Everything about Bruchsal totally explained
Bruchsal (orig. Bruohselle, Bruaselle) is a city at the Western edge of the
Kraichgau, approximately 20 km Northeast of
Karlsruhe in the state of
Baden-Württemberg,
Germany. Bruchsal is the largest city in the district of
Karlsruhe and is known for being
Europe's largest
asparagus producer and one of the economic centers of
the region of Karlsruhe. The Bruchsal area also includes the cities and towns of
Bad Schönborn,
Forst,
Hambrücken,
Karlsdorf-Neuthard,
Kraichtal,
Kronau,
Oberhausen-Rheinhausen,
Östringen,
Philippsburg,
Ubstadt-Weiher und
Waghäusel. Until 1972 Bruchsal was the seat of the district of
Bruchsal, which was merged into the district of
Karlsruhe as a result of the district reform, effective
January 1,
1973.
Bruchsal's population passed the 20,000 mark around 1955. When the new Body of Municipal Law for Baden-Württemberg went into effect on
April 1,
1956, the city was therefore immediately awarded Große Kreisstadt status. In addition, Bruchsal cooperates with the neighboring communities of
Forst,
Hambrücken and
Karlsdorf-Neuthard in administrative matters.
Geography
Bruchsal is located at the edge of the
Upper Rhine River Plains and the
Kraichgau along the
Saalbach, which is a small tributary of the
Rhine that joins it between
Philippsburg and
Oberhausen.
Neighboring communities
The following cities and towns share a border with Bruchsal. They all belong to the district of Karlsruhe and are listed clockwise, starting in the North:
Forst (Baden),
Ubstadt-Weiher,
Kraichtal,
Bretten,
Gondelsheim,
Walzbachtal,
Weingarten (Baden),
Stutensee and
Karlsdorf-Neuthard. In addition the incontiguous land North of Karlsdorf-Neuthard, that's part of the City of Bruchsal, shares borders with the towns of
Graben-Neudorf,
Waghäusel und
Hambrücken.
Boroughs
The City of Bruchsal is made up of Bruchsal, proper, and the boroughs of Büchenau, Heidelsheim, Helmsheim, Obergrombach and Untergrombach.
There are also occasional neighborhoods within the city limits, known by their own name, but their limits are not precisely documented. Furthermore, former homesteads are located inside today's city limits. These often only consist of one or several buildings, such as Langental, Rohrbacher Hof, Scheckenbronnerhof, Staighof, Talmühle and Auf dem Michaelsberg in the borough of Untergrombach.
History
The city
Ancient to 1000 AD
Excavations and artifacts that were discovered evidence a settlement existing on the Michelsberg (Untergrombach) as early as
4000 BC during the
Neolithic or "New" Stone Age. In the core of Bruchsal the oldest settlement discovered was dated back to 640 AD. It is located near the present Peterskirche. The first mention of Bruchsal in official documents occurred in 976 when the King came to town. And during October of the year
980,
Otto II and his Court stayed at the King's palace in Bruchsal for several days.
1001 - 1500
Henry II became ruler of Bruchsal in 1002 following the subjugation of his rival Herrmann of Swabia. In 1056
Henry III presented the settlement to the
Bishop of Speyer (Konrad I) as a gift. The city remained part the Diocese until the
secularization in 1802. It also was the seat of an administrative district that originally only consisted of the core of Bruchsal (for example, the city as it existed prior to the various district reforms). In 1067
Henry IV resided in Bruchsal from time to time. 1248 was the first time Bruchsal was referred to as a city and in 1278 St. Peters Church is mentioned for the first time. After extensive damage to both, the Palace and the Peterskirch were reconstructed in 1320. The Bergfried (an outlook and defensive tower bastion) was erected in 1358 and the city wall was completed in 1452. In 1460 the first coin was pressed in Bruchsal.
