r`əmbərg), Ger. Nürnberg (nürn`bĕrk'), city (1994 pop. 498,945), Bavaria, S Germany, on the Pegnitz River and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal. One of the great historic cities of Germany, Nuremberg is now an important commercial, industrial, and transportation center. Its manufactures include electrical equipment, mechanical and optical products, motor vehicles, chemicals, textiles, and printed materials. Homemade toys and fine gingerbread (Ger. Lebkuchen) are traditional export items.
Points of Interest
Since 1945 much of the city's architectural beauty has been restored. Among the historic buildings are the churches of St. Sebald (1225–73), St. Lorenz (13th–14th cent.), St. Jacob (14th cent.), and Our Lady (1352–61); the Hohenzollern castle (11th–16th cent.); the old city hall (1616–22); and the house (now a museum) where Albrecht Dürer lived from 1509 to 1528. A large portion of the city walls (14th–17th cent.) still stands. Nuremberg is the site of the German National Museum (founded 1852), a part of the Univ. of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and a museum of transportation.
History
First mentioned in 1050, Nuremberg received a charter in 1219 and was made a free imperial city by the end of the 13th cent. The city was independent of the burgraviate of Nuremberg, which included a large part of Franconia and which came (1192) under the control of the Hohenzollern family. Nuremberg soon became, with Augsburg, one of the two great trade centers on the route from Italy to N Europe.
The cultural flowering of Nuremberg in the 15th and 16th cent. made it the center of the German Renaissance. Among the artists who were born or lived there, the painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer was the greatest; others, such as the sculptors Adam Kraft, Veit Stoss, and Peter Vischer, and the painter and woodcarver Michael Wolgemut, adorned the city with their works, which brought together the Italian Renaissance and the German Gothic traditions. The city was also an early center of humanism, science, printing, and mechanical invention. The scholars W. Pirkheimer and C. Celtes lectured in the city, A. Koberger set up a printing press and Regiomontanus an observatory, and the first pocket watches, known as Nuremberg eggs, were made there c.1500. An interest in culture on the part of the prosperous artisan class found expression in the contests of the meistersingers (mastersingers), among whom the shoemaker-poet Hans Sachs (1494–1576) was the most prominent.
In 1525, Nuremberg accepted the Reformation, and the religious Peace of Nuremberg, by which the Lutherans gained important concessions, was signed there (1532). In the Thirty Years War, Gustavus II was besieged (1632) in Nuremberg by Wallenstein. The city declined after the war and recovered its importance only in the 19th cent., when it grew as an industrial center. In 1806, Nuremberg passed to Bavaria. The first German railroad, from Nuremberg to nearby Fürth, was opened in 1835.
After Adolf Hitler came to power, Nuremberg was made a national shrine by the National Socialists (Nazis), who held their annual party congresses nearby from 1933 through 1938. The city was the home of the Nazi leader Julius Streicher and became a center of anti-Semitic propaganda. At the party congress of 1935 the so-called Nuremberg Laws were promulgated; they deprived German Jews of civic rights, forbade intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews, and deprived persons of partly Jewish descent of certain rights. Until 1945, Nuremberg was the site of roughly half the total German production of airplane, submarine, and tank engines; as a consequence, the city was heavily bombed by the Allies during World War II and was largely destroyed. After the war, Nuremberg was the seat of the international tribunal for war crimes.
Nürnberg
also known as NurembergCity (pop., 2002 est.: city, 491,307; metro. area, 1,018,211), Bavaria, southern Germany, on the Pegnitz River. It grew up around a castle in the 11th century, and in 1219 it received its first charter. It became one of the greatest of the German free imperial cities, reaching the height of its power in the 16th century. In 1806 it became part of the kingdom of Bavaria. In the 1930s it was a centre of the Nazi Party; the site of the Nazis' annual Nürnberg Rallies, in 1935 it gave its name to the anti-Semitic Nürnberg Laws. It was severely damaged in World War II. After the war it was the scene of the Nürnberg trials. The city was rebuilt and is now a commercial and manufacturing centre. Nürnberg's historic sites include the 11th-century royal palace. Its Academy of Arts (founded 1662) is the oldest in Germany. The city was the birthplace of Albrecht Dürer.
Nuremberg
Nuremberg
a city in Bavaria, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Population, 478,200 (1971). Nuremberg is situated on the unnavigable Pegnitz River, along the obsolete Ludwigs Canal and the Rhine-Main-Danube shipping canal, which is now under construction. An important railroad and highway junction, the city also has an airport. Nuremberg is one of the major industrial centers of the FRG. It has industries producing electrotechnic equipment (33 percent of all industrial workers are in this sector), machine tools, precision instruments, metal products, motorcycles, bicycles, pencils, and toys. There also are chemical, textile, garment, shoe, food and condiment, wood-products, and printing industries. Handicraft industries and small and medium-size industrial enterprises play a significant role. Educational institutions in Nuremberg include the Academy of Applied Technology, the Academy of Fine Arts, the Pedagogical Hochschule, and the departments of economics and social sciences of the University of Erlangen. The city has an opera house and a dramatic theater and is the site of the German National Museum and museums of transport, crafts, and toys.
The earliest record of Nuremberg dates to 1050. In 1219 the city was made a free imperial city. In the 14th and 15th centuries it was a major artisan and trade center and played an important role in the trade between southern Germany and Italy. In the 16th century, Nuremberg was one of the centers of German humanism. It was the birthplace of A. Dürer and H. Sachs; the humanists W. Pirkheimer and P. Melanchthon worked in the city. Nuremberg was the first imperial city to be affected by the Reformation (in 1524). In the 16th century, economic decline set in with the changing of trade routes. In 1806, Nuremberg became part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. In the 19th century, especially after the building of the Nuremberg-Furth railroad line, Germany’s first railroad, the city became one of the principal economic centers of Bavaria. During the fascist period, the congresses of the Nazi Party were held in Nuremberg. In 1945 and 1946, after the defeat of fascism, the city was the site of the trial of a group of leading Nazi war criminals.
The center of the city has narrow, winding streets and many noteworthy centuries-old architectural monuments, including the castle (begun in the 11th century), the late Gothic Church of St. Sebaldus (c. 1240–73; hall choir, 1361–72), the Church of St. Lorenz (finished after 1350; choir, 1439–77), the Church of Our Lady (1352–61), City Hall (14th to 17th centuries), residential buildings from the 15th to 17th centuries with high pointed facades and abundant decoration (including A. Dürer’s house), and the Gothic “Beautiful Fountain” (14th century). All the churches mentioned above are adorned with sculptures by A. Kraft, P. Vischer, and V. Stoss. Around the center there are new residential districts with a regular layout (Sankt-Johannis, Galgenhof, Sankt-Jobst). In the 1950’s and 1960’s the satellite town of Langwasser was constructed.
REFERENCES
Fehring, G. P., and A. Ress. Die Stadt Nürnberg. [Nuremberg] 1961.Nürnberg—Geschichte einer europäischen Stadt, vols. 1–2. Edited by G. Pfeiffer. [Munich] 1970–71.
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