History
[edit]
Further information: Timeline of Aachen
See also: Free Imperial City of Aachen
Early history[edit]
Flint quarries on the Lousberg, Schneeberg, and Königshügel, first used during Neolithic times (3000–2500 BC), attest to the long occupation of the site of Aachen, as do recent finds under the modern city's Elisengarten pointing to a former settlement from the same period. Bronze Age (around 1600 BC) settlement is evidenced by the remains of barrows (burial mounds) found, for example, on the Klausberg. During the Iron Age, the area was settled by Celtic peoples who were perhaps drawn by the marshy Aachen basin's hot sulphur springs where they worshipped Grannus, god of light and healing. Proofs of a Celts settlements on Aachens territories at the beginning of the Gallic War do not exist at the moment.
The 25-hectare Roman spa resort town of Aquae Granni was, according to legend, founded by Grenus, under Hadrian, around 124 AD. Grenus refers to the Celtic god, and it seems it was the Roman 6th Legion at the start of the 1st century AD that first channelled the hot springs into a spa at Büchel, adding at the end of the same century the Münstertherme spa, two water pipelines, and a probable[clarification needed] sanctuary dedicated to Grannus. A kind of forum, surrounded by colonnades, connected the two spa complexes. There was an extensive residential area. The Romans built bathhouses near Burtscheid. A temple precinct called Vernenum was built near the modern Kornelimünster/Walheim. Today, remains have been found of three bathhouses, including two fountains in the Elisenbrunnen and the Burtscheid bathhouse.
Roman civil administration in Aachen eventually broke down as the baths and other public buildings (along with most of the villae rusticae of the surrounding countryside) were destroyed around AD 375 at the start of the migration period. The last Roman coin finds are from the time of Emperor Gratian (AD 375–383). Rome withdrew its troops from the area, but the town remained populated. By 470, the town came to be ruled by the Ripuarian Franks and subordinated to their capital, Cologne. During the Roman period, Aachen was the site of a flourishing Jewish community.
Middle Ages[edit]
Pepin the Short had a castle residence built in the town,[when?] due to the proximity of the hot springs and also for strategic reasons as it is located between the Rhineland and northern France. Einhard mentions that in 765–766 Pepin spent both Christmas and Easter at Aquis villa (Et celebravit natalem Domini in Aquis villa et pascha similiter) ("and [he] celebrated the birth of the Lord [Christmas] in the town Aquis, and similarly Easter"), which must have been sufficiently equipped to support the royal household for several months. In the year of his coronation as king of the Franks, 768, Charlemagne came to spend Christmas at Aachen for the first time. He remained there in a mansion which he may have extended, although there is no source attesting to any significant building activity at Aachen in his time, apart from the building of the Palatine Chapel (since 1930, cathedral) and the Palace.
Charlemagne spent most winters in Aachen between 792 and his death in 814. Aachen became the focus of his court and the political centre of his empire. During the Carolingian empire, a Jewish community lived near the royal palace. In Jewish texts, the city of Aachen was called Aish or Ash (אש). In 797, Isaac, a Jewish merchant, accompanied two ambassadors of Charlemagne to the court of Harun al-Rashid. He returned to Aachen in July 802, bearing an elephant called Abul-Abbas as a gift for the emperor. After Charlemagne's death, he was buried in the church which he had built; his original tomb has been lost, while his alleged remains are preserved in the Karlsschrein, the shrine where he was reburied after being declared a saint; his saintliness, however, was never officially acknowledged by the Roman Curia as such.
Construction of Aix-la-Chapelle, by Jean Fouquet
Presentation of the four "Great Relics" during the Aachen pilgrimage, after a 17th-century painting
By the terms of the Treaty of Verdun 834, Aachen became part of Middle Francia, governed by emperor Lothair. He was succeeded by Lothair II as king of Lotharingia by the terms of the Treaty of Prüm. By the Treaty of Meerssen 870, Aachen came to East Francia. Within East Francia, later the Holy Roman Empire until 1166, Aachen was part of the Duchy of Lower Lotharingia.
In 936, Otto I was crowned king of East Francia in the collegiate church built by Charlemagne. During the reign of Otto II, the nobles revolted and the West Franks under Lothair raided Aachen in 978. Aachen was attacked again by Odo of Champagne, who attacked the imperial palace while Conrad II was absent. Odo relinquished it and was killed afterwards. The palace and town of Aachen had fortifying walls built by order of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa between 1172 and 1176. Over the next 500 years, most kings of Germany who ruled the Holy Roman Empire were crowned in Aachen. The original audience hall built by Charlemagne was torn down and replaced by the current city hall in 1330. During the 13th century, many Jews converted to Christianity, as shown in the records of the Aachen Minster (today's Cathedral). In 1486, the Jews of Aachen offered gifts to Maximilian I during his coronation ceremony. The last king to be crowned here was Ferdinand I in 1531.
