Ludwigshafen
Ludwigshafen, officially Ludwigshafen am Rhein, is a city in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, on the river Rhine, opposite Mannheim. With Mannheim, Heidelberg, and the surrounding region, it forms the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region.
Known primarily as an industrial city, Ludwigshafen is home to BASF, the world's largest chemical producer, and other companies. Among its cultural facilities are the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz.
It is the birthplace and death place of the former Chancellor of Germany, Helmut Kohl.
In 2012, Ludwigshafen was classified as a global city with 'Sufficiency' status by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.
History
Early history
In antiquity, Celtic and Germanic tribes settled in the Rhine Neckar region. During the 1st century B.C. the Romans conquered the region, and a Roman auxiliary fort was constructed near the present suburb of Rheingönheim.The Middle Ages saw the foundation of some of Ludwigshafen's future suburbs, including Oggersheim, Maudach, Oppau, and Mundenheim. Most of the area, however, remained swampland, with its development hindered by seasonal flooding of the Rhine.
The Rheinschanze
The Rhine Neckar region was part of the territory of the Prince-elector of the Kurpfalz, or Electorate of the Palatinate, one of the larger states within the Holy Roman Empire. The foundation of the new capital of the Kurpfalz, Mannheim, was a decisive influence on the development of the area as a whole. Parallel to the foundation of Mannheim in 1606, a fortress was built by Frederick IV, Elector Palatine on the other side of the Rhine to protect the City of Mannheim, thus forming the nucleus of the City of Ludwigshafen itself.In the 17th century, the region was devastated and depopulated during the Thirty Years' War, and also in King Louis XIV of France’s wars of conquest in the later part of the century.
It was only in the 18th century, that the settlements around the Rheinschanze began to prosper, profiting from the proximity of the capital, Mannheim. Oggersheim, in particular, gained some importance after the construction of both a small palace serving as secondary residence for the Elector, and the famous pilgrimage church, Wallfahrtskirche. For some weeks in 1782, the great German writer and playwright Friedrich Schiller lived in Oggersheim, while fleeing his native Württemberg.
At the end of the 18th century, war returned to the Ludwigshafen area with the armies of the French Revolution. The palace at Oggersheim was burned down, Mannheim besieged several times, and the area west of the Rhine annexed by France from 1798 to 1813. The Electorate of the Palatinate was split up. After the French were expelled following the Wars of Liberation, the eastern bank of the Rhine with Mannheim and Heidelberg was given to Baden, while the western bank was granted to the Kingdom of Bavaria. The Rhine had become a frontier and the Rheinschanze, cut off politically from Mannheim, lost its function as the neighbouring city's military bulwark.
Foundation
In 1808, during the French occupation, Carl Hornig of Mannheim purchased the fortress from the French authorities and turned it into a way station for passing river traffic. Later, the Rheinschanze with its winter-proof harbour basin was used as trading post. Hornig died in 1819, but Johann Heinrich Scharpff, a businessman from Speyer, continued Hornig's plans, which were then turned over to his son-in-law, Philipp Markus Lichtenberger, in 1830. Their activities marked the beginning of the civilian use of the Rheinschanze.The official foundation of Ludwigshafen came in 1848, when Lichtenberger sold this property to the state of Bavaria, and the military title of the fortress was finally removed. The Bavarian king, Ludwig I, set forth plans to rename the settlement after himself and to start construction of an urban area as a Bavarian rival to Mannheim.
During the failed German revolution of 1848, rebels captured Ludwigshafen, but they were bombarded from Mannheim, and Prussian troops quickly expelled the revolutionaries. On December 27, 1852, King Maximilian II granted Ludwigshafen am Rhein political freedom and as of November 8, 1859, the settlement gained city status.
Industry and growth of population
At its founding, Ludwigshafen was still a very modest settlement with just 1,500 inhabitants. Real growth began with industrialization, and gained momentum due to the ideal transport facilities. In addition to its excellent position and harbor on the Rhine, a railway connecting Ludwigshafen with the Saar coalfields was completed in 1849.In 1865 after several discussions, BASF decided to move its factories from Mannheim to the Hemshof district in Ludwigshafen. From then on, the city's rapid growth and wealth were linked to BASF's success and its expansion into becoming one of the world's most important chemical companies. Ludwigshafen also became home to several other rapidly growing chemical companies, including Friedrich Raschig GmbH, the Benckiser company, Giulini Brothers, Grünzweig&Hartmann AG, and.
