Fürth


Fürth is a city in northern Bavaria, Germany, in the administrative division of Middle Franconia.
It is the second-largest city in Franconia and now contiguous with the larger city of Nuremberg, the centres of the two cities being only apart.
The city forms a continuous conurbation with the neighbouring cities of Nuremberg, Erlangen and Schwabach, which is the heart of an urban area region with around 1.4 million inhabitants, while the larger Nuremberg Metropolitan Region has a population of approximately 3.6 million.
Fürth celebrated its thousand-year anniversary in 2007, its first mention being on 1 November 1007.

Geography

The historic centre of the town is to the east and south of the rivers Rednitz and Pegnitz, which join to form the Regnitz to the northwest of the Old Town. To the west of the town, on the far side of the Main-Danube Canal, is the Fürth municipal forest. To the east of Fürth, at roughly the same latitude, lies Nuremberg, and to the north is the fertile market-gardening area known as the Knoblauchsland, some of which is within the borders of the urban district of Fürth. To the south of the town is an area consisting of wide roads, the canal, and meadows.

Neighbouring municipalities

The following towns and municipalities share borders with Fürth; they are listed in clockwise order, starting in the north:
Erlangen and Nuremberg, which are independent urban districts; Stein, Oberasbach, Zirndorf, Cadolzburg, Seukendorf, Veitsbronn, and Obermichelbach, which are municipalities within the rural district of Fürth.

Parts of town

Beyond the town proper, the urban district comprises another 20 localities:
  • Atzenhof
  • Bislohe
  • Braunsbach
  • Burgfarrnbach
  • Dambach
  • Flexdorf
  • Herboldshof
  • Kronach
  • Mannhof
  • Oberfürberg
  • Poppenreuth
  • Ritzmannshof
  • Ronhof
  • Sack
  • Stadeln
  • Steinach
  • Unterfarrnbach
  • Unterfürberg
  • Vach
  • Weikershof

    History

Founded as a Franconian settlement in the mid-8th century AD, the first historical mention of Fürth was in a document dated 1 November 1007, in which the Emperor Heinrich II donated his property in Fürth to the newly created Bishopric of Bamberg. The name "Fürth" derives from the German word for "ford", as the first settlements originated around a ford. In the following years, Fürth was granted market privileges, but these were later lost to the neighbouring Nuremberg, under Heinrich III. From 1062 onward, Fürth was again permitted to have a market, but by that time Nuremberg was already the more important town.
In the following centuries, the town was under varying authority, involving the Bishopric of Bamberg, the Principality of Ansbach and the City of Nuremberg. For a long time, the character of the settlement remained largely agricultural, and in 1600 the population was probably still only between 1000 and 2000.
In the Thirty Years War, the village was almost completely destroyed by fire, in military actions leading up to the September 1632 Battle of Fürth.
In 1835, the first German railway was opened between Nuremberg and Fürth.
Throughout the Cold War, Fürth had a significant NATO presence, especially the U.S. Army, due to its proximity to both the East German and Czechoslovak borders.

Expansion

In the course of time, a number of municipalities or other administrative divisions were integrated into the urban district of Fürth:
  • 1 January 1899: the western part of the municipality of Höfen, including Weikershof
  • 1 January 1900: the municipality of Poppenreuth
  • 1 January 1901: the municipality of Dambach, as well as Unterfürberg and Oberfürberg
  • 1 January 1918: Atzenhof
  • 1 January 1918: the municipality of Unterfarrnbach
  • 3 December 1923: the municipality of Burgfarrnbach
  • 1 July 1927: the municipality of Ronhof, and Kronach
  • 1 July 1972: the municipality of Sack, including Bislohe, which is north of the Knoblauchsland and is not separately listed in official documents.
  • 1 July 1972: the municipality of Stadeln
  • 1 July 1972: the municipality of Vach (to the north of Fürth, north of the river Zenn and west of river Regnitz
  • 1 July 1972: Herboldshof and Steinach, previously parts of the municipality of Boxdorf

    Population development

In the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the population of Fürth grew slowly, owing to the numerous wars, epidemics and famines. In the Thirty Years War, the town lost about half its population. When Croatian soldiers set fire to Fürth in 1634, it burned for several days, and was almost completely destroyed. At the end of the war, the population was a mere 800. In 1685, Reformed Christians from France, or Huguenots, settled in Fürth. By 1700 the restoration of the town had been completed, and the population rose to about 6000.
With the beginning of industrialization in the 19th century, the population began to increase rapidly. In 1800 Fürth had a population of 12,000; by 1895 it had multiplied fourfold to 47,000. In 1950 the population of the town exceeded 100,000, making it a Großstadt. At the end of 2005, as recorded by the Bavarian Statistical Office, the population was 113,076, a historical record. This makes Fürth the second largest town in Middle Franconia, after Nuremberg, and the seventh largest town in Bavaria. As of 2015, the proportion of foreign nationals in Fürth is about 18 percent.
The following table shows the population of Fürth over time. Up to 1818 the figures are mainly estimates; after that they are mostly based on census results or official projections from the appropriate statistical offices or the town administration itself.

