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Original West German CKO tinplate Ford Taunus 20M taxis no. 416 with friction motor, in black and cream.

The interior has been changed on the later cream one.

I have a photo taken in Stuttgart in 1973 at the time when the standard colour for West German taxis was changing from black to cream, at that point they were more cream than black.

© Mathias Kellermann 2011 - This work is protected under international copyright laws and agreements. No part of this photostream may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system (except Flickr Expo system and Faves) , or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without my prior written permission.

 

L'exploitation et la reproduction à des fins commerciales ou non commerciales d'une oeuvre sans autorisation ecrite de son auteur constitue un acte de contrefaçon pénalement sanctionné au titre des articles L.122-4, L335-2 et L335-3 du CPI.

 

Click on the image to see with black frame.

  

My Best ☆ FAVES by you, on : www.flickr.com/photos/matkeller-as-titus1st/sets/72157625...

  

Thank you all for your comments, invitations and support :)

Strasbourg (/ˈstræzbɜrɡ/, French pronunciation: ​[stʁaz.buʁ, stʁas.buʁ]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace were historically Alemannic-speaking, hence the city's Germanic name.[5] In 2006, the city proper had 272,975 inhabitants and its urban community 467,375 inhabitants. With 759,868 inhabitants in 2010, Strasbourg's metropolitan area (only the part of the metropolitan area on French territory) is the ninth largest in France. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 884,988 inhabitants in 2008.[6]

 

Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory) and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. The city is also the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights.[7]

 

Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île (Grand Island), was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is immersed in the Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a bridge of unity between France and Germany for centuries, especially through the University of Strasbourg, currently the second largest in France, and the coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture. The largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque, was inaugurated by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls on 27 September 2012.[8]

 

Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road, rail, and river transportation. The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany.

 

Etymology and Names

The city's Gallicized name (Lower Alsatian: Strossburi, [ˈʃd̥rɔːsb̥uri]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is of Germanic origin and means "Town (at the crossing) of roads". The modern Stras- is cognate to the German Straße and English street, all of which are derived from Latin strata ("paved road"), while -bourg is cognate to the German Burg and English borough, all of which are derived from Proto-Germanic *burgz ("hill fort, fortress").

 

Geography

 

Strasbourg seen from Spot Satellite

Strasbourg is situated on the eastern border of France with Germany. This border is formed by the River Rhine, which also forms the eastern border of the modern city, facing across the river to the German town Kehl. The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the River Ill, which here flows parallel to, and roughly 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from, the Rhine. The natural courses of the two rivers eventually join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city.

 

The city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres (433 ft) and 151 metres (495 ft) above sea level, with the upland areas of the Vosges Mountains some 20 km (12 mi) to the west and the Black Forest 25 km (16 mi) to the east. This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north-south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, and major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks.

 

The city is some 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Paris. The mouth of the Rhine lies approximately 450 kilometres (280 mi) to the north, or 650 kilometres (400 mi) as the river flows, whilst the head of navigation in Basel is some 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the south, or 150 kilometres (93 mi) by river.

 

Climate

 

In spite of its position far inland, Strasbourg's climate is classified as Oceanic (Köppen climate classification Cfb), with warm, relatively sunny summers and cold, overcast winters. Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains largely constant throughout the year, totaling 631.4 mm (24.9 in) annually. On average, snow falls 30 days per year.

 

The highest temperature ever recorded was 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave. The lowest temperature ever recorded was −23.4 °C (−10.1 °F) in December 1938.

 

Strasbourg's location in the Rhine valley, sheltered from the dominant winds by the Vosges and Black Forest mountains, results in poor natural ventilation, making Strasbourg one of the most atmospherically polluted cities of France.[10][11] Nonetheless, the progressive disappearance of heavy industry on both banks of the Rhine, as well as effective measures of traffic regulation in and around the city have reduced air pollution.

 

Prehistory

The first traces of human occupation in the environs of Strasbourg go back many thousands of years.[16] Neolithic, bronze age and iron age artifacts have been uncovered by archeological excavations. It was permanently settled by proto-Celts around 1300 BC. Towards the end of the third century BC, it developed into a Celtic township with a market called "Argentorate". Drainage works converted the stilthouses to houses built on dry land.[17]

 

From Romans

The Romans under Nero Claudius Drusus established a military outpost belonging to the Germania Superior Roman province at Strasbourg's current location, and named it Argentoratum. (Hence the town is commonly called Argentina in medieval Latin.[18]) The name "Argentoratum" was first mentioned in 12 BC and the city celebrated its 2,000th birthday in 1988. "Argentorate" as the toponym of the Gaulish settlement preceded it before being Latinized, but it is not known by how long. The Roman camp was destroyed by fire and rebuilt six times between the first and the fifth centuries AD: in 70, 97, 235, 355, in the last quarter of the fourth century, and in the early years of the fifth century. It was under Trajan and after the fire of 97 that Argentoratum received its most extended and fortified shape. From the year 90 on, the Legio VIII Augusta was permanently stationed in the Roman camp of Argentoratum. It then included a cavalry section and covered an area of approximately 20 hectares. Other Roman legions temporarily stationed in Argentoratum were the Legio XIV Gemina and the Legio XXI Rapax, the latter during the reign of Nero.

 

The centre of Argentoratum proper was situated on the Grande Île (Cardo: current Rue du Dôme, Decumanus: current Rue des Hallebardes). The outline of the Roman "castrum" is visible in the street pattern in the Grande Ile. Many Roman artifacts have also been found along the current Route des Romains, the road that led to Argentoratum, in the suburb of Kœnigshoffen. This was where the largest burial places were situated, as well as the densest concentration of civilian dwelling places and commerces next to the camp. Among the most outstanding finds in Kœnigshoffen were (found in 1911–12) the fragments of a grand Mithraeum that had been shattered by early Christians in the fourth century. From the fourth century, Strasbourg was the seat of the Bishopric of Strasbourg (made an Archbishopric in 1988). Archaeological excavations below the current Église Saint-Étienne in 1948 and 1956 unearthed the apse of a church dating back to the late fourth or early fifth century, considered to be the oldest church in Alsace. It is supposed that this was the first seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Strasbourg.

 

The Alemanni fought the Battle of Argentoratum against Rome in 357. They were defeated by Julian, later Emperor of Rome, and their King Chonodomarius was taken prisoner. On 2 January 366, the Alemanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire. Early in the fifth century, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine, conquered, and then settled what is today Alsace and a large part of Switzerland.

 

In the fifth century Strasbourg was occupied successively by Alemanni, Huns, and Franks. In the ninth century it was commonly known as Strazburg in the local language, as documented in 842 by the Oaths of Strasbourg. This trilingual text contains, alongside texts in Latin and Old High German (teudisca lingua), the oldest written variety of Gallo-Romance (lingua romana) clearly distinct from Latin, the ancestor of Old French. The town was also called Stratisburgum or Strateburgus in Latin, from which later came Strossburi in Alsatian and Straßburg in Standard German, and then Strasbourg in French. The Oaths of Strasbourg is considered as marking the birth of the two countries of France and Germany with the division of the Carolingian Empire.[19]

 

A major commercial centre, the town came under the control of the Holy Roman Empire in 923, through the homage paid by the Duke of Lorraine to German King Henry I. The early history of Strasbourg consists of a long conflict between its bishop and its citizens. The citizens emerged victorious after the Battle of Oberhausbergen in 1262, when King Philip of Swabia granted the city the status of an Imperial Free City.

 

Around 1200, Gottfried von Straßburg wrote the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, which is regarded, alongside Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and the Nibelungenlied, as one of great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages.

 

A revolution in 1332 resulted in a broad-based city government with participation of the guilds, and Strasbourg declared itself a free republic. The deadly bubonic plague of 1348 was followed on 14 February 1349 by one of the first and worst pogroms in pre-modern history: over a thousand Jews were publicly burnt to death, with the remainder of the Jewish population being expelled from the city.[20] Until the end of the 18th century, Jews were forbidden to remain in town after 10 pm. The time to leave the city was signalled by a municipal herald blowing the Grüselhorn (see below, Museums, Musée historique);.[21] A special tax, the Pflastergeld (pavement money), was furthermore to be paid for any horse that a Jew would ride or bring into the city while allowed to.[22]

 

Construction on Strasbourg Cathedral began in the twelfth century, and it was completed in 1439 (though, of the towers, only the north tower was built), becoming the World's Tallest Building, surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza. A few years later, Johannes Gutenberg created the first European moveable type printing press in Strasbourg.

 

In July 1518, an incident known as the Dancing Plague of 1518 struck residents of Strasbourg. Around 400 people were afflicted with dancing mania and danced constantly for weeks, most of them eventually dying from heart attack, stroke or exhaustion.

 

In the 1520s during the Protestant Reformation, the city, under the political guidance of Jacob Sturm von Sturmeck and the spiritual guidance of Martin Bucer embraced the religious teachings of Martin Luther. Their adherents established a Gymnasium, headed by Johannes Sturm, made into a University in the following century. The city first followed the Tetrapolitan Confession, and then the Augsburg Confession. Protestant iconoclasm caused much destruction to churches and cloisters, notwithstanding that Luther himself opposed such a practice. Strasbourg was a centre of humanist scholarship and early book-printing in the Holy Roman Empire, and its intellectual and political influence contributed much to the establishment of Protestantism as an accepted denomination in the southwest of Germany. (John Calvin spent several years as a political refugee in the city). The Strasbourg Councillor Sturm and guildmaster Matthias represented the city at the Imperial Diet of Speyer (1529), where their protest led to the schism of the Catholic Church and the evolution of Protestantism. Together with four other free cities, Strasbourg presented the confessio tetrapolitana as its Protestant book of faith at the Imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530, where the slightly different Augsburg Confession was also handed over to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

 

After the reform of the Imperial constitution in the early sixteenth century and the establishment of Imperial Circles, Strasbourg was part of the Upper Rhenish Circle, a corporation of Imperial estates in the southwest of Holy Roman Empire, mainly responsible for maintaining troops, supervising coining, and ensuring public security.

 

After the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, the first printing offices outside the inventor's hometown Mainz were established around 1460 in Strasbourg by pioneers Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein. Subsequently, the first modern newspaper was published in Strasbourg in 1605, when Johann Carolus received the permission by the City of Strasbourg to print and distribute a weekly journal written in German by reporters from several central European cities.

 

From Thirty Years' War to First World War

The Free City of Strasbourg remained neutral during the Thirty Years' War 1618-1648, and retained its status as a Free Imperial City. However, the city was later annexed by Louis XIV of France to extend the borders of his kingdom.

 

Louis' advisors believed that, as long as Strasbourg remained independent, it would endanger the King's newly annexed territories in Alsace, and, that to defend these large rural lands effectively, a garrison had to be placed in towns such as Strasbourg.[23] Indeed, the bridge over the Rhine at Strasbourg had been used repeatedly by Imperial (Holy Roman Empire) forces,[24] and three times during the Franco-Dutch War Strasbourg had served as a gateway for Imperial invasions into Alsace.[25] In September 1681 Louis' forces, though lacking a clear casus belli, surrounded the city with overwhelming force. After some negotiation, Louis marched into the city unopposed on 30 September 1681 and proclaimed its annexation.[26]

 

This annexation was one of the direct causes of the brief and bloody War of the Reunions whose outcome left the French in possession. The French annexation was recognized by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697). The official policy of religious intolerance which drove most Protestants from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was not applied in Strasbourg and in Alsace, because both had a special status as a province à l'instar de l'étranger effectif (a kind of foreign province of the king of France). Strasbourg Cathedral, however, was taken from the Lutherans to be returned to the Catholics as the French authorities tried to promote Catholicism wherever they could (some other historic churches remained in Protestant hands). Its language also remained overwhelmingly German: the German Lutheran university persisted until the French Revolution. Famous students included Goethe and Herder.

  

The Duke of Lorraine and Imperial troops crossing the Rhine at Strasbourg during the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744

During a dinner in Strasbourg organized by Mayor Frédéric de Dietrich on 25 April 1792, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed "La Marseillaise". The same year François Christophe Kellermann, a child of Strasbourg was appointed the head of the Mosel Army. He led his company to victory at the battle of Valmy and saved the young French republic. He was later appointed Duke of Valmy by Napoléon in 1808.

 

During this period Jean-Baptiste Kléber, also born in Strasbourg, led the French army to win several decisive victories. A statue of Kléber now stands in the centre of the city, at Place Kléber, and he is still one of the most famous French officers. He was later appointed Marshal of France by Napoléon.

 

Strasbourg's status as a free city was revoked by the French Revolution. Enragés, most notoriously Eulogius Schneider, ruled the city with an increasingly iron hand. During this time, many churches and monasteries were either destroyed or severely damaged. The cathedral lost hundreds of its statues (later replaced by copies in the 19th century) and in April 1794, there was talk of tearing its spire down, on the grounds that it was against the principle of equality. The tower was saved, however, when in May of the same year citizens of Strasbourg crowned it with a giant tin Phrygian cap. This artifact was later kept in the historical collections of the city until it was destroyed by the Germans in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war.[27]

 

In 1805, 1806 and 1809, Napoléon Bonaparte and his first wife, Joséphine stayed in Strasbourg.[28] In 1810, his second wife Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma spent her first night on French soil in the palace. Another royal guest was King Charles X of France in 1828.[29] In 1836, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte unsuccessfully tried to lead his first Bonapartist coup in Strasbourg.

 

During the Franco-Prussian War and the Siege of Strasbourg, the city was heavily bombarded by the Prussian army. The bombardment of the city was meant to break the morale of the people of Strasbourg.[30] On 24 and 26 August 1870, the Museum of Fine Arts was destroyed by fire, as was the Municipal Library housed in the Gothic former Dominican church, with its unique collection of medieval manuscripts (most famously the Hortus deliciarum), rare Renaissance books, archeological finds and historical artifacts. The gothic cathedral was damaged as well as the medieval church of Temple Neuf, the theatre, the city hall, the court of justice and many houses. At the end of the siege 10,000 inhabitants were left without shelter; over 600 died, including 261 civilians, and 3200 were injured, including 1,100 civilians.[31]

 

In 1871, after the end of the war, the city was annexed to the newly established German Empire as part of the Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen under the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt. As part of Imperial Germany, Strasbourg was rebuilt and developed on a grand and representative scale, such as the Neue Stadt, or "new city" around the present Place de la République. Historian Rodolphe Reuss and Art historian Wilhelm von Bode were in charge of rebuilding the municipal archives, libraries and museums. The University, founded in 1567 and suppressed during the French Revolution as a stronghold of German sentiment,[citation needed] was reopened in 1872 under the name Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität.

  

Strasbourg in the 1890s.

A belt of massive fortifications was established around the city, most of which still stands today, renamed after French generals and generally classified as Monuments historiques; most notably Fort Roon (now Fort Desaix) and Fort Podbielski (now Fort Ducrot) in Mundolsheim, Fort von Moltke (now Fort Rapp) in Reichstett, Fort Bismarck (now Fort Kléber) in Wolfisheim, Fort Kronprinz (now Fort Foch) in Niederhausbergen, Fort Kronprinz von Sachsen (now Fort Joffre) in Holtzheim and Fort Großherzog von Baden (now Fort Frère) in Oberhausbergen.[32]

 

Those forts subsequently served the French army (Fort Podbielski/Ducrot for instance was integrated into the Maginot Line[33]), and were used as POW-camps in 1918 and 1945.

 

Two garrison churches were also erected for the members of the Imperial German army, the Lutheran Église Saint-Paul and the Roman Catholic Église Saint-Maurice.

 

1918 to the present

 

A lost, then restored, symbol of modernity in Strasbourg : a room in the Aubette building designed by Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

 

Following the defeat of the German empire in World War I and the abdication of the German Emperor, some revolutionary insurgents declared Alsace-Lorraine as an independent Republic, without preliminary referendum or vote. On 11 November 1918 (Armistice Day), communist insurgents proclaimed a "soviet government" in Strasbourg, following the example of Kurt Eisner in Munich as well as other German towns. French troops commanded by French general Henri Gouraud entered triumphantly in the city on 22 November. A major street of the city now bears the name of that date (Rue du 22 Novembre) which celebrates the entry of the French in the city.[34][35][36] Viewing the massive cheering crowd gathered under the balcony of Strasbourg's town hall, French President Raymond Poincaré stated that "the plebiscite is done".[37]

 

In 1919, following the Treaty of Versailles, the city was annexed by France in accordance with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" without a referendum. The date of the assignment was retroactively established on Armistice Day. It is doubtful whether a referendum in Strasbourg would have ended in France's favour since the political parties striving for an autonomous Alsace or a connection to France accounted only for a small proportion of votes in the last Reichstag as well as in the local elections.[38] The Alsatian autonomists who were pro French had won many votes in the more rural parts of the region and other towns since the annexation of the region by Germany in 1871. The movement started with the first election for the Reichstag; those elected were called "les députés protestataires", and until the fall of Bismarck in 1890, they were the only deputies elected by the Alsatians to the German parliament demanding the return of those territories to France.[39] At the last Reichstag election in Strasbourg and its periphery, the clear winners were the Social Democrats; the city was the administrative capital of the region, was inhabited by many Germans appointed by the central government in Berlin and its flourishing economy attracted many Germans. This could explain the difference between the rural vote and the one in Strasbourg. After the war, many Germans left Strasbourg and went back to Germany; some of them were denounced by the locals or expelled by the newly appointed authorities. The Saverne Affair was vivid in the memory among the Alsatians.

 

In 1920, Strasbourg became the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine, previously located in Mannheim, one of the oldest European institutions. It moved into the former Imperial Palace.

 

When the Maginot Line was built, the Sous-secteur fortifié de Strasbourg (fortified sub-sector of Strasbourg) was laid out on the city's territory as a part of the Secteur fortifié du Bas-Rhin, one of the sections of the Line. Blockhouses and casemates were built along the Grand Canal d'Alsace and the Rhine in the Robertsau forest and the port.[40]

 

Between the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and the Anglo-French declaration of War against the German Reich on 3 September 1939, the entire city (a total of 120,000 people) was evacuated, like other border towns as well. Until the arrival of the Wehrmacht troops mid-June 1940, the city was, for ten months, completely empty, with the exception of the garrisoned soldiers. The Jews of Strasbourg had been evacuated to Périgueux and Limoges, the University had been evacuated to Clermont-Ferrand.

 

After the ceasefire following the Fall of France in June 1940, Alsace was annexed to Germany and a rigorous policy of Germanisation was imposed upon it by the Gauleiter Robert Heinrich Wagner. When, in July 1940, the first evacuees were allowed to return, only residents of Alsatian origin were admitted. The last Jews were deported on 15 July 1940 and the main synagogue, a huge Romanesque revival building that had been a major architectural landmark with its 54-metre-high dome since its completion in 1897, was set ablaze, then razed.[41]

 

In September 1940 the first Alsatian resistance movement led by Marcel Weinum called La main noire (The black hand) was created. It was composed by a group of 25 young men aged from 14 to 18 years old who led several attacks against the German occupation. The actions culminated with the attack of the Gauleiter Robert Wagner, the highest commander of Alsace directly under the order of Hitler. In March 1942, Marcel Weinum was prosecuted by the Gestapo and sentenced to be beheaded at the age of 18 in April 1942 in Stuttgart, Germany. His last words will be: "If I have to die, I shall die but with a pure heart". From 1943 the city was bombarded by Allied aircraft. While the First World War had not notably damaged the city, Anglo-American bombing caused extensive destruction in raids of which at least one was allegedly carried out by mistake.[42] In August 1944, several buildings in the Old Town were damaged by bombs, particularly the Palais Rohan, the Old Customs House (Ancienne Douane) and the Cathedral.[43] On 23 November 1944, the city was officially liberated by the 2nd French Armoured Division under General Leclerc. He achieved the oath that he made with his soldiers, after the decisive Capture of Kufra. With the Oath of Kuffra, they swore to keep up the fight until the French flag flew over the Cathedral of Strasbourg.

 

Many people from Strasbourg were incorporated in the German Army against their will, and were sent to the eastern front, those young men and women were called Malgré-nous. Many tried to escape from the incorporation, join the French Resistance, or desert the Wehrmacht but many couldn't because they were running the risk of having their families sent to work or concentration camps by the Germans. Many of these men, especially those who did not answer the call immediately, were pressured to "volunteer" for service with the SS, often by direct threats on their families. This threat obliged the majority of them to remain in the German army. After the war, the few that survived were often accused of being traitors or collaborationists, because this tough situation was not known in the rest of France, and they had to face the incomprehension of many. In July 1944, 1500 malgré-nous were released from Soviet captivity and sent to Algiers, where they joined the Free French Forces. Nowadays history recognizes the suffering of those people, and museums, public discussions and memorials have been built to commemorate this terrible period of history of this part of Eastern France (Alsace and Moselle). Liberation of Strasbourg took place on 23 November 1944.

 

In 1947, a fire broke out in the Musée des Beaux-Arts and devastated a significant part of the collections. This fire was an indirect consequence of the bombing raids of 1944: because of the destruction inflicted on the Palais Rohan, humidity had infiltrated the building, and moisture had to be fought. This was done with welding torches, and a bad handling of these caused the fire.[44]

 

In the 1950s and 1960s the city was enlarged by new residential areas meant to solve both the problem of housing shortage due to war damage and that of the strong growth of population due to the baby boom and immigration from North Africa: Cité Rotterdam in the North-East, Quartier de l'Esplanade in the South-East, Hautepierre in the North-West. Between 1995 and 2010, a new district has been built in the same vein, the Quartier des Poteries, south of Hautepierre.

 

In 1958, a violent hailstorm destroyed most of the historical greenhouses of the Botanical Garden and many of the stained glass windows of St. Paul's Church.

 

In 1949, the city was chosen to be the seat of the Council of Europe with its European Court of Human Rights and European Pharmacopoeia. Since 1952, the European Parliament has met in Strasbourg, which was formally designated its official 'seat' at the Edinburgh meeting of the European Council of EU heads of state and government in December 1992. (This position was reconfirmed and given treaty status in the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam). However, only the (four-day) plenary sessions of the Parliament are held in Strasbourg each month, with all other business being conducted in Brussels and Luxembourg. Those sessions take place in the Immeuble Louise Weiss, inaugurated in 1999, which houses the largest parliamentary assembly room in Europe and of any democratic institution in the world. Before that, the EP sessions had to take place in the main Council of Europe building, the Palace of Europe, whose unusual inner architecture had become a familiar sight to European TV audiences.[45] In 1992, Strasbourg became the seat of the Franco-German TV channel and movie-production society Arte.

 

In 2000, a terrorist plot to blow up the cathedral was prevented thanks to the cooperation between French and German police that led to the arrest in late 2000 of a Frankfurt-based group of terrorists.

 

On 6 July 2001, during an open-air concert in the Parc de Pourtalès, a single falling Platanus tree killed thirteen people and injured 97. On 27 March 2007, the city was found guilty of neglect over the accident and fined €150,000.[46]

 

In 2006, after a long and careful restoration, the inner decoration of the Aubette, made in the 1920s by Hans Arp, Theo van Doesburg, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp and destroyed in the 1930s, was made accessible to the public again. The work of the three artists had been called "the Sistine Chapel of abstract art".

 

Architecture

 

Strasbourg, Cathedral of Our Lady

The city is chiefly known for its sandstone Gothic Cathedral with its famous astronomical clock, and for its medieval cityscape of Rhineland black and white timber-framed buildings, particularly in the Petite France district or Gerberviertel ("tanners' district") alongside the Ill and in the streets and squares surrounding the cathedral, where the renowned Maison Kammerzell stands out.

 

Notable medieval streets include Rue Mercière, Rue des Dentelles, Rue du Bain aux Plantes, Rue des Juifs, Rue des Frères, Rue des Tonneliers, Rue du Maroquin, Rue des Charpentiers, Rue des Serruriers, Grand' Rue, Quai des Bateliers, Quai Saint-Nicolas and Quai Saint-Thomas. Notable medieval squares include Place de la Cathédrale, Place du Marché Gayot, Place Saint-Étienne, Place du Marché aux Cochons de Lait and Place Benjamin Zix.

 

Maison des tanneurs.

 

In addition to the cathedral, Strasbourg houses several other medieval churches that have survived the many wars and destructions that have plagued the city: the Romanesque Église Saint-Étienne, partly destroyed in 1944 by Allied bombing raids, the part Romanesque, part Gothic, very large Église Saint-Thomas with its Silbermann organ on which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Albert Schweitzer played,[49] the Gothic Église protestante Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune with its crypt dating back to the seventh century and its cloister partly from the eleventh century, the Gothic Église Saint-Guillaume with its fine early-Renaissance stained glass and furniture, the Gothic Église Saint-Jean, the part Gothic, part Art Nouveau Église Sainte-Madeleine, etc. The Neo-Gothic church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Catholique (there is also an adjacent church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Protestant) serves as a shrine for several 15th-century wood worked and painted altars coming from other, now destroyed churches and installed there for public display. Among the numerous secular medieval buildings, the monumental Ancienne Douane (old custom-house) stands out.

 

The German Renaissance has bequeathed the city some noteworthy buildings (especially the current Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie, former town hall, on Place Gutenberg), as did the French Baroque and Classicism with several hôtels particuliers (i.e. palaces), among which the Palais Rohan (1742, now housing three museums) is the most spectacular. Other buildings of its kind are the "Hôtel de Hanau" (1736, now the city hall), the Hôtel de Klinglin (1736, now residence of the préfet), the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts (1755, now residence of the military governor), the Hôtel d'Andlau-Klinglin (1725, now seat of the administration of the Port autonome de Strasbourg) etc. The largest baroque building of Strasbourg though is the 150 m (490 ft) long 1720s main building of the Hôpital civil. As for French Neo-classicism, it is the Opera House on Place Broglie that most prestigiously represents this style.

 

Strasbourg also offers high-class eclecticist buildings in its very extended German district, the Neustadt, being the main memory of Wilhelmian architecture since most of the major cities in Germany proper suffered intensive damage during World War II. Streets, boulevards and avenues are homogeneous, surprisingly high (up to seven stories) and broad examples of German urban lay-out and of this architectural style that summons and mixes up five centuries of European architecture as well as Neo-Egyptian, Neo-Greek and Neo-Babylonian styles. The former imperial palace Palais du Rhin, the most political and thus heavily criticized of all German Strasbourg buildings epitomizes the grand scale and stylistic sturdiness of this period. But the two most handsome and ornate buildings of these times are the École internationale des Pontonniers (the former Höhere Mädchenschule, girls college) with its towers, turrets and multiple round and square angles[50] and the École des Arts décoratifs with its lavishly ornate façade of painted bricks, woodwork and majolica.[51]

 

Notable streets of the German district include: Avenue de la Forêt Noire, Avenue des Vosges, Avenue d'Alsace, Avenue de la Marseillaise, Avenue de la Liberté, Boulevard de la Victoire, Rue Sellénick, Rue du Général de Castelnau, Rue du Maréchal Foch, and Rue du Maréchal Joffre. Notable squares of the German district include: Place de la République, Place de l'Université, Place Brant, and Place Arnold

 

As for modern and contemporary architecture, Strasbourg possesses some fine Art Nouveau buildings (such as the huge Palais des Fêtes and houses and villas like Villa Schutzenberger and Hôtel Brion), good examples of post-World War II functional architecture (the Cité Rotterdam, for which Le Corbusier did not succeed in the architectural contest) and, in the very extended Quartier Européen, some spectacular administrative buildings of sometimes utterly large size, among which the European Court of Human Rights building by Richard Rogers is arguably the finest. Other noticeable contemporary buildings are the new Music school Cité de la Musique et de la Danse, the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain and the Hôtel du Département facing it, as well as, in the outskirts, the tramway-station Hoenheim-Nord designed by Zaha Hadid.

  

Place Kléber

The city has many bridges, including the medieval and four-towered Ponts Couverts that, despite their name, are no longer covered. Next to the Ponts Couverts is the Barrage Vauban, a part of Vauban's 17th-century fortifications, that does include a covered bridge. Other bridges are the ornate 19th-century Pont de la Fonderie (1893, stone) and Pont d'Auvergne (1892, iron), as well as architect Marc Mimram's futuristic Passerelle over the Rhine, opened in 2004.

 

The largest square at the centre of the city of Strasbourg is the Place Kléber. Located in the heart of the city's commercial area, it was named after general Jean-Baptiste Kléber, born in Strasbourg in 1753 and assassinated in 1800 in Cairo. In the square is a statue of Kléber, under which is a vault containing his remains. On the north side of the square is the Aubette (Orderly Room), built by Jacques François Blondel, architect of the king, in 1765–1772.

 

Parks

 

The Pavillon Joséphine (rear side) in the Parc de l'Orangerie

 

The Château de Pourtalès (front side) in the park of the same name

 

Strasbourg features a number of prominent parks, of which several are of cultural and historical interest: the Parc de l'Orangerie, laid out as a French garden by André le Nôtre and remodeled as an English garden on behalf of Joséphine de Beauharnais, now displaying noteworthy French gardens, a neo-classical castle and a small zoo; the Parc de la Citadelle, built around impressive remains of the 17th-century fortress erected close to the Rhine by Vauban;[52] the Parc de Pourtalès, laid out in English style around a baroque castle (heavily restored in the 19th century) that now houses a small three-star hotel,[53] and featuring an open-air museum of international contemporary sculpture.[54] The Jardin botanique de l'Université de Strasbourg (botanical garden) was created under the German administration next to the Observatory of Strasbourg, built in 1881, and still owns some greenhouses of those times. The Parc des Contades, although the oldest park of the city, was completely remodeled after World War II. The futuristic Parc des Poteries is an example of European park-conception in the late 1990s. The Jardin des deux Rives, spread over Strasbourg and Kehl on both sides of the Rhine opened in 2004 and is the most extended (60-hectare) park of the agglomeration. The most recent park is Parc du Heyritz (8,7 ha), opened in 2014 along a canal facing the hôpital civil.

© Mathias Kellermann 2012 - This work is protected under international copyright laws and agreements. No part of this photostream may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system (except Flickr Expo system and Faves) , or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without my prior permission.

 

L'exploitation et la reproduction à des fins commerciales ou non commerciales d'une oeuvre sans autorisation ecrite de son auteur constitue un acte de contrefaçon pénalement sanctionné au titre des articles L.122-4, L335-2 et L335-3 du CPI.

 

Click on the image to see with black frame.

 

Le lac Tsomoriri est un des plus grand et des plus fascinant lac d'altitude du Cahemire. Situé à 4500 mètres d'altitude, il fait plus de 30km de long sur 8km de large. Gelé sur toute sa surface en hiver, les nomades le traversent avec leurs troupeaux de yaks pour atteindre les montagnes et aller chercher le bois nécessaire à leur survie. En mars, lorque la couche de glace se restreint, il est de plus en plus fréquent de voir toute ou partie du troupeau disparaître sous leur poids dans le lac aux eaux gelées. C'est qu'ici comme ailleur, le réchauffement climatique a des conséquences terribles sur les habitudes millénaires des hommes, des animaux et de la nature. la légende veut qu'il y a quelques milliers d'années, une femme nommée "Tsomo" (prénom très commun chez les bouddhistes ladakhis) a découvert ce lac avec son âne et s'y est perdu. Cette femme, très petite "riri" a finallement donné son nom à cet endroit exceptionnel.

 

En 2010, alors que je me rendais en Indonésie en tant que volontaire de l'ONG Kalaweit au ceour de la jungle de Borneo, tout ou partie de l'Asie du Sud est connaissait une pénurie de pluie sans précédent. La mousson ne venait pas. Au même moment, du 14 au 18 aôut, cette partie de l'Hymalaya qui s'ouvre vers le Pakistan et la vallée de L'indus connu la plus grande innondation de mémoire d'homme dans la région (les textes les plus anciens écrits par les moines datent de mille ans). Ce sont des milliards de mètres cubles d'eaux qui se sont abattus sur le haut des montagnes entraînant boues et milliards de tonnes de rochers vers les vallées, dévastant tout sur leur passage, village, cultures, vies humaines et animales. le bilan officiel n'a jamais été communiqué.

 

Tsomoriri Lake is one of the largest and most fascinating high altitude lake of Cahemire. Located at 4500 meters altitude, it is more than 30km long and 8km wide. Frozen over its entire surface in winter, nomads cross it with their yak herds to reach the mountains and get wood for their survival. In March, When the course is restricted ice, it is increasingly common for all or part of the herd disappear under the lake. Here as everywhere else, global warming has a devastating effect on the habits of humans, animals and nature.

According to the legend, few thousand years ago, a woman named "Tsomo" (very common name among Ladakhi Buddhists) found that lake with his donkey and got lost. This woman, very small "riri" has finally given her name to this special place.