During the Middle Ages, Aachen remained a city of regional importance, due to its proximity to Flanders; it achieved a modest position in the trade in woollen cloths, favoured by imperial privilege. The city remained a free imperial city, subject to the emperor only, but was politically far too weak to influence the policies of any of its neighbours. The only dominion it had was over Burtscheid, a neighbouring territory ruled by a Benedictine abbess, which was forced to accept that all of its traffic must pass through the "Aachener Reich".
As an imperial city, Aachen held certain political privileges that allowed it to remain independent [clarification needed] of the troubles of Europe for many years. It remained a direct vassal of the Holy Roman Empire throughout most of the Middle Ages. It was also the site of many important church councils, including the Council of 837 and the Council of 1166, a council convened by the antipope Paschal III.
Parts of Aachen belonged to Imperial Abbey of Burtscheid, Reichsabtei Kornelimünster, Duchy of Juelich and the Duchy of Limburg.
Manuscript production[edit]
Aachen was an important site for the production of historical manuscripts. Under Charlemagne's purview, both the Ada Gospels and the Coronation Gospels may have been produced in Aachen. In addition, quantities of the other texts in the court library were also produced locally. During the reign of Louis the Pious (814–840), substantial quantities of ancient texts were produced at Aachen, including legal manuscripts such as the leges scriptorium group, patristic texts including the five manuscripts of the Bamberg Pliny Group. Finally, under Lothair I (840–855), texts of outstanding quality were still being produced. This however marked the end of the period of manuscript production at Aachen.
16th–18th centuries[edit]
The siege of Aachen by the Spanish Army of Flanders under Ambrogio Spinola in 1614
View of Aachen in 1690
In 1598, following the invasion of Spanish troops from the Netherlands, Rudolf deposed all Protestant office holders in Aachen and went as far as expelling them from the city. From the early 16th century, Aachen started to lose its power and influence. First the coronations of emperors were moved from Aachen to Frankfurt. 1614 Aachen became theatre of the Siege of Aachen (1614) within the War of the Jülich Succession. Although religious changes were forced several times in Aachen and Protestant communities were banned, hardly any fighting took place during the Thirty Years' War.
The religious wars had been followed by the great fire of 1656. After the destruction of most of the city in 1656, the rebuilding was mostly in the Baroque style. The decline of Aachen culminated in 1794, when the French, led by General Charles Dumouriez, occupied Aachen.. The area of Aachen had been scene of battles within the Flanders Campaign in autumn 1794: Battle of Ourthe, Battle of Aldenhoven, Siege of Maastricht.
In 1542, the Dutch humanist and physician Francis Fabricius published his study of the health benefits of the hot springs in Aachen. By the middle of the 17th century, the city had developed a considerable reputation as a spa, although this was in part because Aachen was then – and remained well into the 19th and early 20th century – a place of high-level prostitution. Traces of this hidden agenda of the city's history are found in the 18th-century guidebooks to Aachen as well as to the other spas.
The main indication for visiting patients, ironically, was syphilis; only by the end of the 19th century had rheumatism become the most important object of cures at Aachen and Burtscheid.
Aachen was chosen as the site of several important congresses and peace treaties: the first congress of Aachen (often referred to as the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in English) on 2 May 1668, leading to the First Treaty of Aachen in the same year which ended the War of Devolution. The second congress ended with the second treaty in 1748, ending the War of the Austrian Succession. In 1789, there was a constitutional crisis in the Aachen government, and in 1794 Aachen lost its status as a free imperial city.
In 1629, the Aachen Jewish community was expelled from the city. In 1667, six Jews were allowed to return. Most of the Aachen Jewish community settled in Burtscheid. As recently as the late 18th century the Abbess of Burtscheid was still prevented from building a road linking her territory to the neighbouring estates of the duke of Jülich; the city of Aachen deployed its handful of soldiers to chase away road-diggers.[citation needed]
19th century[edit]
The modern Elisabethhalle pool
On 9 February 1801, the Peace of Lunéville removed the ownership of Aachen and the entire "left bank" of the Rhine from Germany (the Holy Roman Empire) and granted it to France. In 1815, control of the town was passed to the Kingdom of Prussia through an agreement reached by the Congress of Vienna. The third congress took place in 1818, to decide the fate of occupied Napoleonic France.