With more jobs available, the population of Ludwigshafen increased rapidly. In 1899, the city was home to more than 62,000 residents.
This population explosion looked quite “American” to contemporaries; it determined Ludwigshafen's character as a “worker's city”, and created problematic shortages of housing and real estate. The solution was the expansion of the municipal area with the incorporation of the two nearest villages, Friesenheim and Mundenheim, in 1892 and 1899 respectively. Between the city centre and these two suburbs, new areas were built following modern urban development plans. As the ground was marshy and too low to be protected from Rhine floods, all the new houses were built on raised ground, sometimes as high as 5 metres above the original level. As a result, back gardens in Ludwigshafen are sometimes up to two floors below street level.
World War I and World War II
During World War I, Ludwigshafen's industrial plants played a key role in Germany's war economy, producing chemical ingredients for munitions, as well as much of the poison gas used on the Western Front. This contributed to Ludwigshafen, on May 27, 1915, being the target of the world's first strategic aerial bombardment. French aircraft attacked the BASF plants, killing twelve people.After the German surrender in 1918, the left bank of the Rhine was occupied by French troops, in accordance with the terms of the peace agreement. The French occupation lasted until 1930, and some of Ludwigshafen's most elegant houses were erected for the officers of the French garrison.
The economic recovery of the 1920s was marred by one of the worst industrial explosions in history on September 21, 1921, when a BASF storage silo in Oppau blew up, killing more than 500 people, injuring a further 2,000, and destroying numerous buildings.
Despite this setback, Ludwigshafen reached a population of 100,000 in 1922, thus gaining "City" status. It prospered until 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, which brought unemployment, labor trouble, political strife, and the rise of the Nazis.
Between 1930 and 1932, the Nazi Party returned the most votes within the Palatinate electoral district, containing Ludwigshafen, at all elections. They received 22.8% in September 1930, 43.7% and 42,5% in July and November 1932, and 46.5% in March 1933. This was above the proportions returned nationally in the democratic elections between 1930 and 1932 of 18.3%, 37.4% and 33.1% respectively.
Ludwigshafen saw further development during Nazi rule, with many small houses with gardens being built, especially in the Gartenstadt. Additionally, similar to plans in other cities, the Nazis sought to create a "Greater Ludwigshafen" by agglomerating smaller towns and villages in the vicinity. Thus Oggersheim, Oppau, Edigheim, Rheingönheim, and Maudach became suburbs of Ludwigshafen, raising its population to 135,000. The Ludwigshafen synagogue was destroyed in 1938 and its Jewish population of 1,400 people was deported in 1940.
During the Oil Campaign of World War II, the Allies conducted bombing of Ludwigshafen and Oppau. Thirteen thousand Allied bombers hit the city in 121 separate raids during the war, of which 56 succeeded in hitting the IG Farben plant. Those 56 raids dropped 53,000 bombs, each containing 250 to 4,000 pounds of high explosives, plus 2.5 million 4-pound magnesium incendiary bombs. The bombers also dropped millions of leaflets warning the civilians to evacuate the city and counterfeit ration coupons. By December 1944, so much damage had been done to vital utilities that output dropped to nearly zero. Weekly follow-up raids ended production permanently. By the end of the war most dwellings had been destroyed or damaged; 1,800 people had died, and 3,000 were injured.
The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Ludwigshafen in March 1945. The US 12th Armored Division and 94th Infantry Division captured Ludwigshafen against determined German resistance in house-to-house and block-to-block urban combat in March 21–24, 1945.
Post-war rebuilding
, Ludwigshafen was part of the French occupation zone, becoming part of the newly founded Bundesland of Rheinland-Pfalz and thus part of the Federal Republic of Germany. Reconstruction of the devastated city and revival of the economy was supported by the Allies, especially by American aid. In 1948, the "Pasadena Shares Committee" sent packages of blankets, clothing, food, and medicines to help the residents of post-war Ludwigshafen. In 1956, Ludwigshafen am Rhein and Pasadena, California became sister cities.Large parts of the city were in ruins and were rebuilt in the architectural style of the 1950s and 1960s. The most important projects were the Hochstraßen, the revolutionary new main station, several tower blocks and a whole new suburb, the satellite quarter Pfingstweide north of Edigheim.
The city's economic wealth allowed social benefits and institutions to be introduced. The population number reached an all-time high in 1970 with more than 180,000 inhabitants, thus surpassing even the capital of Rheinland-Pfalz, Mainz, at the time.