Wiesbaden

Wiesbaden

Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 280,000 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). Wiesbaden, together with the cities of Frankfurt am Main, Darmstadt and Mainz, is part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region, a metropolitan area with a combined population of about 5.8 million people.

Wiesbaden is one of the oldest spa towns in Europe. Its name translates to "meadow baths," making reference to the hot springs. At one time, Wiesbaden boasted 26 hot springs. Fourteen of the springs are still flowing today.

While evidence of settlement at present-day Wiesbaden dates back to the Neolithic era, historical records document continuous occupancy after the erection of a Roman fort in 6 AD which housed an auxiliary cavalry unit. The thermal springs of Wiesbaden are first mentioned in Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia. They were famous for their recreation pools for Roman army horses and as the source of a mineral used for red hair dye (which was very fashionable around the turn of BC/AD among women in Rome).

The Roman settlement is first mentioned using the name Aquae Mattiacorum (Latin for "Waters of the Mattiaci") in 121. The Mattiaci were a Germanic tribe, possibly a branch of the neighboring Chatti, who lived in the vicinity at that time. The town also appears as Mattiacum in Ptolemy's Geographia. The line of Roman frontier fortifications, the Limes Germanicus, was constructed in the Taunus not far north of Wiesbaden.

The capital of the province of Germania Superior, Mogontiacum (present-day Mainz), base of 2 (at times 3) Roman legions, was just over the Rhine and connected by a bridge at the present-day borough of Mainz-Kastel (Roman "castellum"), a strongly fortified bridgehead.

The Alamanni, a coalition of Germanic tribes from beyond the Limes, captured the fort c. 260. Later, in the 370s, when the Romans and Alamanni were allied, the Alemanni gained control of the Wiesbaden area and were in charge of its defense against other Germanic tribes.

After the Franks under Clovis I defeated the Alamanni in the Battle of Tolbiac in 496, the Franks eventually displaced the Alamanni in the Wiesbaden area over the course of the 6th century. In the 8th century, Wiesbaden became the site of a royal palace of the Frankish kingdom. The first documented use of the name Wiesbaden is by Einhard, the biographer of Charlemagne, whose writings mention "Wisabada" sometime between 828 and 830.

When the Frankish Carolingian Empire broke up in 888, Wiesbaden was in the eastern half, called East Francia (which would evolve into the Holy Roman Empire). The town was part of Franconia, the heartland of East Francia. In the 1170s, the Counts of Nassau, Walram I, received the area around Wiesbaden as a fiefdom. When Franconia fragmented in the early 13th century, Nassau emerged as an independent state as part of the Holy Roman Empire.

In 1232 Wiesbaden became a reichsstadt, an imperial city, of the Holy Roman Empire. However, in 1242, during the war of Emperor Frederick II against the Pope, the Archbishop of Mainz, Siegfried III, ordered the city's destruction.

Wiesbaden returned to the control of the House of Nassau in 1270 under Count Walram II of Nassau-Weilburg. However, Wiesbaden and the castle at Sonnenberg were again destroyed in 1283 in conflict with Eppstein.

Walram's son and successor Adolf would later became King of Germany from 1292 until 1298. In 1329, under Adolf's son Gerlach I of Nassau-Weilburg the House of Nassau and thereby, Wiesbaden, received the right of coinage from Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Bavarian.

In 1355, the County of Nassau-Weilburg was divided among the sons of Gerlach. The County of Nassau's holdings would be subdivided many times among heirs, with the parts being brought together again whenever a line died out. Wiesbaden became the seat of the County of Nassau-Wiesbaden under Count Adolf I (1307–1370), eldest son of Gerlach. It would eventually fell back to Nassau-Weilburg in 1605.

As a result of Napoleon's victory over Austria in the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved. On July 12, 1806, 16 states in present-day Germany, including the remaining Countships of Nassau-Usingen and Nassau-Weilburg, formally left the Holy Roman Empire and joined together in the Confederation of the Rhine. Napoleon was its "protector." Under pressure from Napoleon, both countships merged to form the Duchy of Nassau on August 30, 1806.

After World War I, Wiesbaden fell under the Allied occupation of the Rhineland and was occupied by the French army in 1918. In 1921, the Wiesbaden Agreement on German reparations to France was signed in the city. In 1925, Wiesbaden became the headquarters of the British Rhine Army until the withdrawal of occupying forces from the Rhineland in 1930.

In 1929, an airport was constructed in Erbenheim on the site of a horse-racing track. In 1936, Fighter Squadron 53 of the Luftwaffe was stationed here.

In the Kristallnacht pogrom on November 10, 1938, Wiesbaden's large synagogue on Michelsberg was destroyed. The synagogue had been designed by Phillip Hoffmann and built in 1869. Another synagogue in Wiesbaden-Bierstadt was also destroyed. During the Third Reich, a total of approximately 1200 Wiesbaden Jews were deported and murdered.

