discovered in 1982/1986 and may now be viewed in the Museum of Ancient Seafaring. A temple dedicated to Isis Panthea and Magna Mater was discovered in 2000 and is open to the public. The city was the provincial capital of Germania Superior, and had an important funeral monument dedicated to Drusus, to which people made pilgrimages for an annual festival from as far away as Lyon. Among the famous buildings were the largest theatre north of the Alps and a bridge across the Rhine. The city was also the site of the assassination of Emperor Severus Alexander in 235.
Alemanni forces under Rando sacked the city in 368. From the last day of 405 or 406, the Siling and Asding Vandals, the Suebi, the Alans, and other Germanic tribes crossed the Rhine, possibly at Mainz. Christian chronicles relate that the bishop, Aureus, was put to death by the Alemannian Crocus.
Throughout the changes of time, the Roman castrum never seems to have been permanently abandoned as a military installation, which is a testimony to Roman military judgement. Different structures were built there at different times. The current citadel originated in 1660, but it replaced previous forts. It was used in World War II. One of the sights at the citadel is still the cenotaph raised by legionaries to commemorate their general, Drusus.
Frankish Mainz[edit]
Gold solidus of the Frankish king Theudebert I, Mainz mint, c. 534
In the 4th century, Alemans repeatedly invaded the neighborhood of Mogontiacum. In 357, the city was liberated by the Emperor Julian. The last emperor to station troops serving the western empire at Mainz was Valentinian III (reigned 425–455), who relied heavily on his Magister militum per Gallias, Flavius Aëtius. In 451, Attila's Huns sacked the city.
The Franks from the middle and upper Rhine area took Mainz shortly before 460. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, the Franks under the rule of Clovis I gained control over western Europe by the year 496. Clovis, son of Childeric, became king of the Salians in 481, ruling from Tournai. He converted from paganism to Catholic Christianity. Theudebert I (c. 500–547 or 548) had installed Sidonius [de] as bishop of Mainz. Dagobert I (605/603–639) reinforced the walls of Mainz.
Charlemagne (768–814), through a succession of wars against other tribes, built a vast Frankish empire in Europe. Mainz from its central location became important to the empire and to Christianity. Meanwhile, language change was gradually working to divide the Franks.
After the death of Charlemagne, distinctions between France and Germany began to be made. The Rhine roughly formed the border of their territories, whereby the three important episcopal cities of Mainz, Worms and Speyer with their counties to the left of the Rhine were assigned to East Francia.
Christian Mainz[edit]
Main article: Free City of Mainz
In the early Middle Ages, Mainz played a significant role in the Christianisation of the German and Slavic peoples. The first archbishop in Mainz, Boniface, was killed in 754 while attempting to convert the Frisians to Christianity and is buried in Fulda. The archbishopric of Mainz was established in 781 when Boniface's successor Lullus was granted the pallium by Pope Adrian I. Throughout history, the Archbishops of Mainz held high positions, including serving as archchancellors of the Holy Roman Empire. Notably, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mainz is unique as it is the only diocese in the world with an episcopal see called a Holy See (sancta sedes).
Ibrahim ibn Yaqub, a 10th-century Hispano-Arabic, Sephardi Jewish traveler, writes the following about the city:
Mainz [Maghānja] is a very large city, partly inhabited and partly cultivated fields. It is in the land of the Franks, on a river called the Rhine [Rīn]. Wheat, barley, rye, grapevines and fruit are plentiful.
In 1244, Archbishop Siegfried III granted Mainz a city charter, allowing the citizens to establish and elect a city council. In 1461, a feud between two archbishops, Diether von Isenburg and Adolf II von Nassau, caused unrest in the city. Following Archbishop Adolf's raid on Mainz in 1462, those who opposed him, including Johannes Gutenberg, were either expelled or imprisoned. Ultimately, after the death of Archbishop Adolf II, Diether von Isenburg was reinstated as the Archbishop of Mainz, duly elected by the chapter and appointed by the Pope.
