Pirmasens
Encyclopedia
Pirmasens is a district-free city in Rhineland-Palatinate
, Germany
, near the border with France
. It is famous for the manufacture of shoes. The surrounding rural district was called Pirmasens from 1818 until 1997, when it was renamed Südwestpfalz
.
In 1763 Pirmasens is chartered by landgrave
Ludwig IX
(Hesse-Darmstadt
).
In 1793 it was the location of a battle between Prussia
and Braunschweig
against the French
Moselle
Army: the French lost the battle, but their opponents' divisions nevertheless enabled them to return and occupy Pirmasens by the end of the year: between 1798 and 1814, the town was included in the French
département of Mont-Tonnerre
("Donnersberg-Département" in German}.
On 15 March 1945 Pirmasens was captured by US troops, and the following year it became part of the newly founded Bundesland
Rhineland-Palatinate. During the occupation on Sept. 19 the Museum of Pirmasens announced that about 50 paintings which had been stored in the air-raid shelter at Husterhoh School during the war have been plundered during the arrival of the American troops.
In 1989 the FH
Kaiserslautern
was founded. After the fall of communism
, and the reunification of East and West Germany, Pirmasens saw an influx of Russian immigrants (mainly from White Russia
) claiming to be descendants of German soldiers caught behind the iron curtain
after the second World War. Russian immigrants claiming German descendency were given permanent resident status. As typically occurs in human populations, tensions began to build between these immigrants and local residents, who were already at odds with the increasing Turkish
and former Yugoslavia
n populations.
Evolution of population (since December 2000):
CDU
46,0% (-1,8) - 21 seats (-1)
SPD
23,8% (-11,4) - 11 seats (-5)
WGR 10,8% +3,7) - 5 seats (+3)
REP 10,2% (+7,3) - 5 seats (+5)
The Greens
4,3% (+0,3) - 2 seats (=)
Other 5,1% (+2,0) - 0 Sitze (-1)
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....
, 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...
, near the border with 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...
. It is famous for the manufacture of shoes. The surrounding rural district was called Pirmasens from 1818 until 1997, when it was renamed Südwestpfalz
Südwestpfalz
Südwestpfalz is a district in the south of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are Saarpfalz, the district-free city Zweibrücken, the districts Kaiserslautern and Bad Dürkheim, the district-free city Landau , Südliche Weinstraße, and the French département Bas-Rhin...
.
History
The first mention of "Pirminiseusna", a colony of Hornbach Abbey, dates from 860. The name derives from St. Pirminius, the founder of the cloister.In 1763 Pirmasens is chartered by landgrave
Landgrave
Landgrave was a title used in the Holy Roman Empire and later on by its former territories. The title refers to a count who had feudal duty directly to the Holy Roman Emperor...
Ludwig IX
Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt
Louis IX of Hesse-Darmstadt was the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt from 1768 - 1790. He was a son of Louis VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, and Charlotte of Hanau-Lichtenberg and Müntzenberg....
(Hesse-Darmstadt
Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt
The Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt was a member state of the Holy Roman Empire. It was formed in 1567 following the division of the Landgraviate of Hesse between the four sons of Philip I, the last Landgrave of Hesse....
).
In 1793 it was the location of a battle between Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
and Braunschweig
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
against the French
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...
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...
Army: the French lost the battle, but their opponents' divisions nevertheless enabled them to return and occupy Pirmasens by the end of the year: between 1798 and 1814, the town was included in the French
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
département of Mont-Tonnerre
Mont-Tonnerre
Mont-Tonnerre is the name of a département of the First French Empire in present Germany. It is named after the highest point in the Rhenish Palatinate, the Donnersberg. It was the southernmost of four départements formed in 1798, when the west bank of the Rhine was annexed by France...
("Donnersberg-Département" in German}.
- 1923/24 tests of palatinate separatistsRhenish RepublicThe Rhenish Republic was proclaimed at Aachen in October 1923 during the Occupation of the Ruhr by troops from France and Belgium between January 1923 and 1925...
to settle down in Pirmasens failed on 12 February 1924: occupationMilitary occupationMilitary occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory passes to a hostile army. The territory then becomes occupied territory.-Military occupation and the laws of war:...
of the district town hall, home of the separatistic administration; many deaths on both sides - 9 November 1938 destruction of the synagogueSynagogueA synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
during the so called KristallnachtKristallnachtKristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
.
On 15 March 1945 Pirmasens was captured by US troops, and the following year it became part of the newly founded Bundesland
States 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...
Rhineland-Palatinate. During the occupation on Sept. 19 the Museum of Pirmasens announced that about 50 paintings which had been stored in the air-raid shelter at Husterhoh School during the war have been plundered during the arrival of the American troops.
In 1989 the FH
Fachhochschule
A Fachhochschule or University of Applied Sciences is a German type of tertiary education institution, sometimes specialized in certain topical areas . Fachhochschulen were founded in Germany and later adopted by Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Greece...
Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslautern is a city in southwest Germany, located in the Bundesland of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate forest . The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfurt am Main, and from Luxembourg.Kaiserslautern is home to 99,469 people...
was founded. After the fall of communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, and the reunification of East and West Germany, Pirmasens saw an influx of Russian immigrants (mainly from White Russia
White Russia
White Russia or White Ruthenia is a name that has historically been applied to a part of the wider region of Ruthenia or Rus', most often to that which roughly corresponds to the eastern part of present-day Belarus including the cities of Polatsk, Vitsyebsk and Mahiliou. In English, the use of the...
