Heringen (Werra) is a small town in
Hersfeld-Rotenburg
Hersfeld-Rotenburg is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the east of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Werra-Meißner, Wartburgkreis, Fulda, Vogelsbergkreis, Schwalm-Eder.
History
In 1821, districts were created in Hesse, including the districts H ...
district in eastern
Hesse
Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
lying right at the boundary with
Thuringia
Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million.
Erfurt is the capital and larg ...
.
Geography
Location
The nearest major towns and cities are
Bad Hersfeld
The festival and spa town of Bad Hersfeld (''Bad'' is "spa" in German; the Old High German name of the city was ''Herolfisfeld'') is the district seat of the Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in northeastern Hesse, Germany, roughly 50 km southeast ...
(28 km to the west),
Eisenach
Eisenach () is a town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, located west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia and bordering northeastern Hessian regions, situat ...
(30 km to the northeast) and
Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...
(80 km to the north).
The town lies on the river
Werra
The Werra (), a river in central Germany, is the right-bank headwater of the Weser. "Weser" is a synonym in an old dialect of German. The Werra has its source near Eisfeld in southern Thuringia. After the Werra joins the river Fulda in the t ...
, surrounded by outliers of the
Thuringian Forest
The Thuringian Forest (''Thüringer Wald'' in German), is a mountain range in the southern parts of the German state of Thuringia, running northwest to southeast. Skirting from its southerly source in foothills to a gorge on its north-west side i ...
, the
Seulingswald
The Seulingswald (also called the Sillingswald) is a hill range in the German Central Uplands which reaches heights of up to . It is part of the Fulda-Werra Uplands in the East Hesse Highlands within the Hessian county of Hersfeld-Rotenburg; ...
and the
Anterior Rhön, all mountain or hill ranges.
The lowest point in town is found on the Werra floodplain at 210 m above
sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...
. The highest point within town limits is the Lehnberg at 471 m above sea level.
Neighbouring communities
Clockwise from the north, these are
Wildeck
Wildeck is a municipality in Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in northeastern Hesse, Germany lying right at the boundary with Thuringia, 54 km southeast of Kassel.
Geography
Location
The community lies partly in the middle Werra valley, in th ...
,
Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Berka/Werra,
Philippsthal (Werra)
Philippsthal (Werra) is a market community in Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in eastern Hesse, Germany, right at the boundary with Thuringia.
Geography
Location
Philippsthal lies between the outliers of the Rhön and the Thuringian Forest (ranges) ...
und
Friedewald
Friedewald is a municipality in the district of Altenkirchen, in Rhineland-Palatinate, in western Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous countr ...
.
Constituent communities
Heringen's ''
Stadtteile'', besides the main centre, also called Heringen, are Bengendorf, Herfa, Kleinensee, Leimbach, Lengers, Widdershausen and Wölfershausen.
History
In 1153, Heringen had its first documentary mention. The
Fulda Abbey
The Abbey of Fulda (German ''Kloster Fulda'', Latin ''Abbatia Fuldensis''), from 1221 the Princely Abbey of Fulda (''Fürstabtei Fulda'') and from 1752 the Prince-Bishopric of Fulda (''Fürstbistum Fulda''), was a Order of Saint Benedict, Benedicti ...
enfeoffed the nobleman Heinrich von Heringen about 1170 with the place. The Heringen court comprised in the early 15th century not only the current town area but also the Thuringian centres of Vitzeroda, Gasteroda and Abteroda, all of which now belong to the
Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Berka/Werra. In 1432, Margarethe von Heringen sold the court to the
Landgraves of Hesse
The Landgraviate of Hesse (german: Landgrafschaft Hessen) was a principality of the Holy Roman Empire. It existed as a single entity from 1264 to 1567, when it was divided among the sons of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse.
History
In the early Midd ...
, thereby binding Heringen to Hesse.
With the opening of the
Wintershall
Wintershall Holding GmbH, based in Kassel, was Germany's largest crude oil and natural gas producer. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of BASF. The company was active in oil and gas exploration and production with operations in Europe, North Afr ...
potash
Potash () includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form. works, which began mining in 1903, the community got its first industrial jobs. Later, the Neu-Heringen and Herfa-Neurode potash mines were built. The mine is today the world's biggest potash-mining area and has an area about the same as Greater Munich's.
At the end of World War II, the libraries of the German Army's
Military Geology Unit
The Military Geology Unit was a unit in the United States military during World War II. It was established on June 24, 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor.Terman, Maurice, 1998, ''Military Geology Unit of the U.S. Geological Survey during World W ...
