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Main article: History of Goslar
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Abzucht river in the Old Town, showing a watermill (2022)
Iron ore mining has been common in the Harz region since Roman times; the earliest known evidence for quarrying and smelting is from the 3rd century AD. Ancient burial objects made of Harz ore have even been discovered during excavations in England. The settlement on the Gose creek was first mentioned in a 979 deed issued by Emperor Otto II; it was located in the Saxon homelands of the Ottonian dynasty and probably a royal palace (Königspfalz) already existed at the site. It became even more important when extensive silver deposits were discovered at the nearby Rammelsberg, today a mining museum. The name's toponymy probably comes shortened from "Goselager", of the stream "Gose" on the northern edge of the Harz Mountains, and Lager.
When Otto's descendant Henry II began to convene Imperial synods at the Goslar palace in 1009, Goslar gradually replaced the Royal palace of Werla as a central place of assembly in the Saxon lands, a development that was again enforced by the Salian (Franconian) emperors. Conrad II, once elected King of the Romans, celebrated Christmas 1024 in Goslar and had the foundations laid for the new Imperial Palace (Kaiserpfalz Goslar) the next year.
Goslar became the favourite residence of Conrad's son Henry III, who stayed at the palace about twenty times. Here he received King Peter of Hungary as well as the emissaries of Prince Yaroslav of Kiev and here he appointed bishops and dukes. His son and successor Henry IV was born here on 11 November 1050. Henry also had Goslar Cathedral erected and consecrated by Archbishop Herman of Cologne in 1051. Shortly before his death in 1056 Emperor Henry III met Pope Victor II in the church, emphasizing the union of secular and ecclesiastical power. His heart was buried in Goslar, his body in the Salian family vault in Speyer Cathedral. Of the cathedral only the northern porch survived; the main building was torn down in the early 19th century.
Under Henry IV Goslar remained a centre of Imperial rule. However conflicts intensified such as in the violent Precedence Dispute at Pentecost 1063. While Henry aimed at securing the enormous wealth deriving from the Rammlesberg silver mines as a royal demesne, the dissatisfaction of local nobles escalated with the Saxon revolt 1073–1075. In the subsequent Saxon revolt of 1077–1088 the Goslar citizens sided with anti-king Rudolf of Rheinfelden, who held a princely assembly here in 1077, and with Hermann of Salm, who was crowned king in Goslar by Archbishop Siegfried of Mainz on 26 December 1081, giving Goslar the status of an Imperial City.
In Spring 1105 Henry V convened the Saxon estates at Goslar to gain support for the deposition of his father, Henry IV. Elected king in the following year, he held six Imperial Diets at the Goslar Palace during his rule. The tradition was adopted by his successor Lothair II and even by the Hohenstaufen rulers Conrad III and Frederick Barbarossa. After his election in 1152, King Frederick appointed the Welf duke Henry the Lion Imperial Vogt (bailiff) of the Goslar mines; nevertheless, the dissatisfied duke besieged the town and at an 1173 meeting in Chiavenna demanded his enfeoffment with the estates in turn for his support on Barbarossa's Italian campaigns. When Henry the Lion was finally declared deposed in 1180, he had the Rammelsberg mines devastated.
Goslar's importance as an Imperial residence began to decline under the rule of Barbarossa's descendants. During the German throne dispute the Welf king Otto IV laid siege to the town in 1198 but had to yield to the forces of his Hohenstaufen rival Philip of Swabia. Goslar was again stormed and plundered by Otto's troops in 1206. Frederick II held the last Imperial Diet here; with the Great Interregnum upon his death in 1250, Goslar's Imperial era ended.
While the Emperors withdraw from Northern Germany, civil liberties in Goslar were strengthened. Market rights date back to 1025 and a municipal council (Rat) was first mentioned in 1219. The citizens strove for control of the Rammelsberg silver mines and in 1267 joined the Hanseatic League. Besides mining in the Upper Harz, commerce and trade in Gose beer, later also slate and vitriol, became important. By 1290 the council had obtained Vogt rights, confirming Goslar's status as a free imperial city. In 1340 its citizens were vested with Heerschild rights by Emperor Louis the Bavarian. The Goslar town law set an example for numerous other municipalities, like the Goslar mining law codified in 1359.