1501 - 1750
In 1502 the first peasant revolt (
Bundschuh) led by Joß Fritz of Untergrombach chose Bruchsal as its target. Traitors to the rebellion allowed the authorities to take the revolt's leaders into custody of whom ten were decapitated in the Bruchsal Palace courtyard. Joß Fritz got away and went into hiding in the Southern
Black Forest. In 1525 the peasant revolts peaked. Inflation, hunger and the
Plague added to the desperation and the revolts were forcibly put down by the Prince. The known peasant leaders Hall, Wurm and the Minister Eisenhut were captured and decapitated in the Palace courtyard. During the
30 Years War in 1622 Bruchsal was completely destroyed and in 1644 the French garrison in Philippsburg raided the city. In 1676 the French again destroyed parts of Bruchsal and on
August 10,
1689 under the command of the French general Duras the city was bombarded and completely destroyed. After that Bruchsal counted only 130 residents.
By
April 24,
1711 Bruchsal had recovered sufficiently to play host to
Prince Eugene of Savoy of the
Habsburg Court in
Vienna. Then in 1716 the Bishop of Speyer, Heinrich von Rollingen, moved his residence into the Bruchsal Palace. This move elevated the city's status to that of an official residence of the noble
Diocese of Speyer. At the same time, Bruchsal became the seat of the "Vizedomamt", the most important office held by the Diocese on the West bank of the Rhine. In 1719 Cardinal became the new Bishop and after settling in he commissioned in (1722), among others, the new
baroque château and the new Peters Church (from 1742). Both were built and, in part, designed by
Balthasar Neumann. In the Bishop's honor, the Southern gate out of the château grounds is referred to as Damian's Gate to this day. In 1743 Franz Christof von Hutten, Schönborn's successor, completed the extensive construction of the baroque city of Bruchsal, by adding to the château and Peters Church, Damian's Gate, the military barracks (today home to the
International University in Germany) and the Water Château (home to one of the city's two regional, college track, high schools, the Schönborn Gymnasium
(External Link
)).
1751 - 1815
In 1753 the Schönborn Gymnasium was founded by Bishop von Hutten. In 1770 the new Bishop, Count
August von Limburg-Styrum, entered into office. Bruchsal now counted 6,000 residents. In 1796 French troops occupied the city.
Secularization turned all property owned by the Diocese of Speyer over to the House of
Baden and Bruchsal became the seat of the district court. The district then was divided and reunited several times through 1819.
In 1806 the Marquess Amalie of Baden, widowed since 1801, took up residence in Bruchsal's baroque château and lived there until 1823. She had 8 children of whom 6 were daughters, and she was known as Europe's mother-in-law. Amalie's son, the later
Grand Duke Karl, was married to
Stéphanie de Beauharnais, a niece of
Napoleon's wife
Josephine per orders given by Napoleon himself. In 1812 Stephanie gave birth to a son, who died after 14 days. This was the origin of the
Kaspar Hauser legend. Amalie's daughter Louise was married to
Alexander I of Russia and became the Russian
Tsarina Elisabeth Alexeievna. Amalie's daughter Friedericke wed
Gustaf IV Adolf to become Queen of Sweden (though she asked for and received asylum in Bruchsal after 1807 due to the
Coup d'Etat of her husband's government). Amalie's daughter Maria was married to the Duke of Braunschweig and two other daughters were married to the regents of
Bavaria and of
Hessen-Darmstadt.
In 1815, after Napoleon's reign was over, Bruchsal and Amalie entertained the following company in the baroque château at Bruchsal until the dust settled: The Russian
Tsar,
Prince Metternich, the
King of Prussia, as well as his son, the later
Emperor of Germany.
