[edit]
Early history[edit]
In antiquity, Celtic and Germanic tribes settled in the Rhine Neckar region. During the 1st century B.C. the Romans conquered the region, and a Roman auxiliary fort was constructed near the present suburb of Rheingönheim.
The Middle Ages saw the foundation of some of Ludwigshafen's future suburbs, including Oggersheim, Maudach, Oppau, and Mundenheim. Most of the area, however, remained swampland, with its development hindered by seasonal flooding of the Rhine.
The Rheinschanze[edit]
Rheinschanze c. 1750
The Rhine Neckar region was part of the territory of the Prince-elector of the Kurpfalz, or Electorate of the Palatinate, one of the larger states within the Holy Roman Empire. The foundation of the new capital of the Kurpfalz, Mannheim, was a decisive influence on the development of the area as a whole. Parallel to the foundation of Mannheim in 1606, a fortress (die Rheinschanze) was built by Frederick IV, Elector Palatine on the other side of the Rhine to protect the City of Mannheim, thus forming the nucleus of the City of Ludwigshafen itself.
In the 17th century, the region was devastated and depopulated during the Thirty Years' War, and also in King Louis XIV of France's wars of conquest in the later part of the century.
It was only in the 18th century that the settlements around the Rheinschanze began to prosper, profiting from the proximity of the capital, Mannheim. Oggersheim, in particular, gained some importance after the construction of both a small palace serving as a secondary residence for the Elector and the famous pilgrimage church, Wallfahrtskirche. For some weeks in 1782, the great German writer and playwright Friedrich Schiller lived in Oggersheim while fleeing his native Württemberg.
At the end of the 18th century, war returned to the Ludwigshafen area with the armies of the French Revolution. The palace at Oggersheim was burned down, Mannheim was besieged several times, and the area west of the Rhine was annexed by France from 1798 to 1813. The Electorate of the Palatinate was split up. After the French were expelled following the Wars of Liberation (1813–1815), the eastern bank of the Rhine with Mannheim and Heidelberg was given to Baden, while the western bank (including the Ludwigshafen area) was granted to the Kingdom of Bavaria. The Rhine had become a frontier and the Rheinschanze, cut off politically from Mannheim, lost its function as the neighbouring city's military bulwark.
Foundation[edit]
Portrait of Ludwig I of Bavaria by Joseph Karl Stieler. The nineteenth century King of Bavaria named the settlement after himself.
In 1808, during the French occupation, Carl Hornig of Mannheim purchased the fortress from the French authorities and turned it into a way station for passing river traffic. Later, the Rheinschanze with its winter-proof harbour basin (created by a flood in 1824) was used as a trading post. Hornig died in 1819, but Johann Heinrich Scharpff, a businessman from Speyer, continued Hornig's plans, which were then turned over to his son-in-law, Philipp Markus Lichtenberger, in 1830. Their activities marked the beginning of the civilian use of the Rheinschanze.
The official foundation of Ludwigshafen came in 1848, when Lichtenberger sold this property to the state of Bavaria, and the military title of the fortress was finally removed. The Bavarian king, Ludwig I, set forth plans to rename the settlement after himself and to start construction of an urban area as a Bavarian rival to Mannheim.
During the failed German revolution of 1848, rebels captured Ludwigshafen, but they were bombarded from Mannheim, and Prussian troops quickly expelled the revolutionaries. On 27 December 1852, King Maximilian II granted Ludwigshafen am Rhein political freedom and as of 8 November 1859, the settlement gained city status.
Industry and growth of population[edit]
BASF, 1866
Historical populationYearPop.±%184090—    1848600+566.7%18521,400+133.3%18582,800+100.0%18717,900+182.1%188521,000+165.8%189540,000+90.5%190062,000+55.0%191494,000+51.6%1925102,000+8.5%1939144,000+41.2%194561,000−57.6%1950124,000+103.3%1956147,000+18.5%1970180,000+22.4%1985161,000−10.6%1995171,000+6.2%2000165,000−3.5%2004166,000+0.6%2006163,000−1.8%2018171,000+4.9%Population size may be affected by changes in administrative divisions.
At its founding, Ludwigshafen was still a very modest settlement with just 1,500 inhabitants. Real growth began with industrialisation, and gained momentum due to the ideal transport facilities. In addition to its excellent position and harbour on the Rhine, a railway connecting Ludwigshafen with the Saar coalfields was completed in 1849.
In 1865, after several discussions, BASF decided to move its factories from Mannheim to the Hemshof district in Ludwigshafen. From then on, the city's rapid growth and wealth were linked to BASF's success and its expansion into becoming one of the world's most important chemical companies. Ludwigshafen also became home to several other rapidly growing chemical companies, including Friedrich Raschig GmbH, the Benckiser company (founded by Johann Benckiser), Giulini Brothers, Grünzweig&Hartmann AG, and Knoll AG [de].
With more jobs available, the population of Ludwigshafen increased rapidly. In 1899, the city was home to more than 62,000 residents.
This population explosion looked quite "American" to contemporaries; it determined Ludwigshafen's character as a "worker's city", and created problematic shortages of housing and real estate. The solution was the expansion of the municipal area with the incorporation of the two nearest villages, Friesenheim and Mundenheim, in 1892 and 1899 respectively. Between the city centre and these two suburbs, new areas (referred to as "North" and "South") were built following modern urban development plans. As the ground was marshy and too low to be protected from Rhine floods, all the new houses were built on raised ground, sometimes as high as 5 metres above the original level. As a result, back gardens in Ludwigshafen are sometimes up to two floors below street level.
