Viernheim
Viernheim is a midsize industrial town on Mannheim's outskirts and is found in the Rhine Neckar agglomeration and economic area. It is the second biggest town in Bergstraße district in Hesse, Germany. Since 1994 it has also borne the title Brundtlandstadt, as it has been taking part in an energy conservation pilot project. In 1968, the town hosted the eighth Hessentag state festival.
Geography
Location
Viernheim lies in the Rhine rift, and although it also lies in Hesse, it is bounded on the west, south and east by Baden-Württemberg. North of the Viernheim woods, in Lampertheim, begins the Hessisches Ried. East of Viernheim lies the town of Weinheim, which is where the district’s namesake Bergstraße begins, and which also marks the beginning of the Odenwald. The town lies roughly northeast of Mannheim, east of the Rhine and west of the Bergstrasse.Neighbouring communities
Viernheim borders in the north on the town of Lampertheim, in the northeast on the towns of Hemsbach and Weinheim, in the south on the community of Heddesheim, and in the west on the district-free city of Mannheim.Constituent communities
Viernheim is divided into several sections. It has been the local, everyday speech and town expansions, though, that have yielded most of the divisions. They therefore have no precisely defined bounds. The Stadtkern, or town core, is made up of the Innenstadt and the Altstadt lying around it. Among the other neighbourhoods are the Nordstadt, the Nordweststadt, the Tivoli, Hinter den Zäunen, Gewerbegebiet Eins and the new development that has sprung up over the last few years, Bannholzgraben, east of Janusz-Korczak-Allee. Moreover, there are also the Sportgebiet West, the two outlying centres which are each made up of only one road, Neuzenlache and Ziegelhütte (south of the A 659 and the outlying farms northeast of town.History
Viernheim grew out of a Carolingian king's court. Viernheim had its first documentary mention in 777 in the Lorsch codex, the Lorsch Abbey's book of documents. Through donations, it ended up in the Abbey’s ownership. In 1232, the Abbey’s holdings were given to the Archbishops of Mainz, but only in 1308 did Viernheim pass to Mainz. In 1439, however, the town was pledged to the Schönau Abbey, who in turn sold it to the Electorate of the Palatinate. After the Thirty Years' War, it passed back to Mainz, and thence under the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss in 1803 to the Grand Duchy of Hesse, out of which came the People's State of Hesse in 1918. Once in the People's State, the town was assigned first to the Amtsvogtei of Lorsch. When Landratsbezirke – another kind of administrative division – were created in 1821, Viernheim was assigned to Heppenheim. From 1832 to 1839 came a spell under Bensheim's jurisdiction. From 1848, the town then belonged to Heppenheim district, which in 1938 was merged with Bensheim district to form today’s Bergstraße district. In 1948, Viernheim was granted town rights by the newly founded Land of Hesse.During the 19th century the tobacco industry gained some importance, since several small tobacco manufacturers were founded. Rolling cigars provided additional income for farmers or peasants and their families during the winter.
Until the end of the 19th century, Viernheim was a farming village. Bad harvests and widespread hunger in 1852 led to 458 inhabitants emigrating in this year to North America. With industrialization and the opening of the Oberrheinische Eisenbahn in 1887, the town began to become more of a workers’ residential community as many inhabitants found work in the factories in nearby Mannheim and Weinheim. Many workers, however, kept farming as a sideline. The location of industry in Viernheim itself began with the opening of the Weinheim-Worms railway in 1905, and further strengthened after the Second World War, bringing along with it a sharp rise in population. Given the town's favourable road links to three Autobahnen, it grew into a midsize industrial town. In 1994 came its designation as a “Brundtland Town”, and its attendant participation in an energy conservation pilot project.
During World War II, Viernheim did not suffer severe damage, since the town had no strategic or industrial importance. So the Viernheim railway station served for a while as Mannheim station, after the Mannheim Central Station was destroyed in an air-raid in 1942.
On 23 June 2016, a hostage incident occurred within a cinema in the town. No hostages were injured and the gunman was shot and killed by the Spezialeinsatzkommando.
Population development
Religion
For a long time, Viernheim belonged to the Archbishopric of Mainz. Owing to changing lords in the 15th and 16th centuries, the townsfolk had to convert seven times because of the Peace of Augsburg. When the town passed back to the Electorate of Mainz, however, Roman Catholicism kept its place as the local denomination. In the early 20th century, the Lutheran townsfolk who had by now been drawn to the town got their own church in Viernheim.Churches
Today in Viernheim, there are three Catholic parishes, St. Michael, St. Hildegard merged in 2015, St. Marien and St. Aposteln, which belong to the deanery of Bergstraße-West of the Bishopric of Mainz, and two Lutheran parishes, Auferstehungskirche and Christuskirche, which both belong to the deanery of Bergstraße-Süd of the Lutheran Church in Hesse and Nassau.Besides the two big churches, the Bund Freier evangelischer Gemeinden in Deutschland has a parish, as do the Evangeliumschristen-Baptisten, the New Apostolic Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses. There has been no Jewish community in town since National Socialist times. The synagogue on Hügelstraße, consecrated on 31 August 1827, was destroyed by the SA along with some locals on 10 November 1938 during the Kristallnacht pogrom.
Politics
Town council
The municipal election held on 27 March 2011 yielded the following results:Mayors
Heading the town is the Mayor who is directly elected by the people for a term of six years. Mayor Matthias Baaß has been in office since 1997 and was re-elected on 7 June 2009 to his third term with 72.1% of the vote. The next mayoral election is planned for 2015.At his side is the First Town Councillor, along with 11 part-time councillors. They are all chosen by the town assembly for terms of six and five years respectively and reflect the assembly's political makeup at the time of their appointments.
The Mayor, the First Town Councillor and the 11 part-time councillors together form the town's executive.
Following is a list of the town's mayors since 1822 :
- 1822–1824: Joh. Jakob Georgi
- 1825–1842: Johann Beikert
- 1842–1847: Georg Kühner
- 1848–1853: Peter Minnig
- 1853–1862: Johann Kempf
- 1862–1873: Michael Keller
- 1873–1875: Johann Winkler 5.
- 1875–1895: Johann Bläß 1.
- 1895–1904: Georg Pfützer 2.
- 1904–1913: Gg. Friedrich Kühlwein
- 1913–1933: Jean Lamberth
- 1933–1945: Hanns Bechtel
- 1945: Martin Alter
- 1945–1946: Nikolaus Schlosser
- 1946–1960: Lorenz Neff
- 1960–1975: Hans Mandel
- 1975–1981: Erwin Bugert
- 1981–1987: Josef Baumgärtner
- 1987–1997: Norbert Hofmann
- since 1997: Matthias Baaß
Coat of arms
The arms were introduced in 1926. The charge in the upper part of the escutcheon is the Lion of Hesse, which expresses the town's longstanding status as part of Hesse. Below the fess line on the dexter side is the Wheel of Mainz, which stands for the town's former allegiance to the Electorate of Mainz. On the sinister side is a Gothic figure of four, which used to be the local logo, making the arms canting, that is to say, suggestive of the town's name, since the German word for “four” is vier. Although it sounds rather like the first syllable in the town's name, it seems likelier that this comes from the Old High German firni or the Celtic vernos.
The Viernheim town flag is blue-white-red.
Twin towns – sister cities
Viernheim is twinned with:- Franconville, France
- Potters Bar, United Kingdom
- Rovigo, Italy
- Silly, Burkina Faso
- Mława, Poland
Economy and infrastructure