 

In 2010, when I went to Indonesia as a volunteer for the Kalaweit NGO in the Borneo's jungle, all or part of Southeast Asia was experiencing a shortage of unprecedented rain. The monsoon did not came. At the same time, from 14 to 18 August, this part of the Himalayas that opens to Pakistan and the Indus valley experienced the largest flood in living memory in the region (the oldest texts written date by the monks a thousand years never told about such disaster). Cubles billion meters of water that hit the top of the mountains causing sludge and billions of tons of rocks to the valleys, devastating everything in their way, village, crops, human and animal lives. The official death toll has never been reported.

 

© Mathias Kellermann 2012 - This work is protected under international copyright laws and agreements. No part of this photostream may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system (except Flickr Expo system and Faves) , or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without my prior written permission.

 

More Description in French and English on : www.flickr.com/photos/matkeller-as-titus1st/collections/7...

 

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Bernhard Kellermann

CKO 373 tower crane, made in West Germany with a Mercedes-Benz tipper truck from the same manufacturer.

© Mathias Kellermann 2012 - This work is protected under international copyright laws and agreements. No part of this photostream may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system (except Flickr Expo system and Faves) , or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without my prior written permission.

 

L'exploitation et la reproduction à des fins commerciales ou non commerciales d'une oeuvre sans autorisation ecrite de son auteur constitue un acte de contrefaçon pénalement sanctionné au titre des articles L.122-4, L335-2 et L335-3 du CPI.

 

Click on the image to see with black frame.

 

More Description in French and English on : www.flickr.com/photos/matkeller-as-titus1st/collections/7...

 

My Best ☆ FAVES by you, on : www.flickr.com/photos/matkeller-as-titus1st/sets/72157625...

  

Thank you all for your comments, invitations and support :)

© Mathias Kellermann 2011 - This work is protected under international copyright laws and agreements. No part of this photostream may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system (except Flickr Expo system and Faves) , or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without my prior written permission.

 

L'exploitation et la reproduction à des fins commerciales ou non commerciales d'une oeuvre sans autorisation ecrite de son auteur constitue un acte de contrefaçon pénalement sanctionné au titre des articles L.122-4, L335-2 et L335-3 du CPI.

 

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Thank you all for your comments, invitations and support :)

Reissue of CKO Kellermann tinplate Büssing bus, made by Kovap, in Deutsche Bundesbahn livery.

This example has additional printing on the sides, commemorating the 150th anniversary in 1993 of the birth of Heinrich Büssing, and a veteran rally in Braunschweig.

Ghost sign on the side of the old Norvell-Shapleigh Hardware Company Warehouse No. 3, 1230-1254 North 2nd Street, St. Louis, Missouri. This building was built in 1904-1906 by the Kellermann Construction Company, under the design of Isaac Taylor, architect. The A.F. Shapleigh Hardware Company was founded by Augustus F. Shapleigh (born 1810). Shapleigh retired in 1900 and the company changed it's name to Norvell-Shapleigh Hardware Company in 1901. Saunders Norvell was its president

for the next ten years. In 1918, the company became Shapleigh Hardware Company. In 1955, the directors sold the company to the Curtis Manufacturing Company. The business continued to be operated

under the Shapleigh Hardware name until closing in the early 1960's. The huge "DE" seen on the side of the building stands for "Diamond Edge", a trademark the company adopted in 1864. The slogan, "Diamond Edge is a Quality Pledge", is said to have first been used in 1909. Diamond Edge tools were the first line of edge tools (knives, razors, axes, cutlery, etc.) in the United States to be covered by a

jobbers trademark.

© Mathias Kellermann 2012 - This work is protected under international copyright laws and agreements. No part of this photostream may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system (except Flickr Expo system and Faves) , or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without my prior written permission.

 

L'exploitation et la reproduction à des fins commerciales ou non commerciales d'une oeuvre sans autorisation ecrite de son auteur constitue un acte de contrefaçon pénalement sanctionné au titre des articles L.122-4, L335-2 et L335-3 du CPI.

 

Click on the image to see with black frame.

  

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Thank you all for your comments, invitations and support :)

A window to the past. Potsdam, Villa Kellermann

© Mathias Kellermann 2013 - All rights reserved - This work is protected under international copyright laws and agreements. No part of this photostream may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system (except Flickr Expo system and Faves) , or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without my prior written permission.

 

L'exploitation et la reproduction à des fins commerciales ou non commerciales d'une oeuvre sans autorisation ecrite de son auteur constitue un acte de contrefaçon pénalement sanctionné au titre des articles L.122-4, L335-2 et L335-3 du CPI d'une peine ​allant jusqu’à 3 ans de prison et 300 000 euros d’amende.

 

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Thank you all for your comments, invitations and support :)

The Hotel Sacher is located in the first District of Vienna after the Vienna State Opera. Famous specialty of the house is the original Sachertorte. The hotel is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World.

History

Anna Maria Sacher

On the grounds of the demolished Kärntnertortheatre, directly opposite the newly opened imperial Court Opera, was built a Maison meuble. The restaurateur Eduard Sacher bought the house modeled on a Renaissance palace and opened in 1876, Hotel de l' Opera with the restaurant. The son of Franz Sacher, the inventor of the Sachertorte, had however already made ​​a name for himself as a restaurateur, and named the house quickly to Hotel Sacher .

He married 1880 the 21- year-old Anna Fuchs, who henceforth cooperated in the hotel and quickly took over the business because of her husband's deteriorating health . Edward died in 1892, and Anna Sacher now ran the hotel as so-called widow operation. Which at that time was an extremely emancipated woman with cigar and her beloved French Bulldog (in Vienna: " Sacher-Bully" ) was always to be found, continued the business with rigor, but also with kindness. So they talked back then a company health insurance for their employees.

From the beginning, the Sacher was one of the best addresses in the city and in 1871 for the wine and delicatessen for kuk Appointed purveyor. This privilege his widow Anna was once again awarded after the death of Eduard Sacher. Before the opera you enjoyed the exquisite cuisine, they met in the legendary private rooms, and high-ranking representatives from politics always used the house for discreet meetings. The exclusive hotel was already a social institution . But then the economically difficult years after the First World War left its mark on the house.

Shortly before her death in 1930, Anna Sacher withdrew from the guide. Only after her death was announced that the hotel was heavily in debt and assets of the former was not much left. In 1934, finally came to bankruptcy.

The lawyer Hans Gürtler, his wife Poldi and the hotelier couple Joseph and Anna Siller acquired the now dilapidated house and renovated it extensively: from the heating system, electrics, running hot and cold water in all rooms has been adapted all the modern needs. From now on, the earned money should always flow back into the house. First time, the Sachertorte not only in their own premises were offered for consumption, but also sold on the street.

The house was again the meeting place for the growing company. But the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 brought this to an abrupt end. Swastika flags flying in front of the hotel now. During the Second World War but the house remained largely spared from damage. Immediately after the liberation of Vienna it was occupied by Soviet troops, the Vienna first district around the hotel but was soon jointly managed by the Allies and thus it came six years into British hands.

1951 got the Siller family and Gürtler their property back. Josef Siller had died in 1949. Again, the hotel had to be extensively renovated. As well as new dining venues emerged at the Sacher. Hans Gürtler also laid the foundation for the art collection of the 19th Century. Anna Siller died in 1962, and the hotel was entirely in the possession of the Gürtler family. In 1967 the company received the National Award and since then the federal coat of arms may be used in commercial transactions. The son Rolf Gürtler took over the business in 1970, but shortly thereafter, in an accident, after which he succeeded his son Peter Gürtler. This took over in 1989, the Austrian Court Hotel in Salzburg. This was later renamed the Hotel Sacher Salzburg. Since his death in 1990 his 1983 divorced woman Elisabeth Gürtler-Mauthner leads the family with their daughter Alexandra.

In 2006 the building, which is composed in its buildings of six town houses, refurbished thermally under the direction of architects Frank & Partners, and the loft conversion, in which a spa area was accommodated, provided while preserving the monument idea with a striking bright aluminum roof.

Offer

The Hotel Sacher at night

As a member of the Hospitality Association of The Leading Hotels of the World, which ensures quality control in five star hospitality sector, the Hotel Sacher is one of the best addresses in Austria. Since the expansion of 2006 also meets the criteria of a Leading Spa.

In the House, the Anna Sacher restaurant, the Red Bar, the Blue Bar, Confiserie, Café Sacher are and the Sacher Eck (coin). The cafe was founded in 2004 awarded the Golden Coffee Bean Jacobs.

Also in the building, but not as a part of the hotel, is the former imperial Court and chamber Supplier Wilhelm Jungmann & Neffe.

Since 1999, the Original Sacher-Torte is produced in a production office in Vienna Simmering, from where it is exported to the whole world. After a decades-long legal battle with the Imperial Sugar Bakery Demel only the dessert made ​​by Sacher may adorn with the title "original". The Sachertorte is imitated by many coffee houses, bakeries and pastry shops.

Rooms of the Hotel Sacher

The Sacher shop in the Hotel Sacher

The famous Sacher Torte

Famous guests

Main entrance of the hotel in the evening

Many prominent guests had the house in the Philharmonikerstraße. Anna Sacher had a photo gallery of her guests in her boudoir. The signatures of all she embroidered herself on a table cloth. Located in the middle of it Emperor Franz Joseph.

Crowned heads, statesmen, diplomats and politicians lodged at the Sacher: Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, John F. Kennedy, Kofi Annan and many more.

Because of the close proximity to the Opera House of course many artists were under the guests: Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Leo Slezak, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Rudolf Nureyev. Music critic Marcel Prawy lived until his death in 2003, even as a permanent guest at the Sacher.

Graham Greene had here the idea for the screenplay of the film The Third Man. A British officer told him about the underground passages of Vienna, whereupon Greene in the bar wrote down the first ideas immediately.

Her role in the Sissi films Romy Schneider owed ​​their similarity with the bust of the Empress, who is at the hotel and was the director Ernst Marischka noticed. During filming, she lived with her mother Magda Schneider at the Sacher.

Invited to an unusual press conference in April 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono to the Sacher. They held one of her legendary "Bagism" actions in their hotel rooms to media representatives (including André Heller, who reported for the Ö3 jukebox), in order to express their ideas of world peace.

Traditionally, all suites are named for operas and composers (eg, La Traviata, Carmen, Idomeneo, The Magic Flute, Madame Butterfly, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Leonard Bernstein, etc.). The new suites on the top floor of the house bearing the names of contemporary operas, such as Lulu and Billy Budd named.

Hotel Sacher in film and on stage

The Hotel Sacher has been immortalized in numerous films and stage plays .

Hotel Sacher, 1939

In the German-speaking area, the hotel was also supported by the TV series Hello - Hotel Sacher ... Portier! popular with Fritz Eckhardt .

Literature

Ernst Hagen: Hotel Sacher. Austria slept in your beds. Zsolnay , Vienna , 1976, ISBN 3-552-02827-7

Ingrid Haslinger: customer - Emperor. The history of the former imperial purveyors. Schroll, Vienna 1996 , ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .

János Kalmár , Mella Waldstein: K.u.K. Purveyors of Vienna. Stocker , Graz 2001, ISBN 3-7020-0935-3 . Pp. 10-15 .

Monika Kellermann : The great Sacher-back book. Pastries, cakes and pastries. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-28-4

Franz Maier- Bruck : The great Sacher Cookbook. The Austrian cuisine. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-27-6

Leo Mazakarini : The Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Grafe and Unzer, Munich, 1977, ISBN 3-7742-5018-9

Emil Seeliger: Hotel Sacher. World history at supper. Publisher Schaffer, Berlin 1942

William Fraenkel: Establishment Eduard Sacher in Vienna: General Construction Journal, Volume 1877 (online at ANNO)

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Sacher

10 Jahre Dyke March Berlin - "The Future is Dyke"

Traditionell einen Tag vor der CSD-Parade in Berlin feierte der kommerzfreie Dyke March am 21. Juli 2023 sein zehnjähriges Bestehen. Angeführt von einer Dykes-on-Bikes-Gruppe mit ungefähr 50 Motorrädern/rollern waren geschätzt 8.500 bis zu 10.000 Teilnehmende am Freitag auf der Straße in Kreuzberg, Treptow und Neukölln vertreten. Auch u.a. Carolin Emcke und Georgine Kellermann nahmen daran teil.

Gestartet wurde der March etwas verspätet gegen 18:30 Uhr vor dem Festsaal Kreuzberg und führte als Demonstrationsroute durch die Puschkinallee – Bouchéstraße – Karl Kunger Straße – Wildenbruchstraße – Sonnenallee – Pannierstraße – Glogauer Straße – Reichenberger Straße – Ohlauer Straße – Wiener Straße – Lausitzer Strabe – Skalitzer Straße – Schlesische Straße – Puschkinallee und zurück zum Festsaal Kreuzberg, wo die offizielle Dyke March Abschlussparty „Dykes Do It Better!“ startete.

Von mehreren Teilnehmenden hörte ich die Kritik, das die Route nicht sichtbar genug gewählt wurde. So wünschte man sich einen March in belebten und stark frequentierten Kiezen mit viel "Raum auf den Straßen", um tatsächlich "von außen" gesehen und gehört zu werden.

 

Die Parade für Lesben, Dykes, bisexuelle Frauen, transgeschlechtliche und nichtbinäre Menschen sowie ihre Unterstützer für lesbische Sichtbarkeit ist keine Konkurrenz, sondern soll eine Ergänzung zum CSD sein. „Weil auch beim CSD die Lesben oft ein bisschen untergehen. Es ist doch meistens eine sehr männlich dominierte Veranstaltung“, sagte Daniela Bergmann, Mitorganisatorin des Dyke Marchs gegenüber zur taz.

Diese große lesbische Präsenz an einem Tag des Jahres steht eine weitgehende Unsichtbarkeit im restlichen Jahr gegenüber. Sie zeigt sich auch darin, dass es in ganz Deutschland nur noch eine Lesbenbar ("La Gata" in Frankfurt am Main) und in Berlin mit der "Begine" nur eine einzige Frauenkneipe existieren. Im Vergleich zur reichhaltigen Ausgeh-Infrastruktur der Schwulen in der Hauptstadt ist das ein trauriges Bild. Natürlich gehen auch lesbische Frauen hier aus, man findet sie zum Beispiel in der "Möbel Olfe", im "Südblock" oder der "Oya Bar" – Orte, die sie allerdings nicht für sich haben.

 

Gegen 19:45 Uhr brach auf Höhe der Sonnenallee (ungefährer Beginn des Demonstrationszuges) ein heftiger Sturzregen mit Gewitter aus. Dies führte kurzzeitig dazu, das sich der Dyke March verdünnte, nach dem Regenguss aber formierte sich der March laut Manuela Kay (Dyke-March-Organisatorin) gegenüber queer.de wieder größtenteils und gelangte schließlich zu seinem Endpunkt am Festsaal Kreuzberg, wo im Anschluss die große Party stieg.

Es war ein sehr großer, bunter und starker Dyke March in diesem Jahr, der weitestgehend frei von Übergriffigkeiten blieb. Bleibt zu hoffen, das er sich im nächsten Jahr nochmals verdoppelt.

 

Kontrast zum transinklusiven Dyke March

Bei vergangenen Dyke Marches gab es wiederholt transfeindliche Vorfälle, dies blieb allerdings in diesem Jahr aus. Das mag vielleicht auch daran gelegen haben, weil sich im Juni laut Berlin Register unter dem Motto „Lesbisch nicht Queer!“ bei einem eigenen "Real Dyke March" in Berlin-Charlottenburg ca. 26 Menschen zusammen gefunden hatten, um sich gegen die sogenannten selbst ernannten „Trans-Trends“ abzugrenzen. Der "Real Dyke March" wird seit einigen Jahren als Gegenstück zum transinklusiven Berliner "Dyke March" organisiert.

Den "Real Dyke March" unterstützen immer wieder auch streitbare Feministen mit Hang zu Verschwörungsmythen, dem verbreiten von Fake-News und teils auch rechtsoffenen Positionen und Bezügen, die als transfeindliche Hetze vorwiegend im Internet aus der TERF-Szene verbreitet werden, um dann auf die Straße zu gelangen. Das Akronym TERF steht dabei für "Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism" („Trans-ausschließender Radikalfeminismus“).

Große Unterstützung bekommt die TERF-Szene auch von der Frauenrechtlerin Alice Schwarzer, die sich nicht als Putin-Versteherin sehen will - sie sich aber 2014 auf ihrer Seite genau so positionierte ("Warum ich trotz allem Putin verstehe!") und die sich schon vor vielen Jahren zum Instrument russischer Propaganda gemacht hat, als sie z.B. 2016 einen Kommentar der Chefredakteurin Margarita Simonjan von Russia Today in der EMMA übernahm, der dort bis heute vorzufinden ist.

Anfang diesen Jahres veranstaltete sie mit Sahra Wagenknecht die putinfreundliche Großkundgebung "Manifest für den Frieden", bei der auch nicht wenige Rechte, Rechtsextreme und Antidemokraten vertreten waren. Schwarzer´s Positionen finden sich oft und gern in rechtskonservativen und rechtsextremen Medien wieder, wo ihre Meinungen für die entsprechende Community beworben wird.

 

Das Selbstbestimmungsgesetz ist in Teilen ein sehr kontrovers versucht diskutiertes Thema. Meinen Beobachtungen zufolge haben sich die Fronten unlängst durch die TERF-Szene radikal, aber auch auf beiden Seiten verhärtet. Darüber hinaus gibt es Kritiker -einzelner Positionen- in Bezug auf das Selbstbestimmungsgesetz, die sich nicht in der TERF-Szene bewegen und sich darin auch nicht verorten, aber keinen sachlichen Austausch in der Community mehr vorfinden. Damit ist m.E. die versuchte Spaltung aus der TERF-Szene in naher Zukunft vorprogrammiert. Was sich daran in Zukunft evtl. ändern kann oder wird, wird wohl erst die Zeit zeigen.

 

hinzugezogene Quellen

dykemarchberlin.com/

taz.de/Dyke-March-in-Berlin/!5945112/

www.queer.de/detail.php?article_id=46415 (archive.fo/T1FLs)

www.nd-aktuell.de/artikel/1174892.jubilaeum-jahre-dyke-ma... (archive.fo/RWlJ4)

www.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/queerspiegel/vor-dem-dyk... (archive.fo/tiX2t)

twitter.com/GeorgineKellerm/status/1682444874237333506

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4apWdLXPhpg

 

twitter.com/kinkalitzken/status/1672319526845685772

www.lsvd.de/de/ct/6417-Selbstbestimmungsgesetz (archive.fo/K4U6s)

berliner-register.de/artikel/realdykemarch-504/ (archive.fo/aVycD)

www.queer.de/detail.php?article_id=46122 (archive.fo/wtUg8)

www.nd-aktuell.de/artikel/1174255.demonstration-realer-ge... (archive.fo/PxDir)

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"Schloss Johannisberg is a castle and winery in the village of Johannisberg to the west of Wiesbaden, Hesse, in the Rheingau wine-growing region of Germany. It has been making wine for over 900 years. The winery is most noted for its claim to have "discovered" late harvest wine. The palace is a venue of the Rheingau Musik Festival, made available by co-founder Tatiana von Metternich-Winneburg.

 

A mountain on the north bank of the Rhine near Mainz has been associated with the church and with winemaking since the Middle Ages, when the estate of Louis the Pious made 6000 litres of wine during the reign of Charlemagne. In 1100, Benedictine monks completed a monastery on the Bischofsberg ("Bishop's mountain), having identified the site as one of the best places to grow vines. Thirty years later they built a Romanesque basilica in honour of John the Baptist, and the hill became known as Johannisberg ("John's mountain"). It was constructed on floor plans similar to that of its mother house, St. Alban's Abbey, Mainz. The monastery was a prime target for the Anabaptists in the German Peasants' War of 1525, and it was destroyed.

 

In 1716, Konstantin von Buttlar, Prince-Abbot of Fulda, bought the estate from Lothar Franz von Schönborn, started construction of the baroque palace, and, in 1720, planted Riesling vines, making it the oldest Riesling vineyard in the world. The estate changed hands several times during the Napoleonic Wars, but in 1816 Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, gave it to the great Austrian statesman Prince von Metternich.

 

In 1942, the Schloss was bombed and reduced to a shell by the air raids on Mainz in 1942. By the mid-1960s it had been largely rebuilt by Paul Alfons von Metternich-Winneburg and his wife Princess Tatiana, who had fled there on a farm cart in 1945 after the Russians had advanced on their other estates. Prince Paul died in 1992, leaving no heir, but a significant portion of his fortune to his mistress. With his death the House of Metternich became extinct. Although Princess Tatiana was allowed to reside in the Schloss until her death in 2006, the situation had forced her husband to sell the estate to the German Oetker family in 1974. There are currently about 35 hectares (86 acres) of vineyard.

 

Johannisberg is a village in Hessen, Germany. It is part of the city of Geisenheim in the Rheingau, on the right bank of the Rhine, 6 m. S. of Rüdesheim by railway.

 

The place is mainly celebrated for the beautiful castle, Schloss Johannisberg, which crowns a hill overlooking the Rhine valley, and is surrounded by vineyards yielding the famous Johannisberger wine. The Schloss, built in 1757–1759 by the abbots of Fulda on the site of a Benedictine monastery founded in 1090, was bestowed, in 1808, by Napoleon upon Marshal Kellermann. In 1816 it was given by Francis I of Austria, to Prince Metternich, in recognition of his services as Austrian Foreign Minister.

 

Rheingau is one of 13 designated German wine regions (Weinbaugebiete) producing quality wines (QbA and Prädikatswein). It was named after the traditional region of Rheingau (meaning "Rhine district"), the wine region is situated in the state of Hesse, where it constitutes part of the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis administrative district. Although, making up only 3 percent of the total German vineyard area, Rheingau has been the source of many historically important innovations in German wine making, and contains many wine producers of international reputation, such as Schloss Johannisberg. Rheingau, with 3,125 hectares (7,720 acres) of vineyards in 2016, also boasts a higher proportion of Riesling (77.7%) than any other German wine-growing region, with Spätburgunder (Pinot noir) making up most of the rest (12.2%), followed by Müller-Thurgau.

 

The geography of the Rheingau is very distinct. Around Wiesbaden, the river Rhine detours from its northward flow west for about 30 km before it flows north again. The greater part of the Rheingau is situated here on the river's right bank, but the region also includes the stretch along Rhine after it turns northward again, around the villages Assmannshausen and Lorch. The vineyards in Hochheim on the Main river are also included, just before it flows into Rhine. The Rheingau spans about 50 km from end to end. North of the Rheingau rises the Taunus mountain range, so most of the Rheingau's vineyards are on south-facing slope between hills and streams, which provides excellent wine-growing conditions in these northerly latitudes.

 

Since the Verona donation in 983, the Rheingau belonged to the archbishopric of Mainz. Legend has it that Charlemagne let the first vineyards be planted in the region, close to present-day Schloss Johannisberg. However finds like a Roman origin grapevine cutting knife point to even earlier cultivation. Better documented is the early influence of the church on Rheingau winemaking, which was controlled from Eberbach Abbey. Augustinians and Benedictines are known to have inhabited the area of the later abbey from 1116, and in 1135 the Cistercians arrived, sent out from Clairvaux. Legend has it that the Cistercians, which are also credited with having founded the wine industry in Burgundy, brought Pinot noir with them to Rheingau, although the earliest record of the grape variety in Rheingau is from 1470. The slopes down from the Taunus mountains belonging to Eberbach Abbey were planted as vineyards in the 12th century, and early in the 13th century the vineyards had reached their present area. In medieval times, more red than white wine was produced, usually as Gemischter Satz, i.e. the vineyards were planted with mixed varieties which were vinified together.

 

Rheingau Wine Official Classification of 1867

In 2011 it was unveiled, that the Official Wine Classification in the Rheingau has a 150 years history. The classification was the basis for taxation of wineries after the annexation of the Duchy of Nassau by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866. In the book Der nassauische Weinbau published in 1867 by Friedrich Wilhelm Dünkelberg a historical map Weinbau-Karte des nassauischen Rheingaus (Viticultural map of the Rheingau in the Duchy of Nassau), all known vineyards at that time had been marked up by colour, evaluated and classified in first class vineyards (I. Klasse), second class vineyards (II. Klasse) and the remaining vineyards." - info from Wikipedia.

 

Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.

 

Now on Instagram.

 

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The Hotel Sacher is located in the first District of Vienna after the Vienna State Opera. Famous specialty of the house is the original Sachertorte. The hotel is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World.

History

Anna Maria Sacher

On the grounds of the demolished Kärntnertortheatre, directly opposite the newly opened imperial Court Opera, was built a Maison meuble. The restaurateur Eduard Sacher bought the house modeled on a Renaissance palace and opened in 1876, Hotel de l' Opera with the restaurant. The son of Franz Sacher, the inventor of the Sachertorte, had however already made ​​a name for himself as a restaurateur, and named the house quickly to Hotel Sacher .

He married 1880 the 21- year-old Anna Fuchs, who henceforth cooperated in the hotel and quickly took over the business because of her husband's deteriorating health . Edward died in 1892, and Anna Sacher now ran the hotel as so-called widow operation. Which at that time was an extremely emancipated woman with cigar and her beloved French Bulldog (in Vienna: " Sacher-Bully" ) was always to be found, continued the business with rigor, but also with kindness. So they talked back then a company health insurance for their employees.

From the beginning, the Sacher was one of the best addresses in the city and in 1871 for the wine and delicatessen for kuk Appointed purveyor. This privilege his widow Anna was once again awarded after the death of Eduard Sacher. Before the opera you enjoyed the exquisite cuisine, they met in the legendary private rooms, and high-ranking representatives from politics always used the house for discreet meetings. The exclusive hotel was already a social institution . But then the economically difficult years after the First World War left its mark on the house.

Shortly before her death in 1930, Anna Sacher withdrew from the guide. Only after her death was announced that the hotel was heavily in debt and assets of the former was not much left. In 1934, finally came to bankruptcy.

The lawyer Hans Gürtler, his wife Poldi and the hotelier couple Joseph and Anna Siller acquired the now dilapidated house and renovated it extensively: from the heating system, electrics, running hot and cold water in all rooms has been adapted all the modern needs. From now on, the earned money should always flow back into the house. First time, the Sachertorte not only in their own premises were offered for consumption, but also sold on the street.

The house was again the meeting place for the growing company. But the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 brought this to an abrupt end. Swastika flags flying in front of the hotel now. During the Second World War but the house remained largely spared from damage. Immediately after the liberation of Vienna it was occupied by Soviet troops, the Vienna first district around the hotel but was soon jointly managed by the Allies and thus it came six years into British hands.

1951 got the Siller family and Gürtler their property back. Josef Siller had died in 1949. Again, the hotel had to be extensively renovated. As well as new dining venues emerged at the Sacher. Hans Gürtler also laid the foundation for the art collection of the 19th Century. Anna Siller died in 1962, and the hotel was entirely in the possession of the Gürtler family. In 1967 the company received the National Award and since then the federal coat of arms may be used in commercial transactions. The son Rolf Gürtler took over the business in 1970, but shortly thereafter, in an accident, after which he succeeded his son Peter Gürtler. This took over in 1989, the Austrian Court Hotel in Salzburg. This was later renamed the Hotel Sacher Salzburg. Since his death in 1990 his 1983 divorced woman Elisabeth Gürtler-Mauthner leads the family with their daughter Alexandra.

In 2006 the building, which is composed in its buildings of six town houses, refurbished thermally under the direction of architects Frank & Partners, and the loft conversion, in which a spa area was accommodated, provided while preserving the monument idea with a striking bright aluminum roof.

Offer

The Hotel Sacher at night

As a member of the Hospitality Association of The Leading Hotels of the World, which ensures quality control in five star hospitality sector, the Hotel Sacher is one of the best addresses in Austria. Since the expansion of 2006 also meets the criteria of a Leading Spa.

In the House, the Anna Sacher restaurant, the Red Bar, the Blue Bar, Confiserie, Café Sacher are and the Sacher Eck (coin). The cafe was founded in 2004 awarded the Golden Coffee Bean Jacobs.

Also in the building, but not as a part of the hotel, is the former imperial Court and chamber Supplier Wilhelm Jungmann & Neffe.

Since 1999, the Original Sacher-Torte is produced in a production office in Vienna Simmering, from where it is exported to the whole world. After a decades-long legal battle with the Imperial Sugar Bakery Demel only the dessert made ​​by Sacher may adorn with the title "original". The Sachertorte is imitated by many coffee houses, bakeries and pastry shops.

Rooms of the Hotel Sacher

The Sacher shop in the Hotel Sacher

The famous Sacher Torte

Famous guests

Main entrance of the hotel in the evening

Many prominent guests had the house in the Philharmonikerstraße. Anna Sacher had a photo gallery of her guests in her boudoir. The signatures of all she embroidered herself on a table cloth. Located in the middle of it Emperor Franz Joseph.

Crowned heads, statesmen, diplomats and politicians lodged at the Sacher: Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, John F. Kennedy, Kofi Annan and many more.

Because of the close proximity to the Opera House of course many artists were under the guests: Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Leo Slezak, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Rudolf Nureyev. Music critic Marcel Prawy lived until his death in 2003, even as a permanent guest at the Sacher.

Graham Greene had here the idea for the screenplay of the film The Third Man. A British officer told him about the underground passages of Vienna, whereupon Greene in the bar wrote down the first ideas immediately.

Her role in the Sissi films Romy Schneider owed ​​their similarity with the bust of the Empress, who is at the hotel and was the director Ernst Marischka noticed. During filming, she lived with her mother Magda Schneider at the Sacher.

Invited to an unusual press conference in April 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono to the Sacher. They held one of her legendary "Bagism" actions in their hotel rooms to media representatives (including André Heller, who reported for the Ö3 jukebox), in order to express their ideas of world peace.

Traditionally, all suites are named for operas and composers (eg, La Traviata, Carmen, Idomeneo, The Magic Flute, Madame Butterfly, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Leonard Bernstein, etc.). The new suites on the top floor of the house bearing the names of contemporary operas, such as Lulu and Billy Budd named.

Hotel Sacher in film and on stage

The Hotel Sacher has been immortalized in numerous films and stage plays .

Hotel Sacher, 1939

In the German-speaking area, the hotel was also supported by the TV series Hello - Hotel Sacher ... Portier! popular with Fritz Eckhardt .

Literature

Ernst Hagen: Hotel Sacher. Austria slept in your beds. Zsolnay , Vienna , 1976, ISBN 3-552-02827-7

Ingrid Haslinger: customer - Emperor. The history of the former imperial purveyors. Schroll, Vienna 1996 , ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .

János Kalmár , Mella Waldstein: K.u.K. Purveyors of Vienna. Stocker , Graz 2001, ISBN 3-7020-0935-3 . Pp. 10-15 .

Monika Kellermann : The great Sacher-back book. Pastries, cakes and pastries. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-28-4

Franz Maier- Bruck : The great Sacher Cookbook. The Austrian cuisine. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-27-6

Leo Mazakarini : The Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Grafe and Unzer, Munich, 1977, ISBN 3-7742-5018-9

Emil Seeliger: Hotel Sacher. World history at supper. Publisher Schaffer, Berlin 1942

William Fraenkel: Establishment Eduard Sacher in Vienna: General Construction Journal, Volume 1877 (online at ANNO)

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Sacher

 

Panoramic recomposition - Tso Khar Lake - 4500m

 

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L'exploitation et la reproduction à des fins commerciales ou non commerciales d'une oeuvre sans autorisation ecrite de son auteur constitue un acte de contrefaçon pénalement sanctionné au titre des articles L.122-4, L335-2 et L335-3 du CPI.

 

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More Description in French and English on : www.flickr.com/photos/matkeller-as-titus1st/collections/7...

 

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Thank you all for your comments, invitations and support :)

© Mathias Kellermann 2012 - This work is protected under international copyright laws and agreements. No part of this photostream may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system (except Flickr Expo system and Faves) , or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without my prior written permission.

 

L'exploitation et la reproduction à des fins commerciales ou non commerciales d'une oeuvre sans autorisation ecrite de son auteur constitue un acte de contrefaçon pénalement sanctionné au titre des articles L.122-4, L335-2 et L335-3 du CPI.

 

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More Description in French and English on : www.flickr.com/photos/matkeller-as-titus1st/collections/7...

 

My Best ☆ FAVES by you, on : www.flickr.com/photos/matkeller-as-titus1st/sets/72157625...

  

Thank you all for your comments, invitations and support :)

© Mathias Kellermann 2012 - This work is protected under international copyright laws and agreements. No part of this photostream may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system (except Flickr Expo system and Faves) , or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without my prior written permission.

 

L'exploitation et la reproduction à des fins commerciales ou non commerciales d'une oeuvre sans autorisation ecrite de son auteur constitue un acte de contrefaçon pénalement sanctionné au titre des articles L.122-4, L335-2 et L335-3 du CPI.

 

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More Description in French and English on : www.flickr.com/photos/matkeller-as-titus1st/collections/7...

