Heringen
Encyclopedia
Heringen is a small town in Hersfeld-Rotenburg
district in eastern Hesse
, Germany
lying right at the boundary with Thuringia
.
(28 km to the west), Eisenach
(30 km to the northeast) and Kassel
(80 km to the north).
The town lies on the river Werra
, surrounded by outliers of the Thuringian Forest
, the Seulingswald and the Vorderrhön (or “Further Röhn
”), all low mountain ranges.
The lowest point in town is found on the Werra floodplain at 210 m above sea level
. The highest point within town limits is the Lehnberg at 471 m above sea level.
, Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Berka/Werra
, Philippsthal (Werra)
und Friedewald
.
In 1153, Heringen had its first documentary mention. The Fulda Abbey enfeoffed the nobleman Heinrich von Heringen about 1170 with the place. The Heringen court comprised in the early 15th century not only the current town area but also the Thuringian centres of Vitzeroda, Gasteroda and Abteroda, all of which now belong to the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Berka/Werra
. In 1432, Margarethe von Heringen sold the court to the Landgraves of Hesse
, thereby binding Heringen to Hesse.
With the opening of the Wintershall
potash
works, which began mining in 1903, the community got its first industrial jobs. Later, the Neu-Heringen and Herfa-Neurode potash mines were built. The mine is today the world’s biggest potash-mining area and has an area about the same as Greater Munich’s.
At the end of World War II, the libraries of the German Army's Military Geology Unit
(Wehrgeologenstellen) and the German Patent Office (Reichspatentamt) were removed from Berlin and secretly stored in the deep Wintershall
potash
mine in Heringen. There they were discovered by the US Third Army
in March 1945, and removed to the US. The German Patent Library was later restored to Germany, but the military geology materials of maps, reports and books, often stolen from other countries during the invasions, were retained by the US as Nazi materiel
. Most of these maps and books remain in the US Geological Survey Library today, with an obscure United States Army Corps of Engineers
stamp on each that reads "Heringen Collection".
Market rights were granted the community in 1526, and in 1977 came town rights to what was then a greater community (formed out of several smaller former communities).
There are also successor buildings of the knightly estate of Vultejus.
government.
The town’s executive (Magistrat) is made up of six councillors, with two seats allotted to the SPD, two to the CDU and 2 to the WGH. Manfred Wenk is the first ever WGH councillor.
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might be described thus: Azure a bend wavy sinister argent between a sledgehammer and a cross-peen hammer per saltire, and three fish of the last.
The bend wavy sinister, that is, slanted wavy stripe beginning on the sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side and stretching down across the escutcheon, stands for the river Werra. The three fish come from the arms formerly borne by the Lords of Heringen (Hering is German
for “herring”). The mining tools are, of course, a traditional miner’s symbol. This charge
was added to the coat of arms in 2003, as potash had been being mined here for a hundred years. The old arms are shown at right.
, Moselle
, France
In 2007, partnership documents were signed with the following towns: Heringen
, Thuringia
Odolanów
, Ostrów Wielkopolski
, Poland
Hersfeld-Rotenburg
Hersfeld-Rotenburg is a Kreis in the east of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Werra-Meißner, Wartburgkreis, Fulda, Vogelsbergkreis, Schwalm-Eder.-History:...
district in eastern Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
lying right at the boundary with Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
.
Geography
Location
The nearest major towns and cities are Bad HersfeldBad Hersfeld
The festival and spa town of Bad Hersfeld is the district seat of Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in northeastern Hesse, Germany, roughly 50 km southeast of Kassel....
(28 km to the west), Eisenach
Eisenach
Eisenach is a city in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated between the northern foothills of the Thuringian Forest and the Hainich National Park. Its population in 2006 was 43,626.-History:...
(30 km to the northeast) and Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
(80 km to the north).
The town lies on the river Werra
Werra
The Werra is a river in central Germany, the right-source river of the Weser. The Werra has its source near Eisfeld in southern Thuringia. After 293 km the Werra joins the river Fulda in the town of Hann. Münden, forming the Weser....
, surrounded by outliers of the Thuringian Forest
Thuringian Forest
The Thuringian Forest running northwest to southeast, forms a continuous stretch of ancient rounded mountains posing ample difficulties in transit routing save through a few navigable passes in the southern reaches of the German state of Thuringia. It is about long and wide...
, the Seulingswald and the Vorderrhön (or “Further Röhn
Rhön Mountains
The Rhön Mountains are a group of low mountains in central Germany, located around the border area where the states of Hesse, Bavaria and Thuringia come together. These mountains, which are at the extreme southeast end of the East Hesse Highlands , are partly a result of ancient volcanic activity...
”), all low mountain ranges.
The lowest point in town is found on the Werra floodplain at 210 m above sea level
Sea level
Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...
. The highest point within town limits is the Lehnberg at 471 m above sea level.
Neighbouring communities
Clockwise from the north, these are WildeckWildeck
Wildeck is a community in Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in northeastern Hesse, Germany lying right at the boundary with Thuringia, 54 km southeast of Kassel.- Location :...
, Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Berka/Werra
Berka/Werra (Verwaltungsgemeinschaft)
Berka/Werra is a Verwaltungsgemeinschaft in the district Wartburgkreis in Thuringia, Germany. The seat of the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft is in Berka/Werra.The Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Berka/Werra consists of the following municipalities:# Berka/Werra...
, Philippsthal (Werra)
Philippsthal (Werra)
Philippsthal is a market community in Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in eastern Hesse, Germany, right at the boundary with Thuringia.-Location:Philippsthal lies between the outliers of the Rhön and the Thuringian Forest on the river Werra...
und Friedewald
Friedewald
Friedewald is a municipality in the district of Altenkirchen, in Rhineland-Palatinate, in western Germany....
.
Constituent communities
Heringen’s Stadtteile, besides the main centre, also called Heringen, are Bengendorf, Herfa, Kleinensee, Leimbach, Lengers, Widdershausen and Wölfershausen.History
Berka/Werra (Verwaltungsgemeinschaft)
Berka/Werra is a Verwaltungsgemeinschaft in the district Wartburgkreis in Thuringia, Germany. The seat of the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft is in Berka/Werra.The Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Berka/Werra consists of the following municipalities:# Berka/Werra...
. In 1432, Margarethe von Heringen sold the court to the Landgraves of Hesse
Landgraviate of Hesse
The Landgraviate of Hesse was a Landgraviate of the Holy Roman Empire. It existed as a unity from 1264 to 1567, when it was divided between the sons of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse.-History:...
, thereby binding Heringen to Hesse.
With the opening of the Wintershall
Wintershall
Wintershall AG is the largest crude oil and natural gas producer in Germany. The company is based in Kassel, Germany. Wintershall is a wholly owned subsidiary of BASF, based in Ludwigshafen. The name Wintershall is derived from the surname of the enterprise co-founder Carl Julius Winter and the...
potash
Potash
Potash is the common name for various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form. In some rare cases, potash can be formed with traces of organic materials such as plant remains, and this was the major historical source for it before the industrial era...
works, which began mining in 1903, the community got its first industrial jobs. Later, the Neu-Heringen and Herfa-Neurode potash mines were built. The mine is today the world’s biggest potash-mining area and has an area about the same as Greater Munich’s.
At the end of World War II, the libraries of the German Army's Military Geology Unit
Military Geology Unit
The Military Geology Unit was a unit in the United States military during World War II. It was established on June 24, 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor...
(Wehrgeologenstellen) and the German Patent Office (Reichspatentamt) were removed from Berlin and secretly stored in the deep Wintershall
Wintershall
Wintershall AG is the largest crude oil and natural gas producer in Germany. The company is based in Kassel, Germany. Wintershall is a wholly owned subsidiary of BASF, based in Ludwigshafen. The name Wintershall is derived from the surname of the enterprise co-founder Carl Julius Winter and the...
potash
Potash
Potash is the common name for various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form. In some rare cases, potash can be formed with traces of organic materials such as plant remains, and this was the major historical source for it before the industrial era...
mine in Heringen. There they were discovered by the US Third Army
Third Army
A number of nations have had a Third Army* Third Army * Third Army * 3rd Army * Third Army * Third Army * 3rd Army * Third Army * United States Army Central...
in March 1945, and removed to the US. The German Patent Library was later restored to Germany, but the military geology materials of maps, reports and books, often stolen from other countries during the invasions, were retained by the US as Nazi materiel
Materiel
Materiel is a term used in English to refer to the equipment and supplies in military and commercial supply chain management....
. Most of these maps and books remain in the US Geological Survey Library today, with an obscure United States Army Corps of Engineers
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
stamp on each that reads "Heringen Collection".
Market rights were granted the community in 1526, and in 1977 came town rights to what was then a greater community (formed out of several smaller former communities).
There are also successor buildings of the knightly estate of Vultejus.
Amalgamations
Between 1968 and 1972 the above-named centres were amalgamated into a greater community, which was granted town rights in 1977 by the Hesse LandStates of Germany
Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...
government.
Population development
| Constituent communities | Population | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | |
| Heringen | 3,402 | 3,558 | 3,637 | 3,631 | 3,603 | 3,623 |
| Bengendorf | 69 | 68 | 68 | 68 | 70 | 72 |
| Herfa | 836 | 880 | 869 | 867 | 853 | 838 |
| Leimbach | 471 | 488 | 511 | 512 | 522 | 504 |
| Lengers | 1,019 | 1,092 | 1,072 | 1,072 | 1,071 | 1061 |
| Kleinensee | 655 | 726 | 722 | 722 | 726 | 724 |
| Widdershausen | 1,140 | 1,204 | 1,190 | 1,190 | 1,203 | 1,193 |
| Wölfershausen | 1,091 | 1,150 | 1,139 | 1,137 | 1,117 | 1,101 |
| Totals | 8,683 | 9,166 | 9,208 | 9,199 | 9,165 | 9,116 |
Town council
The municipal election held on 26 March 2006 yielded the following results:| Parties and voter communities | % 2006 |
Seats 2006 |
% 2001 |
Seats 2001 |
|
| CDU | Christian Democratic Union of Germany | 24.8 | 8 | 26.5 | 8 |
| SPD | Social Democratic Party of Germany Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany... |
40.0 | 12 | 50.1 | 16 |
| WGH | Wählergruppe Gemeinschaftsliste Heringen | 35.2 | 11 | 22.3 | 7 |
| FDP | Free Democratic Party Free Democratic Party (Germany) The Free Democratic Party , abbreviated to FDP, is a centre-right classical liberal political party in Germany. It is led by Philipp Rösler and currently serves as the junior coalition partner to the Union in the German federal government... |
– | – | 1.0 | 0 |
| Total | 100.0 | 31 | 100.0 | 31 | |
| Voter turnout in % | 59.3 | 64.5 | |||
The town’s executive (Magistrat) is made up of six councillors, with two seats allotted to the SPD, two to the CDU and 2 to the WGH. Manfred Wenk is the first ever WGH councillor.