¹ Census result
RankNationalityPopulation
1Turkey

Religions

Christianity

The population of Fürth was originally under the Bishopric of Würzburg and from 1007 it belonged to the Bishopric of Bamberg. In 1524, as part of the Reformation, it became a Protestant town like Nuremberg, and it remained so for many years. However, because of the connections with Bamberg, there were always some Catholics in the town.
After 1792, the Protestant congregations in Fürth were under the authority of the Prussian Ansbach Consistory, and when Brandenburg-Ansbach was ceded to Bavaria they became part of the Bavarian Protestant Church, which initially comprised Lutheran and Reformed congregations. The congregations later belonged to the Deanery of Zirndorf. In 1885, Fürth became a deanery, subsidiary to Nuremberg.
Beside the Bavarian Protestant Church there are also Protestant congregations of free churches in Fürth, e. g. a small congregation of the United Methodist Church.
From the 18th century or earlier, the number of Catholics rose, and in 1829 the first Catholic church since the Reformation was consecrated: the Church of Our Lady. St. Michael was originally a Catholic church until taken by the Protestants during the Reformation. In 1961, Fürth became a Catholic Deanery within the Archdiocese.
The proportion of Protestants to Catholics in the 20th century was about two to one.

Judaism

The position enjoyed by Jews in Fürth led to the sobriquet "Franconian Jerusalem", though this is based on an older, pejoratively intended reference to Fürth.
Jewish residents are mentioned as early as 1440; in 1528 the Margrave of Ansbach, George the Pious, permitted two Jews, Perman and Uriel, to settle in Fürth, and from then on the number of Jewish residents increased.
By the 17th century, there was a local Yeshiva of considerable repute, and in 1617, a synagogue was built. In 1653, the first Jewish hospital in Germany was built.
When Emperor Leopold I deported the Viennese Jews in 1670, many upper-class Jewish families moved to Fürth, and by 1716 there were about 400 Jewish families in the town. In 1807, the proportion of Jews in the overall population was about 19%. Following the Mediatization and the Bavarian Judenedikt of 1813, there were more restrictions on Jews. In particular, the Matrikelparagraph provisions prevented Jewish immigration. In 1824, the Talmudic academy was closed. The Bavarian Judenedikt of 1813, with its restrictions on Jewish life and Jewish immigration was rescinded by the law of 29 June 1851, and further laws dated 16 April 1868, and 22 April 1871, which led to further emancipation of the Jews, and restrictions on residence were removed. By 1840, there were 2,535 Jews living in Fürth, more than half of all Bavarian Jews.
In 1862, a Jewish primary school was founded, followed by a secondary school in 1882. The highest number of Jewish residents was reached in 1880, at about 3,300.
In 1933, there were 1,990 Jews in Fürth. By early 1938 after the rise of the Nazis, there were 1,400 Jews in Fürth. In November 1938, there were about 1,200 when the synagogue was destroyed in the Kristallnacht pogroms, and 132 Jews were deported to Dachau. All except a handful of those who remained in Fürth after Kristallnacht either fled while they still could or were deported to concentration camps and/or death camps; virtually all those who remained in Germany were deported to their deaths. By 1944, perhaps 23 Jews were left in Furth. Overall, 1,068 Jews from Furth were murdered in the Holocaust.
After the end of the Second World War, a Displaced persons camp for Jewish Holocaust survivors was established in Fürth. In 1945 it housed 850 inhabitants; it was shut down in July 1950.
There is a memorial to the Jewish community in the Geleitsgasse square, just off Königstrasse. Archaeologists discovered a Mikvah in a house in the centre of Fürth. This building now houses the Jewish Museum of Franconia, which opened in 1998.
The old Jewish cemetery, which was established in 1607, is one of the oldest in Germany. It suffered considerable destruction and desecration during the Nazi regime and the Second World War, but was restored in 1949 and is now one of the best-preserved Jewish cemeteries in Germany. A new Jewish cemetery was consecrated in 1880, which has been in use from 1906 to the present day.