 

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© Mathias Kellermann 2012 - This work is protected under international copyright laws and agreements. No part of this photostream may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system (except Flickr Expo system and Faves) , or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without my prior permission.

 

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Près du boulevard Kellermann (Paris 13ème).

I think this is one of the last models CKO has made, as it lacks the friction engine ... see next picture.

Strasbourg (/ˈstræzbɜrɡ/, French pronunciation: ​[stʁaz.buʁ, stʁas.buʁ]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace were historically Alemannic-speaking, hence the city's Germanic name.[5] In 2006, the city proper had 272,975 inhabitants and its urban community 467,375 inhabitants. With 759,868 inhabitants in 2010, Strasbourg's metropolitan area (only the part of the metropolitan area on French territory) is the ninth largest in France. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 884,988 inhabitants in 2008.[6]

 

Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory) and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. The city is also the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights.[7]

 

Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île (Grand Island), was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is immersed in the Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a bridge of unity between France and Germany for centuries, especially through the University of Strasbourg, currently the second largest in France, and the coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture. The largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque, was inaugurated by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls on 27 September 2012.[8]

 

Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road, rail, and river transportation. The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany.

 

Etymology and Names

The city's Gallicized name (Lower Alsatian: Strossburi, [ˈʃd̥rɔːsb̥uri]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is of Germanic origin and means "Town (at the crossing) of roads". The modern Stras- is cognate to the German Straße and English street, all of which are derived from Latin strata ("paved road"), while -bourg is cognate to the German Burg and English borough, all of which are derived from Proto-Germanic *burgz ("hill fort, fortress").

 

Geography

 

Strasbourg seen from Spot Satellite

Strasbourg is situated on the eastern border of France with Germany. This border is formed by the River Rhine, which also forms the eastern border of the modern city, facing across the river to the German town Kehl. The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the River Ill, which here flows parallel to, and roughly 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from, the Rhine. The natural courses of the two rivers eventually join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city.

 

The city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres (433 ft) and 151 metres (495 ft) above sea level, with the upland areas of the Vosges Mountains some 20 km (12 mi) to the west and the Black Forest 25 km (16 mi) to the east. This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north-south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, and major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks.

 

The city is some 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Paris. The mouth of the Rhine lies approximately 450 kilometres (280 mi) to the north, or 650 kilometres (400 mi) as the river flows, whilst the head of navigation in Basel is some 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the south, or 150 kilometres (93 mi) by river.

 

Climate

 

In spite of its position far inland, Strasbourg's climate is classified as Oceanic (Köppen climate classification Cfb), with warm, relatively sunny summers and cold, overcast winters. Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains largely constant throughout the year, totaling 631.4 mm (24.9 in) annually. On average, snow falls 30 days per year.

 

The highest temperature ever recorded was 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave. The lowest temperature ever recorded was −23.4 °C (−10.1 °F) in December 1938.

 

Strasbourg's location in the Rhine valley, sheltered from the dominant winds by the Vosges and Black Forest mountains, results in poor natural ventilation, making Strasbourg one of the most atmospherically polluted cities of France.[10][11] Nonetheless, the progressive disappearance of heavy industry on both banks of the Rhine, as well as effective measures of traffic regulation in and around the city have reduced air pollution.

 

Prehistory

The first traces of human occupation in the environs of Strasbourg go back many thousands of years.[16] Neolithic, bronze age and iron age artifacts have been uncovered by archeological excavations. It was permanently settled by proto-Celts around 1300 BC. Towards the end of the third century BC, it developed into a Celtic township with a market called "Argentorate". Drainage works converted the stilthouses to houses built on dry land.[17]

 

From Romans

The Romans under Nero Claudius Drusus established a military outpost belonging to the Germania Superior Roman province at Strasbourg's current location, and named it Argentoratum. (Hence the town is commonly called Argentina in medieval Latin.[18]) The name "Argentoratum" was first mentioned in 12 BC and the city celebrated its 2,000th birthday in 1988. "Argentorate" as the toponym of the Gaulish settlement preceded it before being Latinized, but it is not known by how long. The Roman camp was destroyed by fire and rebuilt six times between the first and the fifth centuries AD: in 70, 97, 235, 355, in the last quarter of the fourth century, and in the early years of the fifth century. It was under Trajan and after the fire of 97 that Argentoratum received its most extended and fortified shape. From the year 90 on, the Legio VIII Augusta was permanently stationed in the Roman camp of Argentoratum. It then included a cavalry section and covered an area of approximately 20 hectares. Other Roman legions temporarily stationed in Argentoratum were the Legio XIV Gemina and the Legio XXI Rapax, the latter during the reign of Nero.

 

The centre of Argentoratum proper was situated on the Grande Île (Cardo: current Rue du Dôme, Decumanus: current Rue des Hallebardes). The outline of the Roman "castrum" is visible in the street pattern in the Grande Ile. Many Roman artifacts have also been found along the current Route des Romains, the road that led to Argentoratum, in the suburb of Kœnigshoffen. This was where the largest burial places were situated, as well as the densest concentration of civilian dwelling places and commerces next to the camp. Among the most outstanding finds in Kœnigshoffen were (found in 1911–12) the fragments of a grand Mithraeum that had been shattered by early Christians in the fourth century. From the fourth century, Strasbourg was the seat of the Bishopric of Strasbourg (made an Archbishopric in 1988). Archaeological excavations below the current Église Saint-Étienne in 1948 and 1956 unearthed the apse of a church dating back to the late fourth or early fifth century, considered to be the oldest church in Alsace. It is supposed that this was the first seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Strasbourg.

 

The Alemanni fought the Battle of Argentoratum against Rome in 357. They were defeated by Julian, later Emperor of Rome, and their King Chonodomarius was taken prisoner. On 2 January 366, the Alemanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire. Early in the fifth century, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine, conquered, and then settled what is today Alsace and a large part of Switzerland.

 

In the fifth century Strasbourg was occupied successively by Alemanni, Huns, and Franks. In the ninth century it was commonly known as Strazburg in the local language, as documented in 842 by the Oaths of Strasbourg. This trilingual text contains, alongside texts in Latin and Old High German (teudisca lingua), the oldest written variety of Gallo-Romance (lingua romana) clearly distinct from Latin, the ancestor of Old French. The town was also called Stratisburgum or Strateburgus in Latin, from which later came Strossburi in Alsatian and Straßburg in Standard German, and then Strasbourg in French. The Oaths of Strasbourg is considered as marking the birth of the two countries of France and Germany with the division of the Carolingian Empire.[19]

 

A major commercial centre, the town came under the control of the Holy Roman Empire in 923, through the homage paid by the Duke of Lorraine to German King Henry I. The early history of Strasbourg consists of a long conflict between its bishop and its citizens. The citizens emerged victorious after the Battle of Oberhausbergen in 1262, when King Philip of Swabia granted the city the status of an Imperial Free City.

 

Around 1200, Gottfried von Straßburg wrote the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, which is regarded, alongside Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and the Nibelungenlied, as one of great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages.

 

A revolution in 1332 resulted in a broad-based city government with participation of the guilds, and Strasbourg declared itself a free republic. The deadly bubonic plague of 1348 was followed on 14 February 1349 by one of the first and worst pogroms in pre-modern history: over a thousand Jews were publicly burnt to death, with the remainder of the Jewish population being expelled from the city.[20] Until the end of the 18th century, Jews were forbidden to remain in town after 10 pm. The time to leave the city was signalled by a municipal herald blowing the Grüselhorn (see below, Museums, Musée historique);.[21] A special tax, the Pflastergeld (pavement money), was furthermore to be paid for any horse that a Jew would ride or bring into the city while allowed to.[22]

 

Construction on Strasbourg Cathedral began in the twelfth century, and it was completed in 1439 (though, of the towers, only the north tower was built), becoming the World's Tallest Building, surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza. A few years later, Johannes Gutenberg created the first European moveable type printing press in Strasbourg.

 

In July 1518, an incident known as the Dancing Plague of 1518 struck residents of Strasbourg. Around 400 people were afflicted with dancing mania and danced constantly for weeks, most of them eventually dying from heart attack, stroke or exhaustion.

 

In the 1520s during the Protestant Reformation, the city, under the political guidance of Jacob Sturm von Sturmeck and the spiritual guidance of Martin Bucer embraced the religious teachings of Martin Luther. Their adherents established a Gymnasium, headed by Johannes Sturm, made into a University in the following century. The city first followed the Tetrapolitan Confession, and then the Augsburg Confession. Protestant iconoclasm caused much destruction to churches and cloisters, notwithstanding that Luther himself opposed such a practice. Strasbourg was a centre of humanist scholarship and early book-printing in the Holy Roman Empire, and its intellectual and political influence contributed much to the establishment of Protestantism as an accepted denomination in the southwest of Germany. (John Calvin spent several years as a political refugee in the city). The Strasbourg Councillor Sturm and guildmaster Matthias represented the city at the Imperial Diet of Speyer (1529), where their protest led to the schism of the Catholic Church and the evolution of Protestantism. Together with four other free cities, Strasbourg presented the confessio tetrapolitana as its Protestant book of faith at the Imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530, where the slightly different Augsburg Confession was also handed over to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

 

After the reform of the Imperial constitution in the early sixteenth century and the establishment of Imperial Circles, Strasbourg was part of the Upper Rhenish Circle, a corporation of Imperial estates in the southwest of Holy Roman Empire, mainly responsible for maintaining troops, supervising coining, and ensuring public security.

 

After the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, the first printing offices outside the inventor's hometown Mainz were established around 1460 in Strasbourg by pioneers Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein. Subsequently, the first modern newspaper was published in Strasbourg in 1605, when Johann Carolus received the permission by the City of Strasbourg to print and distribute a weekly journal written in German by reporters from several central European cities.

 

From Thirty Years' War to First World War

The Free City of Strasbourg remained neutral during the Thirty Years' War 1618-1648, and retained its status as a Free Imperial City. However, the city was later annexed by Louis XIV of France to extend the borders of his kingdom.

 

Louis' advisors believed that, as long as Strasbourg remained independent, it would endanger the King's newly annexed territories in Alsace, and, that to defend these large rural lands effectively, a garrison had to be placed in towns such as Strasbourg.[23] Indeed, the bridge over the Rhine at Strasbourg had been used repeatedly by Imperial (Holy Roman Empire) forces,[24] and three times during the Franco-Dutch War Strasbourg had served as a gateway for Imperial invasions into Alsace.[25] In September 1681 Louis' forces, though lacking a clear casus belli, surrounded the city with overwhelming force. After some negotiation, Louis marched into the city unopposed on 30 September 1681 and proclaimed its annexation.[26]

 

This annexation was one of the direct causes of the brief and bloody War of the Reunions whose outcome left the French in possession. The French annexation was recognized by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697). The official policy of religious intolerance which drove most Protestants from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was not applied in Strasbourg and in Alsace, because both had a special status as a province à l'instar de l'étranger effectif (a kind of foreign province of the king of France). Strasbourg Cathedral, however, was taken from the Lutherans to be returned to the Catholics as the French authorities tried to promote Catholicism wherever they could (some other historic churches remained in Protestant hands). Its language also remained overwhelmingly German: the German Lutheran university persisted until the French Revolution. Famous students included Goethe and Herder.

  

The Duke of Lorraine and Imperial troops crossing the Rhine at Strasbourg during the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744

During a dinner in Strasbourg organized by Mayor Frédéric de Dietrich on 25 April 1792, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed "La Marseillaise". The same year François Christophe Kellermann, a child of Strasbourg was appointed the head of the Mosel Army. He led his company to victory at the battle of Valmy and saved the young French republic. He was later appointed Duke of Valmy by Napoléon in 1808.

 

During this period Jean-Baptiste Kléber, also born in Strasbourg, led the French army to win several decisive victories. A statue of Kléber now stands in the centre of the city, at Place Kléber, and he is still one of the most famous French officers. He was later appointed Marshal of France by Napoléon.

 

Strasbourg's status as a free city was revoked by the French Revolution. Enragés, most notoriously Eulogius Schneider, ruled the city with an increasingly iron hand. During this time, many churches and monasteries were either destroyed or severely damaged. The cathedral lost hundreds of its statues (later replaced by copies in the 19th century) and in April 1794, there was talk of tearing its spire down, on the grounds that it was against the principle of equality. The tower was saved, however, when in May of the same year citizens of Strasbourg crowned it with a giant tin Phrygian cap. This artifact was later kept in the historical collections of the city until it was destroyed by the Germans in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war.[27]

 

In 1805, 1806 and 1809, Napoléon Bonaparte and his first wife, Joséphine stayed in Strasbourg.[28] In 1810, his second wife Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma spent her first night on French soil in the palace. Another royal guest was King Charles X of France in 1828.[29] In 1836, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte unsuccessfully tried to lead his first Bonapartist coup in Strasbourg.

 

During the Franco-Prussian War and the Siege of Strasbourg, the city was heavily bombarded by the Prussian army. The bombardment of the city was meant to break the morale of the people of Strasbourg.[30] On 24 and 26 August 1870, the Museum of Fine Arts was destroyed by fire, as was the Municipal Library housed in the Gothic former Dominican church, with its unique collection of medieval manuscripts (most famously the Hortus deliciarum), rare Renaissance books, archeological finds and historical artifacts. The gothic cathedral was damaged as well as the medieval church of Temple Neuf, the theatre, the city hall, the court of justice and many houses. At the end of the siege 10,000 inhabitants were left without shelter; over 600 died, including 261 civilians, and 3200 were injured, including 1,100 civilians.[31]

 

In 1871, after the end of the war, the city was annexed to the newly established German Empire as part of the Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen under the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt. As part of Imperial Germany, Strasbourg was rebuilt and developed on a grand and representative scale, such as the Neue Stadt, or "new city" around the present Place de la République. Historian Rodolphe Reuss and Art historian Wilhelm von Bode were in charge of rebuilding the municipal archives, libraries and museums. The University, founded in 1567 and suppressed during the French Revolution as a stronghold of German sentiment,[citation needed] was reopened in 1872 under the name Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität.

  

Strasbourg in the 1890s.

A belt of massive fortifications was established around the city, most of which still stands today, renamed after French generals and generally classified as Monuments historiques; most notably Fort Roon (now Fort Desaix) and Fort Podbielski (now Fort Ducrot) in Mundolsheim, Fort von Moltke (now Fort Rapp) in Reichstett, Fort Bismarck (now Fort Kléber) in Wolfisheim, Fort Kronprinz (now Fort Foch) in Niederhausbergen, Fort Kronprinz von Sachsen (now Fort Joffre) in Holtzheim and Fort Großherzog von Baden (now Fort Frère) in Oberhausbergen.[32]

 

Those forts subsequently served the French army (Fort Podbielski/Ducrot for instance was integrated into the Maginot Line[33]), and were used as POW-camps in 1918 and 1945.

 

Two garrison churches were also erected for the members of the Imperial German army, the Lutheran Église Saint-Paul and the Roman Catholic Église Saint-Maurice.

 

1918 to the present

 

A lost, then restored, symbol of modernity in Strasbourg : a room in the Aubette building designed by Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

 

Following the defeat of the German empire in World War I and the abdication of the German Emperor, some revolutionary insurgents declared Alsace-Lorraine as an independent Republic, without preliminary referendum or vote. On 11 November 1918 (Armistice Day), communist insurgents proclaimed a "soviet government" in Strasbourg, following the example of Kurt Eisner in Munich as well as other German towns. French troops commanded by French general Henri Gouraud entered triumphantly in the city on 22 November. A major street of the city now bears the name of that date (Rue du 22 Novembre) which celebrates the entry of the French in the city.[34][35][36] Viewing the massive cheering crowd gathered under the balcony of Strasbourg's town hall, French President Raymond Poincaré stated that "the plebiscite is done".[37]

 

In 1919, following the Treaty of Versailles, the city was annexed by France in accordance with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" without a referendum. The date of the assignment was retroactively established on Armistice Day. It is doubtful whether a referendum in Strasbourg would have ended in France's favour since the political parties striving for an autonomous Alsace or a connection to France accounted only for a small proportion of votes in the last Reichstag as well as in the local elections.[38] The Alsatian autonomists who were pro French had won many votes in the more rural parts of the region and other towns since the annexation of the region by Germany in 1871. The movement started with the first election for the Reichstag; those elected were called "les députés protestataires", and until the fall of Bismarck in 1890, they were the only deputies elected by the Alsatians to the German parliament demanding the return of those territories to France.[39] At the last Reichstag election in Strasbourg and its periphery, the clear winners were the Social Democrats; the city was the administrative capital of the region, was inhabited by many Germans appointed by the central government in Berlin and its flourishing economy attracted many Germans. This could explain the difference between the rural vote and the one in Strasbourg. After the war, many Germans left Strasbourg and went back to Germany; some of them were denounced by the locals or expelled by the newly appointed authorities. The Saverne Affair was vivid in the memory among the Alsatians.

 

In 1920, Strasbourg became the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine, previously located in Mannheim, one of the oldest European institutions. It moved into the former Imperial Palace.

 

When the Maginot Line was built, the Sous-secteur fortifié de Strasbourg (fortified sub-sector of Strasbourg) was laid out on the city's territory as a part of the Secteur fortifié du Bas-Rhin, one of the sections of the Line. Blockhouses and casemates were built along the Grand Canal d'Alsace and the Rhine in the Robertsau forest and the port.[40]

 

Between the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and the Anglo-French declaration of War against the German Reich on 3 September 1939, the entire city (a total of 120,000 people) was evacuated, like other border towns as well. Until the arrival of the Wehrmacht troops mid-June 1940, the city was, for ten months, completely empty, with the exception of the garrisoned soldiers. The Jews of Strasbourg had been evacuated to Périgueux and Limoges, the University had been evacuated to Clermont-Ferrand.

 

After the ceasefire following the Fall of France in June 1940, Alsace was annexed to Germany and a rigorous policy of Germanisation was imposed upon it by the Gauleiter Robert Heinrich Wagner. When, in July 1940, the first evacuees were allowed to return, only residents of Alsatian origin were admitted. The last Jews were deported on 15 July 1940 and the main synagogue, a huge Romanesque revival building that had been a major architectural landmark with its 54-metre-high dome since its completion in 1897, was set ablaze, then razed.[41]

 

In September 1940 the first Alsatian resistance movement led by Marcel Weinum called La main noire (The black hand) was created. It was composed by a group of 25 young men aged from 14 to 18 years old who led several attacks against the German occupation. The actions culminated with the attack of the Gauleiter Robert Wagner, the highest commander of Alsace directly under the order of Hitler. In March 1942, Marcel Weinum was prosecuted by the Gestapo and sentenced to be beheaded at the age of 18 in April 1942 in Stuttgart, Germany. His last words will be: "If I have to die, I shall die but with a pure heart". From 1943 the city was bombarded by Allied aircraft. While the First World War had not notably damaged the city, Anglo-American bombing caused extensive destruction in raids of which at least one was allegedly carried out by mistake.[42] In August 1944, several buildings in the Old Town were damaged by bombs, particularly the Palais Rohan, the Old Customs House (Ancienne Douane) and the Cathedral.[43] On 23 November 1944, the city was officially liberated by the 2nd French Armoured Division under General Leclerc. He achieved the oath that he made with his soldiers, after the decisive Capture of Kufra. With the Oath of Kuffra, they swore to keep up the fight until the French flag flew over the Cathedral of Strasbourg.

 

Many people from Strasbourg were incorporated in the German Army against their will, and were sent to the eastern front, those young men and women were called Malgré-nous. Many tried to escape from the incorporation, join the French Resistance, or desert the Wehrmacht but many couldn't because they were running the risk of having their families sent to work or concentration camps by the Germans. Many of these men, especially those who did not answer the call immediately, were pressured to "volunteer" for service with the SS, often by direct threats on their families. This threat obliged the majority of them to remain in the German army. After the war, the few that survived were often accused of being traitors or collaborationists, because this tough situation was not known in the rest of France, and they had to face the incomprehension of many. In July 1944, 1500 malgré-nous were released from Soviet captivity and sent to Algiers, where they joined the Free French Forces. Nowadays history recognizes the suffering of those people, and museums, public discussions and memorials have been built to commemorate this terrible period of history of this part of Eastern France (Alsace and Moselle). Liberation of Strasbourg took place on 23 November 1944.

 

In 1947, a fire broke out in the Musée des Beaux-Arts and devastated a significant part of the collections. This fire was an indirect consequence of the bombing raids of 1944: because of the destruction inflicted on the Palais Rohan, humidity had infiltrated the building, and moisture had to be fought. This was done with welding torches, and a bad handling of these caused the fire.[44]

 

In the 1950s and 1960s the city was enlarged by new residential areas meant to solve both the problem of housing shortage due to war damage and that of the strong growth of population due to the baby boom and immigration from North Africa: Cité Rotterdam in the North-East, Quartier de l'Esplanade in the South-East, Hautepierre in the North-West. Between 1995 and 2010, a new district has been built in the same vein, the Quartier des Poteries, south of Hautepierre.

 

In 1958, a violent hailstorm destroyed most of the historical greenhouses of the Botanical Garden and many of the stained glass windows of St. Paul's Church.

 

In 1949, the city was chosen to be the seat of the Council of Europe with its European Court of Human Rights and European Pharmacopoeia. Since 1952, the European Parliament has met in Strasbourg, which was formally designated its official 'seat' at the Edinburgh meeting of the European Council of EU heads of state and government in December 1992. (This position was reconfirmed and given treaty status in the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam). However, only the (four-day) plenary sessions of the Parliament are held in Strasbourg each month, with all other business being conducted in Brussels and Luxembourg. Those sessions take place in the Immeuble Louise Weiss, inaugurated in 1999, which houses the largest parliamentary assembly room in Europe and of any democratic institution in the world. Before that, the EP sessions had to take place in the main Council of Europe building, the Palace of Europe, whose unusual inner architecture had become a familiar sight to European TV audiences.[45] In 1992, Strasbourg became the seat of the Franco-German TV channel and movie-production society Arte.

 

In 2000, a terrorist plot to blow up the cathedral was prevented thanks to the cooperation between French and German police that led to the arrest in late 2000 of a Frankfurt-based group of terrorists.

 

On 6 July 2001, during an open-air concert in the Parc de Pourtalès, a single falling Platanus tree killed thirteen people and injured 97. On 27 March 2007, the city was found guilty of neglect over the accident and fined €150,000.[46]

 

In 2006, after a long and careful restoration, the inner decoration of the Aubette, made in the 1920s by Hans Arp, Theo van Doesburg, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp and destroyed in the 1930s, was made accessible to the public again. The work of the three artists had been called "the Sistine Chapel of abstract art".

 

Architecture

 

Strasbourg, Cathedral of Our Lady

The city is chiefly known for its sandstone Gothic Cathedral with its famous astronomical clock, and for its medieval cityscape of Rhineland black and white timber-framed buildings, particularly in the Petite France district or Gerberviertel ("tanners' district") alongside the Ill and in the streets and squares surrounding the cathedral, where the renowned Maison Kammerzell stands out.

 

Notable medieval streets include Rue Mercière, Rue des Dentelles, Rue du Bain aux Plantes, Rue des Juifs, Rue des Frères, Rue des Tonneliers, Rue du Maroquin, Rue des Charpentiers, Rue des Serruriers, Grand' Rue, Quai des Bateliers, Quai Saint-Nicolas and Quai Saint-Thomas. Notable medieval squares include Place de la Cathédrale, Place du Marché Gayot, Place Saint-Étienne, Place du Marché aux Cochons de Lait and Place Benjamin Zix.

 

Maison des tanneurs.

 

In addition to the cathedral, Strasbourg houses several other medieval churches that have survived the many wars and destructions that have plagued the city: the Romanesque Église Saint-Étienne, partly destroyed in 1944 by Allied bombing raids, the part Romanesque, part Gothic, very large Église Saint-Thomas with its Silbermann organ on which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Albert Schweitzer played,[49] the Gothic Église protestante Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune with its crypt dating back to the seventh century and its cloister partly from the eleventh century, the Gothic Église Saint-Guillaume with its fine early-Renaissance stained glass and furniture, the Gothic Église Saint-Jean, the part Gothic, part Art Nouveau Église Sainte-Madeleine, etc. The Neo-Gothic church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Catholique (there is also an adjacent church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Protestant) serves as a shrine for several 15th-century wood worked and painted altars coming from other, now destroyed churches and installed there for public display. Among the numerous secular medieval buildings, the monumental Ancienne Douane (old custom-house) stands out.

 

The German Renaissance has bequeathed the city some noteworthy buildings (especially the current Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie, former town hall, on Place Gutenberg), as did the French Baroque and Classicism with several hôtels particuliers (i.e. palaces), among which the Palais Rohan (1742, now housing three museums) is the most spectacular. Other buildings of its kind are the "Hôtel de Hanau" (1736, now the city hall), the Hôtel de Klinglin (1736, now residence of the préfet), the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts (1755, now residence of the military governor), the Hôtel d'Andlau-Klinglin (1725, now seat of the administration of the Port autonome de Strasbourg) etc. The largest baroque building of Strasbourg though is the 150 m (490 ft) long 1720s main building of the Hôpital civil. As for French Neo-classicism, it is the Opera House on Place Broglie that most prestigiously represents this style.

 

Strasbourg also offers high-class eclecticist buildings in its very extended German district, the Neustadt, being the main memory of Wilhelmian architecture since most of the major cities in Germany proper suffered intensive damage during World War II. Streets, boulevards and avenues are homogeneous, surprisingly high (up to seven stories) and broad examples of German urban lay-out and of this architectural style that summons and mixes up five centuries of European architecture as well as Neo-Egyptian, Neo-Greek and Neo-Babylonian styles. The former imperial palace Palais du Rhin, the most political and thus heavily criticized of all German Strasbourg buildings epitomizes the grand scale and stylistic sturdiness of this period. But the two most handsome and ornate buildings of these times are the École internationale des Pontonniers (the former Höhere Mädchenschule, girls college) with its towers, turrets and multiple round and square angles[50] and the École des Arts décoratifs with its lavishly ornate façade of painted bricks, woodwork and majolica.[51]

 

Notable streets of the German district include: Avenue de la Forêt Noire, Avenue des Vosges, Avenue d'Alsace, Avenue de la Marseillaise, Avenue de la Liberté, Boulevard de la Victoire, Rue Sellénick, Rue du Général de Castelnau, Rue du Maréchal Foch, and Rue du Maréchal Joffre. Notable squares of the German district include: Place de la République, Place de l'Université, Place Brant, and Place Arnold

 

As for modern and contemporary architecture, Strasbourg possesses some fine Art Nouveau buildings (such as the huge Palais des Fêtes and houses and villas like Villa Schutzenberger and Hôtel Brion), good examples of post-World War II functional architecture (the Cité Rotterdam, for which Le Corbusier did not succeed in the architectural contest) and, in the very extended Quartier Européen, some spectacular administrative buildings of sometimes utterly large size, among which the European Court of Human Rights building by Richard Rogers is arguably the finest. Other noticeable contemporary buildings are the new Music school Cité de la Musique et de la Danse, the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain and the Hôtel du Département facing it, as well as, in the outskirts, the tramway-station Hoenheim-Nord designed by Zaha Hadid.

  

Place Kléber

The city has many bridges, including the medieval and four-towered Ponts Couverts that, despite their name, are no longer covered. Next to the Ponts Couverts is the Barrage Vauban, a part of Vauban's 17th-century fortifications, that does include a covered bridge. Other bridges are the ornate 19th-century Pont de la Fonderie (1893, stone) and Pont d'Auvergne (1892, iron), as well as architect Marc Mimram's futuristic Passerelle over the Rhine, opened in 2004.

 

The largest square at the centre of the city of Strasbourg is the Place Kléber. Located in the heart of the city's commercial area, it was named after general Jean-Baptiste Kléber, born in Strasbourg in 1753 and assassinated in 1800 in Cairo. In the square is a statue of Kléber, under which is a vault containing his remains. On the north side of the square is the Aubette (Orderly Room), built by Jacques François Blondel, architect of the king, in 1765–1772.

 

Parks

 

The Pavillon Joséphine (rear side) in the Parc de l'Orangerie

 

The Château de Pourtalès (front side) in the park of the same name

 

Strasbourg features a number of prominent parks, of which several are of cultural and historical interest: the Parc de l'Orangerie, laid out as a French garden by André le Nôtre and remodeled as an English garden on behalf of Joséphine de Beauharnais, now displaying noteworthy French gardens, a neo-classical castle and a small zoo; the Parc de la Citadelle, built around impressive remains of the 17th-century fortress erected close to the Rhine by Vauban;[52] the Parc de Pourtalès, laid out in English style around a baroque castle (heavily restored in the 19th century) that now houses a small three-star hotel,[53] and featuring an open-air museum of international contemporary sculpture.[54] The Jardin botanique de l'Université de Strasbourg (botanical garden) was created under the German administration next to the Observatory of Strasbourg, built in 1881, and still owns some greenhouses of those times. The Parc des Contades, although the oldest park of the city, was completely remodeled after World War II. The futuristic Parc des Poteries is an example of European park-conception in the late 1990s. The Jardin des deux Rives, spread over Strasbourg and Kehl on both sides of the Rhine opened in 2004 and is the most extended (60-hectare) park of the agglomeration. The most recent park is Parc du Heyritz (8,7 ha), opened in 2014 along a canal facing the hôpital civil.

Strasbourg (/ˈstræzbɜrɡ/, French pronunciation: ​[stʁaz.buʁ, stʁas.buʁ]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace were historically Alemannic-speaking, hence the city's Germanic name.[5] In 2006, the city proper had 272,975 inhabitants and its urban community 467,375 inhabitants. With 759,868 inhabitants in 2010, Strasbourg's metropolitan area (only the part of the metropolitan area on French territory) is the ninth largest in France. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 884,988 inhabitants in 2008.[6]

 

Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory) and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. The city is also the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights.[7]

 

Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île (Grand Island), was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is immersed in the Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a bridge of unity between France and Germany for centuries, especially through the University of Strasbourg, currently the second largest in France, and the coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture. The largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque, was inaugurated by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls on 27 September 2012.[8]

 

Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road, rail, and river transportation. The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany.

 

Etymology and Names

The city's Gallicized name (Lower Alsatian: Strossburi, [ˈʃd̥rɔːsb̥uri]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is of Germanic origin and means "Town (at the crossing) of roads". The modern Stras- is cognate to the German Straße and English street, all of which are derived from Latin strata ("paved road"), while -bourg is cognate to the German Burg and English borough, all of which are derived from Proto-Germanic *burgz ("hill fort, fortress").

 

Geography

 

Strasbourg seen from Spot Satellite

Strasbourg is situated on the eastern border of France with Germany. This border is formed by the River Rhine, which also forms the eastern border of the modern city, facing across the river to the German town Kehl. The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the River Ill, which here flows parallel to, and roughly 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from, the Rhine. The natural courses of the two rivers eventually join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city.

 

The city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres (433 ft) and 151 metres (495 ft) above sea level, with the upland areas of the Vosges Mountains some 20 km (12 mi) to the west and the Black Forest 25 km (16 mi) to the east. This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north-south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, and major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks.

 

The city is some 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Paris. The mouth of the Rhine lies approximately 450 kilometres (280 mi) to the north, or 650 kilometres (400 mi) as the river flows, whilst the head of navigation in Basel is some 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the south, or 150 kilometres (93 mi) by river.

 

Climate

 

In spite of its position far inland, Strasbourg's climate is classified as Oceanic (Köppen climate classification Cfb), with warm, relatively sunny summers and cold, overcast winters. Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains largely constant throughout the year, totaling 631.4 mm (24.9 in) annually. On average, snow falls 30 days per year.

 

The highest temperature ever recorded was 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave. The lowest temperature ever recorded was −23.4 °C (−10.1 °F) in December 1938.

 

Strasbourg's location in the Rhine valley, sheltered from the dominant winds by the Vosges and Black Forest mountains, results in poor natural ventilation, making Strasbourg one of the most atmospherically polluted cities of France.[10][11] Nonetheless, the progressive disappearance of heavy industry on both banks of the Rhine, as well as effective measures of traffic regulation in and around the city have reduced air pollution.

 

Prehistory

The first traces of human occupation in the environs of Strasbourg go back many thousands of years.[16] Neolithic, bronze age and iron age artifacts have been uncovered by archeological excavations. It was permanently settled by proto-Celts around 1300 BC. Towards the end of the third century BC, it developed into a Celtic township with a market called "Argentorate". Drainage works converted the stilthouses to houses built on dry land.[17]

 

From Romans

The Romans under Nero Claudius Drusus established a military outpost belonging to the Germania Superior Roman province at Strasbourg's current location, and named it Argentoratum. (Hence the town is commonly called Argentina in medieval Latin.[18]) The name "Argentoratum" was first mentioned in 12 BC and the city celebrated its 2,000th birthday in 1988. "Argentorate" as the toponym of the Gaulish settlement preceded it before being Latinized, but it is not known by how long. The Roman camp was destroyed by fire and rebuilt six times between the first and the fifth centuries AD: in 70, 97, 235, 355, in the last quarter of the fourth century, and in the early years of the fifth century. It was under Trajan and after the fire of 97 that Argentoratum received its most extended and fortified shape. From the year 90 on, the Legio VIII Augusta was permanently stationed in the Roman camp of Argentoratum. It then included a cavalry section and covered an area of approximately 20 hectares. Other Roman legions temporarily stationed in Argentoratum were the Legio XIV Gemina and the Legio XXI Rapax, the latter during the reign of Nero.