Mayor
Mayor Hans Ries (WGH) was elected on 28 March 2004 with 52.5% of the vote.Coat of arms
The town’s armsCoat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
might be described thus: Azure a bend wavy sinister argent between a sledgehammer and a cross-peen hammer per saltire, and three fish of the last.
The bend wavy sinister, that is, slanted wavy stripe beginning on the sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side and stretching down across the escutcheon, stands for the river Werra. The three fish come from the arms formerly borne by the Lords of Heringen (Hering is German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
for “herring”). The mining tools are, of course, a traditional miner’s symbol. This charge
Charge (heraldry)
In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon . This may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object or other device...
was added to the coat of arms in 2003, as potash had been being mined here for a hundred years. The old arms are shown at right.
Town partnerships
RombasRombas
Rombas is a commune in the Moselle department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.-Geography:Rombas is located in the lower Orne Valley, near Metz, Nancy and Luxembourg.-History:...
, Moselle
Moselle
Moselle is a department in the east of France named after the river Moselle.- History :Moselle is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
In 2007, partnership documents were signed with the following towns: Heringen
Heringen, Thuringia
Heringen is a town in the district of Nordhausen, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated on the small river Helme, 8 km southeast of Nordhausen....
, Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
Odolanów
Odolanów
Odolanów is a town in the Greater Poland Voivodeship of Poland, about 10 km south-west from Ostrów Wielkopolski, with over 5000 inhabitants.-History:...
, Ostrów Wielkopolski
Ostrów Wielkopolski County
Ostrów Wielkopolski County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Greater Poland Voivodeship, west-central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. Its administrative seat and largest town is Ostrów...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
Buildings
- Potash tailingsTailingsTailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...
heap “Monte Kali” (Heringen “landmark”) - Walterskirche church ruins (from a village thought to have been forsaken in the 15th century)
- Bodesruh memorial (tower, originally built as a monument to German division)
- Successor buildings of the knightly estate of Vultejus
Parks
- Rohrlache and Säulingssee (wetlandWetlandA wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
s on the Werra floodplain) - Herfa forest botany garden
Research and development
It was in Heringen that the groundbreaking invention of the electrostatic salt separation facility (elektrostatische Salz-Trennungsanlage, or ESTA) was first realized and further developed. After former mining director Prof. Dr.-Ing. Arno Singewald’s research and inventions, the German potash-mining industry could introduce a thoroughly novel, environmentally friendly means of processing the mined salts. Salt-saturated water is avoided when the ESTA is used. These facilities built at the potash works along the Werra have also seen to it that a river that was once thoroughly salted – by East German potash works – has been brought back to life.Established businesses
- K+SK+SK+S AG is a German-based agricultural chemical and salt company, headquartered in Kassel. The company is Europe's largest supplier of potash for use in fertilizer and, after the acquisition of Morton Salt, the world's largest salt producer...
Kali GmbH – potash mining (district’s biggest employer) - Schwabenhaus GmbH + Co. KG – prefabricated buildingsPrefabricated buildingsPrefabricated building is a type of building that consists of several factory-built components or units that are assembled on-site to complete the unit.- Prefabricated Housing :"Prefabricated" may refer to buildings built in components Prefabricated building is a type of building that consists of...
- Messer Industriemontagen & Apparatebau GmbH – pipeline and special steel construction
Sons and daughters of the town
- Uwe BeinUwe BeinUwe Bein is a former German footballer.Although, due to his reserved nature, he was never able to gain large public fame, his fans and experts call him one of the most technically-gifted German midfielders of his time...
(b. 26 September 1960 in Heringen), professional footballer and world champion in 1990 - Jürgen Gehb (b. 9 August 1952 in Heringen), since 1998 Member of the BundestagBundestagThe Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...
and currently rightwing speaker of the CDU/CSUChristian Social Union of BavariaThe Christian Social Union in Bavaria is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It operates only in the state of Bavaria, while its sister party, the Christian Democratic Union , operates in the other 15 states of Germany...
Bundestag faction. - Michael Roth (b. 24 August 1970 in Heringen), German SPD politician and Member of the Bundestag