Thuringia
Thuringia is one of Germany's 16 states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area.
Erfurt is the capital and largest city. Other cities include Jena, Gera and Weimar. Thuringia is bordered by Bavaria, Hesse, Lower Saxony, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt. It has been known as "the green heart of Germany" from the late 19th century due to its broad, dense forest. Most of Thuringia is in the Saale drainage basin, a left-bank tributary of the Elbe.
The Frankish Duchy of Thuringia was established around 631 AD by King Dagobert I. The modern state was established in 1920 by the Weimar Republic through a merger of the Ernestine duchies, save for Saxe-Coburg. After World War II, Thuringia came under the Soviet occupation zone in Allied-occupied Germany, and its borders were reformed, to become contiguous. Thuringia became part of the German Democratic Republic in 1949, but was dissolved in 1952 during administrative reforms, and divided into the Districts of Erfurt, Suhl and Gera. Thuringia was re-established in 1990 following German reunification, slightly re-drawn, and became one of the new states of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Thuringia is home to the Rennsteig, Germany's best-known hiking trail. Its winter resort of Oberhof makes it a well-equipped winter sports destination - half of Germany's 136 Winter Olympic gold medals had been won by Thuringian athletes as of 2014. Thuringia was favoured by or was the birthplace of three key intellectuals and leaders in the arts: Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Friedrich Schiller. The state is home to the University of Jena, the Ilmenau University of Technology, the University of Erfurt, Bauhaus University of Weimar and the.
Etymology and symbols
The name Thuringia or Thüringen derives from the Germanic tribe Thuringii, who emerged during the Migration Period. Their origin is largely unknown. An older theory claims that they were successors of the Hermunduri, but later research rejected the idea. Other historians argue that the Thuringians were allies of the Huns, came to central Europe together with them, and lived before in what is Galicia today. Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus first mentioned the Thuringii around 400; during that period, the Thuringii were famous for their excellent horses.The Thuringian Realm existed until after 531. The Landgraviate of Thuringia was the largest state in the region, persisting between 1131 and 1247. Afterwards the state known as Thuringia ceased to exist; nevertheless the term commonly described the region between the Harz mountains in the north, the White Elster river in the east, the Franconian Forest in the south and the Werra river in the west. After the Treaty of Leipzig, Thuringia had its own dynasty again, the Ernestine Wettins. Their various lands formed the State of Thuringia, founded in 1920, together with some other small principalities. The Prussian territories around Erfurt, Mühlhausen and Nordhausen joined Thuringia in 1945.
The coat of arms of Thuringia shows the lion of the Ludowingian Landgraves of 12th-century origin. The eight stars around it represent the eight former states which formed Thuringia. The flag of Thuringia is a white-red bicolor, derived from the white and red stripes of the Ludowingian lion. The coat of arms and flag of Hesse are quite similar to the Thuringian ones, since they are also derived from the Ludowingian symbols.
Symbols of Thuringia in popular culture are the Bratwurst and the Forest, because a large amount of the territory is forested.
History
Named after the Thuringii Germanic tribe who occupied it around AD 300, Thuringia came under Frankish domination in the 6th century.In 632–634, Thuringia was devastated by Slavic raids. Thuringia became a landgraviate in 1130 AD. After the extinction of the reigning Ludowingian line of counts and landgraves in 1247 and the War of the Thuringian Succession, the western half became independent under the name of "Hesse", never to become a part of Thuringia again. Most of the remaining Thuringia came under the rule of the Wettin dynasty of the nearby Margraviate of Meissen, the nucleus of the later Electorate and Kingdom of Saxony. With the division of the house of Wettin in 1485, Thuringia went to the senior Ernestine branch of the family, which subsequently subdivided the area into a number of smaller states, according to the Saxon tradition of dividing inheritance amongst male heirs. These were the "Saxon duchies", consisting, among others, of the states of Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Eisenach, Saxe-Jena, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg, and Saxe-Gotha.
Thuringia generally accepted the Protestant Reformation, and Roman Catholicism was suppressed as early as 1520; priests who remained loyal to it were driven away and churches and monasteries were largely destroyed, especially during the German Peasants' War of 1525. In Mühlhausen and elsewhere, the Anabaptists found many adherents. Thomas Müntzer, a leader of some non-peaceful groups of this sect, was active in this city. Within the borders of modern Thuringia the Roman Catholic faith only survived in the Eichsfeld district, which was ruled by the Archbishop of Mainz, and to a small degree in Erfurt and its immediate vicinity.
Early modern period
The modern German black-red-gold tricolour flag's first appearance anywhere in a German-ethnicity sovereign state, within what today comprises Germany, occurred in 1778 as the state flag of the Principality of Reuss-Greiz, a defunct principality within the modern state's borders.Some reordering of the Thuringian states occurred during the German Mediatisation from 1795 to 1814, and the territory was included within the Napoleonic Confederation of the Rhine organized in 1806. The 1815 Congress of Vienna confirmed these changes and the Thuringian states' inclusion in the German Confederation; the Kingdom of Prussia also acquired some Thuringian territory and administered it within the Province of Saxony. The Thuringian duchies which became part of the German Empire in 1871 during the Prussian-led unification of Germany were Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and the two principalities of Reuss Elder Line and Reuss Younger Line.