 

The centre of Argentoratum proper was situated on the Grande Île (Cardo: current Rue du Dôme, Decumanus: current Rue des Hallebardes). The outline of the Roman "castrum" is visible in the street pattern in the Grande Ile. Many Roman artifacts have also been found along the current Route des Romains, the road that led to Argentoratum, in the suburb of Kœnigshoffen. This was where the largest burial places were situated, as well as the densest concentration of civilian dwelling places and commerces next to the camp. Among the most outstanding finds in Kœnigshoffen were (found in 1911–12) the fragments of a grand Mithraeum that had been shattered by early Christians in the fourth century. From the fourth century, Strasbourg was the seat of the Bishopric of Strasbourg (made an Archbishopric in 1988). Archaeological excavations below the current Église Saint-Étienne in 1948 and 1956 unearthed the apse of a church dating back to the late fourth or early fifth century, considered to be the oldest church in Alsace. It is supposed that this was the first seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Strasbourg.

 

The Alemanni fought the Battle of Argentoratum against Rome in 357. They were defeated by Julian, later Emperor of Rome, and their King Chonodomarius was taken prisoner. On 2 January 366, the Alemanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire. Early in the fifth century, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine, conquered, and then settled what is today Alsace and a large part of Switzerland.

 

In the fifth century Strasbourg was occupied successively by Alemanni, Huns, and Franks. In the ninth century it was commonly known as Strazburg in the local language, as documented in 842 by the Oaths of Strasbourg. This trilingual text contains, alongside texts in Latin and Old High German (teudisca lingua), the oldest written variety of Gallo-Romance (lingua romana) clearly distinct from Latin, the ancestor of Old French. The town was also called Stratisburgum or Strateburgus in Latin, from which later came Strossburi in Alsatian and Straßburg in Standard German, and then Strasbourg in French. The Oaths of Strasbourg is considered as marking the birth of the two countries of France and Germany with the division of the Carolingian Empire.[19]

 

A major commercial centre, the town came under the control of the Holy Roman Empire in 923, through the homage paid by the Duke of Lorraine to German King Henry I. The early history of Strasbourg consists of a long conflict between its bishop and its citizens. The citizens emerged victorious after the Battle of Oberhausbergen in 1262, when King Philip of Swabia granted the city the status of an Imperial Free City.

 

Around 1200, Gottfried von Straßburg wrote the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, which is regarded, alongside Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and the Nibelungenlied, as one of great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages.

 

A revolution in 1332 resulted in a broad-based city government with participation of the guilds, and Strasbourg declared itself a free republic. The deadly bubonic plague of 1348 was followed on 14 February 1349 by one of the first and worst pogroms in pre-modern history: over a thousand Jews were publicly burnt to death, with the remainder of the Jewish population being expelled from the city.[20] Until the end of the 18th century, Jews were forbidden to remain in town after 10 pm. The time to leave the city was signalled by a municipal herald blowing the Grüselhorn (see below, Museums, Musée historique);.[21] A special tax, the Pflastergeld (pavement money), was furthermore to be paid for any horse that a Jew would ride or bring into the city while allowed to.[22]

 

Construction on Strasbourg Cathedral began in the twelfth century, and it was completed in 1439 (though, of the towers, only the north tower was built), becoming the World's Tallest Building, surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza. A few years later, Johannes Gutenberg created the first European moveable type printing press in Strasbourg.

 

In July 1518, an incident known as the Dancing Plague of 1518 struck residents of Strasbourg. Around 400 people were afflicted with dancing mania and danced constantly for weeks, most of them eventually dying from heart attack, stroke or exhaustion.

 

In the 1520s during the Protestant Reformation, the city, under the political guidance of Jacob Sturm von Sturmeck and the spiritual guidance of Martin Bucer embraced the religious teachings of Martin Luther. Their adherents established a Gymnasium, headed by Johannes Sturm, made into a University in the following century. The city first followed the Tetrapolitan Confession, and then the Augsburg Confession. Protestant iconoclasm caused much destruction to churches and cloisters, notwithstanding that Luther himself opposed such a practice. Strasbourg was a centre of humanist scholarship and early book-printing in the Holy Roman Empire, and its intellectual and political influence contributed much to the establishment of Protestantism as an accepted denomination in the southwest of Germany. (John Calvin spent several years as a political refugee in the city). The Strasbourg Councillor Sturm and guildmaster Matthias represented the city at the Imperial Diet of Speyer (1529), where their protest led to the schism of the Catholic Church and the evolution of Protestantism. Together with four other free cities, Strasbourg presented the confessio tetrapolitana as its Protestant book of faith at the Imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530, where the slightly different Augsburg Confession was also handed over to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

 

After the reform of the Imperial constitution in the early sixteenth century and the establishment of Imperial Circles, Strasbourg was part of the Upper Rhenish Circle, a corporation of Imperial estates in the southwest of Holy Roman Empire, mainly responsible for maintaining troops, supervising coining, and ensuring public security.

 

After the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, the first printing offices outside the inventor's hometown Mainz were established around 1460 in Strasbourg by pioneers Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein. Subsequently, the first modern newspaper was published in Strasbourg in 1605, when Johann Carolus received the permission by the City of Strasbourg to print and distribute a weekly journal written in German by reporters from several central European cities.

 

From Thirty Years' War to First World War

The Free City of Strasbourg remained neutral during the Thirty Years' War 1618-1648, and retained its status as a Free Imperial City. However, the city was later annexed by Louis XIV of France to extend the borders of his kingdom.

 

Louis' advisors believed that, as long as Strasbourg remained independent, it would endanger the King's newly annexed territories in Alsace, and, that to defend these large rural lands effectively, a garrison had to be placed in towns such as Strasbourg.[23] Indeed, the bridge over the Rhine at Strasbourg had been used repeatedly by Imperial (Holy Roman Empire) forces,[24] and three times during the Franco-Dutch War Strasbourg had served as a gateway for Imperial invasions into Alsace.[25] In September 1681 Louis' forces, though lacking a clear casus belli, surrounded the city with overwhelming force. After some negotiation, Louis marched into the city unopposed on 30 September 1681 and proclaimed its annexation.[26]

 

This annexation was one of the direct causes of the brief and bloody War of the Reunions whose outcome left the French in possession. The French annexation was recognized by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697). The official policy of religious intolerance which drove most Protestants from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was not applied in Strasbourg and in Alsace, because both had a special status as a province à l'instar de l'étranger effectif (a kind of foreign province of the king of France). Strasbourg Cathedral, however, was taken from the Lutherans to be returned to the Catholics as the French authorities tried to promote Catholicism wherever they could (some other historic churches remained in Protestant hands). Its language also remained overwhelmingly German: the German Lutheran university persisted until the French Revolution. Famous students included Goethe and Herder.

  

The Duke of Lorraine and Imperial troops crossing the Rhine at Strasbourg during the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744

During a dinner in Strasbourg organized by Mayor Frédéric de Dietrich on 25 April 1792, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed "La Marseillaise". The same year François Christophe Kellermann, a child of Strasbourg was appointed the head of the Mosel Army. He led his company to victory at the battle of Valmy and saved the young French republic. He was later appointed Duke of Valmy by Napoléon in 1808.

 

During this period Jean-Baptiste Kléber, also born in Strasbourg, led the French army to win several decisive victories. A statue of Kléber now stands in the centre of the city, at Place Kléber, and he is still one of the most famous French officers. He was later appointed Marshal of France by Napoléon.

 

Strasbourg's status as a free city was revoked by the French Revolution. Enragés, most notoriously Eulogius Schneider, ruled the city with an increasingly iron hand. During this time, many churches and monasteries were either destroyed or severely damaged. The cathedral lost hundreds of its statues (later replaced by copies in the 19th century) and in April 1794, there was talk of tearing its spire down, on the grounds that it was against the principle of equality. The tower was saved, however, when in May of the same year citizens of Strasbourg crowned it with a giant tin Phrygian cap. This artifact was later kept in the historical collections of the city until it was destroyed by the Germans in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war.[27]

 

In 1805, 1806 and 1809, Napoléon Bonaparte and his first wife, Joséphine stayed in Strasbourg.[28] In 1810, his second wife Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma spent her first night on French soil in the palace. Another royal guest was King Charles X of France in 1828.[29] In 1836, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte unsuccessfully tried to lead his first Bonapartist coup in Strasbourg.

 

During the Franco-Prussian War and the Siege of Strasbourg, the city was heavily bombarded by the Prussian army. The bombardment of the city was meant to break the morale of the people of Strasbourg.[30] On 24 and 26 August 1870, the Museum of Fine Arts was destroyed by fire, as was the Municipal Library housed in the Gothic former Dominican church, with its unique collection of medieval manuscripts (most famously the Hortus deliciarum), rare Renaissance books, archeological finds and historical artifacts. The gothic cathedral was damaged as well as the medieval church of Temple Neuf, the theatre, the city hall, the court of justice and many houses. At the end of the siege 10,000 inhabitants were left without shelter; over 600 died, including 261 civilians, and 3200 were injured, including 1,100 civilians.[31]

 

In 1871, after the end of the war, the city was annexed to the newly established German Empire as part of the Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen under the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt. As part of Imperial Germany, Strasbourg was rebuilt and developed on a grand and representative scale, such as the Neue Stadt, or "new city" around the present Place de la République. Historian Rodolphe Reuss and Art historian Wilhelm von Bode were in charge of rebuilding the municipal archives, libraries and museums. The University, founded in 1567 and suppressed during the French Revolution as a stronghold of German sentiment,[citation needed] was reopened in 1872 under the name Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität.

  

Strasbourg in the 1890s.

A belt of massive fortifications was established around the city, most of which still stands today, renamed after French generals and generally classified as Monuments historiques; most notably Fort Roon (now Fort Desaix) and Fort Podbielski (now Fort Ducrot) in Mundolsheim, Fort von Moltke (now Fort Rapp) in Reichstett, Fort Bismarck (now Fort Kléber) in Wolfisheim, Fort Kronprinz (now Fort Foch) in Niederhausbergen, Fort Kronprinz von Sachsen (now Fort Joffre) in Holtzheim and Fort Großherzog von Baden (now Fort Frère) in Oberhausbergen.[32]

 

Those forts subsequently served the French army (Fort Podbielski/Ducrot for instance was integrated into the Maginot Line[33]), and were used as POW-camps in 1918 and 1945.

 

Two garrison churches were also erected for the members of the Imperial German army, the Lutheran Église Saint-Paul and the Roman Catholic Église Saint-Maurice.

 

1918 to the present

 

A lost, then restored, symbol of modernity in Strasbourg : a room in the Aubette building designed by Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

 

Following the defeat of the German empire in World War I and the abdication of the German Emperor, some revolutionary insurgents declared Alsace-Lorraine as an independent Republic, without preliminary referendum or vote. On 11 November 1918 (Armistice Day), communist insurgents proclaimed a "soviet government" in Strasbourg, following the example of Kurt Eisner in Munich as well as other German towns. French troops commanded by French general Henri Gouraud entered triumphantly in the city on 22 November. A major street of the city now bears the name of that date (Rue du 22 Novembre) which celebrates the entry of the French in the city.[34][35][36] Viewing the massive cheering crowd gathered under the balcony of Strasbourg's town hall, French President Raymond Poincaré stated that "the plebiscite is done".[37]

 

In 1919, following the Treaty of Versailles, the city was annexed by France in accordance with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" without a referendum. The date of the assignment was retroactively established on Armistice Day. It is doubtful whether a referendum in Strasbourg would have ended in France's favour since the political parties striving for an autonomous Alsace or a connection to France accounted only for a small proportion of votes in the last Reichstag as well as in the local elections.[38] The Alsatian autonomists who were pro French had won many votes in the more rural parts of the region and other towns since the annexation of the region by Germany in 1871. The movement started with the first election for the Reichstag; those elected were called "les députés protestataires", and until the fall of Bismarck in 1890, they were the only deputies elected by the Alsatians to the German parliament demanding the return of those territories to France.[39] At the last Reichstag election in Strasbourg and its periphery, the clear winners were the Social Democrats; the city was the administrative capital of the region, was inhabited by many Germans appointed by the central government in Berlin and its flourishing economy attracted many Germans. This could explain the difference between the rural vote and the one in Strasbourg. After the war, many Germans left Strasbourg and went back to Germany; some of them were denounced by the locals or expelled by the newly appointed authorities. The Saverne Affair was vivid in the memory among the Alsatians.

 

In 1920, Strasbourg became the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine, previously located in Mannheim, one of the oldest European institutions. It moved into the former Imperial Palace.

 

When the Maginot Line was built, the Sous-secteur fortifié de Strasbourg (fortified sub-sector of Strasbourg) was laid out on the city's territory as a part of the Secteur fortifié du Bas-Rhin, one of the sections of the Line. Blockhouses and casemates were built along the Grand Canal d'Alsace and the Rhine in the Robertsau forest and the port.[40]

 

Between the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and the Anglo-French declaration of War against the German Reich on 3 September 1939, the entire city (a total of 120,000 people) was evacuated, like other border towns as well. Until the arrival of the Wehrmacht troops mid-June 1940, the city was, for ten months, completely empty, with the exception of the garrisoned soldiers. The Jews of Strasbourg had been evacuated to Périgueux and Limoges, the University had been evacuated to Clermont-Ferrand.

 

After the ceasefire following the Fall of France in June 1940, Alsace was annexed to Germany and a rigorous policy of Germanisation was imposed upon it by the Gauleiter Robert Heinrich Wagner. When, in July 1940, the first evacuees were allowed to return, only residents of Alsatian origin were admitted. The last Jews were deported on 15 July 1940 and the main synagogue, a huge Romanesque revival building that had been a major architectural landmark with its 54-metre-high dome since its completion in 1897, was set ablaze, then razed.[41]

 

In September 1940 the first Alsatian resistance movement led by Marcel Weinum called La main noire (The black hand) was created. It was composed by a group of 25 young men aged from 14 to 18 years old who led several attacks against the German occupation. The actions culminated with the attack of the Gauleiter Robert Wagner, the highest commander of Alsace directly under the order of Hitler. In March 1942, Marcel Weinum was prosecuted by the Gestapo and sentenced to be beheaded at the age of 18 in April 1942 in Stuttgart, Germany. His last words will be: "If I have to die, I shall die but with a pure heart". From 1943 the city was bombarded by Allied aircraft. While the First World War had not notably damaged the city, Anglo-American bombing caused extensive destruction in raids of which at least one was allegedly carried out by mistake.[42] In August 1944, several buildings in the Old Town were damaged by bombs, particularly the Palais Rohan, the Old Customs House (Ancienne Douane) and the Cathedral.[43] On 23 November 1944, the city was officially liberated by the 2nd French Armoured Division under General Leclerc. He achieved the oath that he made with his soldiers, after the decisive Capture of Kufra. With the Oath of Kuffra, they swore to keep up the fight until the French flag flew over the Cathedral of Strasbourg.

 

Many people from Strasbourg were incorporated in the German Army against their will, and were sent to the eastern front, those young men and women were called Malgré-nous. Many tried to escape from the incorporation, join the French Resistance, or desert the Wehrmacht but many couldn't because they were running the risk of having their families sent to work or concentration camps by the Germans. Many of these men, especially those who did not answer the call immediately, were pressured to "volunteer" for service with the SS, often by direct threats on their families. This threat obliged the majority of them to remain in the German army. After the war, the few that survived were often accused of being traitors or collaborationists, because this tough situation was not known in the rest of France, and they had to face the incomprehension of many. In July 1944, 1500 malgré-nous were released from Soviet captivity and sent to Algiers, where they joined the Free French Forces. Nowadays history recognizes the suffering of those people, and museums, public discussions and memorials have been built to commemorate this terrible period of history of this part of Eastern France (Alsace and Moselle). Liberation of Strasbourg took place on 23 November 1944.

 

In 1947, a fire broke out in the Musée des Beaux-Arts and devastated a significant part of the collections. This fire was an indirect consequence of the bombing raids of 1944: because of the destruction inflicted on the Palais Rohan, humidity had infiltrated the building, and moisture had to be fought. This was done with welding torches, and a bad handling of these caused the fire.[44]

 

In the 1950s and 1960s the city was enlarged by new residential areas meant to solve both the problem of housing shortage due to war damage and that of the strong growth of population due to the baby boom and immigration from North Africa: Cité Rotterdam in the North-East, Quartier de l'Esplanade in the South-East, Hautepierre in the North-West. Between 1995 and 2010, a new district has been built in the same vein, the Quartier des Poteries, south of Hautepierre.

 

In 1958, a violent hailstorm destroyed most of the historical greenhouses of the Botanical Garden and many of the stained glass windows of St. Paul's Church.

 

In 1949, the city was chosen to be the seat of the Council of Europe with its European Court of Human Rights and European Pharmacopoeia. Since 1952, the European Parliament has met in Strasbourg, which was formally designated its official 'seat' at the Edinburgh meeting of the European Council of EU heads of state and government in December 1992. (This position was reconfirmed and given treaty status in the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam). However, only the (four-day) plenary sessions of the Parliament are held in Strasbourg each month, with all other business being conducted in Brussels and Luxembourg. Those sessions take place in the Immeuble Louise Weiss, inaugurated in 1999, which houses the largest parliamentary assembly room in Europe and of any democratic institution in the world. Before that, the EP sessions had to take place in the main Council of Europe building, the Palace of Europe, whose unusual inner architecture had become a familiar sight to European TV audiences.[45] In 1992, Strasbourg became the seat of the Franco-German TV channel and movie-production society Arte.

 

In 2000, a terrorist plot to blow up the cathedral was prevented thanks to the cooperation between French and German police that led to the arrest in late 2000 of a Frankfurt-based group of terrorists.

 

On 6 July 2001, during an open-air concert in the Parc de Pourtalès, a single falling Platanus tree killed thirteen people and injured 97. On 27 March 2007, the city was found guilty of neglect over the accident and fined €150,000.[46]

 

In 2006, after a long and careful restoration, the inner decoration of the Aubette, made in the 1920s by Hans Arp, Theo van Doesburg, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp and destroyed in the 1930s, was made accessible to the public again. The work of the three artists had been called "the Sistine Chapel of abstract art".

 

Architecture

 

Strasbourg, Cathedral of Our Lady

The city is chiefly known for its sandstone Gothic Cathedral with its famous astronomical clock, and for its medieval cityscape of Rhineland black and white timber-framed buildings, particularly in the Petite France district or Gerberviertel ("tanners' district") alongside the Ill and in the streets and squares surrounding the cathedral, where the renowned Maison Kammerzell stands out.

 

Notable medieval streets include Rue Mercière, Rue des Dentelles, Rue du Bain aux Plantes, Rue des Juifs, Rue des Frères, Rue des Tonneliers, Rue du Maroquin, Rue des Charpentiers, Rue des Serruriers, Grand' Rue, Quai des Bateliers, Quai Saint-Nicolas and Quai Saint-Thomas. Notable medieval squares include Place de la Cathédrale, Place du Marché Gayot, Place Saint-Étienne, Place du Marché aux Cochons de Lait and Place Benjamin Zix.

 

Maison des tanneurs.

 

In addition to the cathedral, Strasbourg houses several other medieval churches that have survived the many wars and destructions that have plagued the city: the Romanesque Église Saint-Étienne, partly destroyed in 1944 by Allied bombing raids, the part Romanesque, part Gothic, very large Église Saint-Thomas with its Silbermann organ on which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Albert Schweitzer played,[49] the Gothic Église protestante Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune with its crypt dating back to the seventh century and its cloister partly from the eleventh century, the Gothic Église Saint-Guillaume with its fine early-Renaissance stained glass and furniture, the Gothic Église Saint-Jean, the part Gothic, part Art Nouveau Église Sainte-Madeleine, etc. The Neo-Gothic church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Catholique (there is also an adjacent church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Protestant) serves as a shrine for several 15th-century wood worked and painted altars coming from other, now destroyed churches and installed there for public display. Among the numerous secular medieval buildings, the monumental Ancienne Douane (old custom-house) stands out.

 

The German Renaissance has bequeathed the city some noteworthy buildings (especially the current Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie, former town hall, on Place Gutenberg), as did the French Baroque and Classicism with several hôtels particuliers (i.e. palaces), among which the Palais Rohan (1742, now housing three museums) is the most spectacular. Other buildings of its kind are the "Hôtel de Hanau" (1736, now the city hall), the Hôtel de Klinglin (1736, now residence of the préfet), the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts (1755, now residence of the military governor), the Hôtel d'Andlau-Klinglin (1725, now seat of the administration of the Port autonome de Strasbourg) etc. The largest baroque building of Strasbourg though is the 150 m (490 ft) long 1720s main building of the Hôpital civil. As for French Neo-classicism, it is the Opera House on Place Broglie that most prestigiously represents this style.

 

Strasbourg also offers high-class eclecticist buildings in its very extended German district, the Neustadt, being the main memory of Wilhelmian architecture since most of the major cities in Germany proper suffered intensive damage during World War II. Streets, boulevards and avenues are homogeneous, surprisingly high (up to seven stories) and broad examples of German urban lay-out and of this architectural style that summons and mixes up five centuries of European architecture as well as Neo-Egyptian, Neo-Greek and Neo-Babylonian styles. The former imperial palace Palais du Rhin, the most political and thus heavily criticized of all German Strasbourg buildings epitomizes the grand scale and stylistic sturdiness of this period. But the two most handsome and ornate buildings of these times are the École internationale des Pontonniers (the former Höhere Mädchenschule, girls college) with its towers, turrets and multiple round and square angles[50] and the École des Arts décoratifs with its lavishly ornate façade of painted bricks, woodwork and majolica.[51]

 

Notable streets of the German district include: Avenue de la Forêt Noire, Avenue des Vosges, Avenue d'Alsace, Avenue de la Marseillaise, Avenue de la Liberté, Boulevard de la Victoire, Rue Sellénick, Rue du Général de Castelnau, Rue du Maréchal Foch, and Rue du Maréchal Joffre. Notable squares of the German district include: Place de la République, Place de l'Université, Place Brant, and Place Arnold

 

As for modern and contemporary architecture, Strasbourg possesses some fine Art Nouveau buildings (such as the huge Palais des Fêtes and houses and villas like Villa Schutzenberger and Hôtel Brion), good examples of post-World War II functional architecture (the Cité Rotterdam, for which Le Corbusier did not succeed in the architectural contest) and, in the very extended Quartier Européen, some spectacular administrative buildings of sometimes utterly large size, among which the European Court of Human Rights building by Richard Rogers is arguably the finest. Other noticeable contemporary buildings are the new Music school Cité de la Musique et de la Danse, the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain and the Hôtel du Département facing it, as well as, in the outskirts, the tramway-station Hoenheim-Nord designed by Zaha Hadid.

  

Place Kléber

The city has many bridges, including the medieval and four-towered Ponts Couverts that, despite their name, are no longer covered. Next to the Ponts Couverts is the Barrage Vauban, a part of Vauban's 17th-century fortifications, that does include a covered bridge. Other bridges are the ornate 19th-century Pont de la Fonderie (1893, stone) and Pont d'Auvergne (1892, iron), as well as architect Marc Mimram's futuristic Passerelle over the Rhine, opened in 2004.

 

The largest square at the centre of the city of Strasbourg is the Place Kléber. Located in the heart of the city's commercial area, it was named after general Jean-Baptiste Kléber, born in Strasbourg in 1753 and assassinated in 1800 in Cairo. In the square is a statue of Kléber, under which is a vault containing his remains. On the north side of the square is the Aubette (Orderly Room), built by Jacques François Blondel, architect of the king, in 1765–1772.

 

Parks

 

The Pavillon Joséphine (rear side) in the Parc de l'Orangerie

 

The Château de Pourtalès (front side) in the park of the same name

 

Strasbourg features a number of prominent parks, of which several are of cultural and historical interest: the Parc de l'Orangerie, laid out as a French garden by André le Nôtre and remodeled as an English garden on behalf of Joséphine de Beauharnais, now displaying noteworthy French gardens, a neo-classical castle and a small zoo; the Parc de la Citadelle, built around impressive remains of the 17th-century fortress erected close to the Rhine by Vauban;[52] the Parc de Pourtalès, laid out in English style around a baroque castle (heavily restored in the 19th century) that now houses a small three-star hotel,[53] and featuring an open-air museum of international contemporary sculpture.[54] The Jardin botanique de l'Université de Strasbourg (botanical garden) was created under the German administration next to the Observatory of Strasbourg, built in 1881, and still owns some greenhouses of those times. The Parc des Contades, although the oldest park of the city, was completely remodeled after World War II. The futuristic Parc des Poteries is an example of European park-conception in the late 1990s. The Jardin des deux Rives, spread over Strasbourg and Kehl on both sides of the Rhine opened in 2004 and is the most extended (60-hectare) park of the agglomeration. The most recent park is Parc du Heyritz (8,7 ha), opened in 2014 along a canal facing the hôpital civil.

Strasbourg (/ˈstræzbɜrɡ/, French pronunciation: ​[stʁaz.buʁ, stʁas.buʁ]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace were historically Alemannic-speaking, hence the city's Germanic name.[5] In 2006, the city proper had 272,975 inhabitants and its urban community 467,375 inhabitants. With 759,868 inhabitants in 2010, Strasbourg's metropolitan area (only the part of the metropolitan area on French territory) is the ninth largest in France. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 884,988 inhabitants in 2008.[6]

 

Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory) and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. The city is also the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights.[7]

 

Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île (Grand Island), was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is immersed in the Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a bridge of unity between France and Germany for centuries, especially through the University of Strasbourg, currently the second largest in France, and the coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture. The largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque, was inaugurated by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls on 27 September 2012.[8]

 

Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road, rail, and river transportation. The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany.

 

Etymology and Names

The city's Gallicized name (Lower Alsatian: Strossburi, [ˈʃd̥rɔːsb̥uri]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is of Germanic origin and means "Town (at the crossing) of roads". The modern Stras- is cognate to the German Straße and English street, all of which are derived from Latin strata ("paved road"), while -bourg is cognate to the German Burg and English borough, all of which are derived from Proto-Germanic *burgz ("hill fort, fortress").

 

Geography

 

Strasbourg seen from Spot Satellite

Strasbourg is situated on the eastern border of France with Germany. This border is formed by the River Rhine, which also forms the eastern border of the modern city, facing across the river to the German town Kehl. The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the River Ill, which here flows parallel to, and roughly 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from, the Rhine. The natural courses of the two rivers eventually join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city.

 

The city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres (433 ft) and 151 metres (495 ft) above sea level, with the upland areas of the Vosges Mountains some 20 km (12 mi) to the west and the Black Forest 25 km (16 mi) to the east. This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north-south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, and major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks.

 

The city is some 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Paris. The mouth of the Rhine lies approximately 450 kilometres (280 mi) to the north, or 650 kilometres (400 mi) as the river flows, whilst the head of navigation in Basel is some 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the south, or 150 kilometres (93 mi) by river.

 

Climate

 

In spite of its position far inland, Strasbourg's climate is classified as Oceanic (Köppen climate classification Cfb), with warm, relatively sunny summers and cold, overcast winters. Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains largely constant throughout the year, totaling 631.4 mm (24.9 in) annually. On average, snow falls 30 days per year.

 

The highest temperature ever recorded was 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave. The lowest temperature ever recorded was −23.4 °C (−10.1 °F) in December 1938.

 

Strasbourg's location in the Rhine valley, sheltered from the dominant winds by the Vosges and Black Forest mountains, results in poor natural ventilation, making Strasbourg one of the most atmospherically polluted cities of France.[10][11] Nonetheless, the progressive disappearance of heavy industry on both banks of the Rhine, as well as effective measures of traffic regulation in and around the city have reduced air pollution.

 

Prehistory

The first traces of human occupation in the environs of Strasbourg go back many thousands of years.[16] Neolithic, bronze age and iron age artifacts have been uncovered by archeological excavations. It was permanently settled by proto-Celts around 1300 BC. Towards the end of the third century BC, it developed into a Celtic township with a market called "Argentorate". Drainage works converted the stilthouses to houses built on dry land.[17]

 

From Romans

The Romans under Nero Claudius Drusus established a military outpost belonging to the Germania Superior Roman province at Strasbourg's current location, and named it Argentoratum. (Hence the town is commonly called Argentina in medieval Latin.[18]) The name "Argentoratum" was first mentioned in 12 BC and the city celebrated its 2,000th birthday in 1988. "Argentorate" as the toponym of the Gaulish settlement preceded it before being Latinized, but it is not known by how long. The Roman camp was destroyed by fire and rebuilt six times between the first and the fifth centuries AD: in 70, 97, 235, 355, in the last quarter of the fourth century, and in the early years of the fifth century. It was under Trajan and after the fire of 97 that Argentoratum received its most extended and fortified shape. From the year 90 on, the Legio VIII Augusta was permanently stationed in the Roman camp of Argentoratum. It then included a cavalry section and covered an area of approximately 20 hectares. Other Roman legions temporarily stationed in Argentoratum were the Legio XIV Gemina and the Legio XXI Rapax, the latter during the reign of Nero.

 

The centre of Argentoratum proper was situated on the Grande Île (Cardo: current Rue du Dôme, Decumanus: current Rue des Hallebardes). The outline of the Roman "castrum" is visible in the street pattern in the Grande Ile. Many Roman artifacts have also been found along the current Route des Romains, the road that led to Argentoratum, in the suburb of Kœnigshoffen. This was where the largest burial places were situated, as well as the densest concentration of civilian dwelling places and commerces next to the camp. Among the most outstanding finds in Kœnigshoffen were (found in 1911–12) the fragments of a grand Mithraeum that had been shattered by early Christians in the fourth century. From the fourth century, Strasbourg was the seat of the Bishopric of Strasbourg (made an Archbishopric in 1988). Archaeological excavations below the current Église Saint-Étienne in 1948 and 1956 unearthed the apse of a church dating back to the late fourth or early fifth century, considered to be the oldest church in Alsace. It is supposed that this was the first seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Strasbourg.

 

The Alemanni fought the Battle of Argentoratum against Rome in 357. They were defeated by Julian, later Emperor of Rome, and their King Chonodomarius was taken prisoner. On 2 January 366, the Alemanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire. Early in the fifth century, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine, conquered, and then settled what is today Alsace and a large part of Switzerland.

 

In the fifth century Strasbourg was occupied successively by Alemanni, Huns, and Franks. In the ninth century it was commonly known as Strazburg in the local language, as documented in 842 by the Oaths of Strasbourg. This trilingual text contains, alongside texts in Latin and Old High German (teudisca lingua), the oldest written variety of Gallo-Romance (lingua romana) clearly distinct from Latin, the ancestor of Old French. The town was also called Stratisburgum or Strateburgus in Latin, from which later came Strossburi in Alsatian and Straßburg in Standard German, and then Strasbourg in French. The Oaths of Strasbourg is considered as marking the birth of the two countries of France and Germany with the division of the Carolingian Empire.[19]

 

A major commercial centre, the town came under the control of the Holy Roman Empire in 923, through the homage paid by the Duke of Lorraine to German King Henry I. The early history of Strasbourg consists of a long conflict between its bishop and its citizens. The citizens emerged victorious after the Battle of Oberhausbergen in 1262, when King Philip of Swabia granted the city the status of an Imperial Free City.

 

Around 1200, Gottfried von Straßburg wrote the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, which is regarded, alongside Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and the Nibelungenlied, as one of great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages.

 

A revolution in 1332 resulted in a broad-based city government with participation of the guilds, and Strasbourg declared itself a free republic. The deadly bubonic plague of 1348 was followed on 14 February 1349 by one of the first and worst pogroms in pre-modern history: over a thousand Jews were publicly burnt to death, with the remainder of the Jewish population being expelled from the city.[20] Until the end of the 18th century, Jews were forbidden to remain in town after 10 pm. The time to leave the city was signalled by a municipal herald blowing the Grüselhorn (see below, Museums, Musée historique);.[21] A special tax, the Pflastergeld (pavement money), was furthermore to be paid for any horse that a Jew would ride or bring into the city while allowed to.[22]

 

Construction on Strasbourg Cathedral began in the twelfth century, and it was completed in 1439 (though, of the towers, only the north tower was built), becoming the World's Tallest Building, surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza. A few years later, Johannes Gutenberg created the first European moveable type printing press in Strasbourg.

