[edit]
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Essen.
Essen on an engraving from 1647
Origin of the name[edit]
In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it has the same form as the German infinitive of the verb for "eating" (written as lowercase essen), and/or the German noun for food (which is always capitalized as Essen, adding to the confusion). Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of the name, there remain a few noteworthy interpretations. The oldest known form of the city's name is Astnide, which changed to Essen by way of forms such as Astnidum, Assinde, Essendia and Esnede. The name Astnide may have referred either to a region where many ash trees were found or to a region in the east (of the Frankish Empire). In the dialects of the Limburgish language spoken in the city's southern boroughs Essen is called Äßße.
Early history[edit]
The oldest archaeological find, the Vogelheimer Klinge, dates back to 280,000 – 250,000 BCE. It is a blade found in the borough of Vogelheim [de] in the northern part of the city during the construction of the Rhine–Herne Canal in 1926. Other artifacts from the Stone Age have also been found, although these are not overly numerous. Land utilization was very high—especially due to mining activities during the Industrial Age—and any more major finds, especially from the Mesolithic era, are not expected. Finds from 3,000 BCE and onwards are far more common, the most important one being a Megalithic tomb found in 1937. Simply called Chest of Stone (Steinkiste), it is referred to as "Essen's earliest preserved example of architecture".
Essen was part of the settlement areas of several Germanic peoples (Chatti, Bructeri, Marsi), although a clear distinction among these groupings is difficult.
The Alteburg [de] castle in the south of Essen dates back to the eighth century, the nearby Herrenburg [de] to the ninth century.
Recent research into Ptolemy's Geographia has identified the polis or oppidum Navalia as Essen.
Eighth–twelfth centuries[edit]
Essen Minster
Around 845, Saint Altfrid (around 800–874), the later Bishop of Hildesheim, founded an abbey for women (coenobium Astnide) in the centre of present-day Essen. The first abbess was Altfrid's relative Gerswit (see also: Essen Abbey). In 799, Saint Liudger had already founded Benedictine Werden Abbey on its own grounds a few kilometres south. The region was sparsely populated with only a few smallholdings and an old and probably abandoned castle. Whereas Werden Abbey sought to support Liudger's missionary work in the Harz region (Helmstedt/Halberstadt), Essen Abbey was meant to care for women of the higher Saxon nobility. This abbey was not an abbey in the ordinary sense, but rather intended as a residence and educational institution for the daughters and widows of the higher nobility; led by an abbess, the members other than the abbess herself were not obliged to take vows of chastity.
Around 852, construction of the collegiate church of the abbey began, to be completed in 870. A major fire in 946 heavily damaged both the church and the settlement. The church was rebuilt, expanded considerably, and is the foundation of the present Essen Cathedral.
The first documented mention of Essen dates back to 898, when Zwentibold, King of Lotharingia, willed territory on the western bank of the River Rhine to the abbey. Another document, describing the foundation of the abbey and allegedly dating back to 870, is now considered an 11th-century forgery.
In 971, Mathilde II, granddaughter of Emperor Otto I, took charge of the abbey. She was to become the most important of all abbesses in the history of Essen. She reigned for over 40 years, and endowed the abbey's treasury with invaluable objects such as the oldest preserved seven branched candelabrum, and the Golden Madonna of Essen, the oldest known sculpture of the Virgin Mary in the western world. Mathilde was succeeded by other women related to the Ottonian emperors: Sophia, daughter of Otto II and sister of Otto III, and Teophanu, granddaughter of Otto II. It was under the reign of Teophanu that Essen, which had been called a city since 1003, received the right to hold markets in 1041. Ten years later, Teophanu had the eastern part of Essen Abbey constructed. Its crypt contains the tombs of St. Altfrid, Mathilde II, and Teophanu herself.
13th–17th centuries[edit]
Old Church (Alte Kirche) in Altenessen, built 1887
In 1216, the abbey, which had only been an important landowner until then, gained the status of a princely residence when Emperor Frederick II called abbess Elisabeth I "Princess of the Empire" (Reichsfürstin) in an official letter. In 1244, 28 years later, Essen received its town charter and seal when Konrad von Hochstaden, the Archbishop of Cologne, marched into the city and erected a city wall together with the population. This proved a temporary emancipation of the population of the city from the princess-abbesses, but this lasted only until 1290. That year, King Rudolph I restored the princess-abbesses to full sovereignty over the city, much to the dismay of the population of the growing city, who called for self-administration and imperial immediacy. The title free imperial city was finally granted by Emperor Charles IV in 1377. However, in 1372, Charles had paradoxically endorsed Rudolph I's 1290 decision and hence left both the abbey and the city in imperial favour. Disputes between the city and the abbey about supremacy over the region remained common until the abbey's dissolution in 1803. Many lawsuits were filed at the Reichskammergericht, one of them lasting almost 200 years. The final decision of the court in 1670 was that the city had to be "duly obedient in dos and don'ts" to the abbesses but could maintain its old rights—a decision that did not really solve any of the problems.
In 1563, the city council, with its self-conception as the only legitimate ruler of Essen, introduced the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic abbey had no troops to counter this development.