Free State of Thuringia
In 1920, after World War I, these small states merged into one state, called the State of Thuringia ; only Saxe-Coburg voted to join Bavaria instead. Weimar became the new capital. The coat of arms of this new state was simpler than those of its predecessors. The Landtag of the newly established state first convened in 1920 in Weimar. Its deputies were elected for three years according to proportional representation, with a minimum voting age of 21. Between 1920 and 1932, under the Weimar Republic, six Landtag elections were held.Thuringia was one of the states where the Nazi Party first gained real political power during the Weimar Republic. Wilhelm Frick was appointed Minister of the Interior in the state coalition government after the Nazi Party won six deputies to the Thuringian Landtag in the December 1929 election. In this position, he removed from the Thuringian police force anyone he suspected of being a republican and replaced them with men who were favourable towards the Nazis. He also ensured that, whenever an important position came up within Thuringia, a Nazi was given that post. Following the Nazi seizure of power in Berlin, the Landtag was formally abolished as a result of the "Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich" of 30 January 1934, which replaced the German federal system with a unitary state. Thuringia was the location of the Buchenwald concentration camp with multiple subcamps.
After being controlled briefly by the US following the end of the Second World War, from July 1945 the state of Thuringia came under the Soviet occupation zone and was expanded to include parts of Prussian Saxony, such as the areas around Erfurt, Mühlhausen, and Nordhausen. Erfurt became the new capital of Thuringia. Ostheim, an exclave of Landkreis Eisenach, was ceded to Bavaria.
In 1952, the German Democratic Republic dissolved its states, and created districts instead. The three districts that shared the former territory of Thuringia were Erfurt, Gera and Suhl. Altenburg Kreis was part of Leipzig Bezirk.
The present Free State of Thuringia was recreated with slightly altered borders during German reunification in 1990.
Geography
Topography
From the northwest going clockwise; Thuringia borders on the German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Bavaria and Hesse.File:Meuselbach Viehberg.JPG|thumb|right|Meuselbach-Schwarzmühle at the Thuringian Highland
The landscapes of Thuringia are quite diverse. The far north is occupied by the Harz mountains, followed by the Goldene Aue, a fertile floodplain around Nordhausen with the Helme as most important river. The north-west includes the Eichsfeld, a hilly and sometimes forested region, where the Leine river emanates. The central and northern part of Thuringia is defined by the wide Thuringian Basin, a very fertile and flat area around the Unstrut river and completely surrounded by the following hill chains : Dün, Hainleite, Windleite, Kyffhäuser, Hohe Schrecke, Schmücke, Finne, Ettersberg, Steigerwald, Thuringian Forest, Hörselberge and Hainich. Within the Basin the smaller hill chains Fahner Höhe and Heilinger Höhen. South of the Thuringian Basin is the state's largest mountain range, marked by the Thuringian Forest in the north-west, the Thuringian Highland in the middle and the Franconian Forest in the south-east. Most of this range is forested and the Großer Beerberg is Thuringia's highest mountain. To the south-west, the Forest is followed up by Werra river valley, dividing it from the Rhön Mountains in the west and the Grabfeld plain in the south. Eastern Thuringia, commonly described as the area east of Saale and Loquitz valley, is marked by a hilly landscape, rising slowly from the flat north to the mountainous south. The Saale in the west and the White Elster in the east are the two big rivers running from south to north and forming densely settled valleys in this area. Between them lies the flat and forested Holzland in the north, the flat and fertile Orlasenke in the middle and the Vogtland, a hilly but in most parts non-forested region in the south. The far eastern region is the Osterland or Altenburger Land along Pleiße river, a flat, fertile and densely settled agricultural area.
There are two large rivers in Thuringia. The Saale, a tributary of the Elbe, with its tributaries the Unstrut, Ilm and White Elster, drains the most part of Thuringia. The Werra – the headwater of the Weser – drains the south-west and west of the state. Furthermore, some small areas on the southern border are drained by tributaries of the Main, itself a tributary of the Rhine. There are no large natural lakes in Thuringia, but it does have some of Germany's biggest dams, including the Bleiloch Dam and the Hohenwarte Dam on the River Saale, as well as the Leibis-Lichte Dam and the Goldisthal Pumped Storage Station in the Thuringian Highlands. Thuringia is Germany's only state with no connection to navigable waterways.
The geographic centre of the Federal Republic is in Thuringia, within the municipality of Vogtei next to Mühlhausen. The centre of Thuringia is eight kilometres south of the capital's Cathedral, in the municipality of Rockhausen.