Suhl


Suhl is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located SW of Erfurt, NE of Würzburg and N of Nuremberg. With its 37,000 inhabitants, it is the smallest of the six urban districts within Thuringia. Together with its northern neighbour-town Zella-Mehlis, Suhl forms the largest urban area in the Thuringian Forest with a population of 46,000. The region around Suhl is marked by up to 1,000-meter-high mountains, including Thuringia's highest peak, the Großer Beerberg, approximately NE of the city centre.
Suhl was first mentioned in 1318 and stayed a small mining and metalworking town, until industrialization broke through in late 19th century and Suhl became a centre of Germany's arms production, specialized on rifles and guns with companies such as Sauer & Sohn. Furthermore, the engineering industry was based in Suhl with Simson, a famous car and moped producer. In 1952, Suhl became one of East Germany's 14 district capitals, which led to a government-directed period of urban growth and conversion. Its results – a typical 1960s concrete architecture-marked city centre – are defining to the present. With the loss of its administrative and industrial functions, Suhl saw a lasting period of urban decline starting in 1990.
Suhl is known for its sportsmen, especially in shooting, winter sports, and volleyball.

History

Middle Ages

Though first appearing in a 1318 deed, several entries in the annals of Fulda Abbey already mentioned a place named Sulaha between 900 and 1155 AD. The coat of arms from 1365 shows two hammers, indicating the city's most important livelihood: metal processing. The region belonged to the territories held by the Franconian counts of Henneberg since the 11th century. Suhl was located on an important trade route from Gotha, Erfurt and Arnstadt passing the Thuringian Forest mountain range at Oberhof and continuing to the Henneberg's residence, Schleusingen.

Early modern period

From 1500 onwards, the Henneberg lands belonged to the Franconian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire. Suhl has been a Flecken since 1445 and the full municipal rights were granted in 1527, making Suhl one of the youngest cities in present-day Thuringia. Iron ore mining created the basis for the development of Suhl as a centre of gunsmith trade.
The Reformation was introduced in 1544. Several witch-hunts took place in the area from 1553 until the late 17th century. When the Henneberg counts became extinct in 1583, Suhl passed to the Wettin electors of Saxony, where it remained until 1815. Unlike most of present Thuringia, it didn't belong to the Ernestine line of the Wettins, but to the Albertine cadet branch of Saxe-Zeitz from 1660, so that it had been a Saxonian and later Prussian exclave within Thuringia for nearly 300 years.
During the 16th century, iron mining and metalworking saw a boom, finished by the Thirty Years' War, when marauding Croat mercenaries under Imperial general Johann Ludwig Hektor von Isolani burnt down the city in 1634. From about 1690, Duke Moritz Wilhelm of Saxe-Zeitz supported the reconstruction of Suhl as a mining town.

Since 1815

The Congress of Vienna in 1815 led to the Saxonian loss of Suhl, which became part of the Prussian Province of Saxony, where it remained from 1815 to 1944 and again shortly in 1945. Staying an exclave within Ernestine territories, Suhl was part of the Schleusingen district until the dissolution of Prussia in 1945.
The later 19th century brought the connection to the railway in 1882 and the industrialisation of the metalworking business. About 1920, Suhl has been a centre of left-wing revolutionary groups, so that the Reichswehr occupied the city during the Kapp Putsch and ended the workers uprising. After 1935, the military industry saw another boom, caused by the Nazi armament. About 10,000 forced labourers had to work in the city's arms industry after 1940.
The US Army reached Suhl on 3 April 1945 and was replaced by Soviet troops on 1 July 1945. At the same year, Suhl became part of Thuringia, which was replaced by three Bezirks in 1952. Suhl became the capital of the south-western Bezirk Suhl, reaching from Bad Salzungen in the north-west to Sonneberg in the south-east with a population of 550,000. During the GDR period, the upgraded city saw rapid urban growth, which is defining until today.
After the German reunification in 1990, Suhl lost its administrative functions when Thuringia was refounded and replaced the Bezirks. Furthermore, the industry collapsed. Both led to a structural crises, which isn't overcome yet. The population of Suhl declined about 35% since 1988.

