Gohlis is an area in the north of the city of

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

, Germany. Once a village outside the city, it is known as the place where

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...

wrote the first version of his ''

Ode to Joy "Ode to Joy" (German language, German: , literally "To heJoy") is an ode written in the summer of 1785 by German poet, playwright, and historian Friedrich Schiller and published the following year in ''Thalia (magazine), Thalia''. A slightl ...

'' in 1785. It urbanised during the ''

Gründerzeit (; "founders' period") was the economic phase in 19th-century Germany and Austria before the great stock market crash of 1873. In Central Europe, the age of industrialisation had been taking place since the 1840s. That period is not precisely ...

'' period of the 19th century and was incorporated into the city of Leipzig in 1890. Dominated by residential buildings from the late-19th and first half of the 20th century, Gohlis has a population of more than 45,000 inhabitants (2020).

Geography

The original settlement was located on the north-eastern edge of the

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

White Elster The White Elster
Accessed on 16 Jan 2011. (, ) is a long river in central

Luppe, north of the confluence of ''Nördliche Rietzschke'' and

Parthe The Parthe is a river in Saxony, Germany, right tributary of the White Elster. Its total length is . The Parthe originates in northern Saxony, between Colditz and Bad Lausick. It flows northwest through Parthenstein, Naunhof, Borsdorf and Taucha ...

, and south of the old ''Schkeuditzer Landstraße'' (road from Leipzig to Schkeuditz; today's ''Georg-Schumann-Straße''). The original

linear village Linearity is the property of a mathematical relationship (''function'') that can be graphically represented as a straight line. Linearity is closely related to '' proportionality''. Examples in physics include rectilinear motion, the linear r ...

stretched about 600 metres along the bent village road. Today's urban area is much more extensive, stretching north-south and west-east, covering an area of . It borders on the city core of Leipzig to the south-east,

Eutritzsch Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as w ...

to the east,

Möckern Möckern is a town in the Jerichower Land district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated east of Magdeburg. The Battle of Möckern took place south of the town in 1813. History Möckern was originally called "Mokrianici" by the Slavs who ...

to the west and Wiederitzsch to the north.

History

Village

The village was probably founded by Slavic

Sorbs Sorbs ( hsb, Serbja, dsb, Serby, german: Sorben; also known as Lusatians, Lusatian Serbs and Wends) are a indigenous West Slavic ethnic group predominantly inhabiting the parts of Lusatia located in the German states of Saxony and Brandenbu ...

in the seventh century. Early forms of the name were ''Golitz'', ''Goliz'' or ''Golis''. The old Sorbian root ''gol'' meant ''bare, barren'' and is possibly a description of the unforested immediate hinterland of the village. The ending ''-its/-itz'' is typical for Slavic villages. In the course of the German expansion to the east,

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

settlers established themselves in the region. The first documented mention is in the year 1317, in which the village grant of land to the Cistercian monastery of St. George is mentioned. The rulers of Gohlis were the

Margraves of Meissen This article lists the margraves of Meissen, a march and territorial state on the eastern border of the Holy Roman Empire. History King Henry the Fowler, on his 928-29 campaign against the Slavic Glomacze tribes, had a fortress erected on a h ...

or Landsberg, and later the

Electors of Saxony The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony (German: or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356–1806. It was centered around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. In the Golden Bull of 1356, Emperor Charles ...

from the

Ernestine branch The House of Wettin () is a dynasty of German kings, prince-electors, dukes, and counts that once ruled territories in the present-day German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The dynasty is one of the oldest in Europe, and its ori ...

of the

House of Wettin The House of Wettin () is a dynasty of German kings, prince-electors, dukes, and counts that once ruled territories in the present-day German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The dynasty is one of the oldest in Europe, and its ori ...

(1423–1485), then the Albertine Dukes, Electors and Kings of Saxony. Within the Saxon state, the village Gohlis belonged to the district of Leipzig. The village Gohlis belonged to the

seigneury ''Seigneur'' is an originally feudal title in France before the Revolution, in New France and British North America until 1854, and in the Channel Islands to this day. A seigneur refers to the person or collective who owned a ''seigneurie'' (o ...

(lordship) of the manor Gohlis, by which it was subject to patrimonial law. In 1659, Michael Heinrich Horn (1623–1681), a professor of medicine and chemistry at the

Leipzig University Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December ...

, acquired the manor and the seigneury of Gohlis. Law professor Lüder Mencke (1658–1726) acquired the manor in 1720 and modernised the local law. Christiana Regina Hetzer (1724–1780) and her second husband, the Leipzig merchant and alderman Johann Caspar Richter (1708–1770), built a summer residence in

rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

style in 1755/1756. The so-called ''Gohliser Schlösschen'' ("little palace of Gohlis") is nowadays used as restaurant and for cultural events. After Richter's death, Christiana Regina remarried, making her third husband, the historian

Johann Gottlob Böhme Johann Gottlob Böhme (20 March 1717 in Wurzen – 20 June 1780 in Leipzig) was a German historian. Beginning in 1736 he studied history at the University of Leipzig. In 1747 he acquired his magister degree at Leipzig, where four years later ...

(1717–1780) lord of the manor. Schillerhaus Menckestrasse Leipzig 2009

The next owner was Christiana Regina's brother, Johann Hieronymus Hetzer (1723–1788). He was a patron of the arts, making Gohlis known as a "Court of the Muses". At the invitation of Hetzer and his friend

Christian Gottfried Körner Christian Gottfried Körner (2 July 1756 – 13 May 1831) was a German jurist. His home was a literary and musical salon, and he was a friend of Friedrich Schiller. Biography Born in Leipzig, he studied law at the University of Göttingen and at ...