Thirty Years' War[edit]
During the Thirty Years' War, the Protestant city and the Catholic abbey opposed each other. In 1623, princess-abbess Maria Clara von Spaur, Pflaum und Valör, managed to direct Catholic Spaniards against the city in order to initiate a Counter-Reformation. In 1624, a "re-Catholicization" law was enacted, and churchgoing was strictly controlled. In 1628, the city council filed against this at the Reichskammergericht. Maria had to flee to Cologne when the Dutch stormed the city in 1629. She returned in the summer of 1631 following the Bavarians under Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim, only to leave again in September. She died 1644 in Cologne.
The war proved a severe blow to the city, with frequent arrests, kidnapping and rape. Even after the Peace of Westphalia from 1648, troops remained in the city until 9 September 1650.
industrialization[edit]
Three rings of the Krupp logoThe historic house of the Krupp family in 2014
The first historic evidence of the important mining tradition of Essen date back to the 14th century, when the princess-abbess was granted mining rights. The first silver mine opened in 1354, but the indisputably more important coal was not mentioned until 1371, and coal mining only began in 1450.
At the end of the 16th century, many coal mines had opened in Essen, and the city earned a name as a centre of the weapons industry. Around 1570, gunsmiths made high profits and in 1620, they produced 14,000 rifles and pistols a year. The city became increasingly important strategically.
Resident in Essen since the 16th century, the Krupp family dynasty and Essen shaped each other. In 1811, Friedrich Krupp founded Germany's first cast-steel factory in Essen and laid the cornerstone for what was to be the largest enterprise in Europe for a couple of decades. The weapon factories in Essen became so important that a sign facing the main railway station welcomed visitors Hitler and Mussolini to the "Armory of the Reich" (Waffenschmiede des Reiches) in 1937. The Krupp Works also were the main reason for the large population growth beginning in the mid-19th century. Essen reached a population of 100,000 in 1896. Other industrialists, such as Friedrich Grillo, who in 1892 donated the Grillo-Theater to the city, also played a major role in the shaping of the city and the Ruhr area in the late 19th and early 20th century. The main competitor of Krupp in the Ruhr area was Thyssen & Company, later the Thyssen AG. In 1999 the Krupp and Thyssen steel works merged to form ThyssenKrupp with a headquarter in Essen.
World War I and occupation[edit]
French troops enter Essen in 1923.
Riots broke out in February 1917 following a breakdown in the supply of flour. There were then strikes in the Krupp factory.
On 11 January 1923 the Occupation of the Ruhr was carried out by the invasion of French and Belgian troops into the Ruhr. The French Prime Minister, Raymond Poincaré, was convinced that Germany failed to comply the demands of the Treaty of Versailles. On the morning of 31 March 1923, the culmination of this French-German confrontation occurred when a small French military command, occupied the Krupp car hall to seize several vehicles. This event caused 13 deaths and 28 injured. The occupation of the Ruhr ended in summer 1925.
Nazism, World War II[edit]
On 28 May 1936, Adolf Hitler made a speech at the Krupp steelworks in Essen, with thousands of workers in attendance.
On the night of Kristallnacht on 10 November 1938, the synagogue was sacked, but remained through the whole war in the exterior almost intact. The Steele synagogue was completely destroyed.
During the Nazi era, tens of thousands of slave labourers were forced to work in 350 Essen forced labour camps. Here, they did mining work and worked for companies like Krupp and Siemens. Alfried Krupp was convicted in the Krupp trial at Nuremberg for his role in this but was pardoned by the US in 1951. There were several subcamps in Essen in the Second World War, such as the subcamps Humboldtstraße [de], Gelsenberg, Schwarze Poth [de].
Devastation of Krupp factory
As a major industrial centre, Essen was a target for allied bombing, the Royal Air Force (RAF) dropping a total of 37,014 tonnes (82 million pounds) of bombs on the city. Over 270 air raids were launched against the city, destroying 90% of the centre and 60% of the suburbs. On 5 March 1943 Essen was subjected to one of the heaviest air-raids of the war. 461 people were killed, 1,593 injured and a further 50,000 residents of Essen were made homeless. On 13 December 1944 three British airmen were lynched.
The Krupp decoy site (Kruppsche Nachtscheinanlage) was built in Velbert to divert Allied airstrikes from the actual production site of the arms factory in Essen.
Further information: Bombing of Essen in World War II
The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Essen in April 1945. The US 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 17th Airborne Division, acting as regular infantry and not in a parachute role, entered the city unopposed and captured it on 10 April 1945.
After the occupation of Germany by the allies, Essen was assigned to the British Zone of Occupation. On 8 March 1946, a German army officer and a civilian were hanged for the lynching of three British airmen in December 1944.
Twenty-first century[edit]
View over central Essen from Bottrop
Although weaponry is no longer produced in Essen, old industrial enterprises such as ThyssenKrupp and RWE remain large employers in the city. Foundations such as the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung still promote the well-being of the city, for example by supporting a hospital and donating €55 million for a new building for the Museum Folkwang, one of the Ruhr area's major art museums.