By the middle of the 19th century, industrialisation had swept away most of the city's medieval rules of production and commerce, although the remains of the city's medieval constitution were kept in place until 1801, when Aachen became the "chef-lieu du département de la Roer" in Napoleon's First French Empire. The current territory of Aachen belonged entirely to the Arrondissement d'Aix-la-Chapelle. In 1815, after the Second Treaty of Paris, finishing the Napoleonic Wars, the Kingdom of Prussia took over within the new German Confederation. The city was one of its most socially and politically backward centres until the end of the 19th century. The Kingdom of Prussia created the "Regierungsbezirk Aachen" (governmental district) and integrated it into the Prussian province Grand Duchy of the Lower Rhine, from 1822 the Rhine Province. By 1880 the population was 80,000. Starting in 1838, the railway from Cologne to Belgium passed through Aachen. By "Gesetz betreffend die Vereinigung der Stadtgemeinde Burtscheid mit der Stadtgemeinde Aachen vom 29. März 1897 nebst Vertrag" Aachen and Burtscheid merged 1897. The city suffered extreme overcrowding and deplorable sanitary conditions until 1875, when the medieval fortifications were abandoned as a limit to building and new, better housing was built in the east of the city, where sanitary drainage was easiest. In December 1880, the Aachen tramway network was opened, and in 1895 it was electrified. In the 19th century and up to the 1930s, the city was important in the production of railway locomotives and carriages, iron, pins, needles, buttons, tobacco, woollen goods, and silk goods.
20th century[edit]
Prewar Period[edit]
Aachen was enlarged 1 April 1906 by "Gesetz betreffend die Vereinigung der Gemeinde Forst mit der Stadtgemeinde Aachen vom 31. März 1906 nebst Vertrag" by incorporation of Forst.
World War I, Interwar Period, World War II[edit]
Further information: Battle of Aachen
Films shot on 13, 14 and 15 October 1944 in Aachen by US forces
The Belgium Campaign within World War I started in Aachen.
After World War I, Aachen was occupied by the Entente until 1930, along with the rest of German territory west of the Rhine. Aachen was one of the locations involved in the Rhenish Republic. On 21 October 1923, an armed mob took over the city hall. Similar actions took place in Mönchengladbach, Duisburg, and Krefeld. This republic lasted about a year.
During the interwar period, Aachen was assigned some areas of the former district of Eupen.
Also the Western Campaign of World War II started nearby Aachen with the Battle of Maastricht.
Aachen was heavily damaged during World War II. Philip W. Blood mentioned more than 120 air strikes on Aachen between 1940 an 1944. According to Jörg Friedrich in The Fire (2002), two Allied air raids on 11 April and 24 May 1944 "radically destroyed" the city. The first killed 1,525, including 212 children, and bombed six hospitals. During the second, 442 aircraft hit two railway stations, killed 207, and left 15,000 homeless. The raids destroyed Aachen-Eilendorf and Aachen-Burtscheid.
In autumn 1944 Aachen and its surroundings were reached by the Western Allied Siegfried Line campaign.
The city and its fortified surroundings were besieged from 12 September to 21 October 1944 by the US 1st Infantry Division with the 3rd Armored Division assisting from the south. Around 13 October the US 2nd Armored Division, coming from the north, and got as close as Würselen, while the 30th Infantry Division completed the encirclement of Aachen on 16 October 1944. With reinforcements from the US 28th Infantry Division the battle continued involving direct assaults through the heavily defended city, which forced the German garrison to surrender on 21 October 1944.
Aachen was the first German city to be captured by the Western Allies, and its residents welcomed the soldiers as liberators. What remained of the city was destroyed—in some areas completely—during the fighting, mostly by American artillery fire and demolitions carried out by the Waffen-SS defenders. Damaged buildings included medieval churches and the Rathaus (city hall), although Aachen Cathedral was largely unscathed. 4,000 inhabitants remained in the city; the rest had followed evacuation orders. Its first Allied-appointed mayor, Franz Oppenhoff, was assassinated by an SS commando unit.
Expulsion of Aachen Jews[edit]
View of the Old Synagogue after its destruction on Kristallnacht, November 1938
On 16 May 1815, the Jewish community of the city offered an homage in its synagogue to the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm III. In 1862, a large synagogue was built, later called the Old Synagogue. By 1933, 1,345 Jews lived in the city. On Kristallnacht in 1938, the synagogue was destroyed. By the onset of World War II in 1939, many Jews had emigrated or were arrested, and only 782 remained in the city. At the end of the war in 1945, only 62 Jews lived in the city. As of 2003, 1,434 Jews were again living in Aachen.
Postwar period[edit]
Subsequent the German surrender finishing the Battle of Aachen 21 October 1944, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force acted as military government. Aachen within the northern part of Rhine Province became part of British occupation zone in Germany. Aachen also belonged to the British zone under Belgian control. By Ordinance No. 46, British Military Government created the "Land Nordrhein/Westfalen", including the "Regierungsbezirk Aachen", 23 August 1946. 23 May 1949 Aachen became part of the Federal Republic of Germany. With the Aachen Law of 1971, Aachen was merged with Kornelimünster, Brand, Walheim, Laurensberg, Richterich, Haaren, Eilendorf. After the abolition of the Aachen governmental district, August 1972, Aachen became part of the Cologne governmental district.
21st century[edit]
The city of Aachen has developed into a technology hub as a by-product of hosting one of the leading universities of technology in Germany with the RWTH Aachen (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule), known especially for mechanical engineering, automotive and manufacturing technology as well as for its research and academic hospital Klinikum Aachen, one of the largest medical facilities in Europe.
