Xanten

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Xanten


Country	Germany
State	North Rhine- Westphalia
Administrative region	Düsseldorf
District	Wesel
Population	22,360 (2005)
Area	72.39 km²
Population density	309 /km²
Elevation	24-75 m
Coordinates	51°40′ N 6°27′ E
Postal code	46509
Area code	02801, 02804
Licence plate code	WES
Mayor	Christian Strunk (CDU)
Website	rathaus-xanten.de

Xanten (IPA: ['ksantən]) is a very historic town in the North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany, located in the district of Wesel. It is the only German town whose name begins with X and visited by approximately 800.000 tourists a year. Xanten Cathedral is the biggest cathedral between Cologne and the sea. In 1988 Xanten has received the title of a "leisure city" in Germany.

1 Geography
2 History
3 Bibliography
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Geography

Xanten is made up of three districts: Hochbruch, Niederbruch and the city centre. More localities, which belong to the city of Xanten, are divided into 6 urban districts: Birten, Lüttingen, Marienbaum, Vynen (with Obermörmter), Wardt (with Mörmter and Willich) and Xanten (with Beek and Ursel). Parts of a protected area called Bislicher Insel belong to the city.

The city is limited by the Rhine and the city of Rees in the north, the city of Wesel to the east, the municipalities of Alpen and Sonsbeck in the south as well as the cities of Uedem and Kalkar to the west.

[edit] History

[edit] Antiquity

First settlements by isolated tribes can be dated around the year 2000 BC. Around 15 BC the Roman camp Castra Vetera was created on the Fürstenberg near today's locality Birten. It was intended to be a base for campaigns into Germania and until its destruction during the uprising of the Batavians in 70 AD it was occupied by 8,000 to 10,000 legionaries, and was the main base of the Classis germanica.

After the destruction of Castra Vetera a second camp became established at the Bislicher Insel, named "Castra Vetera II", which became the base camp of Legio VI Victrix. A nearby created settlement, which was inhabited by 10,000 to 15,000 usually former legionaries, was given the rights of a Colonia in 110 by the Roman emperor Marcus Ulpius Traianus, who also renamed the city into Colonia Ulpia Traiana. The colonia became the second most important commercial post in the province of Germania Inferior, only beaten by Colonia Agrippinensis (today's Cologne). In 122, Vetera II became the camp of Legio XXX Ulpia Victrix, which substituted VI Victrix, moved to Britannia.

In 275 the colonia was almost destroyed by Germanic tribes. Thereupon in the area of the colonia a new city was established, named "Tricensimae", which was meant to be smaller but however fortified and more easily to defend. At the beginning of the 5th century the assaults by Germanic tribes however increased rapidly so that the colonia was given up finally. Following the legend of the Nibelungs Siegfried of Xanten was born later on ze Santen an dem Rhîne. The Christian Viktor of Xanten is supposed to have been executed together with 360 further members of the Theban Legion in 363 near the today's town of Birten as they refused sacrificing to the Roman Gods. Since then Viktor of Xanten is considered as martyr and a later protection patron of the cathedral established over his assumed burial place.

[edit] The Middle Ages

In the 5th century the Franks began to settle in the area of today's Xanten, but they did not found any urban settlements. In the second half of the 8th Century a church was built on the grounds of an old cemetery of the ancient Roman colony and called "Sanctos (super Rhenum)" (also mentioned "ad Sanctum"). The name of "place of saints" was derived from the assumed grave of the martyr Viktor of Xanten and is the source of today's city name of "Xanten". After establishng a convent south to it today's town centre came into existence. In 939 troops under King Otto I. defeated Franconian, Saxon and Lotharingian troops under Heinrich I in the "Battle of Xanten". Following the "Battle of Andernach" the same year and the "Battle of Birten" in 936 the annexation of the Rhineland to the kingdom of Otto I was signed. While Xanten with its rich "Viktor Convent" was still being sieged by Normans in 863, the place in 1122 already appears as part of a trading network at the Lower Rhine. On July 15, 1228 Xanten was given city rights by the Archbishop of Cologne, Heinrich of Molenark.

Xanten had a Jewish community in early medieval times. Two massacres of Jews occurred during the First Crusade (June 1 and 27, 1096). On the latter occasion some Jews committed suicide in order to escape the fury of the Crusaders.

Friedrich of Hochstaden lay the foundation stone for the gothic cathedral called St. Viktor, which was finally completed after 281 years of construction in 1263. At the end of the 14th Century Xanten was surrounded by a city wall.