 

In July 1518, an incident known as the Dancing Plague of 1518 struck residents of Strasbourg. Around 400 people were afflicted with dancing mania and danced constantly for weeks, most of them eventually dying from heart attack, stroke or exhaustion.

 

In the 1520s during the Protestant Reformation, the city, under the political guidance of Jacob Sturm von Sturmeck and the spiritual guidance of Martin Bucer embraced the religious teachings of Martin Luther. Their adherents established a Gymnasium, headed by Johannes Sturm, made into a University in the following century. The city first followed the Tetrapolitan Confession, and then the Augsburg Confession. Protestant iconoclasm caused much destruction to churches and cloisters, notwithstanding that Luther himself opposed such a practice. Strasbourg was a centre of humanist scholarship and early book-printing in the Holy Roman Empire, and its intellectual and political influence contributed much to the establishment of Protestantism as an accepted denomination in the southwest of Germany. (John Calvin spent several years as a political refugee in the city). The Strasbourg Councillor Sturm and guildmaster Matthias represented the city at the Imperial Diet of Speyer (1529), where their protest led to the schism of the Catholic Church and the evolution of Protestantism. Together with four other free cities, Strasbourg presented the confessio tetrapolitana as its Protestant book of faith at the Imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530, where the slightly different Augsburg Confession was also handed over to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

 

After the reform of the Imperial constitution in the early sixteenth century and the establishment of Imperial Circles, Strasbourg was part of the Upper Rhenish Circle, a corporation of Imperial estates in the southwest of Holy Roman Empire, mainly responsible for maintaining troops, supervising coining, and ensuring public security.

 

After the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, the first printing offices outside the inventor's hometown Mainz were established around 1460 in Strasbourg by pioneers Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein. Subsequently, the first modern newspaper was published in Strasbourg in 1605, when Johann Carolus received the permission by the City of Strasbourg to print and distribute a weekly journal written in German by reporters from several central European cities.

 

From Thirty Years' War to First World War

The Free City of Strasbourg remained neutral during the Thirty Years' War 1618-1648, and retained its status as a Free Imperial City. However, the city was later annexed by Louis XIV of France to extend the borders of his kingdom.

 

Louis' advisors believed that, as long as Strasbourg remained independent, it would endanger the King's newly annexed territories in Alsace, and, that to defend these large rural lands effectively, a garrison had to be placed in towns such as Strasbourg.[23] Indeed, the bridge over the Rhine at Strasbourg had been used repeatedly by Imperial (Holy Roman Empire) forces,[24] and three times during the Franco-Dutch War Strasbourg had served as a gateway for Imperial invasions into Alsace.[25] In September 1681 Louis' forces, though lacking a clear casus belli, surrounded the city with overwhelming force. After some negotiation, Louis marched into the city unopposed on 30 September 1681 and proclaimed its annexation.[26]

 

This annexation was one of the direct causes of the brief and bloody War of the Reunions whose outcome left the French in possession. The French annexation was recognized by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697). The official policy of religious intolerance which drove most Protestants from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was not applied in Strasbourg and in Alsace, because both had a special status as a province à l'instar de l'étranger effectif (a kind of foreign province of the king of France). Strasbourg Cathedral, however, was taken from the Lutherans to be returned to the Catholics as the French authorities tried to promote Catholicism wherever they could (some other historic churches remained in Protestant hands). Its language also remained overwhelmingly German: the German Lutheran university persisted until the French Revolution. Famous students included Goethe and Herder.

  

The Duke of Lorraine and Imperial troops crossing the Rhine at Strasbourg during the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744

During a dinner in Strasbourg organized by Mayor Frédéric de Dietrich on 25 April 1792, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed "La Marseillaise". The same year François Christophe Kellermann, a child of Strasbourg was appointed the head of the Mosel Army. He led his company to victory at the battle of Valmy and saved the young French republic. He was later appointed Duke of Valmy by Napoléon in 1808.

 

During this period Jean-Baptiste Kléber, also born in Strasbourg, led the French army to win several decisive victories. A statue of Kléber now stands in the centre of the city, at Place Kléber, and he is still one of the most famous French officers. He was later appointed Marshal of France by Napoléon.

 

Strasbourg's status as a free city was revoked by the French Revolution. Enragés, most notoriously Eulogius Schneider, ruled the city with an increasingly iron hand. During this time, many churches and monasteries were either destroyed or severely damaged. The cathedral lost hundreds of its statues (later replaced by copies in the 19th century) and in April 1794, there was talk of tearing its spire down, on the grounds that it was against the principle of equality. The tower was saved, however, when in May of the same year citizens of Strasbourg crowned it with a giant tin Phrygian cap. This artifact was later kept in the historical collections of the city until it was destroyed by the Germans in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war.[27]

 

In 1805, 1806 and 1809, Napoléon Bonaparte and his first wife, Joséphine stayed in Strasbourg.[28] In 1810, his second wife Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma spent her first night on French soil in the palace. Another royal guest was King Charles X of France in 1828.[29] In 1836, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte unsuccessfully tried to lead his first Bonapartist coup in Strasbourg.

 

During the Franco-Prussian War and the Siege of Strasbourg, the city was heavily bombarded by the Prussian army. The bombardment of the city was meant to break the morale of the people of Strasbourg.[30] On 24 and 26 August 1870, the Museum of Fine Arts was destroyed by fire, as was the Municipal Library housed in the Gothic former Dominican church, with its unique collection of medieval manuscripts (most famously the Hortus deliciarum), rare Renaissance books, archeological finds and historical artifacts. The gothic cathedral was damaged as well as the medieval church of Temple Neuf, the theatre, the city hall, the court of justice and many houses. At the end of the siege 10,000 inhabitants were left without shelter; over 600 died, including 261 civilians, and 3200 were injured, including 1,100 civilians.[31]

 

In 1871, after the end of the war, the city was annexed to the newly established German Empire as part of the Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen under the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt. As part of Imperial Germany, Strasbourg was rebuilt and developed on a grand and representative scale, such as the Neue Stadt, or "new city" around the present Place de la République. Historian Rodolphe Reuss and Art historian Wilhelm von Bode were in charge of rebuilding the municipal archives, libraries and museums. The University, founded in 1567 and suppressed during the French Revolution as a stronghold of German sentiment,[citation needed] was reopened in 1872 under the name Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität.

  

Strasbourg in the 1890s.

A belt of massive fortifications was established around the city, most of which still stands today, renamed after French generals and generally classified as Monuments historiques; most notably Fort Roon (now Fort Desaix) and Fort Podbielski (now Fort Ducrot) in Mundolsheim, Fort von Moltke (now Fort Rapp) in Reichstett, Fort Bismarck (now Fort Kléber) in Wolfisheim, Fort Kronprinz (now Fort Foch) in Niederhausbergen, Fort Kronprinz von Sachsen (now Fort Joffre) in Holtzheim and Fort Großherzog von Baden (now Fort Frère) in Oberhausbergen.[32]

 

Those forts subsequently served the French army (Fort Podbielski/Ducrot for instance was integrated into the Maginot Line[33]), and were used as POW-camps in 1918 and 1945.

 

Two garrison churches were also erected for the members of the Imperial German army, the Lutheran Église Saint-Paul and the Roman Catholic Église Saint-Maurice.

 

1918 to the present

 

A lost, then restored, symbol of modernity in Strasbourg : a room in the Aubette building designed by Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

 

Following the defeat of the German empire in World War I and the abdication of the German Emperor, some revolutionary insurgents declared Alsace-Lorraine as an independent Republic, without preliminary referendum or vote. On 11 November 1918 (Armistice Day), communist insurgents proclaimed a "soviet government" in Strasbourg, following the example of Kurt Eisner in Munich as well as other German towns. French troops commanded by French general Henri Gouraud entered triumphantly in the city on 22 November. A major street of the city now bears the name of that date (Rue du 22 Novembre) which celebrates the entry of the French in the city.[34][35][36] Viewing the massive cheering crowd gathered under the balcony of Strasbourg's town hall, French President Raymond Poincaré stated that "the plebiscite is done".[37]

 

In 1919, following the Treaty of Versailles, the city was annexed by France in accordance with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" without a referendum. The date of the assignment was retroactively established on Armistice Day. It is doubtful whether a referendum in Strasbourg would have ended in France's favour since the political parties striving for an autonomous Alsace or a connection to France accounted only for a small proportion of votes in the last Reichstag as well as in the local elections.[38] The Alsatian autonomists who were pro French had won many votes in the more rural parts of the region and other towns since the annexation of the region by Germany in 1871. The movement started with the first election for the Reichstag; those elected were called "les députés protestataires", and until the fall of Bismarck in 1890, they were the only deputies elected by the Alsatians to the German parliament demanding the return of those territories to France.[39] At the last Reichstag election in Strasbourg and its periphery, the clear winners were the Social Democrats; the city was the administrative capital of the region, was inhabited by many Germans appointed by the central government in Berlin and its flourishing economy attracted many Germans. This could explain the difference between the rural vote and the one in Strasbourg. After the war, many Germans left Strasbourg and went back to Germany; some of them were denounced by the locals or expelled by the newly appointed authorities. The Saverne Affair was vivid in the memory among the Alsatians.

 

In 1920, Strasbourg became the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine, previously located in Mannheim, one of the oldest European institutions. It moved into the former Imperial Palace.

 

When the Maginot Line was built, the Sous-secteur fortifié de Strasbourg (fortified sub-sector of Strasbourg) was laid out on the city's territory as a part of the Secteur fortifié du Bas-Rhin, one of the sections of the Line. Blockhouses and casemates were built along the Grand Canal d'Alsace and the Rhine in the Robertsau forest and the port.[40]

 

Between the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and the Anglo-French declaration of War against the German Reich on 3 September 1939, the entire city (a total of 120,000 people) was evacuated, like other border towns as well. Until the arrival of the Wehrmacht troops mid-June 1940, the city was, for ten months, completely empty, with the exception of the garrisoned soldiers. The Jews of Strasbourg had been evacuated to Périgueux and Limoges, the University had been evacuated to Clermont-Ferrand.

 

After the ceasefire following the Fall of France in June 1940, Alsace was annexed to Germany and a rigorous policy of Germanisation was imposed upon it by the Gauleiter Robert Heinrich Wagner. When, in July 1940, the first evacuees were allowed to return, only residents of Alsatian origin were admitted. The last Jews were deported on 15 July 1940 and the main synagogue, a huge Romanesque revival building that had been a major architectural landmark with its 54-metre-high dome since its completion in 1897, was set ablaze, then razed.[41]

 

In September 1940 the first Alsatian resistance movement led by Marcel Weinum called La main noire (The black hand) was created. It was composed by a group of 25 young men aged from 14 to 18 years old who led several attacks against the German occupation. The actions culminated with the attack of the Gauleiter Robert Wagner, the highest commander of Alsace directly under the order of Hitler. In March 1942, Marcel Weinum was prosecuted by the Gestapo and sentenced to be beheaded at the age of 18 in April 1942 in Stuttgart, Germany. His last words will be: "If I have to die, I shall die but with a pure heart". From 1943 the city was bombarded by Allied aircraft. While the First World War had not notably damaged the city, Anglo-American bombing caused extensive destruction in raids of which at least one was allegedly carried out by mistake.[42] In August 1944, several buildings in the Old Town were damaged by bombs, particularly the Palais Rohan, the Old Customs House (Ancienne Douane) and the Cathedral.[43] On 23 November 1944, the city was officially liberated by the 2nd French Armoured Division under General Leclerc. He achieved the oath that he made with his soldiers, after the decisive Capture of Kufra. With the Oath of Kuffra, they swore to keep up the fight until the French flag flew over the Cathedral of Strasbourg.

 

Many people from Strasbourg were incorporated in the German Army against their will, and were sent to the eastern front, those young men and women were called Malgré-nous. Many tried to escape from the incorporation, join the French Resistance, or desert the Wehrmacht but many couldn't because they were running the risk of having their families sent to work or concentration camps by the Germans. Many of these men, especially those who did not answer the call immediately, were pressured to "volunteer" for service with the SS, often by direct threats on their families. This threat obliged the majority of them to remain in the German army. After the war, the few that survived were often accused of being traitors or collaborationists, because this tough situation was not known in the rest of France, and they had to face the incomprehension of many. In July 1944, 1500 malgré-nous were released from Soviet captivity and sent to Algiers, where they joined the Free French Forces. Nowadays history recognizes the suffering of those people, and museums, public discussions and memorials have been built to commemorate this terrible period of history of this part of Eastern France (Alsace and Moselle). Liberation of Strasbourg took place on 23 November 1944.

 

In 1947, a fire broke out in the Musée des Beaux-Arts and devastated a significant part of the collections. This fire was an indirect consequence of the bombing raids of 1944: because of the destruction inflicted on the Palais Rohan, humidity had infiltrated the building, and moisture had to be fought. This was done with welding torches, and a bad handling of these caused the fire.[44]

 

In the 1950s and 1960s the city was enlarged by new residential areas meant to solve both the problem of housing shortage due to war damage and that of the strong growth of population due to the baby boom and immigration from North Africa: Cité Rotterdam in the North-East, Quartier de l'Esplanade in the South-East, Hautepierre in the North-West. Between 1995 and 2010, a new district has been built in the same vein, the Quartier des Poteries, south of Hautepierre.

 

In 1958, a violent hailstorm destroyed most of the historical greenhouses of the Botanical Garden and many of the stained glass windows of St. Paul's Church.

 

In 1949, the city was chosen to be the seat of the Council of Europe with its European Court of Human Rights and European Pharmacopoeia. Since 1952, the European Parliament has met in Strasbourg, which was formally designated its official 'seat' at the Edinburgh meeting of the European Council of EU heads of state and government in December 1992. (This position was reconfirmed and given treaty status in the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam). However, only the (four-day) plenary sessions of the Parliament are held in Strasbourg each month, with all other business being conducted in Brussels and Luxembourg. Those sessions take place in the Immeuble Louise Weiss, inaugurated in 1999, which houses the largest parliamentary assembly room in Europe and of any democratic institution in the world. Before that, the EP sessions had to take place in the main Council of Europe building, the Palace of Europe, whose unusual inner architecture had become a familiar sight to European TV audiences.[45] In 1992, Strasbourg became the seat of the Franco-German TV channel and movie-production society Arte.

 

In 2000, a terrorist plot to blow up the cathedral was prevented thanks to the cooperation between French and German police that led to the arrest in late 2000 of a Frankfurt-based group of terrorists.

 

On 6 July 2001, during an open-air concert in the Parc de Pourtalès, a single falling Platanus tree killed thirteen people and injured 97. On 27 March 2007, the city was found guilty of neglect over the accident and fined €150,000.[46]

 

In 2006, after a long and careful restoration, the inner decoration of the Aubette, made in the 1920s by Hans Arp, Theo van Doesburg, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp and destroyed in the 1930s, was made accessible to the public again. The work of the three artists had been called "the Sistine Chapel of abstract art".

 

Architecture

 

Strasbourg, Cathedral of Our Lady

The city is chiefly known for its sandstone Gothic Cathedral with its famous astronomical clock, and for its medieval cityscape of Rhineland black and white timber-framed buildings, particularly in the Petite France district or Gerberviertel ("tanners' district") alongside the Ill and in the streets and squares surrounding the cathedral, where the renowned Maison Kammerzell stands out.

 

Notable medieval streets include Rue Mercière, Rue des Dentelles, Rue du Bain aux Plantes, Rue des Juifs, Rue des Frères, Rue des Tonneliers, Rue du Maroquin, Rue des Charpentiers, Rue des Serruriers, Grand' Rue, Quai des Bateliers, Quai Saint-Nicolas and Quai Saint-Thomas. Notable medieval squares include Place de la Cathédrale, Place du Marché Gayot, Place Saint-Étienne, Place du Marché aux Cochons de Lait and Place Benjamin Zix.

 

Maison des tanneurs.

 

In addition to the cathedral, Strasbourg houses several other medieval churches that have survived the many wars and destructions that have plagued the city: the Romanesque Église Saint-Étienne, partly destroyed in 1944 by Allied bombing raids, the part Romanesque, part Gothic, very large Église Saint-Thomas with its Silbermann organ on which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Albert Schweitzer played,[49] the Gothic Église protestante Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune with its crypt dating back to the seventh century and its cloister partly from the eleventh century, the Gothic Église Saint-Guillaume with its fine early-Renaissance stained glass and furniture, the Gothic Église Saint-Jean, the part Gothic, part Art Nouveau Église Sainte-Madeleine, etc. The Neo-Gothic church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Catholique (there is also an adjacent church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Protestant) serves as a shrine for several 15th-century wood worked and painted altars coming from other, now destroyed churches and installed there for public display. Among the numerous secular medieval buildings, the monumental Ancienne Douane (old custom-house) stands out.

 

The German Renaissance has bequeathed the city some noteworthy buildings (especially the current Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie, former town hall, on Place Gutenberg), as did the French Baroque and Classicism with several hôtels particuliers (i.e. palaces), among which the Palais Rohan (1742, now housing three museums) is the most spectacular. Other buildings of its kind are the "Hôtel de Hanau" (1736, now the city hall), the Hôtel de Klinglin (1736, now residence of the préfet), the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts (1755, now residence of the military governor), the Hôtel d'Andlau-Klinglin (1725, now seat of the administration of the Port autonome de Strasbourg) etc. The largest baroque building of Strasbourg though is the 150 m (490 ft) long 1720s main building of the Hôpital civil. As for French Neo-classicism, it is the Opera House on Place Broglie that most prestigiously represents this style.

 

Strasbourg also offers high-class eclecticist buildings in its very extended German district, the Neustadt, being the main memory of Wilhelmian architecture since most of the major cities in Germany proper suffered intensive damage during World War II. Streets, boulevards and avenues are homogeneous, surprisingly high (up to seven stories) and broad examples of German urban lay-out and of this architectural style that summons and mixes up five centuries of European architecture as well as Neo-Egyptian, Neo-Greek and Neo-Babylonian styles. The former imperial palace Palais du Rhin, the most political and thus heavily criticized of all German Strasbourg buildings epitomizes the grand scale and stylistic sturdiness of this period. But the two most handsome and ornate buildings of these times are the École internationale des Pontonniers (the former Höhere Mädchenschule, girls college) with its towers, turrets and multiple round and square angles[50] and the École des Arts décoratifs with its lavishly ornate façade of painted bricks, woodwork and majolica.[51]

 

Notable streets of the German district include: Avenue de la Forêt Noire, Avenue des Vosges, Avenue d'Alsace, Avenue de la Marseillaise, Avenue de la Liberté, Boulevard de la Victoire, Rue Sellénick, Rue du Général de Castelnau, Rue du Maréchal Foch, and Rue du Maréchal Joffre. Notable squares of the German district include: Place de la République, Place de l'Université, Place Brant, and Place Arnold

 

As for modern and contemporary architecture, Strasbourg possesses some fine Art Nouveau buildings (such as the huge Palais des Fêtes and houses and villas like Villa Schutzenberger and Hôtel Brion), good examples of post-World War II functional architecture (the Cité Rotterdam, for which Le Corbusier did not succeed in the architectural contest) and, in the very extended Quartier Européen, some spectacular administrative buildings of sometimes utterly large size, among which the European Court of Human Rights building by Richard Rogers is arguably the finest. Other noticeable contemporary buildings are the new Music school Cité de la Musique et de la Danse, the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain and the Hôtel du Département facing it, as well as, in the outskirts, the tramway-station Hoenheim-Nord designed by Zaha Hadid.

  

Place Kléber

The city has many bridges, including the medieval and four-towered Ponts Couverts that, despite their name, are no longer covered. Next to the Ponts Couverts is the Barrage Vauban, a part of Vauban's 17th-century fortifications, that does include a covered bridge. Other bridges are the ornate 19th-century Pont de la Fonderie (1893, stone) and Pont d'Auvergne (1892, iron), as well as architect Marc Mimram's futuristic Passerelle over the Rhine, opened in 2004.

 

The largest square at the centre of the city of Strasbourg is the Place Kléber. Located in the heart of the city's commercial area, it was named after general Jean-Baptiste Kléber, born in Strasbourg in 1753 and assassinated in 1800 in Cairo. In the square is a statue of Kléber, under which is a vault containing his remains. On the north side of the square is the Aubette (Orderly Room), built by Jacques François Blondel, architect of the king, in 1765–1772.

 

Parks

 

The Pavillon Joséphine (rear side) in the Parc de l'Orangerie

 

The Château de Pourtalès (front side) in the park of the same name

 

Strasbourg features a number of prominent parks, of which several are of cultural and historical interest: the Parc de l'Orangerie, laid out as a French garden by André le Nôtre and remodeled as an English garden on behalf of Joséphine de Beauharnais, now displaying noteworthy French gardens, a neo-classical castle and a small zoo; the Parc de la Citadelle, built around impressive remains of the 17th-century fortress erected close to the Rhine by Vauban;[52] the Parc de Pourtalès, laid out in English style around a baroque castle (heavily restored in the 19th century) that now houses a small three-star hotel,[53] and featuring an open-air museum of international contemporary sculpture.[54] The Jardin botanique de l'Université de Strasbourg (botanical garden) was created under the German administration next to the Observatory of Strasbourg, built in 1881, and still owns some greenhouses of those times. The Parc des Contades, although the oldest park of the city, was completely remodeled after World War II. The futuristic Parc des Poteries is an example of European park-conception in the late 1990s. The Jardin des deux Rives, spread over Strasbourg and Kehl on both sides of the Rhine opened in 2004 and is the most extended (60-hectare) park of the agglomeration. The most recent park is Parc du Heyritz (8,7 ha), opened in 2014 along a canal facing the hôpital civil.

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PGE Arena Gdańsk (formerly known as "Baltic Arena")

 

Category: Sport

Location: ul. Pokoleń Lechii Gdańsk 1, Gdańsk, Poland

Built: 2008-2011

Opened: 14 August 2011

Capacity: 43,615

Architect: RKW Rhode Kellermann Wawrowsky

 

PGE Area’s exterior is designed to resemble amber which has long been extracted on the Baltic coast. Stadium hosted 4 matches of Euro 2012 tournament (3 in group stage and 1 quarterfinal).

  

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All Rights Reserved/Wszystkie Prawa Zastrzeżone - Maciek Lulko

  

Avenue d'Italie 18/03/2016 12h26

One of the important streets in the 13ème arrondissement of Paris linking Place d'Italie with Porte d'Italie. In fact part of the good old Route Nationale 7 (N7). Point of view is the corner of the Boulevard Kellermann and Avenue de la Porte d'Italie.

 

Avenue d'Italie

The avenue d'Italie is one of the main communication axe of the 13th arrondissement of Paris. It goes from Place d'Italie to Porte d'Italie, crossing the Rue de Tolbiac. Line 7 of the Paris metro has 4 stations along the avenue. The avenue has a length of 1 294 m and a width of 70 m. It takes its name from the destination of the travellers who used to continue straight after porte d'Italie : it is indeed there that starts Nationale 7, a road linking Paris to the Italian border. The avenue d'Italie is part of the Maison-Blanche district, and separates two very different parts of the 13th arrondissement : the Butte-aux-Cailles district, on one side, and the Chinese district on the other.

Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the avenue only contained a few houses and guinguettes. Prices were cheaper than in Paris, because it was outside of the wall of the Ferme Générale (mur des Fermiers généraux).

The avenue d'Italie got its current name on May 23, 1863, after Haussmann decision to extend Paris limits, in 1860.

[ Source & more Info: Wikipedia - Avenue d'Italie ]

Prof. Dr. Meinhard Schröder (v.l., Universität Passau), Prof. Dr. Dres. h.c. Hans-Jürgen Papier (Präsident des Bundesverfassungsgerichts a.D.), Stephan Thomae, MdB (Stellvertretender Vorsitzender der FDP-Fraktion im Deutschen Bundestag), Dr. Susanne Gaschke (Journalistin, Publizistin, Autorin), Muhterem Aras, MdL (Landtagspräsidentin Baden-Württemberg), Prof. Dr. Horst Dreier (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg), Prof. Dr. Edgar Grande (Zentrum für Zivillgesellschaftsforschung, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung), Prof. Dr. Ursula Münch (Direktorin der Akademie für Politische Bildung), Dr. Gero Kellermann (Akademie für Politische Bildung)

The Hotel Sacher is located in the first District of Vienna after the Vienna State Opera. Famous specialty of the house is the original Sachertorte. The hotel is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World.

History

Anna Maria Sacher

On the grounds of the demolished Kärntnertortheatre, directly opposite the newly opened imperial Court Opera, was built a Maison meuble. The restaurateur Eduard Sacher bought the house modeled on a Renaissance palace and opened in 1876, Hotel de l' Opera with the restaurant. The son of Franz Sacher, the inventor of the Sachertorte, had however already made ​​a name for himself as a restaurateur, and named the house quickly to Hotel Sacher .

He married 1880 the 21- year-old Anna Fuchs, who henceforth cooperated in the hotel and quickly took over the business because of her husband's deteriorating health . Edward died in 1892, and Anna Sacher now ran the hotel as so-called widow operation. Which at that time was an extremely emancipated woman with cigar and her beloved French Bulldog (in Vienna: " Sacher-Bully" ) was always to be found, continued the business with rigor, but also with kindness. So they talked back then a company health insurance for their employees.

From the beginning, the Sacher was one of the best addresses in the city and in 1871 for the wine and delicatessen for kuk Appointed purveyor. This privilege his widow Anna was once again awarded after the death of Eduard Sacher. Before the opera you enjoyed the exquisite cuisine, they met in the legendary private rooms, and high-ranking representatives from politics always used the house for discreet meetings. The exclusive hotel was already a social institution . But then the economically difficult years after the First World War left its mark on the house.

Shortly before her death in 1930, Anna Sacher withdrew from the guide. Only after her death was announced that the hotel was heavily in debt and assets of the former was not much left. In 1934, finally came to bankruptcy.

The lawyer Hans Gürtler, his wife Poldi and the hotelier couple Joseph and Anna Siller acquired the now dilapidated house and renovated it extensively: from the heating system, electrics, running hot and cold water in all rooms has been adapted all the modern needs. From now on, the earned money should always flow back into the house. First time, the Sachertorte not only in their own premises were offered for consumption, but also sold on the street.

The house was again the meeting place for the growing company. But the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 brought this to an abrupt end. Swastika flags flying in front of the hotel now. During the Second World War but the house remained largely spared from damage. Immediately after the liberation of Vienna it was occupied by Soviet troops, the Vienna first district around the hotel but was soon jointly managed by the Allies and thus it came six years into British hands.

1951 got the Siller family and Gürtler their property back. Josef Siller had died in 1949. Again, the hotel had to be extensively renovated. As well as new dining venues emerged at the Sacher. Hans Gürtler also laid the foundation for the art collection of the 19th Century. Anna Siller died in 1962, and the hotel was entirely in the possession of the Gürtler family. In 1967 the company received the National Award and since then the federal coat of arms may be used in commercial transactions. The son Rolf Gürtler took over the business in 1970, but shortly thereafter, in an accident, after which he succeeded his son Peter Gürtler. This took over in 1989, the Austrian Court Hotel in Salzburg. This was later renamed the Hotel Sacher Salzburg. Since his death in 1990 his 1983 divorced woman Elisabeth Gürtler-Mauthner leads the family with their daughter Alexandra.

In 2006 the building, which is composed in its buildings of six town houses, refurbished thermally under the direction of architects Frank & Partners, and the loft conversion, in which a spa area was accommodated, provided while preserving the monument idea with a striking bright aluminum roof.

Offer

The Hotel Sacher at night

As a member of the Hospitality Association of The Leading Hotels of the World, which ensures quality control in five star hospitality sector, the Hotel Sacher is one of the best addresses in Austria. Since the expansion of 2006 also meets the criteria of a Leading Spa.

In the House, the Anna Sacher restaurant, the Red Bar, the Blue Bar, Confiserie, Café Sacher are and the Sacher Eck (coin). The cafe was founded in 2004 awarded the Golden Coffee Bean Jacobs.

Also in the building, but not as a part of the hotel, is the former imperial Court and chamber Supplier Wilhelm Jungmann & Neffe.

Since 1999, the Original Sacher-Torte is produced in a production office in Vienna Simmering, from where it is exported to the whole world. After a decades-long legal battle with the Imperial Sugar Bakery Demel only the dessert made ​​by Sacher may adorn with the title "original". The Sachertorte is imitated by many coffee houses, bakeries and pastry shops.

Rooms of the Hotel Sacher

The Sacher shop in the Hotel Sacher

The famous Sacher Torte

Famous guests

Main entrance of the hotel in the evening

Many prominent guests had the house in the Philharmonikerstraße. Anna Sacher had a photo gallery of her guests in her boudoir. The signatures of all she embroidered herself on a table cloth. Located in the middle of it Emperor Franz Joseph.

Crowned heads, statesmen, diplomats and politicians lodged at the Sacher: Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, John F. Kennedy, Kofi Annan and many more.

Because of the close proximity to the Opera House of course many artists were under the guests: Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Leo Slezak, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Rudolf Nureyev. Music critic Marcel Prawy lived until his death in 2003, even as a permanent guest at the Sacher.

Graham Greene had here the idea for the screenplay of the film The Third Man. A British officer told him about the underground passages of Vienna, whereupon Greene in the bar wrote down the first ideas immediately.

Her role in the Sissi films Romy Schneider owed ​​their similarity with the bust of the Empress, who is at the hotel and was the director Ernst Marischka noticed. During filming, she lived with her mother Magda Schneider at the Sacher.

Invited to an unusual press conference in April 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono to the Sacher. They held one of her legendary "Bagism" actions in their hotel rooms to media representatives (including André Heller, who reported for the Ö3 jukebox), in order to express their ideas of world peace.

Traditionally, all suites are named for operas and composers (eg, La Traviata, Carmen, Idomeneo, The Magic Flute, Madame Butterfly, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Leonard Bernstein, etc.). The new suites on the top floor of the house bearing the names of contemporary operas, such as Lulu and Billy Budd named.

Hotel Sacher in film and on stage

The Hotel Sacher has been immortalized in numerous films and stage plays .

Hotel Sacher, 1939

In the German-speaking area, the hotel was also supported by the TV series Hello - Hotel Sacher ... Portier! popular with Fritz Eckhardt .

Literature

Ernst Hagen: Hotel Sacher. Austria slept in your beds. Zsolnay , Vienna , 1976, ISBN 3-552-02827-7

Ingrid Haslinger: customer - Emperor. The history of the former imperial purveyors. Schroll, Vienna 1996 , ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .

János Kalmár , Mella Waldstein: K.u.K. Purveyors of Vienna. Stocker , Graz 2001, ISBN 3-7020-0935-3 . Pp. 10-15 .

Monika Kellermann : The great Sacher-back book. Pastries, cakes and pastries. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-28-4

Franz Maier- Bruck : The great Sacher Cookbook. The Austrian cuisine. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-27-6

Leo Mazakarini : The Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Grafe and Unzer, Munich, 1977, ISBN 3-7742-5018-9

Emil Seeliger: Hotel Sacher. World history at supper. Publisher Schaffer, Berlin 1942

William Fraenkel: Establishment Eduard Sacher in Vienna: General Construction Journal, Volume 1877 (online at ANNO)

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Sacher

The Hotel Sacher is located in the first District of Vienna after the Vienna State Opera. Famous specialty of the house is the original Sachertorte. The hotel is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World.

History

Anna Maria Sacher

On the grounds of the demolished Kärntnertortheatre, directly opposite the newly opened imperial Court Opera, was built a Maison meuble. The restaurateur Eduard Sacher bought the house modeled on a Renaissance palace and opened in 1876, Hotel de l' Opera with the restaurant. The son of Franz Sacher, the inventor of the Sachertorte, had however already made ​​a name for himself as a restaurateur, and named the house quickly to Hotel Sacher .

He married 1880 the 21- year-old Anna Fuchs, who henceforth cooperated in the hotel and quickly took over the business because of her husband's deteriorating health . Edward died in 1892, and Anna Sacher now ran the hotel as so-called widow operation. Which at that time was an extremely emancipated woman with cigar and her beloved French Bulldog (in Vienna: " Sacher-Bully" ) was always to be found, continued the business with rigor, but also with kindness. So they talked back then a company health insurance for their employees.

From the beginning, the Sacher was one of the best addresses in the city and in 1871 for the wine and delicatessen for kuk Appointed purveyor. This privilege his widow Anna was once again awarded after the death of Eduard Sacher. Before the opera you enjoyed the exquisite cuisine, they met in the legendary private rooms, and high-ranking representatives from politics always used the house for discreet meetings. The exclusive hotel was already a social institution . But then the economically difficult years after the First World War left its mark on the house.

Shortly before her death in 1930, Anna Sacher withdrew from the guide. Only after her death was announced that the hotel was heavily in debt and assets of the former was not much left. In 1934, finally came to bankruptcy.