World War I and World War II[edit]
During World War I (1914–1918), Ludwigshafen's industrial plants played a key role in Germany's war economy, producing chemical ingredients for munitions, as well as much of the poison gas used on the Western Front. This contributed to Ludwigshafen, on 27 May 1915, being the target of the world's first strategic aerial bombardment. French aircraft attacked the BASF plants, killing twelve people.
After the German surrender in 1918, the left bank of the Rhine was occupied by French troops, in accordance with the terms of the peace agreement. The French occupation lasted until 1930, and some of Ludwigshafen's most elegant houses were erected for the officers of the French garrison.
The economic recovery of the 1920s was marred by one of the worst industrial explosions in history on 21 September 1921, when a BASF storage silo in Oppau blew up, killing more than 500 people, injuring a further 2000, and destroying numerous buildings.
Despite this setback, Ludwigshafen reached a population of 100,000 in 1922, thus gaining "City" status. It prospered until 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, which brought unemployment, labour trouble, political strife, and the rise of the Nazis.
Between 1930 and 1932, the Nazi Party returned the most votes within the Palatinate electoral district, containing Ludwigshafen, at all elections. They received 22.8% in September 1930, 43.7% and 42.5% in July and November 1932, and 46.5% in March 1933. This was above the proportions returned nationally in the democratic elections between 1930 and 1932 of 18,3%, 37,4% and 33,1% respectively.
Ludwigshafen saw further development during Nazi rule, with many small houses with gardens being built, especially in the Gartenstadt. Additionally, similar to plans in other cities (e.g. Hamburg), the Nazis sought to create a "Greater Ludwigshafen" by agglomerating smaller towns and villages in the vicinity. Thus, Oggersheim, Oppau, Edigheim, Rheingönheim, and Maudach became suburbs of Ludwigshafen, raising its population to 135,000. The Ludwigshafen synagogue was destroyed in 1938 and its Jewish population of 1,400 people was deported in 1940.
During the Oil Campaign of World War II, the Allies conducted bombing of Ludwigshafen and Oppau. Thirteen thousand Allied bombers hit the city in 121 separate raids during the war, of which 56 succeeded in hitting the IG Farben plant. Those 56 raids dropped 53,000 bombs, each containing 250 to 4,000 pounds of high explosives, plus 2,5 million 4-pound magnesium incendiary bombs. The bombers also dropped millions of leaflets warning the civilians to evacuate the city and counterfeit ration coupons. By December 1944, so much damage had been done to vital utilities that output dropped to nearly zero. Weekly follow-up raids ended production permanently. By the end of the war, most dwellings had been destroyed or damaged; 1,800 people had died, and 3,000 were injured.
The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Ludwigshafen in March 1945. The US 12th Armored Division and 94th Infantry Division captured Ludwigshafen against determined German resistance in house-to-house and block-to-block urban combat from 21 to 24 March 1945.
Post-war rebuilding[edit]
Post-war, Ludwigshafen was part of the French occupation zone, becoming part of the newly founded Bundesland (state) of Rheinland-Pfalz and thus part of the Federal Republic of Germany. Reconstruction of the devastated city and revival of the economy were supported by the Allies, especially by American aid. In 1948, the "Pasadena Shares Committee" sent packages of blankets, clothing, food, and medicines to help the residents of post-war Ludwigshafen. In 1956, Ludwigshafen am Rhein and Pasadena, California became sister cities.
Large parts of the city were in ruins and were rebuilt in the architectural style of the 1950s and 1960s. The most important projects were the Hochstraßen (highways on stilts), the revolutionary new main station (then the most modern station in Europe), several tower blocks and a whole new suburb, the satellite quarter Pfingstweide north of Edigheim.
The city's economic wealth allowed social benefits and institutions to be introduced. The population number reached an all-time high in 1970 with more than 180,000 inhabitants, thus surpassing even the capital of Rheinland-Pfalz, Mainz, at the time.
Financial crisis[edit]
In the early 1970s, a plan to reform the composition of the German Bundesländer, which would have created a new state around a united Mannheim-Ludwigshafen as capital, failed.
Nevertheless, further ambitious projects were financed in Ludwigshafen, beginning with the 15-floor city hall with its connected shopping centre (Rathaus Centre). The suburb to be incorporated was Ruchheim in 1974.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the enormous maintenance costs of the buildings and institutions introduced during the "fat time", new tax regulations that cut down the trade tax profits from the local industries, and thousands of dismissals at BASF caused a financial crisis for the city. Reduction in population due to the loss of jobs and the general economic situation further worsened Ludwigshafen's financial situation at the end of the 20th century.
Contemporary Ludwigshafen[edit]
View from west over Edigheim and Oppau to the BASF Ludwigshafen
In recent years, efforts have been made to enhance Ludwigshafen's image in the media. The city administration has cut down its deficit by reducing social payments and maintenance, pollution has been reduced and the Hemshof quarter has been restored.
In 2008, a fire broke out in a residential building. 9 people died, all of them Turks and 5 of them children. Investigators confirmed the blaze was not arson.
In response to concerns about limited retail options, the city developed new shopping facilities, including the Walzmühle shopping mall near Berliner Platz, adjacent to the Ludwigshafen-Mitte railway station. Additionally, the Rhein-Galerie shopping mall, featuring approximately 130 stores over 30,000 square meters, opened on 29 September 2010 on the former Zollhofhafen harbour site, aiming to revitalise the waterfront area.
Largest groups of foreign residents
Nationality
Population
Turkey
9,010
Italy
6,309
Bulgaria
3,656
Poland
2,581
Romania
2,574
Greece
2,086
Croatia
1,821
Syria
1,730
Ukraine
1,647
Hungary
1,525
Serbia
1,437