History of arms production

The metal processing of Suhl naturally led, during the Renaissance, to other major local industries, including gunsmithing and armoring. Suhl was a major producer of cannons throughout the seventeenth and subsequent centuries, and Suhl cannons were used by many European powers. A major arms company that was located in Suhl for almost 200 years was J.P. Sauer und Sohn GmbH, producer of hunting rifles, shotguns, and pistols, such as the Sauer 38H, until moving operations to Eckernförde at the end of World War II.
Other prominent firearms manufacturers in Suhl included:
  • Simson
  • Waffenfabrik August Menz, noted for having produced in the 1920s the Liliput pistol, one of the smallest semiautomatic handguns ever made.
  • C.G. Haenel
  • The largest manufacturer producing firearms currently in Suhl is Merkel GmbH, which make both rifles and shotguns.
During the Cold War, the East German national shooting arena was located at Suhl, and hosted many top-level competitions, including the 1986 ISSF World Championships. Although surpassed in this respect in the unified Germany by the Olympic shooting centre at Munich, Suhl remains an important place to the sport. It hosts Germany's only school for armorers, and a well equipped museum of weapons.

Geography

Topography and geology

Suhl is located on the south-western edge of the Thuringian Forest. To the south-west, the Small Thuringian Forest is situated. The terrain is mountainous to all directions, some important mountains are: the Großer Beerberg in the north-east, the Ringberg, the Döllberg, the Friedberg and the Adlersberg in the east, the Steinsburg in the south, the Heiliger Berg, the Domberg and the Berg Bock in the north-west as well as the Bocksberg and the Hoheloh within the city. The centre itself is located in an elevation of 450 m and nearly the complete non-build on part of the municipal territory is forested. There are a few small rivers running through Suhl: The Hasel rises at Friedberg in the south-east and runs westward through Suhl, Heinrichs, Mäbendorf, Dietzhausen and Wichtshausen. The Lauter rises on the southern slope of Großer Beerberg mountain and runs through Goldlauter, Lauter and the city centre, before it joins the Hasel behind the station. The Mühlwasser rises on the western slope of Großer Beerberg and runs southward through the northern city parts before it joins the Lauter at the northern city centre.
Suhl sits on the southern edge of the Suhler Scholle, an upthrust granite complex that is streaked by numerous dikes. This is part of the Ruhla-Schleusingen Horst that defines the southwest side of the Thuringian Forest. The southwest side of the Suhler Scholle abuts horizontal sedimentary layers, Buntsandstein over Zechstein. The granite of the Suhler Scholle is capped with Permian sediments and igneous deposits. The higher hills to the northeast are part of the Beerberg Scholle, an irregularly cracked mass of quartz porphyry from the later Permian period.
A band of iron ores follows the fault dividing the Suhler Scholle from the sedimentary rocks to the southwest, while the copper and silver deposits are to the northeast in the Permian deposits above the Suhler Scholle. Southeast of town, there is a significant uranium deposit in the Buntsandstein.

Administrative division

Suhl abuts the following municipalities: Geratal, Elgersburg and Ilmenau within Ilm-Kreis district in the north-east, Nahetal-Waldau, Sankt Kilian, Eichenberg, Grub, Oberstadt and Schmeheim within Hildburghausen district in the south, Dillstädt and Schwarza in the west as well as Benshausen and Zella-Mehlis in the north within Schmalkalden-Meiningen district.
Some villages were incorporated during the 20th and 21st century to form the present-day districts of Suhl:
Suhl's cityscape is marked by the lack of flat ground to build on, which is why the city's morphology appears picked and incoherent. The city centre developed during the Middle Ages around the Marktplatz and the Steinweg next to the confluence of Lauter and Rimbach river. Later, the city grew to the east and south to the bordering hills and valleys. After World War II, Suhl became the capital of one of the 14 Bezirks in the GDR in 1952. During the following decades, the city more than doubled its population, many Plattenbau settlements developed at the periphery and the centre got largely converted. The old town around Friedrich-König-Straße was demolished during the 1960s, as were the quarters east of Topfmarkt later. They were rebuilt with contemporary concrete architecture and Plattenbau buildings. The new city centre with all the important public buildings was developed around Friedrich-König-Straße, even with large-scale high-rise buildings. After the reunification, the population shrank heavily, leading to high vacancy rates. The government reacted to this by demolishing some of the Plattenbau settlements at the periphery; some buildings stood only for 20 years. Compared with other East German cities, the fight against vacancy was simpler in Suhl, because vacancy was concentrated at the periphery and not in the city centre, which made it easy to demolish and renature the areas. A larger problem is vacancy in shops in the city centre, because the retail sector in Suhl has also been in a crisis for many years.