Early modern times saw both a mining boom and rising conflicts with the Welf Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg, mainly with Prince Henry V of Wolfenbüttel who seized the Rammelsberg mines and extended Harz forests in 1527. Though a complaint was successfully lodged with the Reichskammergericht by the Goslar citizens, a subsequent gruelling feud with the duke lasted for decades. Goslar was temporarily placed under Imperial ban, while the Protestant Reformation was introduced in the city by theologian Nicolaus von Amsdorf who issued a first church constitution in 1531. To assert independence, the citizens in 1536 joined the Schmalkaldic League against the Catholic policies of the Habsburg emperor Charles V. The Schmalkaldic forces indeed occupied the Wolfenbüttel lands of Henry V, however, when they were defeated by Imperial forces at the 1547 Battle of Mühlberg, the Welf duke continued his reprisals.
In 1577 the Goslar citizens signed the Lutheran Formula of Concord. After years of continued skirmishes, they finally had to grant Duke Henry and his son Julius extensive mining rights which ultimately edged out the city council. Nevertheless, several attempts by the Brunswick dukes to incorporate the Imperial city were rejected. Goslar and its economy was hit hard by the Thirty Years' War, mainly by the Kipper und Wipper financial crisis in the 1620s which led to several revolts and pogroms. Facing renewed aggressions by Duke Christian the Younger of Brunswick, the citizens sought support from the Imperial military leaders Tilly and Wallenstein. The city was occupied by the Swedish forces of King Gustavus Adolphus from 1632 to 1635; in 1642 a peace agreement was reached between Emperor Ferdinand III and the Brunswick duke Augustus the Younger. The hopes of the Goslar citizens to regain the Rammelsberg mines were not fulfilled.
Goslar remained loyal to the Imperial authority, solemnly celebrating each accession of a Holy Roman Emperor. While strongly referring to its great medieval traditions, the city continuously decreased in importance and got into rising indebtedness. When Johann Wolfgang von Goethe stayed at Goslar in 1777, he called it "an Imperial city rotted in and with its privileges".
In the winter of 1798, the coldest of the century, the young English poet William Wordsworth stayed in the city. To dispel homesickness he started to write a few verses about his childhood, which would eventually evolve into the masterpiece that was published in 13 volumes after his death as The Prelude.
First administrative reforms were enacted by councillors of the Siemens family. Nevertheless, the status of Imperial immediacy was finally lost, when Goslar was annexed by Prussian forces during the Napoleonic Wars in 1802, confirmed by the German Mediatisation the next year. Under Prussian rule, further reforms were pushed ahead by councillor Christian Wilhelm von Dohm. Temporarily part of the Kingdom of Westphalia upon the Prussian defeat at the 1806 Battle of Jena–Auerstedt, Goslar finally was assigned to the newly established Kingdom of Hanover by resolution of the Vienna Congress. The cathedral was sold and torn down from 1820 to 1822, bitterly mourned by Heinrich Heine in his Harzreise travelogue. Again under Prussian rule after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Goslar became a popular retirement residence (Pensionopolis) and a garrison town of the Prussian Army. The Hohenzollern kings and emperors had the Imperial Palace restored, including the mural paintings by Hermann Wislicenus.
After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 Reichsminister Richard Walther Darré made Goslar the seat of the agricultural Reichsnährstand corporation. In 1936 the city obtained the title of Reichsbauernstadt. In the course of German rearmament a Luftwaffe airbase was built north of the town and several war supplier companies located in the vicinity, including subcamps of the Buchenwald and Neuengamme concentration camps. Nevertheless the historic town escaped strategic bombing during World War II.
Part of the British occupation zone from 1945, Goslar was the site of a displaced persons’ camp. During the Cold War era the city near the inner German border was a major garrison town for the West German army and the border police. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the barracks were vacated and a major economic factor was lost. The Rammelberg mines were finally closed in 1988 after more than a thousand years.
In the summer of 2018 a bottled typewritten message dated 26 March 1930 was discovered in the roof of Goslar Cathedral, signed by four roofers, who bemoaned the economic state of the country. The bottle was discovered by a roofer who turned out to be the grandson of one of the signatories, who had been an 18-year-old apprentice in 1930. Goslar's mayor replaced the bottle with a copy of the 1930 message, adding his own confidential message.
Demographics[edit]
As of 31 December 2020 there were 50,184 inhabitants in Goslar (including Vienenburg).
Population statistics
Year
Inhabitants
1821
7,547
1848
9,748
1871
11,900
1885
15,997
1905
23,640
1925
27,881
Year
Inhabitants
1933
29,538
1939
34,371
1946
47,855
1950
53,804
1956
53,236
Year
Inhabitants
1961
54,151
1968
53,819
1970
52,649
1975
53,963
1980
52,556
Year
Inhabitants
1985
49,636
1990
46,251
1995
46,142
2000
44,278
2005
43,119
2010
40,989
(count: 31 December of each year)