Early Jewish community[edit]
Interior of the Weisenau Synagogue, built in the first half of the 18th century
The Jewish community of Mainz dates back to the 10th century CE. It is noted for its religious education. Rabbi Gershom ben Judah (960–1040) taught there, among others. He concentrated on the study of the Talmud, creating a German Jewish tradition. Mainz is also the legendary home of the martyred Rabbi Amnon of Mainz, that the composition of the Unetanneh Tokef prayer is attributed to him. From the late 12th century rabbis met in synods.
The city of Mainz responded to the Jewish population in a variety of ways, behaving in a capricious manner towards them. Sometimes they were allowed freedom and were protected; at other times, they were persecuted. Jews were attacked in the Rhineland massacres of 1096 and by mobs in 1283. The Jews were expelled in 1438, 1462 (after which they were invited to return), and in 1470. Outbreaks of the Black Death were usually blamed on the Jews, at which times they were massacred, such as the murder of 6000 Jews in 1349.
Outside of the medieval city centre, there is a Jewish cemetery, with over 1500 headstones dating from the 11th through the 19th centuries. The earliest known gravestone is date to 1062 or 1063, and these early gravestones resemble those found in Italy in the 8th–9th centuries.
Republic of Mainz[edit]
Main article: Republic of Mainz
Tombstone of Jeanbon Baron de St. André, Prefect of Napoleonic Mainz
During the French Revolution, the French Revolutionary army occupied Mainz in 1792; the Archbishop-elector of Mainz, Friedrich Karl Josef von Erthal, had already fled to Aschaffenburg by the time the French marched in. On 18 March 1793, the Jacobins of Mainz, with other German democrats from about 130 towns in the Rhenish Palatinate, proclaimed the "Republic of Mainz". Led by Georg Forster, representatives of the Mainz Republic in Paris requested political affiliation of the Mainz Republic with France, but too late: Prussia was not entirely happy with the idea of a democratic free state on German soil (although the French dominated Mainz was neither free nor democratic). Prussian troops had already occupied the area and besieged Mainz by the end of March 1793. After a siege of 18 weeks, the French troops in Mainz surrendered on 23 July 1793; the Prussians occupied the city and ended the Republic of Mainz. It came to the Battle of Mainz in 1795 between Austria and France. Members of the Mainz Jacobin Club were mistreated or imprisoned and punished for treason.
In 1797, the French returned. The army of Napoleon Bonaparte occupied the German territory to the west of the Rhine, and the Treaty of Campo Formio awarded France this entire area, initially as the Cisrhenian Republic. On 17 February 1800, the French Département du Mont-Tonnerre was founded here, with Mainz as its capital, the Rhine being the new eastern frontier of la Grande Nation. Austria and Prussia could not but approve this new border with France in 1801. However, after several defeats in Europe during the War of the Sixth Coalition, the weakened Napoleon and his troops had to leave Mainz in May 1814.
Rhenish Hesse[edit]
In 1816, the part of the former French Département which is known today as Rhenish Hesse (German: Rheinhessen) was awarded to the Hesse-Darmstadt, Mainz being the capital of the new Hessian province of Rhenish Hesse. From 1816 to 1866, a part of the German Confederation, Mainz was the most important fortress in the defence against France, and had a strong garrison of Austrian, Prussian and Bavarian troops.
On the afternoon of 18 November 1857, a huge explosion rocked Mainz when the city's powder magazine, the Pulverturm, exploded. Approximately 150 people were killed and at least 500 injured; 57 buildings were destroyed and a similar number severely damaged in what was to be known as the Powder Tower Explosion or Powder Explosion.
During the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, Mainz was declared a neutral zone. After the founding of the German Empire in 1871, Mainz no longer was as important a stronghold, because in the Franco-Prussian War France had lost the territory of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany (which France had occupied bit by bit from 1630 to 1795), and this defined the new border between the two countries.
Industrial expansion[edit]
Mainz towards the Rhine (around 1890)
Mainz including expansion zone the Rhine (1898)
For centuries, the inhabitants of the fortress of Mainz had suffered from a severe shortage of space which led to disease and other inconveniences. In 1872, Mayor Carl Wallau and the council of Mainz persuaded the military government to sign a contract to expand the city. Beginning in 1874, the city of Mainz assimilated the Gartenfeld, an idyllic area of meadows and fields along the banks of the Rhine to the north of the rampart. The city expansion more than doubled the urban area which allowed Mainz to participate in the Industrial Revolution which had previously avoided the city for decades.