The lawyer Hans Gürtler, his wife Poldi and the hotelier couple Joseph and Anna Siller acquired the now dilapidated house and renovated it extensively: from the heating system, electrics, running hot and cold water in all rooms has been adapted all the modern needs. From now on, the earned money should always flow back into the house. First time, the Sachertorte not only in their own premises were offered for consumption, but also sold on the street.

The house was again the meeting place for the growing company. But the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 brought this to an abrupt end. Swastika flags flying in front of the hotel now. During the Second World War but the house remained largely spared from damage. Immediately after the liberation of Vienna it was occupied by Soviet troops, the Vienna first district around the hotel but was soon jointly managed by the Allies and thus it came six years into British hands.

1951 got the Siller family and Gürtler their property back. Josef Siller had died in 1949. Again, the hotel had to be extensively renovated. As well as new dining venues emerged at the Sacher. Hans Gürtler also laid the foundation for the art collection of the 19th Century. Anna Siller died in 1962, and the hotel was entirely in the possession of the Gürtler family. In 1967 the company received the National Award and since then the federal coat of arms may be used in commercial transactions. The son Rolf Gürtler took over the business in 1970, but shortly thereafter, in an accident, after which he succeeded his son Peter Gürtler. This took over in 1989, the Austrian Court Hotel in Salzburg. This was later renamed the Hotel Sacher Salzburg. Since his death in 1990 his 1983 divorced woman Elisabeth Gürtler-Mauthner leads the family with their daughter Alexandra.

In 2006 the building, which is composed in its buildings of six town houses, refurbished thermally under the direction of architects Frank & Partners, and the loft conversion, in which a spa area was accommodated, provided while preserving the monument idea with a striking bright aluminum roof.

Offer

The Hotel Sacher at night

As a member of the Hospitality Association of The Leading Hotels of the World, which ensures quality control in five star hospitality sector, the Hotel Sacher is one of the best addresses in Austria. Since the expansion of 2006 also meets the criteria of a Leading Spa.

In the House, the Anna Sacher restaurant, the Red Bar, the Blue Bar, Confiserie, Café Sacher are and the Sacher Eck (coin). The cafe was founded in 2004 awarded the Golden Coffee Bean Jacobs.

Also in the building, but not as a part of the hotel, is the former imperial Court and chamber Supplier Wilhelm Jungmann & Neffe.

Since 1999, the Original Sacher-Torte is produced in a production office in Vienna Simmering, from where it is exported to the whole world. After a decades-long legal battle with the Imperial Sugar Bakery Demel only the dessert made ​​by Sacher may adorn with the title "original". The Sachertorte is imitated by many coffee houses, bakeries and pastry shops.

Rooms of the Hotel Sacher

The Sacher shop in the Hotel Sacher

The famous Sacher Torte

Famous guests

Main entrance of the hotel in the evening

Many prominent guests had the house in the Philharmonikerstraße. Anna Sacher had a photo gallery of her guests in her boudoir. The signatures of all she embroidered herself on a table cloth. Located in the middle of it Emperor Franz Joseph.

Crowned heads, statesmen, diplomats and politicians lodged at the Sacher: Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, John F. Kennedy, Kofi Annan and many more.

Because of the close proximity to the Opera House of course many artists were under the guests: Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Leo Slezak, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Rudolf Nureyev. Music critic Marcel Prawy lived until his death in 2003, even as a permanent guest at the Sacher.

Graham Greene had here the idea for the screenplay of the film The Third Man. A British officer told him about the underground passages of Vienna, whereupon Greene in the bar wrote down the first ideas immediately.

Her role in the Sissi films Romy Schneider owed ​​their similarity with the bust of the Empress, who is at the hotel and was the director Ernst Marischka noticed. During filming, she lived with her mother Magda Schneider at the Sacher.

Invited to an unusual press conference in April 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono to the Sacher. They held one of her legendary "Bagism" actions in their hotel rooms to media representatives (including André Heller, who reported for the Ö3 jukebox), in order to express their ideas of world peace.

Traditionally, all suites are named for operas and composers (eg, La Traviata, Carmen, Idomeneo, The Magic Flute, Madame Butterfly, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Leonard Bernstein, etc.). The new suites on the top floor of the house bearing the names of contemporary operas, such as Lulu and Billy Budd named.

Hotel Sacher in film and on stage

The Hotel Sacher has been immortalized in numerous films and stage plays .

Hotel Sacher, 1939

In the German-speaking area, the hotel was also supported by the TV series Hello - Hotel Sacher ... Portier! popular with Fritz Eckhardt .

Literature

Ernst Hagen: Hotel Sacher. Austria slept in your beds. Zsolnay , Vienna , 1976, ISBN 3-552-02827-7

Ingrid Haslinger: customer - Emperor. The history of the former imperial purveyors. Schroll, Vienna 1996 , ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .

János Kalmár , Mella Waldstein: K.u.K. Purveyors of Vienna. Stocker , Graz 2001, ISBN 3-7020-0935-3 . Pp. 10-15 .

Monika Kellermann : The great Sacher-back book. Pastries, cakes and pastries. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-28-4

Franz Maier- Bruck : The great Sacher Cookbook. The Austrian cuisine. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-27-6

Leo Mazakarini : The Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Grafe and Unzer, Munich, 1977, ISBN 3-7742-5018-9

Emil Seeliger: Hotel Sacher. World history at supper. Publisher Schaffer, Berlin 1942

William Fraenkel: Establishment Eduard Sacher in Vienna: General Construction Journal, Volume 1877 (online at ANNO)

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Sacher

The Hotel Sacher is located in the first District of Vienna after the Vienna State Opera. Famous specialty of the house is the original Sachertorte. The hotel is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World.

History

Anna Maria Sacher

On the grounds of the demolished Kärntnertortheatre, directly opposite the newly opened imperial Court Opera, was built a Maison meuble. The restaurateur Eduard Sacher bought the house modeled on a Renaissance palace and opened in 1876, Hotel de l' Opera with the restaurant. The son of Franz Sacher, the inventor of the Sachertorte, had however already made ​​a name for himself as a restaurateur, and named the house quickly to Hotel Sacher .

He married 1880 the 21- year-old Anna Fuchs, who henceforth cooperated in the hotel and quickly took over the business because of her husband's deteriorating health . Edward died in 1892, and Anna Sacher now ran the hotel as so-called widow operation. Which at that time was an extremely emancipated woman with cigar and her beloved French Bulldog (in Vienna: " Sacher-Bully" ) was always to be found, continued the business with rigor, but also with kindness. So they talked back then a company health insurance for their employees.

From the beginning, the Sacher was one of the best addresses in the city and in 1871 for the wine and delicatessen for kuk Appointed purveyor. This privilege his widow Anna was once again awarded after the death of Eduard Sacher. Before the opera you enjoyed the exquisite cuisine, they met in the legendary private rooms, and high-ranking representatives from politics always used the house for discreet meetings. The exclusive hotel was already a social institution . But then the economically difficult years after the First World War left its mark on the house.

Shortly before her death in 1930, Anna Sacher withdrew from the guide. Only after her death was announced that the hotel was heavily in debt and assets of the former was not much left. In 1934, finally came to bankruptcy.

The lawyer Hans Gürtler, his wife Poldi and the hotelier couple Joseph and Anna Siller acquired the now dilapidated house and renovated it extensively: from the heating system, electrics, running hot and cold water in all rooms has been adapted all the modern needs. From now on, the earned money should always flow back into the house. First time, the Sachertorte not only in their own premises were offered for consumption, but also sold on the street.

The house was again the meeting place for the growing company. But the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 brought this to an abrupt end. Swastika flags flying in front of the hotel now. During the Second World War but the house remained largely spared from damage. Immediately after the liberation of Vienna it was occupied by Soviet troops, the Vienna first district around the hotel but was soon jointly managed by the Allies and thus it came six years into British hands.

1951 got the Siller family and Gürtler their property back. Josef Siller had died in 1949. Again, the hotel had to be extensively renovated. As well as new dining venues emerged at the Sacher. Hans Gürtler also laid the foundation for the art collection of the 19th Century. Anna Siller died in 1962, and the hotel was entirely in the possession of the Gürtler family. In 1967 the company received the National Award and since then the federal coat of arms may be used in commercial transactions. The son Rolf Gürtler took over the business in 1970, but shortly thereafter, in an accident, after which he succeeded his son Peter Gürtler. This took over in 1989, the Austrian Court Hotel in Salzburg. This was later renamed the Hotel Sacher Salzburg. Since his death in 1990 his 1983 divorced woman Elisabeth Gürtler-Mauthner leads the family with their daughter Alexandra.

In 2006 the building, which is composed in its buildings of six town houses, refurbished thermally under the direction of architects Frank & Partners, and the loft conversion, in which a spa area was accommodated, provided while preserving the monument idea with a striking bright aluminum roof.

Offer

The Hotel Sacher at night

As a member of the Hospitality Association of The Leading Hotels of the World, which ensures quality control in five star hospitality sector, the Hotel Sacher is one of the best addresses in Austria. Since the expansion of 2006 also meets the criteria of a Leading Spa.

In the House, the Anna Sacher restaurant, the Red Bar, the Blue Bar, Confiserie, Café Sacher are and the Sacher Eck (coin). The cafe was founded in 2004 awarded the Golden Coffee Bean Jacobs.

Also in the building, but not as a part of the hotel, is the former imperial Court and chamber Supplier Wilhelm Jungmann & Neffe.

Since 1999, the Original Sacher-Torte is produced in a production office in Vienna Simmering, from where it is exported to the whole world. After a decades-long legal battle with the Imperial Sugar Bakery Demel only the dessert made ​​by Sacher may adorn with the title "original". The Sachertorte is imitated by many coffee houses, bakeries and pastry shops.

Rooms of the Hotel Sacher

The Sacher shop in the Hotel Sacher

The famous Sacher Torte

Famous guests

Main entrance of the hotel in the evening

Many prominent guests had the house in the Philharmonikerstraße. Anna Sacher had a photo gallery of her guests in her boudoir. The signatures of all she embroidered herself on a table cloth. Located in the middle of it Emperor Franz Joseph.

Crowned heads, statesmen, diplomats and politicians lodged at the Sacher: Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, John F. Kennedy, Kofi Annan and many more.

Because of the close proximity to the Opera House of course many artists were under the guests: Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Leo Slezak, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Rudolf Nureyev. Music critic Marcel Prawy lived until his death in 2003, even as a permanent guest at the Sacher.

Graham Greene had here the idea for the screenplay of the film The Third Man. A British officer told him about the underground passages of Vienna, whereupon Greene in the bar wrote down the first ideas immediately.

Her role in the Sissi films Romy Schneider owed ​​their similarity with the bust of the Empress, who is at the hotel and was the director Ernst Marischka noticed. During filming, she lived with her mother Magda Schneider at the Sacher.

Invited to an unusual press conference in April 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono to the Sacher. They held one of her legendary "Bagism" actions in their hotel rooms to media representatives (including André Heller, who reported for the Ö3 jukebox), in order to express their ideas of world peace.

Traditionally, all suites are named for operas and composers (eg, La Traviata, Carmen, Idomeneo, The Magic Flute, Madame Butterfly, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Leonard Bernstein, etc.). The new suites on the top floor of the house bearing the names of contemporary operas, such as Lulu and Billy Budd named.

Hotel Sacher in film and on stage

The Hotel Sacher has been immortalized in numerous films and stage plays .

Hotel Sacher, 1939

In the German-speaking area, the hotel was also supported by the TV series Hello - Hotel Sacher ... Portier! popular with Fritz Eckhardt .

Literature

Ernst Hagen: Hotel Sacher. Austria slept in your beds. Zsolnay , Vienna , 1976, ISBN 3-552-02827-7

Ingrid Haslinger: customer - Emperor. The history of the former imperial purveyors. Schroll, Vienna 1996 , ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .

János Kalmár , Mella Waldstein: K.u.K. Purveyors of Vienna. Stocker , Graz 2001, ISBN 3-7020-0935-3 . Pp. 10-15 .

Monika Kellermann : The great Sacher-back book. Pastries, cakes and pastries. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-28-4

Franz Maier- Bruck : The great Sacher Cookbook. The Austrian cuisine. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-27-6

Leo Mazakarini : The Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Grafe and Unzer, Munich, 1977, ISBN 3-7742-5018-9

Emil Seeliger: Hotel Sacher. World history at supper. Publisher Schaffer, Berlin 1942

William Fraenkel: Establishment Eduard Sacher in Vienna: General Construction Journal, Volume 1877 (online at ANNO)

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Sacher

In Frame: Lisa Kellermann

Makeup Artist: Steffi Hausberger

Lingerie: Körbchen Wien

(c) Michael Wittig 2017

michael-wittig.com

 

#lingerie #fashion #beauty #editorial #portrait #indoor #availablelight #luvetlux #michaelwittig

The Hotel Sacher is located in the first District of Vienna after the Vienna State Opera. Famous specialty of the house is the original Sachertorte. The hotel is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World.

History

Anna Maria Sacher

On the grounds of the demolished Kärntnertortheatre, directly opposite the newly opened imperial Court Opera, was built a Maison meuble. The restaurateur Eduard Sacher bought the house modeled on a Renaissance palace and opened in 1876, Hotel de l' Opera with the restaurant. The son of Franz Sacher, the inventor of the Sachertorte, had however already made ​​a name for himself as a restaurateur, and named the house quickly to Hotel Sacher .

He married 1880 the 21- year-old Anna Fuchs, who henceforth cooperated in the hotel and quickly took over the business because of her husband's deteriorating health . Edward died in 1892, and Anna Sacher now ran the hotel as so-called widow operation. Which at that time was an extremely emancipated woman with cigar and her beloved French Bulldog (in Vienna: " Sacher-Bully" ) was always to be found, continued the business with rigor, but also with kindness. So they talked back then a company health insurance for their employees.

From the beginning, the Sacher was one of the best addresses in the city and in 1871 for the wine and delicatessen for kuk Appointed purveyor. This privilege his widow Anna was once again awarded after the death of Eduard Sacher. Before the opera you enjoyed the exquisite cuisine, they met in the legendary private rooms, and high-ranking representatives from politics always used the house for discreet meetings. The exclusive hotel was already a social institution . But then the economically difficult years after the First World War left its mark on the house.

Shortly before her death in 1930, Anna Sacher withdrew from the guide. Only after her death was announced that the hotel was heavily in debt and assets of the former was not much left. In 1934, finally came to bankruptcy.

The lawyer Hans Gürtler, his wife Poldi and the hotelier couple Joseph and Anna Siller acquired the now dilapidated house and renovated it extensively: from the heating system, electrics, running hot and cold water in all rooms has been adapted all the modern needs. From now on, the earned money should always flow back into the house. First time, the Sachertorte not only in their own premises were offered for consumption, but also sold on the street.

The house was again the meeting place for the growing company. But the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 brought this to an abrupt end. Swastika flags flying in front of the hotel now. During the Second World War but the house remained largely spared from damage. Immediately after the liberation of Vienna it was occupied by Soviet troops, the Vienna first district around the hotel but was soon jointly managed by the Allies and thus it came six years into British hands.

1951 got the Siller family and Gürtler their property back. Josef Siller had died in 1949. Again, the hotel had to be extensively renovated. As well as new dining venues emerged at the Sacher. Hans Gürtler also laid the foundation for the art collection of the 19th Century. Anna Siller died in 1962, and the hotel was entirely in the possession of the Gürtler family. In 1967 the company received the National Award and since then the federal coat of arms may be used in commercial transactions. The son Rolf Gürtler took over the business in 1970, but shortly thereafter, in an accident, after which he succeeded his son Peter Gürtler. This took over in 1989, the Austrian Court Hotel in Salzburg. This was later renamed the Hotel Sacher Salzburg. Since his death in 1990 his 1983 divorced woman Elisabeth Gürtler-Mauthner leads the family with their daughter Alexandra.

In 2006 the building, which is composed in its buildings of six town houses, refurbished thermally under the direction of architects Frank & Partners, and the loft conversion, in which a spa area was accommodated, provided while preserving the monument idea with a striking bright aluminum roof.

Offer

The Hotel Sacher at night

As a member of the Hospitality Association of The Leading Hotels of the World, which ensures quality control in five star hospitality sector, the Hotel Sacher is one of the best addresses in Austria. Since the expansion of 2006 also meets the criteria of a Leading Spa.

In the House, the Anna Sacher restaurant, the Red Bar, the Blue Bar, Confiserie, Café Sacher are and the Sacher Eck (coin). The cafe was founded in 2004 awarded the Golden Coffee Bean Jacobs.

Also in the building, but not as a part of the hotel, is the former imperial Court and chamber Supplier Wilhelm Jungmann & Neffe.

Since 1999, the Original Sacher-Torte is produced in a production office in Vienna Simmering, from where it is exported to the whole world. After a decades-long legal battle with the Imperial Sugar Bakery Demel only the dessert made ​​by Sacher may adorn with the title "original". The Sachertorte is imitated by many coffee houses, bakeries and pastry shops.

Rooms of the Hotel Sacher

The Sacher shop in the Hotel Sacher

The famous Sacher Torte

Famous guests

Main entrance of the hotel in the evening

Many prominent guests had the house in the Philharmonikerstraße. Anna Sacher had a photo gallery of her guests in her boudoir. The signatures of all she embroidered herself on a table cloth. Located in the middle of it Emperor Franz Joseph.

Crowned heads, statesmen, diplomats and politicians lodged at the Sacher: Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, John F. Kennedy, Kofi Annan and many more.

Because of the close proximity to the Opera House of course many artists were under the guests: Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Leo Slezak, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Rudolf Nureyev. Music critic Marcel Prawy lived until his death in 2003, even as a permanent guest at the Sacher.

Graham Greene had here the idea for the screenplay of the film The Third Man. A British officer told him about the underground passages of Vienna, whereupon Greene in the bar wrote down the first ideas immediately.

Her role in the Sissi films Romy Schneider owed ​​their similarity with the bust of the Empress, who is at the hotel and was the director Ernst Marischka noticed. During filming, she lived with her mother Magda Schneider at the Sacher.

Invited to an unusual press conference in April 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono to the Sacher. They held one of her legendary "Bagism" actions in their hotel rooms to media representatives (including André Heller, who reported for the Ö3 jukebox), in order to express their ideas of world peace.

Traditionally, all suites are named for operas and composers (eg, La Traviata, Carmen, Idomeneo, The Magic Flute, Madame Butterfly, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Leonard Bernstein, etc.). The new suites on the top floor of the house bearing the names of contemporary operas, such as Lulu and Billy Budd named.

Hotel Sacher in film and on stage

The Hotel Sacher has been immortalized in numerous films and stage plays .

Hotel Sacher, 1939

In the German-speaking area, the hotel was also supported by the TV series Hello - Hotel Sacher ... Portier! popular with Fritz Eckhardt .

Literature

Ernst Hagen: Hotel Sacher. Austria slept in your beds. Zsolnay , Vienna , 1976, ISBN 3-552-02827-7

Ingrid Haslinger: customer - Emperor. The history of the former imperial purveyors. Schroll, Vienna 1996 , ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .

János Kalmár , Mella Waldstein: K.u.K. Purveyors of Vienna. Stocker , Graz 2001, ISBN 3-7020-0935-3 . Pp. 10-15 .

Monika Kellermann : The great Sacher-back book. Pastries, cakes and pastries. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-28-4

Franz Maier- Bruck : The great Sacher Cookbook. The Austrian cuisine. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-27-6

Leo Mazakarini : The Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Grafe and Unzer, Munich, 1977, ISBN 3-7742-5018-9

Emil Seeliger: Hotel Sacher. World history at supper. Publisher Schaffer, Berlin 1942

William Fraenkel: Establishment Eduard Sacher in Vienna: General Construction Journal, Volume 1877 (online at ANNO)

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Sacher

"Hey Mutt, if I catch you in the pool, I will duck you"

 

"Watch this, here goes an Annette Kellermann"

 

"Look out below"

 

Ah! Now I see the point"

 

"I learned this stroke in the Erie Canal"

 

"They call it "Hill" but it looks like a mountain"

 

"For the love of Mike, Jeff, use discretion"

 

"Oh why did I ever join the Marines"

 

"Gee the water is colder than Whalees beer"

 

From the Walter F. Kromp Collection (COLL/2637) at the Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division

 

OFFICIAL USMC PHOTOGRAPH

 

© Mathias Kellermann 2012 - This work is protected under international copyright laws and agreements. No part of this photostream may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system (except Flickr Expo system and Faves) , or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without my prior written permission.

 

L'exploitation et la reproduction à des fins commerciales ou non commerciales d'une oeuvre sans autorisation ecrite de son auteur constitue un acte de contrefaçon pénalement sanctionné au titre des articles L.122-4, L335-2 et L335-3 du CPI.

 

Click on the image to see with black frame.

 

More Description in French and English on : www.flickr.com/photos/matkeller-as-titus1st/collections/7...

 

My Best ☆ FAVES by you, on : www.flickr.com/photos/matkeller-as-titus1st/sets/72157625...

  

Thank you all for your comments, invitations and support :)

© Mathias Kellermann 2012 - This work is protected under international copyright laws and agreements. No part of this photostream may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system (except Flickr Expo system and Faves) , or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without my prior written permission.

 

L'exploitation et la reproduction à des fins commerciales ou non commerciales d'une oeuvre sans autorisation ecrite de son auteur constitue un acte de contrefaçon pénalement sanctionné au titre des articles L.122-4, L335-2 et L335-3 du CPI.

 

Click on the image to see with black frame.

 

More Description in French and English on : www.flickr.com/photos/matkeller-as-titus1st/collections/7...

 

My Best ☆ FAVES by you, on : www.flickr.com/photos/matkeller-as-titus1st/sets/72157625...

  

Thank you all for your comments, invitations and support :)

4529 R 318. - STRASBOURG. - Place Broglie - La Mairie et le Théâtre Edit. Ch. Bergeret, 11, Marché-Neuf, Strasbourg

----------------

wiki:

La place Broglie est une place située dans le centre historique de Strasbourg.

 

Les Strasbourgeois ont pris l'habitude de prononcer cette place Broglie (« brou-gli » ou « bro-gli »), bien que le nom « Broglie » se prononce [bʁœj] « breuil », selon le prononcé français traditionnel de cette appellation patronymique d'origine italienne.

 

Ancienne place du Marché-aux-Chevaux, appelée « Roosmarkt »1 de Ross, le cheval en dialecte, elle est l'une des principales places de la ville. Située sur la Grande Île, elle se trouve entre la place Kléber, place centrale de la ville, et la place de la République dans la Neustadt. Elle a été nommée en l'honneur du maréchal François-Marie de Broglie, qui la remodela en 1740 lorsqu'il était gouverneur de Strasbourg. Elle est bordée de beaux hôtels particuliers du XVIIIe siècle et flanquée de trois rangées de platanes, deux jets d'eau se trouvent devant l'Hôtel de Ville. Durant la période de Noël, c'est sur cette place que se tient le Christkindelsmärik, le principal marché de Noël strasbourgeois.

 

On y trouve également plusieurs statues et monuments :

 

le monument du Maréchal Leclerc (statue en bronze et obélisque en en grès des Vosges), qui commémore le serment de Koufra et la libération de Strasbourg ;

la statue du Maréchal Kellermann ;

le monument de la Marseillaise.

 

L'hymne national français, la Marseillaise, a retenti pour la première fois en avril 1792 sur cette place.

 

En effet, la Marseillaise écrite par Rouget de Lisle à Strasbourg dans la nuit du 25 au 26 avril 1792 à la suite de la déclaration de guerre à l'empereur d'Autriche fut présentée le lendemain au maire de Strasbourg, le baron Philippe-Frédéric de Dietrich (qui avait demandé à Rouget de Lisle en garnison à Strasbourg d'écrire un chant de guerre), à son domicile situé place Broglie. Cette scène a été immortalisée. On trouve le tableau au musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg. Elle y retentit pour la première fois et retentit publiquement pour la première fois par la suite sur la place Broglie, devant l'Hôtel de Ville de Strasbourg.

 

Lors de l'annexion de l'Alsace-Lorraine, la fontaine du Vater Rhein est installée au bout de la place devant l'Opéra. Très décriée par les Strasbourgeois, elle sera démontée lorsque la ville redeviendra française et offerte à la ville de Munich en échange de la fontaine du Meiselocker (qui se trouve aujourd'hui place Saint-Étienne).

 

Un kiosque à musique a été construit en 1882 au centre de la place. Il a été déplacé, en 1900, au Parc du Contades ou il se trouve toujours aujourd'hui.

 

Entre 1940 et 1945, lors de la seconde annexion allemande, elle porte le nom d’Adolf-Hitler Platz (place Adolf Hitler).

 

C'est également depuis l'Hôtel de Ville situé place Broglie que, le 7 avril 1947, le général de Gaulle a prononcé devant environ cinquante mille personnes le discours de Strasbourg, un des discours fondateurs de la République, lequel marque également la création du Rassemblement du peuple français (RPF).

 

Le monument du Maréchal Leclerc, réalisé par Georges Saupique, est inauguré le 23 novembre 1951, jour anniversaire de la libération de Strasbourg en 1944. Il fait face au palais du Gouverneur militaire et au Cercle Mess de garnison.

  

------------------------

www.cparama.com/forum/post109094.html#p109094

-------------------------------------------

CKO 439 tinplate Mercedes-Benz turntable escape made in Western Germany, with friction motor.

Here it is with its box: www.flickr.com/photos/adrianz-toyz/46372909371

This is an original, but it was later reproduced by Kovap in the Czech Republic – this should link to photo of the two together: www.flickr.com/photos/adrianz-toyz/45650002804/in/album-7...

The Hotel Sacher is located in the first District of Vienna after the Vienna State Opera. Famous specialty of the house is the original Sachertorte. The hotel is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World.

History

Anna Maria Sacher

On the grounds of the demolished Kärntnertortheatre, directly opposite the newly opened imperial Court Opera, was built a Maison meuble. The restaurateur Eduard Sacher bought the house modeled on a Renaissance palace and opened in 1876, Hotel de l' Opera with the restaurant. The son of Franz Sacher, the inventor of the Sachertorte, had however already made ​​a name for himself as a restaurateur, and named the house quickly to Hotel Sacher .

He married 1880 the 21- year-old Anna Fuchs, who henceforth cooperated in the hotel and quickly took over the business because of her husband's deteriorating health . Edward died in 1892, and Anna Sacher now ran the hotel as so-called widow operation. Which at that time was an extremely emancipated woman with cigar and her beloved French Bulldog (in Vienna: " Sacher-Bully" ) was always to be found, continued the business with rigor, but also with kindness. So they talked back then a company health insurance for their employees.

From the beginning, the Sacher was one of the best addresses in the city and in 1871 for the wine and delicatessen for kuk Appointed purveyor. This privilege his widow Anna was once again awarded after the death of Eduard Sacher. Before the opera you enjoyed the exquisite cuisine, they met in the legendary private rooms, and high-ranking representatives from politics always used the house for discreet meetings. The exclusive hotel was already a social institution . But then the economically difficult years after the First World War left its mark on the house.

Shortly before her death in 1930, Anna Sacher withdrew from the guide. Only after her death was announced that the hotel was heavily in debt and assets of the former was not much left. In 1934, finally came to bankruptcy.

The lawyer Hans Gürtler, his wife Poldi and the hotelier couple Joseph and Anna Siller acquired the now dilapidated house and renovated it extensively: from the heating system, electrics, running hot and cold water in all rooms has been adapted all the modern needs. From now on, the earned money should always flow back into the house. First time, the Sachertorte not only in their own premises were offered for consumption, but also sold on the street.

The house was again the meeting place for the growing company. But the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 brought this to an abrupt end. Swastika flags flying in front of the hotel now. During the Second World War but the house remained largely spared from damage. Immediately after the liberation of Vienna it was occupied by Soviet troops, the Vienna first district around the hotel but was soon jointly managed by the Allies and thus it came six years into British hands.

1951 got the Siller family and Gürtler their property back. Josef Siller had died in 1949. Again, the hotel had to be extensively renovated. As well as new dining venues emerged at the Sacher. Hans Gürtler also laid the foundation for the art collection of the 19th Century. Anna Siller died in 1962, and the hotel was entirely in the possession of the Gürtler family. In 1967 the company received the National Award and since then the federal coat of arms may be used in commercial transactions. The son Rolf Gürtler took over the business in 1970, but shortly thereafter, in an accident, after which he succeeded his son Peter Gürtler. This took over in 1989, the Austrian Court Hotel in Salzburg. This was later renamed the Hotel Sacher Salzburg. Since his death in 1990 his 1983 divorced woman Elisabeth Gürtler-Mauthner leads the family with their daughter Alexandra.

In 2006 the building, which is composed in its buildings of six town houses, refurbished thermally under the direction of architects Frank & Partners, and the loft conversion, in which a spa area was accommodated, provided while preserving the monument idea with a striking bright aluminum roof.

Offer

The Hotel Sacher at night

As a member of the Hospitality Association of The Leading Hotels of the World, which ensures quality control in five star hospitality sector, the Hotel Sacher is one of the best addresses in Austria. Since the expansion of 2006 also meets the criteria of a Leading Spa.

In the House, the Anna Sacher restaurant, the Red Bar, the Blue Bar, Confiserie, Café Sacher are and the Sacher Eck (coin). The cafe was founded in 2004 awarded the Golden Coffee Bean Jacobs.

Also in the building, but not as a part of the hotel, is the former imperial Court and chamber Supplier Wilhelm Jungmann & Neffe.

Since 1999, the Original Sacher-Torte is produced in a production office in Vienna Simmering, from where it is exported to the whole world. After a decades-long legal battle with the Imperial Sugar Bakery Demel only the dessert made ​​by Sacher may adorn with the title "original". The Sachertorte is imitated by many coffee houses, bakeries and pastry shops.

Rooms of the Hotel Sacher

The Sacher shop in the Hotel Sacher

The famous Sacher Torte

Famous guests

Main entrance of the hotel in the evening

Many prominent guests had the house in the Philharmonikerstraße. Anna Sacher had a photo gallery of her guests in her boudoir. The signatures of all she embroidered herself on a table cloth. Located in the middle of it Emperor Franz Joseph.

Crowned heads, statesmen, diplomats and politicians lodged at the Sacher: Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, John F. Kennedy, Kofi Annan and many more.

Because of the close proximity to the Opera House of course many artists were under the guests: Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Leo Slezak, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Rudolf Nureyev. Music critic Marcel Prawy lived until his death in 2003, even as a permanent guest at the Sacher.

Graham Greene had here the idea for the screenplay of the film The Third Man. A British officer told him about the underground passages of Vienna, whereupon Greene in the bar wrote down the first ideas immediately.

Her role in the Sissi films Romy Schneider owed ​​their similarity with the bust of the Empress, who is at the hotel and was the director Ernst Marischka noticed. During filming, she lived with her mother Magda Schneider at the Sacher.

Invited to an unusual press conference in April 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono to the Sacher. They held one of her legendary "Bagism" actions in their hotel rooms to media representatives (including André Heller, who reported for the Ö3 jukebox), in order to express their ideas of world peace.

Traditionally, all suites are named for operas and composers (eg, La Traviata, Carmen, Idomeneo, The Magic Flute, Madame Butterfly, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Leonard Bernstein, etc.). The new suites on the top floor of the house bearing the names of contemporary operas, such as Lulu and Billy Budd named.

Hotel Sacher in film and on stage

The Hotel Sacher has been immortalized in numerous films and stage plays .

Hotel Sacher, 1939

In the German-speaking area, the hotel was also supported by the TV series Hello - Hotel Sacher ... Portier! popular with Fritz Eckhardt .

Literature

Ernst Hagen: Hotel Sacher. Austria slept in your beds. Zsolnay , Vienna , 1976, ISBN 3-552-02827-7

Ingrid Haslinger: customer - Emperor. The history of the former imperial purveyors. Schroll, Vienna 1996 , ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .

János Kalmár , Mella Waldstein: K.u.K. Purveyors of Vienna. Stocker , Graz 2001, ISBN 3-7020-0935-3 . Pp. 10-15 .

Monika Kellermann : The great Sacher-back book. Pastries, cakes and pastries. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-28-4

Franz Maier- Bruck : The great Sacher Cookbook. The Austrian cuisine. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-27-6

Leo Mazakarini : The Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Grafe and Unzer, Munich, 1977, ISBN 3-7742-5018-9

Emil Seeliger: Hotel Sacher. World history at supper. Publisher Schaffer, Berlin 1942

William Fraenkel: Establishment Eduard Sacher in Vienna: General Construction Journal, Volume 1877 (online at ANNO)

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Sacher

The Hotel Sacher is located in the first District of Vienna after the Vienna State Opera. Famous specialty of the house is the original Sachertorte. The hotel is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World.