1816 - 1880
In 1841 the
railway was completed between
Heidelberg, Bruchsal, and
Karlsruhe. In 1848/1849 the
Baden Revolution did manage to stray into Bruchsal a bit. While the revolutionaries (
Gustav Struve, Lorenz Brentano, Amand Goegg and others) met in the château, the burgers freed prisoners from the just-completed prison. This prison, the Old Palace, played host to executions well through
World War II and even later. On
June 23,
1849, the revolution was quelled by Crownprince Wilhelm at the battle of Ubstadt. 1856 brought
gas lighting to Bruchsal and the city received Baden's
Guillotine. In 1864 district of Philippsburg was merged into the Bruchsal district which now belonged to the newly formed "Larger District Karlsruhe." On
June 1,
1869 the first German
railway signal factory, Schnabel-Henning, was founded in Bruchsal. Later it was merged into
Siemens AG, and the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and 1871 made Bruchsal an important
rail hub for the provisioning of the German troops.
1881 - 1945
1881 gave the
Jewish community a
synagogue. The
Industrial Revolution brought economic growth, mostly with the help of the railway and the area's
tobacco and
hops production. 1889 gave residents in Bruchsal their first
telephones and in 1906 the Prince-Styrum Hospital was built. The city's
slaughter house opened in 1908 and
World War I (1914-1918) again turned Bruchsal into a major hub on the supply line for the troops. Immediately after the war, in 1919 and 1920 the city was wired for
electricity. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 the city's residents took it quietly. In 1934 the
Autobahn was built between
Heidelberg and Bruchsal and in 1936 the
Bretten district was merged into the Bruchsal district. 1938 saw the big synagoge destroyed (in its place stands a Fire Station today) and the Jewish part of the population was deported. In 1939 the District Bruchsal became the dirstrict of
Bruchsal, which included 38 towns and cities until it was merged into Karlsruhe (district) during the district reform of 1970. In the afternoon of
March 1,
1945, Bruchsal was bombed by the Allies. At the time of the attack, the war was essentially over, with the front lines only 20 km from the city limits and nearly no one left to defend it. To this day, that particular attack upsets residents as the consensus is it had been staged even though unnecessary and inconsequential to the outcome of the war. In addition to the 1,000 lives that perished that day, the entire inner city and the baroque château were destroyed. On
April 2,
1945, allied forces took Bruchsal without resistance.
1946 - present
Effective
April 1,
1956 Bruchsal was awarded Große Kreisstadt status, as its population had passed the 20,000 mark in 1955. Between1971 and 1974 the district reform merged 5 neighboring communities into the city of Bruchsal, including the cities of Heidelsheim and Obergrombach. The district reform in 1973 also effected the merge of the districti of Bruchsal into
Karlsruhe (district). As a result, Bruchsal lost district seat status but it still remains a major economic center of the region.
Religion
The Bruchsal area has belonged to the
Diocese of Speyer since the
Middle Ages. Because of its influence, the
Reformation was unable to gain a foothold in the area and was eventually suppressed. Bruchsal became the Deacon's Seat early in its history, and in 1716, when
Prince-Bishop Heinrich von Rollingen moved into the Palace at Bruchsal and made it his official residence, it became the seat of the entire Diocese. When the Diocese was secularized in 1803, Bruchsal remained the center of the Church's spiritual influence, until the death of its bishop in 1810. It was then made the seat of the Vicary, which was responsible for the entire area that formerly belonged to the Dioceses of
Speyer,
Mainz, and
Worms. In 1821, the
Archdiocese of Freiburg was founded as a new diocese for the
Grand Duchy of Baden, and in 1827 its first
Archbishop took office. Since then, Bruchsal and its surrounding regions have belonged to the new Archdiocese, and it's once again the seat of the Deaconry. Today there are 28 parishes and 10 ministries in the former district of
Bruchsal. Located in the core of Bruchsal are St. Peter Parish, the City Church of Our Lady, the Château Chapel, and the parishes St. Damian and Hugo, St. Paul and St. Anton. As for the boroughs, Büchenau is the home to St. Barholomew Parish, Obergrombach has St. Martin Parish, and in Untergrombach reside St. Cosmas and Damian Parishes.