Eduard Kreyßig [de] was the man who made this happen. Having been the master-builder of the city of Mainz since 1865, Kreyßig had the vision for the new part of town, the Neustadt. He also planned the first sewer system for the old part of town since Roman times and persuaded the city government to relocate the railway line from the Rhine side to the west end of the town. The main station was built from 1882 to 1884 according to the plans of Philipp Johann Berdellé [de].
Kreyßig constructed a number of state-of-the-art public buildings, including the Mainz town hall – which was the largest of its kind in Germany at that time – as well a synagogue, the Rhine harbour and a number of public baths and school buildings. Kreyßig's last work was Christ Church (Christuskirche), the largest Protestant church in the city and the first building constructed solely for the use of a Protestant congregation. In 1905 the demolition of the entire circumvallation and the Rheingauwall was taken in hand, according to the imperial order of Wilhelm II.
20th century[edit]
During the German Revolution of 1918 the Mainz Workers' and Soldiers' Council was formed which ran the city from 9 November until the arrival of French troops under the terms of the occupation of the Rhineland agreed in the Armistice. The French occupation was confirmed by the Treaty of Versailles which went into effect 28 June 1919. The Rhineland (in which Mainz is located) was to be a demilitarised zone until 1935 and the French garrison, representing the Triple Entente, was to stay until reparations were paid.
In 1923 Mainz participated in the Rhineland separatist movement that proclaimed a Rhenish Republic. It collapsed in 1924. The French withdrew on 30 June 1930. Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933 and his political opponents, especially those of the Social Democratic Party, were either incarcerated or murdered. Some were able to move away from Mainz in time. One was the political organizer for the SPD, Friedrich Kellner, who went to Laubach, where, as the chief justice inspector of the district court, he continued his opposition against the Nazis by recording their misdeeds in a 900-page diary.
In March 1933, a detachment from the National Socialist Party in Worms brought the party to Mainz. They hoisted the swastika on all public buildings and began to denounce the Jewish population in the newspapers. In 1936, the Nazis remilitarized the Rhineland with great fanfare, the first move of Nazi Germany's meteoric expansion. The former Triple Entente took no action.
During World War II the citadel at Mainz hosted the Oflag XII-B prisoner of war camp. The city was also the location of four subcamps of the Hinzert concentration camp, mostly for Luxembourgish, Polish, Dutch and Soviet prisoners, but also Belgian, French and Italian.
During World War II, several air raids destroyed about 80 per cent of the city's centre, including most of the historic buildings. Mainz was captured on 22 March 1945 against uneven German resistance (staunch in some sectors and weak in other parts of the city) by the 90th Infantry Division under William A. McNulty, a formation of the XII Corps under Third Army commanded by General George S. Patton Jr.
From 1945 to 1949, the city was part of the French zone of occupation. When the state of Rhineland-Palatinate was founded on 30 August 1946 by the commander of the French army on the French occupation zone Marie Pierre Kœnig, Mainz became the capital of the new state. In 1962, the diarist, Friedrich Kellner, returned to spend his last years in Mainz. His life in Mainz, and the impact of his writings, is the subject of the Canadian documentary My Opposition: The Diaries of Friedrich Kellner.
Following the withdrawal of French forces from Mainz, the United States Army Europe occupied the military bases in Mainz.
Recent history[edit]
Nowadays the Jewish community is growing rapidly, and a new synagogue by the architect Manuel Herz was constructed in 2010 on the site of the one destroyed by the Nazis on Kristallnacht in 1938. As of 2021[update], the Jewish community Mainz has 985 members.
Today the United States Army Europe and Africa only occupies McCulley Barracks in Wackernheim and the Mainz Sand Dunes as training areas. Mainz is home to the headquarters of the Bundeswehr's Landeskommando Rhineland-Palatinate [de] and other units.