History

Anna Maria Sacher

On the grounds of the demolished Kärntnertortheatre, directly opposite the newly opened imperial Court Opera, was built a Maison meuble. The restaurateur Eduard Sacher bought the house modeled on a Renaissance palace and opened in 1876, Hotel de l' Opera with the restaurant. The son of Franz Sacher, the inventor of the Sachertorte, had however already made ​​a name for himself as a restaurateur, and named the house quickly to Hotel Sacher .

He married 1880 the 21- year-old Anna Fuchs, who henceforth cooperated in the hotel and quickly took over the business because of her husband's deteriorating health . Edward died in 1892, and Anna Sacher now ran the hotel as so-called widow operation. Which at that time was an extremely emancipated woman with cigar and her beloved French Bulldog (in Vienna: " Sacher-Bully" ) was always to be found, continued the business with rigor, but also with kindness. So they talked back then a company health insurance for their employees.

From the beginning, the Sacher was one of the best addresses in the city and in 1871 for the wine and delicatessen for kuk Appointed purveyor. This privilege his widow Anna was once again awarded after the death of Eduard Sacher. Before the opera you enjoyed the exquisite cuisine, they met in the legendary private rooms, and high-ranking representatives from politics always used the house for discreet meetings. The exclusive hotel was already a social institution . But then the economically difficult years after the First World War left its mark on the house.

Shortly before her death in 1930, Anna Sacher withdrew from the guide. Only after her death was announced that the hotel was heavily in debt and assets of the former was not much left. In 1934, finally came to bankruptcy.

The lawyer Hans Gürtler, his wife Poldi and the hotelier couple Joseph and Anna Siller acquired the now dilapidated house and renovated it extensively: from the heating system, electrics, running hot and cold water in all rooms has been adapted all the modern needs. From now on, the earned money should always flow back into the house. First time, the Sachertorte not only in their own premises were offered for consumption, but also sold on the street.

The house was again the meeting place for the growing company. But the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 brought this to an abrupt end. Swastika flags flying in front of the hotel now. During the Second World War but the house remained largely spared from damage. Immediately after the liberation of Vienna it was occupied by Soviet troops, the Vienna first district around the hotel but was soon jointly managed by the Allies and thus it came six years into British hands.

1951 got the Siller family and Gürtler their property back. Josef Siller had died in 1949. Again, the hotel had to be extensively renovated. As well as new dining venues emerged at the Sacher. Hans Gürtler also laid the foundation for the art collection of the 19th Century. Anna Siller died in 1962, and the hotel was entirely in the possession of the Gürtler family. In 1967 the company received the National Award and since then the federal coat of arms may be used in commercial transactions. The son Rolf Gürtler took over the business in 1970, but shortly thereafter, in an accident, after which he succeeded his son Peter Gürtler. This took over in 1989, the Austrian Court Hotel in Salzburg. This was later renamed the Hotel Sacher Salzburg. Since his death in 1990 his 1983 divorced woman Elisabeth Gürtler-Mauthner leads the family with their daughter Alexandra.

In 2006 the building, which is composed in its buildings of six town houses, refurbished thermally under the direction of architects Frank & Partners, and the loft conversion, in which a spa area was accommodated, provided while preserving the monument idea with a striking bright aluminum roof.

Offer

The Hotel Sacher at night

As a member of the Hospitality Association of The Leading Hotels of the World, which ensures quality control in five star hospitality sector, the Hotel Sacher is one of the best addresses in Austria. Since the expansion of 2006 also meets the criteria of a Leading Spa.

In the House, the Anna Sacher restaurant, the Red Bar, the Blue Bar, Confiserie, Café Sacher are and the Sacher Eck (coin). The cafe was founded in 2004 awarded the Golden Coffee Bean Jacobs.

Also in the building, but not as a part of the hotel, is the former imperial Court and chamber Supplier Wilhelm Jungmann & Neffe.

Since 1999, the Original Sacher-Torte is produced in a production office in Vienna Simmering, from where it is exported to the whole world. After a decades-long legal battle with the Imperial Sugar Bakery Demel only the dessert made ​​by Sacher may adorn with the title "original". The Sachertorte is imitated by many coffee houses, bakeries and pastry shops.

Rooms of the Hotel Sacher

The Sacher shop in the Hotel Sacher

The famous Sacher Torte

Famous guests

Main entrance of the hotel in the evening

Many prominent guests had the house in the Philharmonikerstraße. Anna Sacher had a photo gallery of her guests in her boudoir. The signatures of all she embroidered herself on a table cloth. Located in the middle of it Emperor Franz Joseph.

Crowned heads, statesmen, diplomats and politicians lodged at the Sacher: Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, John F. Kennedy, Kofi Annan and many more.

Because of the close proximity to the Opera House of course many artists were under the guests: Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Leo Slezak, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Rudolf Nureyev. Music critic Marcel Prawy lived until his death in 2003, even as a permanent guest at the Sacher.

Graham Greene had here the idea for the screenplay of the film The Third Man. A British officer told him about the underground passages of Vienna, whereupon Greene in the bar wrote down the first ideas immediately.

Her role in the Sissi films Romy Schneider owed ​​their similarity with the bust of the Empress, who is at the hotel and was the director Ernst Marischka noticed. During filming, she lived with her mother Magda Schneider at the Sacher.

Invited to an unusual press conference in April 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono to the Sacher. They held one of her legendary "Bagism" actions in their hotel rooms to media representatives (including André Heller, who reported for the Ö3 jukebox), in order to express their ideas of world peace.

Traditionally, all suites are named for operas and composers (eg, La Traviata, Carmen, Idomeneo, The Magic Flute, Madame Butterfly, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Leonard Bernstein, etc.). The new suites on the top floor of the house bearing the names of contemporary operas, such as Lulu and Billy Budd named.

Hotel Sacher in film and on stage

The Hotel Sacher has been immortalized in numerous films and stage plays .

Hotel Sacher, 1939

In the German-speaking area, the hotel was also supported by the TV series Hello - Hotel Sacher ... Portier! popular with Fritz Eckhardt .

Literature

Ernst Hagen: Hotel Sacher. Austria slept in your beds. Zsolnay , Vienna , 1976, ISBN 3-552-02827-7

Ingrid Haslinger: customer - Emperor. The history of the former imperial purveyors. Schroll, Vienna 1996 , ISBN 3-85202-129-4 .

János Kalmár , Mella Waldstein: K.u.K. Purveyors of Vienna. Stocker , Graz 2001, ISBN 3-7020-0935-3 . Pp. 10-15 .

Monika Kellermann : The great Sacher-back book. Pastries, cakes and pastries. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-28-4

Franz Maier- Bruck : The great Sacher Cookbook. The Austrian cuisine. Seehamer -Verlag, Weyarn 1994, ISBN 3-929626-27-6

Leo Mazakarini : The Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Grafe and Unzer, Munich, 1977, ISBN 3-7742-5018-9

Emil Seeliger: Hotel Sacher. World history at supper. Publisher Schaffer, Berlin 1942

William Fraenkel: Establishment Eduard Sacher in Vienna: General Construction Journal, Volume 1877 (online at ANNO)

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Sacher

CKO tinplate and plastic Mercedes-Benz tipper made in West Germany, and re-issue of the dropside version by Kovap of the Czech Republic.

Kovap did a good job on their re-issues which I understand used the original tooling.

Interestingly the tyres on the original are Continental, whereas on the Kovap version they are Michelin.

One would have thought Kovap would have been patriotic and fitted Barum tyres, although by this time Barum was owned by Continental anyway!

G. Kellermann #370

Germany 1938 - 1948

Wind-up; 14 cm

The passenger in the sidecar shifts to right or left according to the curve made by the motorcycle while it is running its zig-zag course.

Another - more common - version of this toy had no sidecar but a pillion passenger hanging out in the corners. It's a small toy and a bit fragile. Often the passenger is missing. But the litho is very nice and detailed with subtile colours.

Strasbourg (/ˈstræzbɜrɡ/, French pronunciation: ​[stʁaz.buʁ, stʁas.buʁ]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace were historically Alemannic-speaking, hence the city's Germanic name.[5] In 2006, the city proper had 272,975 inhabitants and its urban community 467,375 inhabitants. With 759,868 inhabitants in 2010, Strasbourg's metropolitan area (only the part of the metropolitan area on French territory) is the ninth largest in France. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 884,988 inhabitants in 2008.[6]

 

Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory) and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. The city is also the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights.[7]

 

Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île (Grand Island), was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is immersed in the Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a bridge of unity between France and Germany for centuries, especially through the University of Strasbourg, currently the second largest in France, and the coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture. The largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque, was inaugurated by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls on 27 September 2012.[8]

 

Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road, rail, and river transportation. The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany.

 

Etymology and Names

The city's Gallicized name (Lower Alsatian: Strossburi, [ˈʃd̥rɔːsb̥uri]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is of Germanic origin and means "Town (at the crossing) of roads". The modern Stras- is cognate to the German Straße and English street, all of which are derived from Latin strata ("paved road"), while -bourg is cognate to the German Burg and English borough, all of which are derived from Proto-Germanic *burgz ("hill fort, fortress").

 

Geography

 

Strasbourg seen from Spot Satellite

Strasbourg is situated on the eastern border of France with Germany. This border is formed by the River Rhine, which also forms the eastern border of the modern city, facing across the river to the German town Kehl. The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the River Ill, which here flows parallel to, and roughly 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from, the Rhine. The natural courses of the two rivers eventually join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city.

 

The city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres (433 ft) and 151 metres (495 ft) above sea level, with the upland areas of the Vosges Mountains some 20 km (12 mi) to the west and the Black Forest 25 km (16 mi) to the east. This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north-south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, and major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks.

 

The city is some 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Paris. The mouth of the Rhine lies approximately 450 kilometres (280 mi) to the north, or 650 kilometres (400 mi) as the river flows, whilst the head of navigation in Basel is some 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the south, or 150 kilometres (93 mi) by river.

 

Climate

 

In spite of its position far inland, Strasbourg's climate is classified as Oceanic (Köppen climate classification Cfb), with warm, relatively sunny summers and cold, overcast winters. Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains largely constant throughout the year, totaling 631.4 mm (24.9 in) annually. On average, snow falls 30 days per year.

 

The highest temperature ever recorded was 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave. The lowest temperature ever recorded was −23.4 °C (−10.1 °F) in December 1938.

 

Strasbourg's location in the Rhine valley, sheltered from the dominant winds by the Vosges and Black Forest mountains, results in poor natural ventilation, making Strasbourg one of the most atmospherically polluted cities of France.[10][11] Nonetheless, the progressive disappearance of heavy industry on both banks of the Rhine, as well as effective measures of traffic regulation in and around the city have reduced air pollution.

 

Prehistory

The first traces of human occupation in the environs of Strasbourg go back many thousands of years.[16] Neolithic, bronze age and iron age artifacts have been uncovered by archeological excavations. It was permanently settled by proto-Celts around 1300 BC. Towards the end of the third century BC, it developed into a Celtic township with a market called "Argentorate". Drainage works converted the stilthouses to houses built on dry land.[17]

 

From Romans

The Romans under Nero Claudius Drusus established a military outpost belonging to the Germania Superior Roman province at Strasbourg's current location, and named it Argentoratum. (Hence the town is commonly called Argentina in medieval Latin.[18]) The name "Argentoratum" was first mentioned in 12 BC and the city celebrated its 2,000th birthday in 1988. "Argentorate" as the toponym of the Gaulish settlement preceded it before being Latinized, but it is not known by how long. The Roman camp was destroyed by fire and rebuilt six times between the first and the fifth centuries AD: in 70, 97, 235, 355, in the last quarter of the fourth century, and in the early years of the fifth century. It was under Trajan and after the fire of 97 that Argentoratum received its most extended and fortified shape. From the year 90 on, the Legio VIII Augusta was permanently stationed in the Roman camp of Argentoratum. It then included a cavalry section and covered an area of approximately 20 hectares. Other Roman legions temporarily stationed in Argentoratum were the Legio XIV Gemina and the Legio XXI Rapax, the latter during the reign of Nero.

 

The centre of Argentoratum proper was situated on the Grande Île (Cardo: current Rue du Dôme, Decumanus: current Rue des Hallebardes). The outline of the Roman "castrum" is visible in the street pattern in the Grande Ile. Many Roman artifacts have also been found along the current Route des Romains, the road that led to Argentoratum, in the suburb of Kœnigshoffen. This was where the largest burial places were situated, as well as the densest concentration of civilian dwelling places and commerces next to the camp. Among the most outstanding finds in Kœnigshoffen were (found in 1911–12) the fragments of a grand Mithraeum that had been shattered by early Christians in the fourth century. From the fourth century, Strasbourg was the seat of the Bishopric of Strasbourg (made an Archbishopric in 1988). Archaeological excavations below the current Église Saint-Étienne in 1948 and 1956 unearthed the apse of a church dating back to the late fourth or early fifth century, considered to be the oldest church in Alsace. It is supposed that this was the first seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Strasbourg.

 

The Alemanni fought the Battle of Argentoratum against Rome in 357. They were defeated by Julian, later Emperor of Rome, and their King Chonodomarius was taken prisoner. On 2 January 366, the Alemanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire. Early in the fifth century, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine, conquered, and then settled what is today Alsace and a large part of Switzerland.

 

In the fifth century Strasbourg was occupied successively by Alemanni, Huns, and Franks. In the ninth century it was commonly known as Strazburg in the local language, as documented in 842 by the Oaths of Strasbourg. This trilingual text contains, alongside texts in Latin and Old High German (teudisca lingua), the oldest written variety of Gallo-Romance (lingua romana) clearly distinct from Latin, the ancestor of Old French. The town was also called Stratisburgum or Strateburgus in Latin, from which later came Strossburi in Alsatian and Straßburg in Standard German, and then Strasbourg in French. The Oaths of Strasbourg is considered as marking the birth of the two countries of France and Germany with the division of the Carolingian Empire.[19]

 

A major commercial centre, the town came under the control of the Holy Roman Empire in 923, through the homage paid by the Duke of Lorraine to German King Henry I. The early history of Strasbourg consists of a long conflict between its bishop and its citizens. The citizens emerged victorious after the Battle of Oberhausbergen in 1262, when King Philip of Swabia granted the city the status of an Imperial Free City.

 

Around 1200, Gottfried von Straßburg wrote the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, which is regarded, alongside Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and the Nibelungenlied, as one of great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages.

 

A revolution in 1332 resulted in a broad-based city government with participation of the guilds, and Strasbourg declared itself a free republic. The deadly bubonic plague of 1348 was followed on 14 February 1349 by one of the first and worst pogroms in pre-modern history: over a thousand Jews were publicly burnt to death, with the remainder of the Jewish population being expelled from the city.[20] Until the end of the 18th century, Jews were forbidden to remain in town after 10 pm. The time to leave the city was signalled by a municipal herald blowing the Grüselhorn (see below, Museums, Musée historique);.[21] A special tax, the Pflastergeld (pavement money), was furthermore to be paid for any horse that a Jew would ride or bring into the city while allowed to.[22]

 

Construction on Strasbourg Cathedral began in the twelfth century, and it was completed in 1439 (though, of the towers, only the north tower was built), becoming the World's Tallest Building, surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza. A few years later, Johannes Gutenberg created the first European moveable type printing press in Strasbourg.

 

In July 1518, an incident known as the Dancing Plague of 1518 struck residents of Strasbourg. Around 400 people were afflicted with dancing mania and danced constantly for weeks, most of them eventually dying from heart attack, stroke or exhaustion.

 

In the 1520s during the Protestant Reformation, the city, under the political guidance of Jacob Sturm von Sturmeck and the spiritual guidance of Martin Bucer embraced the religious teachings of Martin Luther. Their adherents established a Gymnasium, headed by Johannes Sturm, made into a University in the following century. The city first followed the Tetrapolitan Confession, and then the Augsburg Confession. Protestant iconoclasm caused much destruction to churches and cloisters, notwithstanding that Luther himself opposed such a practice. Strasbourg was a centre of humanist scholarship and early book-printing in the Holy Roman Empire, and its intellectual and political influence contributed much to the establishment of Protestantism as an accepted denomination in the southwest of Germany. (John Calvin spent several years as a political refugee in the city). The Strasbourg Councillor Sturm and guildmaster Matthias represented the city at the Imperial Diet of Speyer (1529), where their protest led to the schism of the Catholic Church and the evolution of Protestantism. Together with four other free cities, Strasbourg presented the confessio tetrapolitana as its Protestant book of faith at the Imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530, where the slightly different Augsburg Confession was also handed over to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

 

After the reform of the Imperial constitution in the early sixteenth century and the establishment of Imperial Circles, Strasbourg was part of the Upper Rhenish Circle, a corporation of Imperial estates in the southwest of Holy Roman Empire, mainly responsible for maintaining troops, supervising coining, and ensuring public security.

 

After the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, the first printing offices outside the inventor's hometown Mainz were established around 1460 in Strasbourg by pioneers Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein. Subsequently, the first modern newspaper was published in Strasbourg in 1605, when Johann Carolus received the permission by the City of Strasbourg to print and distribute a weekly journal written in German by reporters from several central European cities.

 

From Thirty Years' War to First World War

The Free City of Strasbourg remained neutral during the Thirty Years' War 1618-1648, and retained its status as a Free Imperial City. However, the city was later annexed by Louis XIV of France to extend the borders of his kingdom.

 

Louis' advisors believed that, as long as Strasbourg remained independent, it would endanger the King's newly annexed territories in Alsace, and, that to defend these large rural lands effectively, a garrison had to be placed in towns such as Strasbourg.[23] Indeed, the bridge over the Rhine at Strasbourg had been used repeatedly by Imperial (Holy Roman Empire) forces,[24] and three times during the Franco-Dutch War Strasbourg had served as a gateway for Imperial invasions into Alsace.[25] In September 1681 Louis' forces, though lacking a clear casus belli, surrounded the city with overwhelming force. After some negotiation, Louis marched into the city unopposed on 30 September 1681 and proclaimed its annexation.[26]

 

This annexation was one of the direct causes of the brief and bloody War of the Reunions whose outcome left the French in possession. The French annexation was recognized by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697). The official policy of religious intolerance which drove most Protestants from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was not applied in Strasbourg and in Alsace, because both had a special status as a province à l'instar de l'étranger effectif (a kind of foreign province of the king of France). Strasbourg Cathedral, however, was taken from the Lutherans to be returned to the Catholics as the French authorities tried to promote Catholicism wherever they could (some other historic churches remained in Protestant hands). Its language also remained overwhelmingly German: the German Lutheran university persisted until the French Revolution. Famous students included Goethe and Herder.

  

The Duke of Lorraine and Imperial troops crossing the Rhine at Strasbourg during the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744

During a dinner in Strasbourg organized by Mayor Frédéric de Dietrich on 25 April 1792, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed "La Marseillaise". The same year François Christophe Kellermann, a child of Strasbourg was appointed the head of the Mosel Army. He led his company to victory at the battle of Valmy and saved the young French republic. He was later appointed Duke of Valmy by Napoléon in 1808.

 

During this period Jean-Baptiste Kléber, also born in Strasbourg, led the French army to win several decisive victories. A statue of Kléber now stands in the centre of the city, at Place Kléber, and he is still one of the most famous French officers. He was later appointed Marshal of France by Napoléon.

 

Strasbourg's status as a free city was revoked by the French Revolution. Enragés, most notoriously Eulogius Schneider, ruled the city with an increasingly iron hand. During this time, many churches and monasteries were either destroyed or severely damaged. The cathedral lost hundreds of its statues (later replaced by copies in the 19th century) and in April 1794, there was talk of tearing its spire down, on the grounds that it was against the principle of equality. The tower was saved, however, when in May of the same year citizens of Strasbourg crowned it with a giant tin Phrygian cap. This artifact was later kept in the historical collections of the city until it was destroyed by the Germans in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war.[27]

 

In 1805, 1806 and 1809, Napoléon Bonaparte and his first wife, Joséphine stayed in Strasbourg.[28] In 1810, his second wife Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma spent her first night on French soil in the palace. Another royal guest was King Charles X of France in 1828.[29] In 1836, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte unsuccessfully tried to lead his first Bonapartist coup in Strasbourg.

 

During the Franco-Prussian War and the Siege of Strasbourg, the city was heavily bombarded by the Prussian army. The bombardment of the city was meant to break the morale of the people of Strasbourg.[30] On 24 and 26 August 1870, the Museum of Fine Arts was destroyed by fire, as was the Municipal Library housed in the Gothic former Dominican church, with its unique collection of medieval manuscripts (most famously the Hortus deliciarum), rare Renaissance books, archeological finds and historical artifacts. The gothic cathedral was damaged as well as the medieval church of Temple Neuf, the theatre, the city hall, the court of justice and many houses. At the end of the siege 10,000 inhabitants were left without shelter; over 600 died, including 261 civilians, and 3200 were injured, including 1,100 civilians.[31]

 

In 1871, after the end of the war, the city was annexed to the newly established German Empire as part of the Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen under the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt. As part of Imperial Germany, Strasbourg was rebuilt and developed on a grand and representative scale, such as the Neue Stadt, or "new city" around the present Place de la République. Historian Rodolphe Reuss and Art historian Wilhelm von Bode were in charge of rebuilding the municipal archives, libraries and museums. The University, founded in 1567 and suppressed during the French Revolution as a stronghold of German sentiment,[citation needed] was reopened in 1872 under the name Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität.

  

Strasbourg in the 1890s.

A belt of massive fortifications was established around the city, most of which still stands today, renamed after French generals and generally classified as Monuments historiques; most notably Fort Roon (now Fort Desaix) and Fort Podbielski (now Fort Ducrot) in Mundolsheim, Fort von Moltke (now Fort Rapp) in Reichstett, Fort Bismarck (now Fort Kléber) in Wolfisheim, Fort Kronprinz (now Fort Foch) in Niederhausbergen, Fort Kronprinz von Sachsen (now Fort Joffre) in Holtzheim and Fort Großherzog von Baden (now Fort Frère) in Oberhausbergen.[32]

 

Those forts subsequently served the French army (Fort Podbielski/Ducrot for instance was integrated into the Maginot Line[33]), and were used as POW-camps in 1918 and 1945.

 

Two garrison churches were also erected for the members of the Imperial German army, the Lutheran Église Saint-Paul and the Roman Catholic Église Saint-Maurice.

 

1918 to the present

 

A lost, then restored, symbol of modernity in Strasbourg : a room in the Aubette building designed by Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

 

Following the defeat of the German empire in World War I and the abdication of the German Emperor, some revolutionary insurgents declared Alsace-Lorraine as an independent Republic, without preliminary referendum or vote. On 11 November 1918 (Armistice Day), communist insurgents proclaimed a "soviet government" in Strasbourg, following the example of Kurt Eisner in Munich as well as other German towns. French troops commanded by French general Henri Gouraud entered triumphantly in the city on 22 November. A major street of the city now bears the name of that date (Rue du 22 Novembre) which celebrates the entry of the French in the city.[34][35][36] Viewing the massive cheering crowd gathered under the balcony of Strasbourg's town hall, French President Raymond Poincaré stated that "the plebiscite is done".[37]

 

In 1919, following the Treaty of Versailles, the city was annexed by France in accordance with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" without a referendum. The date of the assignment was retroactively established on Armistice Day. It is doubtful whether a referendum in Strasbourg would have ended in France's favour since the political parties striving for an autonomous Alsace or a connection to France accounted only for a small proportion of votes in the last Reichstag as well as in the local elections.[38] The Alsatian autonomists who were pro French had won many votes in the more rural parts of the region and other towns since the annexation of the region by Germany in 1871. The movement started with the first election for the Reichstag; those elected were called "les députés protestataires", and until the fall of Bismarck in 1890, they were the only deputies elected by the Alsatians to the German parliament demanding the return of those territories to France.[39] At the last Reichstag election in Strasbourg and its periphery, the clear winners were the Social Democrats; the city was the administrative capital of the region, was inhabited by many Germans appointed by the central government in Berlin and its flourishing economy attracted many Germans. This could explain the difference between the rural vote and the one in Strasbourg. After the war, many Germans left Strasbourg and went back to Germany; some of them were denounced by the locals or expelled by the newly appointed authorities. The Saverne Affair was vivid in the memory among the Alsatians.

 

In 1920, Strasbourg became the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine, previously located in Mannheim, one of the oldest European institutions. It moved into the former Imperial Palace.

 

When the Maginot Line was built, the Sous-secteur fortifié de Strasbourg (fortified sub-sector of Strasbourg) was laid out on the city's territory as a part of the Secteur fortifié du Bas-Rhin, one of the sections of the Line. Blockhouses and casemates were built along the Grand Canal d'Alsace and the Rhine in the Robertsau forest and the port.[40]

 

Between the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and the Anglo-French declaration of War against the German Reich on 3 September 1939, the entire city (a total of 120,000 people) was evacuated, like other border towns as well. Until the arrival of the Wehrmacht troops mid-June 1940, the city was, for ten months, completely empty, with the exception of the garrisoned soldiers. The Jews of Strasbourg had been evacuated to Périgueux and Limoges, the University had been evacuated to Clermont-Ferrand.

 

After the ceasefire following the Fall of France in June 1940, Alsace was annexed to Germany and a rigorous policy of Germanisation was imposed upon it by the Gauleiter Robert Heinrich Wagner. When, in July 1940, the first evacuees were allowed to return, only residents of Alsatian origin were admitted. The last Jews were deported on 15 July 1940 and the main synagogue, a huge Romanesque revival building that had been a major architectural landmark with its 54-metre-high dome since its completion in 1897, was set ablaze, then razed.[41]

 

In September 1940 the first Alsatian resistance movement led by Marcel Weinum called La main noire (The black hand) was created. It was composed by a group of 25 young men aged from 14 to 18 years old who led several attacks against the German occupation. The actions culminated with the attack of the Gauleiter Robert Wagner, the highest commander of Alsace directly under the order of Hitler. In March 1942, Marcel Weinum was prosecuted by the Gestapo and sentenced to be beheaded at the age of 18 in April 1942 in Stuttgart, Germany. His last words will be: "If I have to die, I shall die but with a pure heart". From 1943 the city was bombarded by Allied aircraft. While the First World War had not notably damaged the city, Anglo-American bombing caused extensive destruction in raids of which at least one was allegedly carried out by mistake.[42] In August 1944, several buildings in the Old Town were damaged by bombs, particularly the Palais Rohan, the Old Customs House (Ancienne Douane) and the Cathedral.[43] On 23 November 1944, the city was officially liberated by the 2nd French Armoured Division under General Leclerc. He achieved the oath that he made with his soldiers, after the decisive Capture of Kufra. With the Oath of Kuffra, they swore to keep up the fight until the French flag flew over the Cathedral of Strasbourg.

 

Many people from Strasbourg were incorporated in the German Army against their will, and were sent to the eastern front, those young men and women were called Malgré-nous. Many tried to escape from the incorporation, join the French Resistance, or desert the Wehrmacht but many couldn't because they were running the risk of having their families sent to work or concentration camps by the Germans. Many of these men, especially those who did not answer the call immediately, were pressured to "volunteer" for service with the SS, often by direct threats on their families. This threat obliged the majority of them to remain in the German army. After the war, the few that survived were often accused of being traitors or collaborationists, because this tough situation was not known in the rest of France, and they had to face the incomprehension of many. In July 1944, 1500 malgré-nous were released from Soviet captivity and sent to Algiers, where they joined the Free French Forces. Nowadays history recognizes the suffering of those people, and museums, public discussions and memorials have been built to commemorate this terrible period of history of this part of Eastern France (Alsace and Moselle). Liberation of Strasbourg took place on 23 November 1944.

 

In 1947, a fire broke out in the Musée des Beaux-Arts and devastated a significant part of the collections. This fire was an indirect consequence of the bombing raids of 1944: because of the destruction inflicted on the Palais Rohan, humidity had infiltrated the building, and moisture had to be fought. This was done with welding torches, and a bad handling of these caused the fire.[44]

 

In the 1950s and 1960s the city was enlarged by new residential areas meant to solve both the problem of housing shortage due to war damage and that of the strong growth of population due to the baby boom and immigration from North Africa: Cité Rotterdam in the North-East, Quartier de l'Esplanade in the South-East, Hautepierre in the North-West. Between 1995 and 2010, a new district has been built in the same vein, the Quartier des Poteries, south of Hautepierre.

 

In 1958, a violent hailstorm destroyed most of the historical greenhouses of the Botanical Garden and many of the stained glass windows of St. Paul's Church.

 

In 1949, the city was chosen to be the seat of the Council of Europe with its European Court of Human Rights and European Pharmacopoeia. Since 1952, the European Parliament has met in Strasbourg, which was formally designated its official 'seat' at the Edinburgh meeting of the European Council of EU heads of state and government in December 1992. (This position was reconfirmed and given treaty status in the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam). However, only the (four-day) plenary sessions of the Parliament are held in Strasbourg each month, with all other business being conducted in Brussels and Luxembourg. Those sessions take place in the Immeuble Louise Weiss, inaugurated in 1999, which houses the largest parliamentary assembly room in Europe and of any democratic institution in the world. Before that, the EP sessions had to take place in the main Council of Europe building, the Palace of Europe, whose unusual inner architecture had become a familiar sight to European TV audiences.[45] In 1992, Strasbourg became the seat of the Franco-German TV channel and movie-production society Arte.

 

In 2000, a terrorist plot to blow up the cathedral was prevented thanks to the cooperation between French and German police that led to the arrest in late 2000 of a Frankfurt-based group of terrorists.

 

On 6 July 2001, during an open-air concert in the Parc de Pourtalès, a single falling Platanus tree killed thirteen people and injured 97. On 27 March 2007, the city was found guilty of neglect over the accident and fined €150,000.[46]

 

In 2006, after a long and careful restoration, the inner decoration of the Aubette, made in the 1920s by Hans Arp, Theo van Doesburg, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp and destroyed in the 1930s, was made accessible to the public again. The work of the three artists had been called "the Sistine Chapel of abstract art".

 

Architecture

 

Strasbourg, Cathedral of Our Lady

The city is chiefly known for its sandstone Gothic Cathedral with its famous astronomical clock, and for its medieval cityscape of Rhineland black and white timber-framed buildings, particularly in the Petite France district or Gerberviertel ("tanners' district") alongside the Ill and in the streets and squares surrounding the cathedral, where the renowned Maison Kammerzell stands out.

 

Notable medieval streets include Rue Mercière, Rue des Dentelles, Rue du Bain aux Plantes, Rue des Juifs, Rue des Frères, Rue des Tonneliers, Rue du Maroquin, Rue des Charpentiers, Rue des Serruriers, Grand' Rue, Quai des Bateliers, Quai Saint-Nicolas and Quai Saint-Thomas. Notable medieval squares include Place de la Cathédrale, Place du Marché Gayot, Place Saint-Étienne, Place du Marché aux Cochons de Lait and Place Benjamin Zix.

 

Maison des tanneurs.

 

In addition to the cathedral, Strasbourg houses several other medieval churches that have survived the many wars and destructions that have plagued the city: the Romanesque Église Saint-Étienne, partly destroyed in 1944 by Allied bombing raids, the part Romanesque, part Gothic, very large Église Saint-Thomas with its Silbermann organ on which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Albert Schweitzer played,[49] the Gothic Église protestante Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune with its crypt dating back to the seventh century and its cloister partly from the eleventh century, the Gothic Église Saint-Guillaume with its fine early-Renaissance stained glass and furniture, the Gothic Église Saint-Jean, the part Gothic, part Art Nouveau Église Sainte-Madeleine, etc. The Neo-Gothic church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Catholique (there is also an adjacent church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Protestant) serves as a shrine for several 15th-century wood worked and painted altars coming from other, now destroyed churches and installed there for public display. Among the numerous secular medieval buildings, the monumental Ancienne Douane (old custom-house) stands out.

 

The German Renaissance has bequeathed the city some noteworthy buildings (especially the current Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie, former town hall, on Place Gutenberg), as did the French Baroque and Classicism with several hôtels particuliers (i.e. palaces), among which the Palais Rohan (1742, now housing three museums) is the most spectacular. Other buildings of its kind are the "Hôtel de Hanau" (1736, now the city hall), the Hôtel de Klinglin (1736, now residence of the préfet), the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts (1755, now residence of the military governor), the Hôtel d'Andlau-Klinglin (1725, now seat of the administration of the Port autonome de Strasbourg) etc. The largest baroque building of Strasbourg though is the 150 m (490 ft) long 1720s main building of the Hôpital civil. As for French Neo-classicism, it is the Opera House on Place Broglie that most prestigiously represents this style.

