Gelnhausen

Gelnhausen

Coat of arms
Gelnhausen

Coordinates: 50°12′N 09°10′E / 50.200°N 9.167°E / 50.200; 9.167Coordinates: 50°12′N 09°10′E / 50.200°N 9.167°E / 50.200; 9.167
Country Germany
State Hesse
Admin. region Darmstadt
District Main-Kinzig-Kreis
Government
 • Mayor Thorsten Stolz [1] (SPD)
Area
 • Total 45.18 km2 (17.44 sq mi)
Population (2013-12-31)[2]
 • Total 22,099
 • Density 490/km2 (1,300/sq mi)
Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes 63571
Dialling codes 06051
Vehicle registration MKK, GN, SLÜ
Website www.gelnhausen.de

Gelnhausen is a town and the capital of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located approximately 40 kilometers east of Frankfurt am Main, between the Vogelsberg mountains and the Spessart range at the river Kinzig. It is one of the eleven towns (urban municipalities) in the district. According to the Institut Géographique National from 1 January 2007 until July 2013 the geographic centre of the European Union was located on a wheat field outside the town at 50°10′21″N 9°9′0″E / 50.17250°N 9.15000°E / 50.17250; 9.15000 (Gelnhausen (27 members)).

For a number of years, the town was home to the United States Army's Coleman Kaserne base. In 1996, the town hosted the 36th Hessentag state festival.

History

Imperial City of Gelnhausen
Reichsstadt Gelnhausen
Free Imperial City of the Holy Roman Empire
←
1170–1803 →
 
→
 
→
Capital Gelnhausen
Government Republic
Historical era Middle Ages
 • Founded by Frederick Barbarossa 1170
 •  Pledged to Ld Hanau 1349–? 1170
 • Pledged to counties of Schwarzburg and Hohnstein 26 May 1349
 • Hohnstein share to Schwarzburg 22 July 1431
 • Schwarzburg sold to County of Hanau and Electorate of the Palatinate 26 May 1435
 • Hanau extinct; share to Lgvt Hesse-Kassel 28 March 1736
 •  Palatinate share to Hesse-Kassel 1746 1803
 • Hesse-Kassel raised to electorate 1803
Obermarkt
Monument to Philip Reis, an early telephone inventor

Gelnhausen was founded by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1170, it is therefore nicknamed "Barbarossastadt". The place was chosen because it was at the intersection of the Via Regia imperial road between Frankfurt and Leipzig and several other major trade routes. Frederick had three villages connected by streets and surrounded by a wall. At the same time Gelnhausen received town privileges and a Kaiserpfalz was erected on an island of the Kinzig river. The emperor also granted trade privileges like the staple right which forced traveling merchants to offer their goods in the town for three days.

Hence Gelnhausen initially was a thriving trade city and head of a league of 16 towns of the Wetterau region. However prosperity came to an end already in 1326 when Emperor Louis IV gave the town in pawn to the counts of Hanau, redeemed shortly afterwards. In 1349 Count Günther von Schwarzburg received Gelnhausen from Emperor Charles IV for renouncing his claims as elected King of the Romans, in condominium with the counts of Hohnstein, who sold their share to Schwarzburg in 1431. Schwarzburg was acquired in 1435 by Elector Palatine Louis III and the Hanau, since raised to a county.

Continued plundering in the Thirty Years' War as depicted by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen in his novel Simplicius Simplicissimus made it nearly uninhabitable. In 1736, the extinction of the comital line of Hanau meant the condominium share was inherited by the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, who acquired the Palatinate's share ten years later.

The varying lords made continued attempts to challenge Gelnhausen's imperial immediacy, it however formally remained a Reichsstadt. During the German Mediatisation of 1803 the city became a part of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, which was raised to an electorate and, after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, was annexed by Prussia. At this time Gelnhausen had completely recovered and with the Gründerzeit economic boom became a centre of the German rubber industry.

From the 1930s Gelnhausen was a garrison town of the German Wehrmacht and, after World War II, of the United States Army. The US Army closed Coleman Kaserne in 2007.

Transport

Gelnhausen lies directly along the German autobahn A66. Gelnhausen station is also on the Kinzig Valley Railway a major line between Frankfurt and Fulda. Regional services from Frankfurt to Fulda or Wächtersbach stops in Gelnhausen.

Main sights

Sights include:

Twin towns

Gelnhausen is twinned with:

Gelnhausen on the Fairy Tale Road

Gelnhausen is situated between Hanau, the birthpace of the Brothers Grimm, and Steinau an der Strasse, where they spent most of their childhood. It is located on the German Fairy Tale Route, a tourist route.

Museums/Museen

Heimatmuseum

Das Gebäude der früheren Augusta-Schule auf der Nordseite des Obermarktes beherbergt das Heimatmuseum. Hier finden sich Ausstellungsstücke aus allen Epochen der Geschichte von Gelnhausen. Die ältesten Fundstücke aus der Gegend sind 300.000 Jahre alt.

Eine besondere Einrichtung ist der sogenannte Fund des Monats. Hierbei wird ein Exponat aus dem Museum im Foyer des Rathauses ausgestellt.

Turmuhrenmuseum

Dieses Museum, das von einer Privatperson betrieben wird, zeigt 35 Turmuhrwerke aus den Jahren 1520 bis 1996. Des Weiteren gibt es eine Reihe von Einzelteilen und Zubehör zu sehen.

Flugzeugmuseum

Bis 2013 gab es das privat betriebene „Museum für Flugzeugtechnik und Geschichte Friedhelm Wagner“ im Stadtteil Hailer. In sieben Räumen wurden auf einer Fläche von über 200 Quadratmetern mehr als 3.200 Exponate aus dem Bereich Luftfahrt gezeigt. Neben Motoren, Aggregaten, Instrumenten und Bordzubehör waren Originalunterlagen zu sehen. Der Luftfahrt im Kinzigtal war hierbei ein besonderes Augenmerk gewidmet.

Notable people

Like many American soldiers, in 1959 Colin Powell, then lieutenant of the 3rd Armored Division, served at Coleman Kaserne. A street was named after him. During the Second Gulf War there was some discussion about renaming the street because of Germany's stance on the war. The mayor of Gelnhausen strongly objected.

References

  1. ↑ Old bürgermeister impeached mid-March 2010
  2. ↑ "Die Bevölkerung der hessischen Gemeinden". Hessisches Statistisches Landesamt (in German). September 2014.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gelnhausen.
Wikisource has the text of the 1906 New International Encyclopedia article Gelnhausen.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, January 10, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.