In 1392 the northern part of the city came into the possession of the dukes of Cleves while the southern part was still possessed by the Archbishop of Cologne. The division of Xanten was a cause of a conflict between Cleves and Cologne, which ended when the whole of Xanten was awarded to the duchy of Cleves in 1444.

After being taken by the dukes of Cleves, in the wake of war and crop failure, the number of inhabitants slumped from 5,000 at the beginning of the 16th Century to approximately 2,500 by the end of the 18th Century. The Rhine had been a basis of Xanten as a trading city until the river bed shifted away from the city, causing its economic situation to deteriorate. The river even flooded and destroyed the locality of Birten several times.

The section Marienbaum, however, became the most ancient place of pilgrimage on the Lower Rhine between 1430 and 1441. In 1460 a monastery of the "Birgitten" was established, with an abbey church called "St. Mariä Himmelfahrt" (English: Assumption of St. Mary) which still serves as a parish church to the present.

Protestantism arrived in 1572, but at the beginning of the 20th century just 5 % of the population were of Protestant denomination. By the beginning of the 21st century the Protestant population increased to some 20%. As Xanten fell to the duke of Brandenburg in the 17th century the Protestant church was placed on an equal footing with the Catholic church as comfirmed by the Contract of Xanten on 12 November 1614. Thereupon a church was built at the "Großer Markt", which was expanded by a spire in 1622.

[edit] Modern times

1802 the Viktor-convent was secularized by Napoléon Bonaparte, the libraries of closed monasteries and the convent library were merged. Thereupon deterioration of the economic situation became even stronger. To decrease municipal outgoings a city gate called the "Marstor" was torn down in 1821, the "Scharntor" and parts of the city walls being removed in 1825. The removal of the "Klever Tor" and a mill called "Kriemhildmühle" was prevented by a city's councillor in 1843. At the same time the ruins of the Colonia Ulpia Traiana, which had been used as a quarry since the Roman settlement was given up, aroused the interest of archaeologists. So, between 1819 and 1844 excavation works were being done. In September 1927 the Catholic church municipality celebrated its 1,600th anniversary; in 1937 Pope Pius XI. granted the right for the cathedral of "St. Viktor" to be called a Basilica minor.

In the later part of the nineteenth century the attention of the Jewish world was attracted to the small congregation of Xanten by a blood accusation. On June 29, 1891, John Hegemann, the five-year-old son of a local cabinet maker, was found dead in a neighbor's barn, with his throat cut from ear to ear. Anti-Semitic agitation connected the Jewish butcher and former shoḥeṭ Adolf Buschoff with this crime; and the local priest, father Bresser, lent support to this rumor by publishing articles on ritual murder in the paper Bote für Stadt und Land, which he edited. The agitation in the anti-Semitic press, as well as at anti-Semitic meetings, where it was insinuated that the Jews had bribed or intimidated the authorities in order to prevent the discovery of the truth, compelled the government to arrest Buschoff and his family (October 14, 1891). The evidence against the man, who had always borne a good reputation, was so flimsy, however, that he was discharged (December 20). This action aroused the anti-Semites to still stronger agitation, which culminated in a heated debate in the Prussian Diet; in the course of this argument Stoecker, the ex-court chaplain, cleverly repeated the accusation of ritual murder, and hinted at Jewish influence as the cause of the failure to find the murderer (February 7, 1892). Under pressure of this agitation Buschoff was rearrested (February 8), and tried before a jury at Cleves (July 4-14, 1892). During this trial it was found that the accusations were based on mere hearsay, and contained absolutely impossible assertions. The prosecuting attorney himself moved for the dismissal of the charge, and the jury rendered its verdict accordingly. The real murderer was never discovered, and the possibility that the death of the child was due to an accident was not entirely disproved. The agitation had the effect of reducing the Jewish population of the city, and Buschoff himself had to leave. At 1905 Xanten had about thirty Jews in a total population of 3,770. Willi Fährmann, a famous German author living in Xanten, has written a book named "Es geschah im Nachbarhaus" about this tragical incident, which became very succesfully in Germany.

In 1933 local mayor Heinrich Wagner was locked up in a tower called "Meerturm" accused of alleged nepotism with loan business. His successor was Friedrich Karl Schöneborn, while the job of deputy mayor was invested by Heinrich Prang junior. Prang had already created a local group of the NSDAP in 1925. As the local council of the "Deutsche Zentrumspartei" was dissolved, three of formerly eight city council members were group members of the NSDAP. The remaining opposition consisted of communists and liberal politicians with no real political mandate at all.