) claiming to be descendants of German soldiers caught behind the iron curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
after the second World War. Russian immigrants claiming German descendency were given permanent resident status. As typically occurs in human populations, tensions began to build between these immigrants and local residents, who were already at odds with the increasing Turkish
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
and former Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
n populations.
Main sights
- Dynamikum, a science museum
- Collected works of Hugo BallHugo BallHugo Ball was a German author, poet and one of the leading Dada artists.Hugo Ball was born in Pirmasens, Germany and was raised in a middle-class Catholic family. He studied sociology and philosophy at the universities of Munich and Heidelberg...
- Picture gallery of the painter Heinrich BürkelHeinrich BürkelHeinrich Bürkel, a genre and landscape painter, was born in 1802 at Pirmasens, in Rhenish Bavaria. He was designed for trade, but devoted every spare minute to drawing. His father's house, being an inn, presented him with subjects in great variety, and so early as his eleventh year he came into...
- Museum of shoes
- Silhouettes from Elisabeth Emmler
- Westwallmuseum
Incorporations
- 1969: Erlenbrunn, Fehrbach, Hengsberg, Niedersimten, Winzeln
- 1972: Gersbach, Windsberg
Evolution of population (since December 2000):
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Politics
Town council election 13 June 2004:CDU
Christian Democratic Union (Germany)
The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...
46,0% (-1,8) - 21 seats (-1)
SPD
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
23,8% (-11,4) - 11 seats (-5)
WGR 10,8% +3,7) - 5 seats (+3)
REP 10,2% (+7,3) - 5 seats (+5)
The Greens
Alliance '90/The Greens
Alliance '90/The Greens is a green political party in Germany, formed from the merger of the German Green Party and Alliance 90 in 1993. Its leaders are Claudia Roth and Cem Özdemir...
4,3% (+0,3) - 2 seats (=)
Other 5,1% (+2,0) - 0 Sitze (-1)
Events
- the "Landgrafen-Tage" (days of the landgraveLandgraveLandgrave was a title used in the Holy Roman Empire and later on by its former territories. The title refers to a count who had feudal duty directly to the Holy Roman Emperor...
s) - every second weekend in April - Open-Air Highlights at the parade-ground (e.g. musicals, opera)
- "Schlabbeflicker-Fest", a paradeParadeA parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of some kind...
of uniformed musicians - every first weekend in August - Parade-ground festival - every second weekend in September
- Euroclassic festival (Festival of the cities: Pirmasens, BitcheBitcheBitche is a commune in the Moselle department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.It is known for its large citadel. The surrounding territory is known as le Pays de Bitche in French and Bitscherland in German.-Geography:...
, ZweibrückenZweibrückenZweibrücken is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Schwarzbach river.- Name :Zweibrücken appears in Latin texts as Geminus Pons and Bipontum, in French texts as Deux-Ponts. The name derives from Middle High German Zweinbrücken...
, BlieskastelBlieskastelBlieskastel is a municipality in the Saarpfalz district, in Saarland, Germany. It is situated on the river Blies, approximately 8 km west of Zweibrücken, and 20 km east of Saarbrücken.-International relations:...
and of the VerbandsgemeindeVerbandsgemeindeA Verbandsgemeinde is an administrative unit in the German Bundesländer of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt.-Rhineland-Palatinate:...
Zweibrücken-Land) - "Grenadiermarkt" (infantryman market) - in Autumn
- "Novembermarkt" - last weekend of October or first weekend of November
- ChristmasChristmasChristmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
market in the Advent
Sport
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Companies
- Ergo-Fit - manufacturer of cardiologyCardiologyCardiology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the heart . The field includes diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart disease and electrophysiology...
equipment - Kennel&Schmenger Schuhfabrik - manufacturer of shoes
- Koch Maschinenbau GmbH - engineeringEngineeringEngineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
- Peter Kaiser GmbH - Germany's oldest shoe-factory
- Park&Bellheimer AGAktiengesellschaftAktiengesellschaft is a German term that refers to a corporation that is limited by shares, i.e. owned by shareholders, and may be traded on a stock market. The term is used in Germany, Austria and Switzerland...
- breweryBreweryA brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made at home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company.... - Profine GmbH, Kömmerling - manufacturer of syntheticChemical synthesisIn chemistry, chemical synthesis is purposeful execution of chemical reactions to get a product, or several products. This happens by physical and chemical manipulations usually involving one or more reactions...
material; major company - psb GmbH
- SympaTel Telemarketing GmbH
- WAFO GmbH - specialist in the abrasion technique
- WAWI Euro GmbH - chocolate factory
- "Pirmasenser Zeitung" local newspaper
- "Die Rheinpfalz" local newspaper
- KD Schaltanlagenbau
- CONVAR Deutschland GmbH - provided data recovery of hard drives from the destroyed World Trade Center in the year 2001
- Footwear Concept and Design GmbH - Shoe design, Outsole design, mould manufacture and rapid prototyping
Education
- FachhochschuleFachhochschuleA Fachhochschule or University of Applied Sciences is a German type of tertiary education institution, sometimes specialized in certain topical areas . Fachhochschulen were founded in Germany and later adopted by Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Greece...
KaiserslauternKaiserslauternKaiserslautern is a city in southwest Germany, located in the Bundesland of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate forest . The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfurt am Main, and from Luxembourg.Kaiserslautern is home to 99,469 people...
, Campus Pirmasens located in Pirmasens - Deutsche Schuhfachschule