 

Strasbourg also offers high-class eclecticist buildings in its very extended German district, the Neustadt, being the main memory of Wilhelmian architecture since most of the major cities in Germany proper suffered intensive damage during World War II. Streets, boulevards and avenues are homogeneous, surprisingly high (up to seven stories) and broad examples of German urban lay-out and of this architectural style that summons and mixes up five centuries of European architecture as well as Neo-Egyptian, Neo-Greek and Neo-Babylonian styles. The former imperial palace Palais du Rhin, the most political and thus heavily criticized of all German Strasbourg buildings epitomizes the grand scale and stylistic sturdiness of this period. But the two most handsome and ornate buildings of these times are the École internationale des Pontonniers (the former Höhere Mädchenschule, girls college) with its towers, turrets and multiple round and square angles[50] and the École des Arts décoratifs with its lavishly ornate façade of painted bricks, woodwork and majolica.[51]

 

Notable streets of the German district include: Avenue de la Forêt Noire, Avenue des Vosges, Avenue d'Alsace, Avenue de la Marseillaise, Avenue de la Liberté, Boulevard de la Victoire, Rue Sellénick, Rue du Général de Castelnau, Rue du Maréchal Foch, and Rue du Maréchal Joffre. Notable squares of the German district include: Place de la République, Place de l'Université, Place Brant, and Place Arnold

 

As for modern and contemporary architecture, Strasbourg possesses some fine Art Nouveau buildings (such as the huge Palais des Fêtes and houses and villas like Villa Schutzenberger and Hôtel Brion), good examples of post-World War II functional architecture (the Cité Rotterdam, for which Le Corbusier did not succeed in the architectural contest) and, in the very extended Quartier Européen, some spectacular administrative buildings of sometimes utterly large size, among which the European Court of Human Rights building by Richard Rogers is arguably the finest. Other noticeable contemporary buildings are the new Music school Cité de la Musique et de la Danse, the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain and the Hôtel du Département facing it, as well as, in the outskirts, the tramway-station Hoenheim-Nord designed by Zaha Hadid.

  

Place Kléber

The city has many bridges, including the medieval and four-towered Ponts Couverts that, despite their name, are no longer covered. Next to the Ponts Couverts is the Barrage Vauban, a part of Vauban's 17th-century fortifications, that does include a covered bridge. Other bridges are the ornate 19th-century Pont de la Fonderie (1893, stone) and Pont d'Auvergne (1892, iron), as well as architect Marc Mimram's futuristic Passerelle over the Rhine, opened in 2004.

 

The largest square at the centre of the city of Strasbourg is the Place Kléber. Located in the heart of the city's commercial area, it was named after general Jean-Baptiste Kléber, born in Strasbourg in 1753 and assassinated in 1800 in Cairo. In the square is a statue of Kléber, under which is a vault containing his remains. On the north side of the square is the Aubette (Orderly Room), built by Jacques François Blondel, architect of the king, in 1765–1772.

 

Parks

 

The Pavillon Joséphine (rear side) in the Parc de l'Orangerie

 

The Château de Pourtalès (front side) in the park of the same name

 

Strasbourg features a number of prominent parks, of which several are of cultural and historical interest: the Parc de l'Orangerie, laid out as a French garden by André le Nôtre and remodeled as an English garden on behalf of Joséphine de Beauharnais, now displaying noteworthy French gardens, a neo-classical castle and a small zoo; the Parc de la Citadelle, built around impressive remains of the 17th-century fortress erected close to the Rhine by Vauban;[52] the Parc de Pourtalès, laid out in English style around a baroque castle (heavily restored in the 19th century) that now houses a small three-star hotel,[53] and featuring an open-air museum of international contemporary sculpture.[54] The Jardin botanique de l'Université de Strasbourg (botanical garden) was created under the German administration next to the Observatory of Strasbourg, built in 1881, and still owns some greenhouses of those times. The Parc des Contades, although the oldest park of the city, was completely remodeled after World War II. The futuristic Parc des Poteries is an example of European park-conception in the late 1990s. The Jardin des deux Rives, spread over Strasbourg and Kehl on both sides of the Rhine opened in 2004 and is the most extended (60-hectare) park of the agglomeration. The most recent park is Parc du Heyritz (8,7 ha), opened in 2014 along a canal facing the hôpital civil.

Strasbourg (/ˈstræzbɜrɡ/, French pronunciation: ​[stʁaz.buʁ, stʁas.buʁ]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace were historically Alemannic-speaking, hence the city's Germanic name.[5] In 2006, the city proper had 272,975 inhabitants and its urban community 467,375 inhabitants. With 759,868 inhabitants in 2010, Strasbourg's metropolitan area (only the part of the metropolitan area on French territory) is the ninth largest in France. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 884,988 inhabitants in 2008.[6]

 

Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory) and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. The city is also the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights.[7]

 

Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île (Grand Island), was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is immersed in the Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a bridge of unity between France and Germany for centuries, especially through the University of Strasbourg, currently the second largest in France, and the coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture. The largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque, was inaugurated by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls on 27 September 2012.[8]

 

Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road, rail, and river transportation. The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany.

 

Etymology and Names

The city's Gallicized name (Lower Alsatian: Strossburi, [ˈʃd̥rɔːsb̥uri]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is of Germanic origin and means "Town (at the crossing) of roads". The modern Stras- is cognate to the German Straße and English street, all of which are derived from Latin strata ("paved road"), while -bourg is cognate to the German Burg and English borough, all of which are derived from Proto-Germanic *burgz ("hill fort, fortress").

 

Geography

 

Strasbourg seen from Spot Satellite

Strasbourg is situated on the eastern border of France with Germany. This border is formed by the River Rhine, which also forms the eastern border of the modern city, facing across the river to the German town Kehl. The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the River Ill, which here flows parallel to, and roughly 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from, the Rhine. The natural courses of the two rivers eventually join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city.

 

The city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres (433 ft) and 151 metres (495 ft) above sea level, with the upland areas of the Vosges Mountains some 20 km (12 mi) to the west and the Black Forest 25 km (16 mi) to the east. This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north-south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, and major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks.

 

The city is some 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Paris. The mouth of the Rhine lies approximately 450 kilometres (280 mi) to the north, or 650 kilometres (400 mi) as the river flows, whilst the head of navigation in Basel is some 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the south, or 150 kilometres (93 mi) by river.

 

Climate

 

In spite of its position far inland, Strasbourg's climate is classified as Oceanic (Köppen climate classification Cfb), with warm, relatively sunny summers and cold, overcast winters. Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains largely constant throughout the year, totaling 631.4 mm (24.9 in) annually. On average, snow falls 30 days per year.

 

The highest temperature ever recorded was 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave. The lowest temperature ever recorded was −23.4 °C (−10.1 °F) in December 1938.

 

Strasbourg's location in the Rhine valley, sheltered from the dominant winds by the Vosges and Black Forest mountains, results in poor natural ventilation, making Strasbourg one of the most atmospherically polluted cities of France.[10][11] Nonetheless, the progressive disappearance of heavy industry on both banks of the Rhine, as well as effective measures of traffic regulation in and around the city have reduced air pollution.

 

Prehistory

The first traces of human occupation in the environs of Strasbourg go back many thousands of years.[16] Neolithic, bronze age and iron age artifacts have been uncovered by archeological excavations. It was permanently settled by proto-Celts around 1300 BC. Towards the end of the third century BC, it developed into a Celtic township with a market called "Argentorate". Drainage works converted the stilthouses to houses built on dry land.[17]

 

From Romans

The Romans under Nero Claudius Drusus established a military outpost belonging to the Germania Superior Roman province at Strasbourg's current location, and named it Argentoratum. (Hence the town is commonly called Argentina in medieval Latin.[18]) The name "Argentoratum" was first mentioned in 12 BC and the city celebrated its 2,000th birthday in 1988. "Argentorate" as the toponym of the Gaulish settlement preceded it before being Latinized, but it is not known by how long. The Roman camp was destroyed by fire and rebuilt six times between the first and the fifth centuries AD: in 70, 97, 235, 355, in the last quarter of the fourth century, and in the early years of the fifth century. It was under Trajan and after the fire of 97 that Argentoratum received its most extended and fortified shape. From the year 90 on, the Legio VIII Augusta was permanently stationed in the Roman camp of Argentoratum. It then included a cavalry section and covered an area of approximately 20 hectares. Other Roman legions temporarily stationed in Argentoratum were the Legio XIV Gemina and the Legio XXI Rapax, the latter during the reign of Nero.

 

The centre of Argentoratum proper was situated on the Grande Île (Cardo: current Rue du Dôme, Decumanus: current Rue des Hallebardes). The outline of the Roman "castrum" is visible in the street pattern in the Grande Ile. Many Roman artifacts have also been found along the current Route des Romains, the road that led to Argentoratum, in the suburb of Kœnigshoffen. This was where the largest burial places were situated, as well as the densest concentration of civilian dwelling places and commerces next to the camp. Among the most outstanding finds in Kœnigshoffen were (found in 1911–12) the fragments of a grand Mithraeum that had been shattered by early Christians in the fourth century. From the fourth century, Strasbourg was the seat of the Bishopric of Strasbourg (made an Archbishopric in 1988). Archaeological excavations below the current Église Saint-Étienne in 1948 and 1956 unearthed the apse of a church dating back to the late fourth or early fifth century, considered to be the oldest church in Alsace. It is supposed that this was the first seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Strasbourg.

 

The Alemanni fought the Battle of Argentoratum against Rome in 357. They were defeated by Julian, later Emperor of Rome, and their King Chonodomarius was taken prisoner. On 2 January 366, the Alemanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire. Early in the fifth century, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine, conquered, and then settled what is today Alsace and a large part of Switzerland.

 

In the fifth century Strasbourg was occupied successively by Alemanni, Huns, and Franks. In the ninth century it was commonly known as Strazburg in the local language, as documented in 842 by the Oaths of Strasbourg. This trilingual text contains, alongside texts in Latin and Old High German (teudisca lingua), the oldest written variety of Gallo-Romance (lingua romana) clearly distinct from Latin, the ancestor of Old French. The town was also called Stratisburgum or Strateburgus in Latin, from which later came Strossburi in Alsatian and Straßburg in Standard German, and then Strasbourg in French. The Oaths of Strasbourg is considered as marking the birth of the two countries of France and Germany with the division of the Carolingian Empire.[19]

 

A major commercial centre, the town came under the control of the Holy Roman Empire in 923, through the homage paid by the Duke of Lorraine to German King Henry I. The early history of Strasbourg consists of a long conflict between its bishop and its citizens. The citizens emerged victorious after the Battle of Oberhausbergen in 1262, when King Philip of Swabia granted the city the status of an Imperial Free City.

 

Around 1200, Gottfried von Straßburg wrote the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, which is regarded, alongside Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and the Nibelungenlied, as one of great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages.

 

A revolution in 1332 resulted in a broad-based city government with participation of the guilds, and Strasbourg declared itself a free republic. The deadly bubonic plague of 1348 was followed on 14 February 1349 by one of the first and worst pogroms in pre-modern history: over a thousand Jews were publicly burnt to death, with the remainder of the Jewish population being expelled from the city.[20] Until the end of the 18th century, Jews were forbidden to remain in town after 10 pm. The time to leave the city was signalled by a municipal herald blowing the Grüselhorn (see below, Museums, Musée historique);.[21] A special tax, the Pflastergeld (pavement money), was furthermore to be paid for any horse that a Jew would ride or bring into the city while allowed to.[22]

 

Construction on Strasbourg Cathedral began in the twelfth century, and it was completed in 1439 (though, of the towers, only the north tower was built), becoming the World's Tallest Building, surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza. A few years later, Johannes Gutenberg created the first European moveable type printing press in Strasbourg.

 

In July 1518, an incident known as the Dancing Plague of 1518 struck residents of Strasbourg. Around 400 people were afflicted with dancing mania and danced constantly for weeks, most of them eventually dying from heart attack, stroke or exhaustion.

 

In the 1520s during the Protestant Reformation, the city, under the political guidance of Jacob Sturm von Sturmeck and the spiritual guidance of Martin Bucer embraced the religious teachings of Martin Luther. Their adherents established a Gymnasium, headed by Johannes Sturm, made into a University in the following century. The city first followed the Tetrapolitan Confession, and then the Augsburg Confession. Protestant iconoclasm caused much destruction to churches and cloisters, notwithstanding that Luther himself opposed such a practice. Strasbourg was a centre of humanist scholarship and early book-printing in the Holy Roman Empire, and its intellectual and political influence contributed much to the establishment of Protestantism as an accepted denomination in the southwest of Germany. (John Calvin spent several years as a political refugee in the city). The Strasbourg Councillor Sturm and guildmaster Matthias represented the city at the Imperial Diet of Speyer (1529), where their protest led to the schism of the Catholic Church and the evolution of Protestantism. Together with four other free cities, Strasbourg presented the confessio tetrapolitana as its Protestant book of faith at the Imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530, where the slightly different Augsburg Confession was also handed over to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

 

After the reform of the Imperial constitution in the early sixteenth century and the establishment of Imperial Circles, Strasbourg was part of the Upper Rhenish Circle, a corporation of Imperial estates in the southwest of Holy Roman Empire, mainly responsible for maintaining troops, supervising coining, and ensuring public security.

 

After the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, the first printing offices outside the inventor's hometown Mainz were established around 1460 in Strasbourg by pioneers Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein. Subsequently, the first modern newspaper was published in Strasbourg in 1605, when Johann Carolus received the permission by the City of Strasbourg to print and distribute a weekly journal written in German by reporters from several central European cities.

 

From Thirty Years' War to First World War

The Free City of Strasbourg remained neutral during the Thirty Years' War 1618-1648, and retained its status as a Free Imperial City. However, the city was later annexed by Louis XIV of France to extend the borders of his kingdom.

 

Louis' advisors believed that, as long as Strasbourg remained independent, it would endanger the King's newly annexed territories in Alsace, and, that to defend these large rural lands effectively, a garrison had to be placed in towns such as Strasbourg.[23] Indeed, the bridge over the Rhine at Strasbourg had been used repeatedly by Imperial (Holy Roman Empire) forces,[24] and three times during the Franco-Dutch War Strasbourg had served as a gateway for Imperial invasions into Alsace.[25] In September 1681 Louis' forces, though lacking a clear casus belli, surrounded the city with overwhelming force. After some negotiation, Louis marched into the city unopposed on 30 September 1681 and proclaimed its annexation.[26]

 

This annexation was one of the direct causes of the brief and bloody War of the Reunions whose outcome left the French in possession. The French annexation was recognized by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697). The official policy of religious intolerance which drove most Protestants from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was not applied in Strasbourg and in Alsace, because both had a special status as a province à l'instar de l'étranger effectif (a kind of foreign province of the king of France). Strasbourg Cathedral, however, was taken from the Lutherans to be returned to the Catholics as the French authorities tried to promote Catholicism wherever they could (some other historic churches remained in Protestant hands). Its language also remained overwhelmingly German: the German Lutheran university persisted until the French Revolution. Famous students included Goethe and Herder.

  

The Duke of Lorraine and Imperial troops crossing the Rhine at Strasbourg during the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744

During a dinner in Strasbourg organized by Mayor Frédéric de Dietrich on 25 April 1792, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed "La Marseillaise". The same year François Christophe Kellermann, a child of Strasbourg was appointed the head of the Mosel Army. He led his company to victory at the battle of Valmy and saved the young French republic. He was later appointed Duke of Valmy by Napoléon in 1808.

 

During this period Jean-Baptiste Kléber, also born in Strasbourg, led the French army to win several decisive victories. A statue of Kléber now stands in the centre of the city, at Place Kléber, and he is still one of the most famous French officers. He was later appointed Marshal of France by Napoléon.

 

Strasbourg's status as a free city was revoked by the French Revolution. Enragés, most notoriously Eulogius Schneider, ruled the city with an increasingly iron hand. During this time, many churches and monasteries were either destroyed or severely damaged. The cathedral lost hundreds of its statues (later replaced by copies in the 19th century) and in April 1794, there was talk of tearing its spire down, on the grounds that it was against the principle of equality. The tower was saved, however, when in May of the same year citizens of Strasbourg crowned it with a giant tin Phrygian cap. This artifact was later kept in the historical collections of the city until it was destroyed by the Germans in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war.[27]

 

In 1805, 1806 and 1809, Napoléon Bonaparte and his first wife, Joséphine stayed in Strasbourg.[28] In 1810, his second wife Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma spent her first night on French soil in the palace. Another royal guest was King Charles X of France in 1828.[29] In 1836, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte unsuccessfully tried to lead his first Bonapartist coup in Strasbourg.

 

During the Franco-Prussian War and the Siege of Strasbourg, the city was heavily bombarded by the Prussian army. The bombardment of the city was meant to break the morale of the people of Strasbourg.[30] On 24 and 26 August 1870, the Museum of Fine Arts was destroyed by fire, as was the Municipal Library housed in the Gothic former Dominican church, with its unique collection of medieval manuscripts (most famously the Hortus deliciarum), rare Renaissance books, archeological finds and historical artifacts. The gothic cathedral was damaged as well as the medieval church of Temple Neuf, the theatre, the city hall, the court of justice and many houses. At the end of the siege 10,000 inhabitants were left without shelter; over 600 died, including 261 civilians, and 3200 were injured, including 1,100 civilians.[31]

 

In 1871, after the end of the war, the city was annexed to the newly established German Empire as part of the Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen under the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt. As part of Imperial Germany, Strasbourg was rebuilt and developed on a grand and representative scale, such as the Neue Stadt, or "new city" around the present Place de la République. Historian Rodolphe Reuss and Art historian Wilhelm von Bode were in charge of rebuilding the municipal archives, libraries and museums. The University, founded in 1567 and suppressed during the French Revolution as a stronghold of German sentiment,[citation needed] was reopened in 1872 under the name Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität.

  

Strasbourg in the 1890s.

A belt of massive fortifications was established around the city, most of which still stands today, renamed after French generals and generally classified as Monuments historiques; most notably Fort Roon (now Fort Desaix) and Fort Podbielski (now Fort Ducrot) in Mundolsheim, Fort von Moltke (now Fort Rapp) in Reichstett, Fort Bismarck (now Fort Kléber) in Wolfisheim, Fort Kronprinz (now Fort Foch) in Niederhausbergen, Fort Kronprinz von Sachsen (now Fort Joffre) in Holtzheim and Fort Großherzog von Baden (now Fort Frère) in Oberhausbergen.[32]

 

Those forts subsequently served the French army (Fort Podbielski/Ducrot for instance was integrated into the Maginot Line[33]), and were used as POW-camps in 1918 and 1945.

 

Two garrison churches were also erected for the members of the Imperial German army, the Lutheran Église Saint-Paul and the Roman Catholic Église Saint-Maurice.

 

1918 to the present

 

A lost, then restored, symbol of modernity in Strasbourg : a room in the Aubette building designed by Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

 

Following the defeat of the German empire in World War I and the abdication of the German Emperor, some revolutionary insurgents declared Alsace-Lorraine as an independent Republic, without preliminary referendum or vote. On 11 November 1918 (Armistice Day), communist insurgents proclaimed a "soviet government" in Strasbourg, following the example of Kurt Eisner in Munich as well as other German towns. French troops commanded by French general Henri Gouraud entered triumphantly in the city on 22 November. A major street of the city now bears the name of that date (Rue du 22 Novembre) which celebrates the entry of the French in the city.[34][35][36] Viewing the massive cheering crowd gathered under the balcony of Strasbourg's town hall, French President Raymond Poincaré stated that "the plebiscite is done".[37]

 

In 1919, following the Treaty of Versailles, the city was annexed by France in accordance with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" without a referendum. The date of the assignment was retroactively established on Armistice Day. It is doubtful whether a referendum in Strasbourg would have ended in France's favour since the political parties striving for an autonomous Alsace or a connection to France accounted only for a small proportion of votes in the last Reichstag as well as in the local elections.[38] The Alsatian autonomists who were pro French had won many votes in the more rural parts of the region and other towns since the annexation of the region by Germany in 1871. The movement started with the first election for the Reichstag; those elected were called "les députés protestataires", and until the fall of Bismarck in 1890, they were the only deputies elected by the Alsatians to the German parliament demanding the return of those territories to France.[39] At the last Reichstag election in Strasbourg and its periphery, the clear winners were the Social Democrats; the city was the administrative capital of the region, was inhabited by many Germans appointed by the central government in Berlin and its flourishing economy attracted many Germans. This could explain the difference between the rural vote and the one in Strasbourg. After the war, many Germans left Strasbourg and went back to Germany; some of them were denounced by the locals or expelled by the newly appointed authorities. The Saverne Affair was vivid in the memory among the Alsatians.

 

In 1920, Strasbourg became the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine, previously located in Mannheim, one of the oldest European institutions. It moved into the former Imperial Palace.

 

When the Maginot Line was built, the Sous-secteur fortifié de Strasbourg (fortified sub-sector of Strasbourg) was laid out on the city's territory as a part of the Secteur fortifié du Bas-Rhin, one of the sections of the Line. Blockhouses and casemates were built along the Grand Canal d'Alsace and the Rhine in the Robertsau forest and the port.[40]

 

Between the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and the Anglo-French declaration of War against the German Reich on 3 September 1939, the entire city (a total of 120,000 people) was evacuated, like other border towns as well. Until the arrival of the Wehrmacht troops mid-June 1940, the city was, for ten months, completely empty, with the exception of the garrisoned soldiers. The Jews of Strasbourg had been evacuated to Périgueux and Limoges, the University had been evacuated to Clermont-Ferrand.

 

After the ceasefire following the Fall of France in June 1940, Alsace was annexed to Germany and a rigorous policy of Germanisation was imposed upon it by the Gauleiter Robert Heinrich Wagner. When, in July 1940, the first evacuees were allowed to return, only residents of Alsatian origin were admitted. The last Jews were deported on 15 July 1940 and the main synagogue, a huge Romanesque revival building that had been a major architectural landmark with its 54-metre-high dome since its completion in 1897, was set ablaze, then razed.[41]

 

In September 1940 the first Alsatian resistance movement led by Marcel Weinum called La main noire (The black hand) was created. It was composed by a group of 25 young men aged from 14 to 18 years old who led several attacks against the German occupation. The actions culminated with the attack of the Gauleiter Robert Wagner, the highest commander of Alsace directly under the order of Hitler. In March 1942, Marcel Weinum was prosecuted by the Gestapo and sentenced to be beheaded at the age of 18 in April 1942 in Stuttgart, Germany. His last words will be: "If I have to die, I shall die but with a pure heart". From 1943 the city was bombarded by Allied aircraft. While the First World War had not notably damaged the city, Anglo-American bombing caused extensive destruction in raids of which at least one was allegedly carried out by mistake.[42] In August 1944, several buildings in the Old Town were damaged by bombs, particularly the Palais Rohan, the Old Customs House (Ancienne Douane) and the Cathedral.[43] On 23 November 1944, the city was officially liberated by the 2nd French Armoured Division under General Leclerc. He achieved the oath that he made with his soldiers, after the decisive Capture of Kufra. With the Oath of Kuffra, they swore to keep up the fight until the French flag flew over the Cathedral of Strasbourg.

 

Many people from Strasbourg were incorporated in the German Army against their will, and were sent to the eastern front, those young men and women were called Malgré-nous. Many tried to escape from the incorporation, join the French Resistance, or desert the Wehrmacht but many couldn't because they were running the risk of having their families sent to work or concentration camps by the Germans. Many of these men, especially those who did not answer the call immediately, were pressured to "volunteer" for service with the SS, often by direct threats on their families. This threat obliged the majority of them to remain in the German army. After the war, the few that survived were often accused of being traitors or collaborationists, because this tough situation was not known in the rest of France, and they had to face the incomprehension of many. In July 1944, 1500 malgré-nous were released from Soviet captivity and sent to Algiers, where they joined the Free French Forces. Nowadays history recognizes the suffering of those people, and museums, public discussions and memorials have been built to commemorate this terrible period of history of this part of Eastern France (Alsace and Moselle). Liberation of Strasbourg took place on 23 November 1944.

 

In 1947, a fire broke out in the Musée des Beaux-Arts and devastated a significant part of the collections. This fire was an indirect consequence of the bombing raids of 1944: because of the destruction inflicted on the Palais Rohan, humidity had infiltrated the building, and moisture had to be fought. This was done with welding torches, and a bad handling of these caused the fire.[44]

 

In the 1950s and 1960s the city was enlarged by new residential areas meant to solve both the problem of housing shortage due to war damage and that of the strong growth of population due to the baby boom and immigration from North Africa: Cité Rotterdam in the North-East, Quartier de l'Esplanade in the South-East, Hautepierre in the North-West. Between 1995 and 2010, a new district has been built in the same vein, the Quartier des Poteries, south of Hautepierre.

 

In 1958, a violent hailstorm destroyed most of the historical greenhouses of the Botanical Garden and many of the stained glass windows of St. Paul's Church.

 

In 1949, the city was chosen to be the seat of the Council of Europe with its European Court of Human Rights and European Pharmacopoeia. Since 1952, the European Parliament has met in Strasbourg, which was formally designated its official 'seat' at the Edinburgh meeting of the European Council of EU heads of state and government in December 1992. (This position was reconfirmed and given treaty status in the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam). However, only the (four-day) plenary sessions of the Parliament are held in Strasbourg each month, with all other business being conducted in Brussels and Luxembourg. Those sessions take place in the Immeuble Louise Weiss, inaugurated in 1999, which houses the largest parliamentary assembly room in Europe and of any democratic institution in the world. Before that, the EP sessions had to take place in the main Council of Europe building, the Palace of Europe, whose unusual inner architecture had become a familiar sight to European TV audiences.[45] In 1992, Strasbourg became the seat of the Franco-German TV channel and movie-production society Arte.

 

In 2000, a terrorist plot to blow up the cathedral was prevented thanks to the cooperation between French and German police that led to the arrest in late 2000 of a Frankfurt-based group of terrorists.

 

On 6 July 2001, during an open-air concert in the Parc de Pourtalès, a single falling Platanus tree killed thirteen people and injured 97. On 27 March 2007, the city was found guilty of neglect over the accident and fined €150,000.[46]

 

In 2006, after a long and careful restoration, the inner decoration of the Aubette, made in the 1920s by Hans Arp, Theo van Doesburg, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp and destroyed in the 1930s, was made accessible to the public again. The work of the three artists had been called "the Sistine Chapel of abstract art".

 

Architecture

 

Strasbourg, Cathedral of Our Lady

The city is chiefly known for its sandstone Gothic Cathedral with its famous astronomical clock, and for its medieval cityscape of Rhineland black and white timber-framed buildings, particularly in the Petite France district or Gerberviertel ("tanners' district") alongside the Ill and in the streets and squares surrounding the cathedral, where the renowned Maison Kammerzell stands out.

 

Notable medieval streets include Rue Mercière, Rue des Dentelles, Rue du Bain aux Plantes, Rue des Juifs, Rue des Frères, Rue des Tonneliers, Rue du Maroquin, Rue des Charpentiers, Rue des Serruriers, Grand' Rue, Quai des Bateliers, Quai Saint-Nicolas and Quai Saint-Thomas. Notable medieval squares include Place de la Cathédrale, Place du Marché Gayot, Place Saint-Étienne, Place du Marché aux Cochons de Lait and Place Benjamin Zix.

 

Maison des tanneurs.

 

In addition to the cathedral, Strasbourg houses several other medieval churches that have survived the many wars and destructions that have plagued the city: the Romanesque Église Saint-Étienne, partly destroyed in 1944 by Allied bombing raids, the part Romanesque, part Gothic, very large Église Saint-Thomas with its Silbermann organ on which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Albert Schweitzer played,[49] the Gothic Église protestante Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune with its crypt dating back to the seventh century and its cloister partly from the eleventh century, the Gothic Église Saint-Guillaume with its fine early-Renaissance stained glass and furniture, the Gothic Église Saint-Jean, the part Gothic, part Art Nouveau Église Sainte-Madeleine, etc. The Neo-Gothic church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Catholique (there is also an adjacent church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Protestant) serves as a shrine for several 15th-century wood worked and painted altars coming from other, now destroyed churches and installed there for public display. Among the numerous secular medieval buildings, the monumental Ancienne Douane (old custom-house) stands out.

 

The German Renaissance has bequeathed the city some noteworthy buildings (especially the current Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie, former town hall, on Place Gutenberg), as did the French Baroque and Classicism with several hôtels particuliers (i.e. palaces), among which the Palais Rohan (1742, now housing three museums) is the most spectacular. Other buildings of its kind are the "Hôtel de Hanau" (1736, now the city hall), the Hôtel de Klinglin (1736, now residence of the préfet), the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts (1755, now residence of the military governor), the Hôtel d'Andlau-Klinglin (1725, now seat of the administration of the Port autonome de Strasbourg) etc. The largest baroque building of Strasbourg though is the 150 m (490 ft) long 1720s main building of the Hôpital civil. As for French Neo-classicism, it is the Opera House on Place Broglie that most prestigiously represents this style.

 

Strasbourg also offers high-class eclecticist buildings in its very extended German district, the Neustadt, being the main memory of Wilhelmian architecture since most of the major cities in Germany proper suffered intensive damage during World War II. Streets, boulevards and avenues are homogeneous, surprisingly high (up to seven stories) and broad examples of German urban lay-out and of this architectural style that summons and mixes up five centuries of European architecture as well as Neo-Egyptian, Neo-Greek and Neo-Babylonian styles. The former imperial palace Palais du Rhin, the most political and thus heavily criticized of all German Strasbourg buildings epitomizes the grand scale and stylistic sturdiness of this period. But the two most handsome and ornate buildings of these times are the École internationale des Pontonniers (the former Höhere Mädchenschule, girls college) with its towers, turrets and multiple round and square angles[50] and the École des Arts décoratifs with its lavishly ornate façade of painted bricks, woodwork and majolica.[51]

 

Notable streets of the German district include: Avenue de la Forêt Noire, Avenue des Vosges, Avenue d'Alsace, Avenue de la Marseillaise, Avenue de la Liberté, Boulevard de la Victoire, Rue Sellénick, Rue du Général de Castelnau, Rue du Maréchal Foch, and Rue du Maréchal Joffre. Notable squares of the German district include: Place de la République, Place de l'Université, Place Brant, and Place Arnold

 

As for modern and contemporary architecture, Strasbourg possesses some fine Art Nouveau buildings (such as the huge Palais des Fêtes and houses and villas like Villa Schutzenberger and Hôtel Brion), good examples of post-World War II functional architecture (the Cité Rotterdam, for which Le Corbusier did not succeed in the architectural contest) and, in the very extended Quartier Européen, some spectacular administrative buildings of sometimes utterly large size, among which the European Court of Human Rights building by Richard Rogers is arguably the finest. Other noticeable contemporary buildings are the new Music school Cité de la Musique et de la Danse, the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain and the Hôtel du Département facing it, as well as, in the outskirts, the tramway-station Hoenheim-Nord designed by Zaha Hadid.

  

Place Kléber

The city has many bridges, including the medieval and four-towered Ponts Couverts that, despite their name, are no longer covered. Next to the Ponts Couverts is the Barrage Vauban, a part of Vauban's 17th-century fortifications, that does include a covered bridge. Other bridges are the ornate 19th-century Pont de la Fonderie (1893, stone) and Pont d'Auvergne (1892, iron), as well as architect Marc Mimram's futuristic Passerelle over the Rhine, opened in 2004.

 

The largest square at the centre of the city of Strasbourg is the Place Kléber. Located in the heart of the city's commercial area, it was named after general Jean-Baptiste Kléber, born in Strasbourg in 1753 and assassinated in 1800 in Cairo. In the square is a statue of Kléber, under which is a vault containing his remains. On the north side of the square is the Aubette (Orderly Room), built by Jacques François Blondel, architect of the king, in 1765–1772.

 

Parks

 

The Pavillon Joséphine (rear side) in the Parc de l'Orangerie

 

The Château de Pourtalès (front side) in the park of the same name

 

Strasbourg features a number of prominent parks, of which several are of cultural and historical interest: the Parc de l'Orangerie, laid out as a French garden by André le Nôtre and remodeled as an English garden on behalf of Joséphine de Beauharnais, now displaying noteworthy French gardens, a neo-classical castle and a small zoo; the Parc de la Citadelle, built around impressive remains of the 17th-century fortress erected close to the Rhine by Vauban;[52] the Parc de Pourtalès, laid out in English style around a baroque castle (heavily restored in the 19th century) that now houses a small three-star hotel,[53] and featuring an open-air museum of international contemporary sculpture.[54] The Jardin botanique de l'Université de Strasbourg (botanical garden) was created under the German administration next to the Observatory of Strasbourg, built in 1881, and still owns some greenhouses of those times. The Parc des Contades, although the oldest park of the city, was completely remodeled after World War II. The futuristic Parc des Poteries is an example of European park-conception in the late 1990s. The Jardin des deux Rives, spread over Strasbourg and Kehl on both sides of the Rhine opened in 2004 and is the most extended (60-hectare) park of the agglomeration. The most recent park is Parc du Heyritz (8,7 ha), opened in 2014 along a canal facing the hôpital civil.

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