During the war, Wiesbaden was largely spared by allied bombing raids. But between August 1940 and March 1945, Wiesbaden was attacked by allied bombers on 66 days. In the attacks, about 18% of the city's homes were destroyed and approximately 1,700 people lost their lives.

Wiesbaden was captured by U.S. Army forces on March 28, 1945. The U.S. 317th Infantry Regiment attacked in assault boats across the Rhine from Mainz while the 319th Infantry attacked across the Main River near Hochheim am Main. The attack started at 0100 and by early afternoon the two forces of the 80th U.S.Infantry Division had linked up with the loss of only three dead and three missing. The Americans captured 900 German soldiers and a warehouse full of 4,000 cases of champagne.

After World War II, the state of Hesse was established, and Wiesbaden became its capital, though nearby Frankfurt am Main is much larger and contains many Hessian government offices. Wiesbaden however suffered much less than Frankfurt from air bombing. There is a constant rumour that the U.S. Army Air Force spared the town due to its scheduled function as a postwar HQ, but USAAF sources claim this to be a myth, arguing that Wiesbaden's economic and strategic importance simply did not justify more bombing. Wiesbaden was host to the Headquarters, U.S. Air Forces, Europe based at the former Lindsey Air Station from 1953 to 1973.

American armed forces have been present in Wiesbaden since World War II. The U.S. 1st Armored Division was headquartered at the Wiesbaden Army Airfield, just off the Autobahn toward Frankfurt, until the Division completed relocation to Fort Bliss, Texas in 2011. Wiesbaden is now home to the U.S. Army Europe Command and Battle Center. The Smaller supporting American kasernes and housing areas are scattered around the city. More Americans are moving in from bases scheduled to be closed such as Darmstadt and Heidelberg.

                                                        Wiesbaden’s Top 5:

   
1. St. Bonifatius is the central Catholic parish and church in the capital of Hesse. The present building was designed by architect Philipp Hoffmann in Gothic Revival style and built from 1844 to 1849. Twin steeples of 68 m dominate the Luisenplatz. The parish is part of the Diocese of Limburg. The first Catholic parish after the Reformation was founded in 1800. The congregation first met in a Bethaus (oratory) in the Marktstraße. It soon became too small for the growing number of Catholics in the town, which prospered as a spa and Residenz of Nassau. The parish received grounds adjacent to the Luisenplatz from the Duke of Nassau, and from 1829 to 1831 Friedrich Ludwig Schrumpf built a rigidly Neoclassical church, in keeping with the buildings around the square. Soon after the building was completed, it collapsed on 11 February 1831. A likely reason is insufficient foundation on ground which had previously been ponds. On 24 May 1843, the young Philipp Hoffmann received the commission to build a church.  The foundation was laid on the day of the patron saint St. Bonifatius, on 5 June 1845. The interior was consecrated by the Bishop of Limburg Peter Josef Blum on 19 June 1849. In World War II the church suffered severe damage. An air raid on 2 February 1945 destroyed all the windows, the roof and part of the vault. The repair wasn't performed until 1949, replacing the vault by a simple construction. 
2. The Kurhaus ("cure house") is the spa house in Wiesbaden. It serves as the city's convention centre, and is the social center of the spa town with many events throughout the year. In addition to a large and a smaller hall, it houses a dining restaurant and the Wiesbaden Casino, or Spielbank, which is notable for allowing the "highest roulette stakes in Germany" (as of 2005), and where Fyodor Dostoyevsky was said to have received the inspiration for his novel, The Gambler.
3. Marktkirche (English: Market Church) is the main Protestant church in Wiesbaden. The neo-Gothic church on the central Schloßplatz(English: Palace Square) was designed by Carl Boos and built between 1853 and 1862. At the time it was the largest brick building of the Duchy of Nassau. It is also called Nassauer Landesdom (Cathedral of Nassau).
4. Museum Wiesbaden is a museum in the Hessian capital Wiesbaden. Besides the museums in Kassel and Darmstadt, it is one of the three Hessian state museums. The museum comprises an art collection, a natural history collection and a collection of Nassauian antiquities.
5. The Wiesbaden Stadtschloss (Wiesbaden City Palace) is a neo-classical building in the center of Wiesbaden. It was completed in 1841 as the principal city residence of the Dukes of Nassau. The palace has several wings, 145 rooms, and is architecturally integrated with a group of ancillary buildings constructed both before and after it was built. With ornate towers, gables and a slate roof laid in herringbone patterns, the three-story complex lends charm and its name to the central square of Wiesbaden: Palace Square. The Palace has had a turbulent history. After withstanding the Revolutions of 1848 and annexation by Prussia in 1866, it has served variously as a second home of the German Emperors, a gathering place for soldiers and workers during the German Revolution of 1918–1919, a museum, and a military headquarters for both the Wehrmacht and Allied occupation forces. Damaged during World War II, the Palace has since been restored and portions modernized. Since 1946 it has been the seat of the State Parliament of Hesse . A new Parliamentary Chamber was added to the complex in 2008.