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Restored half-timbered houses in Nordhausen
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Thousand-year-old city in the Harz
It’s hard to imagine that this sleepy little village in the Harz region used to be a major trade route junction. In the early 20th century all roads led to Nordhausen – the route from Göttingen to Leipzig and from Munich to Hamburg. Nordhausen seized the opportunity to turn itself from a provincial village into an important trading center. Trade was conducted mainly in booze and tobacco, two commodities that come with health-related warnings these days. The liquor was distilled and tobacco was made into cigarettes or chewing tobacco. The distilleries got their grain from the “Goldenen Aue,“ a fertile area east of the city. The tobacco was imported.
Several Nordhausen merchants got very rich from the lucrative trade, and their wealth is still evident today. They built villas on the mountainside above town, with a view of the city below. Just down the hill, the mid-town section of the city was made up of medieval half-timbered houses. In the valley below were the factories and settlements where the workers lived.
But the industrialists wanted more than just a nice view. For entertainment they built a city theater, which still offers excellent performances today. These performances include operas, which is unusual for a city of just 45,000 residents.
Members of the city government were pleased with the large amount of taxes they received and spent the money improving the city for the benefit of its citizens. They built schools and a local indoor swimming pool, a streetcar and railway network, a telephone and telegraph office, a post office and an electric power plant. These amenities made for near idyllic living conditions for the times. But it all ended with the Second World War. Eighty percent of the city was destroyed and the industrialists fled to the west.
Dora memorial
Just north of town, there was Dora, which became known as hell on earth. It was the site where 20,000 people died during the Second World War. More than 60,000 forced laborers, most of them from the nearby Buchenwald concentration camp, worked under inhuman conditions building a huge tunnel system. The so-called V2 rockets were produced here. The V2 was one of Hitler’s wonder weapons. It was depicted in National Socialist propaganda as the weapon that would help ensure a final victory for the Nazis. The city erected the Dora Memorial in the 1960s. A museum with a permanent exhibition on forced labor under the Nazi regime is planned for 2006.
Searching for new investors
After the war, the city was part of the German Democratic Republic, the communist East Germany. The buildings that had been destroyed weren’t repaired. Instead drab, concrete slab buildings--popular in the former East Germany—were erected. So now the cityscape consists of a jumble of beautiful old half-timbered buildings, ornate cafés, small shops and the ugly reminders of socialist reality.
The traditional tobacco and alcohol manufacturing remained viable after the war. But Nordhausen turned into an industrial city, producing agricultural and mining equipment and machines.
The next major historical turning point was the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Only a few companies survived that and unemployment has been high in the city ever since German reunification. As is the case with so many smaller East German cities, Nordhausen is looking for new investors. In the meantime, the citizens of Nordhausen are at least comforted to have the returned of something they love: the “Altstadt”. Their medieval old city center has been restored and rebuilt. It bears witness to earlier, better times. And when a new highway from Halle to Göttingen is completed in 2004 the chances are good that the city will regain a little of its former glory.
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