Schwäbisch Hall

Infobox German Location
Art = Stadt
Wappen = Wappen Schwaebisch Hall.pnglat_deg = 49 |lat_min = 6 |lat_sec = 44
lon_deg = 9 |lon_min = 44 |lon_sec = 15
Lageplan = Map Schwabisch Hall.pngBundesland = Baden-Württemberg
Regierungsbezirk = Stuttgart
Landkreis = Schwäbisch Hall
Höhe = 304
Fläche = 104.24
Einwohner = 36665
Stand = 2006-12-31
PLZ = 74523
PLZ-alt = 7170
Vorwahl = 0791
Kfz = SHA
Gemeindeschlüssel = 08 1 27 076
Gliederung = "Kernstadt" and 8 "Stadtteile"
Straße = Am Markt 6
Website = [http://www.schwaebischhall.de/ www.schwaebischhall.de]
Bürgermeister = Hermann-Josef Pelgrim
Bürgermeistertitel= Oberbürgermeister
Partei = SPD
image_photo = Swaebisch Hall.jpg
image_caption = Houses in the centre of Schwäbisch Hall, next to the river KocherInfobox Former Country
native_name = "Reichsstadt [Schwäbisch] Hall"
conventional_long_name = Imperial City of [Swabian] Hall
common_name = Schwabisch Hall
continent = Europe
region = Central Europe
country = Germany
era = Middle Ages
status = City-state
empire = Holy Roman Empire
government_type = Republic
year_start = 1280
year_end = 1802
event_pre = Founded
date_pre = "Uncertain"
event_start = Gained "Reichsfreiheit"
date_start =
event1 = "Erste Zwietracht"
date_event1 = 1340
event2 = "Zweite Zwietracht"
date_event2 = 1510–12
event3 = End of Swedish occupation
date_event3 = 1650
event_end = Mediatised to
spaces|4Württemberg
date_end =
1802
p1 = House of Hohenstaufen
image_p1 =
s1 = Württemberg
flag_s1 = Flagge Königreich Württemberg.svg
capital = Schwäbisch Hall
footnotes =

Schwäbisch Hall (or Hall for short) is a town in the German state of Baden-Württemberg; it is the capital of the district of Schwäbisch Hall. The town is located in the valley of the river Kocher in the north-eastern part of Baden-Württemberg. Today, about 36,000 people live in Hall.

Name

The most probable origin of the name "Hall" is a west Germanic word family that means "drying something by heating it". It obviously refers to the method to produce salt by heating salty groundwater. [Kuno Ulshöfer, Herta Beutter (ed.): Hall und das Salz. Beiträge zur hällischen Stadt- und Salinengeschichte, Sigmaringen 1982, p. 8.]

History

Salt was distilled by the Celts at the site of Hall as early as the fifth century. The first time it was mentioned in a treaty was in 1156, connection with the establishment of St. Michael's Church in Hall. The village probably belonged first to the "Counts of Comburg-Rothenburg" and went from them to the Imperial house of Hohenstaufen (ca 1116). It was probably Emperor Frederick I "Barbarossa" who founded the imperial mint and started the coining of the so-called "Heller". Hall flourished through the production of salt and coins. Since 1204 it has been called a town.

After the fall of the house of Hohenstaufen, Hall defended itself successfully against the claims of a noble family in the neighbourhood (the "Schenken von Limpurg"). The conflict was finally settled in 1280 by King Rudolph I of Habsburg; this allowed the undisturbed development into an Free Imperial City ("Reichsstadt") of the Holy Roman Empire. Emperor Louis IV the Bavarian granted a constitution that settled internal conflicts ("Erste Zwietracht") in 1340. After this, the city was governed by the inner council ("Innerer Rat") which was composed by twelve noblemen, six "middle burghers" and eight craftsmen. The head of the council was the "Stättmeister" (mayor). A second phase of internal conflicts 1510–12 ("Zweite Zwietracht") brought the dominating role of the nobility to an end. The confrontation with the noble families was started by Stättmeister "Hermann Büschler", whose daughter "Anna Büschler" is the subject of a popular book by Harvard professor Steven Ozment ("The Bürgermeister's Daughter: Scandal in a sixteenth-century German town"). The leading role was taken over by a group of families who turned into a new ruling class. Amongst them where the "Bonhöffers", the ancestors of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