(
Wehrgeologenstellen) and the
German Patent Office
The German Patent and Trade Mark Office (german: Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt; abbreviation: DPMA) is the German national patent office, with headquarters in Munich, and offices in Berlin and Jena. In 2006 it employed 2556 people, of which abo ...
(
Reichspatentamt
The German Patent and Trade Mark Office (german: Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt; abbreviation: DPMA) is the German national patent office, with headquarters in Munich, and offices in Berlin and Jena. In 2006 it employed 2556 people, of which abo ...
) were removed from Berlin and secretly stored in the deep
Wintershall
Wintershall Holding GmbH, based in Kassel, was Germany's largest crude oil and natural gas producer. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of BASF. The company was active in oil and gas exploration and production with operations in Europe, North Afr ...
potash
Potash () includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form. mine in Heringen. There they were discovered by the US
Third Army in March 1945, and removed to the US. The German Patent Library was later restored to Germany, but the military geology materials of maps, reports and books, often stolen from other countries during the invasions, were retained by the US as Nazi
materiel
Materiel (; ) refers to supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commercial supply chain context.
In a military context, the term ''materiel'' refers either to the specifi ...
. Most of these maps and books remain in the
US Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, an ...
Library today, with an obscure
stamp on each that reads "Heringen Collection".
Market rights were granted the community in 1526, and in 1977 came town rights to what was then a greater community (formed out of several smaller former communities).
There are also successor buildings of the knightly estate of Vultejus.
Amalgamations
Between 1968 and 1972 the above-named centres were amalgamated into a greater community, which was granted town rights in 1977 by the Hesse
''Land'' government.
Population development
Politics
Town council
The municipal election held on 26 March 2006 yielded the following results:
The town's executive (''Magistrat'') is made up of six councillors, with two seats allotted to the SPD, two to the CDU and 2 to the WGH. Manfred Wenk is the first ever WGH councillor.
Mayor
Mayor Daniel Iliev was elected on 20 March 2016.
Coat of arms
The town's
arms
Arms or ARMS may refer to:
*Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body
Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to:
People
* Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader
Coat of arms or weapons
*Armaments or weapons
**Fi ...
might be described thus: Azure a bend wavy sinister argent between a sledgehammer and a cross-peen hammer per saltire, and three fish of the last.
The bend wavy sinister, that is, slanted wavy stripe beginning on the sinister (armsbearer's left, viewer's right) side and stretching down across the
escutcheon, stands for the river Werra. The three fish come from the arms formerly borne by the Lords of Heringen (''Hering'' is
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
for “herring”). The mining tools are, of course, a traditional miner's symbol. This
charge
Charge or charged may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* '' Charge, Zero Emissions/Maximum Speed'', a 2011 documentary
Music
* ''Charge'' (David Ford album)
* ''Charge'' (Machel Montano album)
* ''Charge!!'', an album by The Aqu ...
was added to the coat of arms in 2003,
altes Wappen von Heringen altes Wappen der Stadt, vor 2003
/ref> as potash had been being mined here for a hundred years. The old arms are shown at right.
Town partnerships
* Rombas, Moselle
The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it jo ...
, France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
In 2007, partnership documents were signed with the following towns:
* Heringen
Heringen (Werra) is a small town in Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in eastern Hesse, Germany lying right at the boundary with Thuringia.
Geography
Location
The nearest major towns and cities are Bad Hersfeld (28 km to the west), Eisenach ...
, Thuringia
Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million.
Erfurt is the capital and larg ...
* Odolanów
Odolanów (german: Adelnau) is a town in the Greater Poland Voivodeship of Poland, about south-west from Ostrów Wielkopolski, with over 5000 inhabitants.
History
The first written document that mentions Odolanów dates back to 1301, when it w ...
, Ostrów Wielkopolski
Ostrów Wielkopolski () (often abbreviated ''Ostrów Wlkp.'', formerly called simply ''Ostrów'', german: Ostrowo, Latin: ''Ostrovia'') is a city in west-central Poland with 70,982 inhabitants (2021), situated in the Greater Poland Voivodeship; ...
, Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
Culture and sightseeing
Museums
Werra-Kalibergbaumuseum
(potash mining museum)
Buildings
* Potash tailings
In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...
heap “Monte Kali” (Heringen “landmark”)
* Walterskirche church ruins (from a village thought to have been forsaken in the 15th century)
* Bodesruh memorial (tower, originally built as a monument to German division)
* Successor buildings of the knightly estate of Vultejus
Parks
* Rohrlache and Säulingssee (wetland
A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...
s on the Werra floodplain)
* Herfa forest botany garden
Regular events
* Weekly market (Thursday mornings)
Economy and infrastructure
Research and development
It was in Heringen that the groundbreaking invention of the electrostatic salt separation facility (''elektrostatische Salz-Trennungsanlage'', or ESTA) was first realized and further developed. After former mining director Prof. Dr.-Ing. Arno Singewald's research and inventions, the German potash-mining industry could introduce a thoroughly novel, environmentally friendly means of processing the mined salts. Salt-saturated water is avoided when the ESTA is used. These facilities built at the potash works along the Werra have also seen to it that a river that was once thoroughly salted – by East German
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
potash works – has been brought back to life.
Established businesses
* K+S KS and variants may refer to:
Businesses and organizations
* , a German postwar commando frogman force
* , a Norwegian type of company
* Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities
* PenAir, Peninsula Airways, Anchorage, Alaska, US (IA ...
Kali GmbH – potash mining (district's biggest employer)
* Schwabenhaus GmbH + Co. KG – prefabricated buildings
A prefabricated building, informally a prefab, is a building that is manufactured and constructed using prefabrication. It consists of factory-made components or units that are transported and assembled on-site to form the complete building.
Hist ...
* Messer Industriemontagen & Apparatebau GmbH – pipeline and special steel construction
Notable people
* Uwe Bein
Uwe Bein (born 26 September 1960) is a German former professional footballer who played as a midfielder.
Career
Although, due to his reserved nature, he was never able to gain large public fame, Bein's fans and experts call him one of the mos ...
(b. 26 September 1960 in Heringen), professional footballer and world champion in 1990
* Jürgen Gehb (b. 9 August 1952 in Heringen), since 1998 Member of the Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...
and currently rightwing speaker of the CDU/CSU
CSU may refer to:
* Channel service unit, a Wide area network equivalent of a network interface card
* Chari Aviation Services, Chad, by ICAO airline code
* Christian Social Union (UK), an Anglican social gospel organisation
* Christian Social Un ...
Bundestag faction.
* Michael Roth (b. 24 August 1970 in Heringen), German SPD politician and Member of the Bundestag
References
Bibliography
*Hadden, Robert Lee. 2003
"The Heringen Collection of the US Geological Survey Library"
Geological Society of America. Seattle Annual Meeting (November 2–5, 2003). Paper No. 94-7. Abstract: "One special collection of German, Polish and Russian language books, maps and reports in the US Geological Survey Library has an interesting and unusual history. The “Heringen Collection” came from Nazi Germany. In the last days of the war, these maps, photos and other records were sent from the Military Geology offices in Berlin to the safety of a deep potash mineshaft in Heringen (Werra), in Hessen, Germany. A special group of US Army soldiers were ordered to find these lost records of the Third Reich. When found and removed from the Heringen mine, those records which dealt with the earth sciences, terrain analysis, military geology and other geological matters were sent to the USGS, and eventually came to reside at the USGS Library. The printed papers and books were mostly incorporated into our main collection, but a significant portion of the materials were never cataloged, calendared or indexed. This paper describes the history of the USGS Library's “Heringen Collection,” and some overview of the scope of the materials."
*Hadden, Robert Lee. 2008
"The Heringen Collection of the US Geological Survey Library of Reston, Virginia."
Earth Sciences History, Volume 27, Number 2. Pages 242-265. . Abstract: "A special collection of German, Polish, and Russian language books, maps and reports in the US Geological Survey Library has an interesting and unusual history. The so-called ‘Heringen Collection’ came from Nazi Germany. Many of these items were captured from libraries, offices and even private homes as the German Army advanced into neighboring countries. In the last days of the war, these maps, reports, photos and other records were sent from the Military Geology offices in Berlin to the safety of a deep potash mineshaft in Heringen (Werra), in Hessen, Germany. A group of US Army soldiers found these lost records of the Third Reich. When removed from the Heringen mine, those records that dealt with the earth sciences, terrain analysis, military geology and other geological matters were sent to the USGS, and eventually came to reside at the USGS Library. The printed papers and books were mostly incorporated into the main collection, but a portion of the materials have never been cataloged, calendared or indexed. These materials have many current uses, including projects of value to citizens in their nations of origin."
*Willig, Dierk. 2009
"Die Odyssee des Wehrgeologenarchivs als Teil der Heringen Collection: Versuch einer Rekonstruktion der Vorgänge von März 1945 bis heute."
Euskirchen: Amt für Geoinformationswesen der Bundeswehr. 31 pages.
External links
*
{{Authority control
Hersfeld-Rotenburg