In the following period it came to encroachments against the Jewish population of Xanten. To emphasize here is the destruction of the local praying room and the devastation of several dwellings of Jewish inhabitants on November 9, 1938. After these events the entire Jewish population fled from Xanten. During Second World War an ammunition factory of the Luftwaffe was established in a small forest close to the city, called "Die Hees". While citizens of Xanten worked there in the beginning of the war women and children, but above all foreigners were forced to the hard labour in the course of the war. With incidents on the area of the factory both in November 1942 and in October 1944 parts of the stored ammunition exploded, which cost several workers' lives. In May 1940 the 256. infantry division became shifted to Xanten to take part at the forthcoming invasion of the Netherlands.

When allied troops reached Xanten in February 1945 mayor Schöneborn left the city. With him almost the entire city administration fled into more eastern areas. In the same month the bombardment of the city had began, which above all killed civilians and destroyed far parts of Xanten. Also the cathedral was hit by bombs and damaged heavily. On March 8, 1945 Xanten was finally taken by Canadian troops. The Canadian military lost according to their own data 400 soldiers in the fight against the defending Wehrmacht's "Fallschirmjäger". Thereupon the city, 85% of which had been already been destroyed, was occupied by British troops while the population was evacuated to Bedburg-Hau in preparation for the crossing of the Rhine near the city of Wesel. Artillery projectiles fired by German soldiers from the right bank of the Rhine additionally devastated Xanten in this time. As the crossing of the Rhine on March 24, 1945 finally succeeded the Second World War was over for Xanten.

The reconstruction of the city and the cathedral was accomplished particularly by the archaeologist and monument conservationist Walter Bader and lasted until 1966. Refugees from eastern Prussia settling in Xanten caused the population to rise by almost 40%. In the course of the local re-organization in 1969 the localities Birten, Lüttingen, Marienbaum, Obermörmter, Vynen and Wardt were integrated so that around 16,000 inhabitants lived within the city boundaries. The area of the city increased from 8 km² to 72 km².

In 1975 the "APX" (Archäologischer Park Xanten, English: Archaeological Park Xanten), a partial reconstruction of the Roman Colonia Ulpia Traiana, was established and opened for tourism. Today it is one of the most frequently visited parks in Germany. Further different historical buildings in the town centre were restored and today in Xanten there is one of the most beautiful city centres in Germany with many shops, restaurants and cafes in a mediaeval atmosphere. At the "Xantener Südsee" and "Xantener Nordsee", two lakes connected by a channel close to the localities Wardt and Vynen, the "FZX" (Freizeitzentrum Xanten, English: leisure center Xanten) was established in 1982. On November 28, 1988 Xanten, which is visited by approximately 800,000 tourists a year, received the title of a "Staatlich anerkannter Erholungsort" ("leisure city") as the first city in the governmental district of Düsseldorf. Between 1990 and 2004 the number of inhabitants rose from 16.930 to 21.305. On the 23rd April 2006, Xanten was twinned with Salisbury in the United Kingdom. A notable resident of Xanten is Willi Fährmann, a famous German author. More and more people decide to move to Xanten because they want to live in a nice and quiet area but not drive far to North-Rhine-Westphlia´s big cities (Düsseldorf 60 km, Duisburg 40 km, Cologne 100 km). There is one Gymnasium, the most respected school in German school system, in Xanten: The Stiftsgymnasium Xanten, which has a very good reputation in and around Xanten, because of many international projects they do. There also is a private girls-only school in Xanten: The Marienschule, which also is one of the best schools in Xanten and sorroundings.

Seat distribution in the town council
Party	Number of seats
CDU	19
SPD	9
Local Party FBI	5
B90/Grüne	3
FDP	2

[edit] Bibliography

Aronius, "Regesten," p. 89, No. 188; p. 92, No. 195). In 1187 the martyrs of Neuss were brought to Xanten to be buried by the side of those martyred in 1096 (ib. p. 144, No. 322)
Mittheilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus, 1892, Index, s.v. Xanten and Buschoff;
Allg. Zeit. des Jud. 1892, Nos. 29-31;
Der Prozess Buschoff, Leipsic, 1892;
Nathan, Der Prozess Buschoff, Berlin, 1892;
Der Prozess Xanten-Cleve, ib. 1892;
Der Xantener Knabenmord vor dem Schwurgericht zu Cleve, 4-14 Juli, 1892, Berlin, 1893 (a complete stenographic record).