From the 14th to the 16th centuries, Hall systematically acquired a large territory in the surrounding area, mostly from noble families and the Comburg monastery. The wealth of this era can still be seen in some gothic buildings like St. Michael's Church (rebuilt 1427–1526) with its impressive stairway (1507). The town joined the Protestant Reformation very early. Johannes Brenz, a follower of Martin Luther, was made pastor of St. Michael's Church in 1522 and quickly began to reform the church and the school system along Lutheran lines.

Hall suffered severely during the Thirty Years' War, though it was never besieged or scene of a battle. However, it was forced to pay enormous sums to the armies of the various parties, especially to the imperial, Swedish and French troops, who also committed numerous atrocities and plundered the town and the surrounding area. Between 1634 and 1638 every fifth inhabitant died of hunger and diseases, especially from the bubonic plague. The war left the town an impoverished and economically ruined place. But with the help of reorganizations of salt production and trade and a growing wine trade, there was an astonishingly fast recovery.

Fires were a constant threat to the mostly wooden houses of the town. The great fires of 1680 and especially of 1728 destroyed much of the city, which led to new buildings in the Baroque style, such as the city hall.

The Napoleonic wars brought the history of Hall as a Free Imperial City to an end. Following the Treaty of Lunéville (1801), the duke of Württemberg was allowed by Napoleon to occupy the town and several other minor states as a compensation for territories on the left side of the Rhine that fell to France. This took place in 1802 — Hall lost its territory and its political independence and became a "Oberamtsstadt" (seat of an "Oberamt", comparable to a county). Ownership of the salt works was handed over to the state. A long economic crisis during the 19th century forced many citizens to move to other places in Germany or to emigrate overseas, mostly to the USA. While other towns like Heilbronn grew steadily due to the Industrial Revolution, the population of Hall stagnated. The economic situation improved during the second half of the 19th century — a main factor was the railway line to Heilbronn (1862) — but was not followed by a significant growth of the town. It was not until the 1920s and 1930s that new settlements were built on the heights surrounding the old town. Hall also grew through the incorporation of Steinbach (1930) and Hessental (1936).

1827, a health spa was founded on one of the islands in the Kocher river. Especially after the building of the railway (1862) it became a considerable economical factor. The well-preserved old town also brought a rising number of tourists. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Hall has developed many festivities. Especially well known are the theatre productions which are performed every year in the centre of the city on the steps of St. Michael.

In 1934, Hall was officially named "Schwäbisch Hall". During the Third Reich a Luftwaffe air base was built at Hessental. In 1944 a concentration camp was established next to the train station Hall-Hessental. The train station at Hall was targeted by an American air raid on February 23, 1945, but the devastations were mostly limited to the suburbs of St. Katharina and Unterlimpurg. The town was occupied by US Army troops on April 17 1945 without serious resistance; though several buildings were destroyed or damaged, the historical old town suffered comparatively little.

The city administration was an early mover in the migration from Microsoft Windows to GNU/Linux and open source software in the early years of the 21st century.

Notable buildings

The old synagogue has been handsomely restored. [http://www.alemannia-judaica.de/unterlimpurg_synagoge.htm]

Industry

With the dwindling importance of salt, Hall looked for new industries. Today it is known for "Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall AG", a housing credit company, founded in 1944, as well as a local centre for service industries.

In the 1970s Schwäbisch Hall expanded when some agricultural villages became part of the municipality.

Twin towns

* Épinal, Vosges, France, since 1964
* Loughborough, Leicestershire, England, since 1966
* Lappeenranta, South Karelia, Finland, since 1985
* Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, since 1988
* Zamość, Lublin Voivodeship, Poland, since 1989
* Balıkesir, Marmara Region, Turkey, since 2006

References

External links

* [http://www.schwaebischhall.de/www_schwaebischhall_de.37.0.html Official website] en icon
* [http://www.safaribears.de/content.php?page=SlideshowSchwabischHall&
] en icon de icon