After the
Secularization in 1803 a Protestant (
Lutheran) parish was founded in Bruchsal and grew steadily over the years. In 1825, it had only 584 members but by 1900 its membership had grown to 3,720. In 1928, it was divided into a Northern and Southern parish, and in 1935/1936 the Luther Church was built for both. The church was destroyed during
World War II, but was reconstructed in 1950. After the war, the Paul-Gerhardt-Church became the city's second Protestant church. The boroughs of Heidelsheim and Helmsheim had become Protestant early on, because of their previous attachment to the
Palatinate and
Baden, while the boroughs of Büchenau, Obergrombach and Untergrombach, as part of the Diocese of Speyer, had remained predominantly Catholic. Protestants have moved into those boroughs only in recent history. Since then, the Christus Parish has been founded to service the boroughs of Obergrombach and Untergrombach, and Protestants living in Büchenau continue to belong to the parish in neighboring Staffort (a borough of the city of
Stutensee). And while Protestants living in the greater Bruchsal area after 1806 at first were attached to the Deacony of Bretten, Bruchsal later became the seat of its own deacony, which then grew into today's Protestant Church District Karlsruhe (Region) with its seat in Bruchsal. This district comprises all 26 Lutheran parishes in Northern Karlsruhe (district). Within the city limits of Bruchsal are located the following Protestant churches: Luther Church and Paul-Gerhardt-Church in the core of Bruchsal and, in the boroughs, the Protestant churches in Heidelsheim and Helmsheim and the Christus Church in Untergrombach.
In addition to the two major
denominations, Bruchsal is also home to several independent churches and parishes, among them the
Methodist and the
Seventh-day Adventist Parishes and the Christian Parish Bruchsal. The
New Apostolic Church and
Jehovah's Witnesses are also represented in Bruchsal.
Until the pogrom of 1938, Bruchsal had a substantial Jewish population and a flourishing synagogue, evidenced in the cemetery (Freihof) within the city. In the Jewish cemetery at Obergrombach a pillar from the Bruchsal synagogue forms part of a memorial to this community.
District reform
During the district reform in the early 1970s the following cities and towns became part of the City of Bruchsal. Before the district reform these all were part of
Bruchsal (district).
Demographics
Figures reflect the city limits at the time and are estimates or Census data (¹), or official extensions thereof, counting only primary residences.
| Year |
Population |
| 1465 |
2,500 |
| 1530 |
2,700 |
| 1698 |
1,400 |
| 1787 |
4,112 |
| 1825 |
6,833 |
| 1852 |
9,096 |
| December 1, 1871 |
9,762 |
| December 1, 1880 ¹ |
11,373 |
| December 1, 1890 ¹ |
11,909 |
|
| Year |
Population |
| December 1, 1900 ¹ |
13,555 |
| December 1, 1910 ¹ |
15,391 |
| October 8, 1919 ¹ |
15,453 |
| June 16, 1925 ¹ |
16,469 |
| June 16, 1933 ¹ |
16,903 |
| May 17, 1939 ¹ |
18,158 |
| December, 1945 ¹ |
12,890 |
| September 13, 1950 ¹ |
16,282 |
| June 6, 1961 ¹ |
22,578 |
|
| Year |
Population |
| May 27, 1970 ¹ |
27,308 |
| December 31, 1975 |
38,929 |
| December 31, 1980 |
37,351 |
| May 27, 1987 ¹ |
36,500 |
| December 31, 1990 |
38,059 |
| December 31, 1995 |
40,413 |
| December 31, 2000 |
41,777 |
| March 31 2004 |
42,747 |
|
¹ Census data
Government
In connection with the district reform in the 1970s the municipal laws of
Baden-Württemberg were amended to introduce borough councils. Residents of each borough elect their Borough Council at each municipal election and the borough council must be consulted on issues that significantly affect the respective borough. The Borough President also leads the Borough Council.
City council
Since the last municipal elections on
June 13,
2004, the City Council of Bruchsal consists of 39 members whose official title is "Stadtrat" (City Advisor). They belong to political parties as follows:
Further Information
Get more info on 'Bruchsal'.
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