, poet and playwright

spent the summer of 1785 in Gohlis. He worked on the second act of his play ''

Don Carlos ''Don Carlos'' is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on the dramatic play '' Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien'' (''Don Carlos, Infante of Spain'') by Friedri ...

'', edited the '' Fiesco'' and wrote the first version of the ''

''. The farmhouse in which Schiller lived is the oldest house standing in Gohlis. It was built in 1700 and has hardly changed since the 18th Century. In 1841, the Leipzig Schiller Society erected a memorial site which is now the "Schillerhaus" museum. In 1793, the city of Leipzig became the owner of the manor and acquired the underlying seigneury. Even after the city sold the manor to the

House of Alvensleben The House of Alvensleben is an ancient, Low German (''niederdeutsch'') noble family from the Altmark region, whose earliest known member, ''Wichard de Alvensleve'', is first mentioned in 1163 as a ministerialis of the Bishopric of Halberstadt. The ...

in 1832, it continued to exercise the local jurisdiction. Under Saxony's 1838 Municipal Code, Gohlis was made a separate rural municipality with the right of local self-governance, ending the late-feudal system of manorialism. At that time, Gohlis comprised 54 houses and 578 inhabitants. During the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

, Gohlis was connected to the Magdeburg–Leipzig railway in 1840. Bleichert & Co

During the following decades, the village experienced a rapid population growth. In 1871, it counted 5015 inhabitants, effectively becoming a suburb of the booming city of Leipzig. A new school was built in 1860–61. In 1870 Gohlis became a separate Lutheran parish, the

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

Peace Church was consecrated in 1873. In the same year, Gohlis was connected to the Leipzig tram network (then horse-drawn, electrified after 1896). Adolf Bleichert moved his

cableway Cable transport is a broad class of transport modes that have cables. They transport passengers and goods, often in vehicles called cable cars. The cable may be driven or passive, and items may be moved by pulling, sliding, sailing, or by driv ...

factory to Gohlis in 1881, becoming one of the largest and most well-known industrial plants of this place. The

Royal Saxon Army The Royal Saxon Army (german: Königlich Sächsische Armee) was the military force of the Electorate (1682–1807) and later the Kingdom of Saxony (1807–1918). A regular Saxon army was first established in 1682 and it continued to exist until the ...

developed an extensive barracks area between northern Gohlis and the neighbouring village Möckern.

Part of Leipzig

Gohlis, like several other suburbanised villages around Leipzig, was incorporated into the city in 1890. At that time, Gohlis already counted 19,312 inhabitants. After the 1898 local plan, the built-up area was extended massively to the north, beyond the railway line that had been the settlement's northern border so far. Residential neighbourhoods were developed in the following years, mostly blocks of four-storey

multi-family residential Multifamily residential (also known as multidwelling unit or MDU) is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. Units ca ...

s, but also areas with upscale detached houses in ornamental

historicist Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely u ...

styles or ''

Jugendstil ''Jugendstil'' ("Youth Style") was an artistic movement, particularly in the decorative arts, that was influential primarily in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent from about 1895 until about 1910. It was the German counterpart of ...

'' (Art nouveau). The next step of residential development was the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

-style '' Krochsiedlung'' (named after German-Jewish banker Hans Kroch) built in the far-north of Gohlis in 1929/30. Planned as a

satellite city Satellite cities or satellite towns are smaller municipalities that are adjacent to a principal city which is the core of a metropolitan area. They differ from mere suburbs, subdivisions and especially bedroom communities in that they have mun ...

for 15,000 people, only a quarter of the project was completed before being halted by the ramifications of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

and finally abandoned after the

Nazi seizure of power Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...

. The modernist Church of Reconciliation, intended as the centre of that satellite city, was consecrated in 1932. One year later, Gohlis counted 54,581 inhabitants. Instead of Bauhaus-style apartment blocks, housing development was resumed in the 1930s with more conventional single-family and duplex houses. During the Allied airstrikes of 1943-45, Gohlis suffered some damages, but was less affected than other parts of the city. Under the communist rule in East Germany, residential development was complemented by 1960s blocks of

housing cooperative A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Housing cooperatives are a distinc ...

s and a minor ''

Plattenbau (plural: , german: Platte + Bau, lit=panel/slab' + 'building/ construction) is a building constructed of large, prefabrication, prefabricated concrete slabs. The word is a compound of (in this context: panel) and (building). Such buildings ...

'' estate built at the northern end of Gohlis in the 1980s. Most of the old building stock deteriorated. After the

German reunification German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

in 1990, almost all industrial plants closed down. Since then, Gohlis is dominated by residential use, small-scale services and retail. A few commercial centres were built during the 1990s. At the same time, most of the old buildings were renovated, making Gohlis again one of the most coveted residential areas of Leipzig. In the 2010s, it experienced another building boom by

urban consolidation Urban consolidation describes the policy of constraining further development and population growth to within the boundaries of preexisting urban areas rather than expanding outward into suburban areas. Urban consolidation seeks to increase the popu ...

. From 32,500 inhabitants in 2000, the population rose to more than 45,000 in 2020.

References

External links

{{Authority control Geography of Leipzig Former municipalities in Saxony