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(Redirected from Aix-la-Chapelle)
'' (Ripuarian: ''Oche'', French: ''Aix-la-Chapelle'') is a spa city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on the border with Belgium and the Netherlands, 65 km to the west of Cologne, and the westernmost city in Germany.Bridgwater, W. & Beatrice Aldrich. (1966) ''The Columbia-Viking Desk Encyclopedia''. Columbia University. p11.
A quarry on the Lousberg which was first used in Neolithic times attests to the long occupation of the site of Aachen. No larger settlements, however, have been found to have existed in this remote rural area, distant at least 15 km from the nearest road even in Roman times, up to the early medieval period when the place is mentioned as a king's mansion for the first time, not long before Charlemagne became ruler of the Franks.
Since Roman times, the hot springs at Aachen have been channeled into baths (none of which are currently in use). There is some documentary proof that the Romans named the hot sulphur springs of Aachen ''Aquis-Granum''. The name ''Granus'' has lately been identified as that of a Celtic deity, but there is no proof of this since a deity of this name is not attested anywhere. In French-speaking areas of the former Empire, the word ''aquas'' was turned into ''aix'', hence Aix-la-Chapelle.
After Roman times, Einhard mentions that in 765–6 Pippin the Younger spent both Christmas and Easter at ''Aquis villa'' ("Et celebravit natalem Domini in Aquis villa et pascha similiter.")[1], which must have been sufficiently equipped to support the royal household for several months. In the year of his coronation, 768, Charlemagne came to spend Christmas at Aachen for the first time. He liked the place and stayed there in a mansion which he may have extended, although there is no source attesting any wider building activity at Aachen in his time apart from the building of the collegiate church wrongly described as "the palace chapel" (since 1929, cathedral). Charlemagne spent most winters between 800 and his death in 814 in Aachen in order to enjoy the hot springs. Afterwards, the king was buried in the church which he had built; his original tomb has been lost, while his alleged remains are preserved in the shrine where he was reburied after being declared a saint; his saintliness, however, was never very widely acknowledged outside the bishopric of Liège where he may still be venerated "by tradition".
In 936, Otto I was crowned king in the collegiate church built by Charlemagne. Over the next 500 years, most kings of Germany destined to be emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were crowned "King of the Germans" in Aachen. The last king to be crowned here was Ferdinand I in 1531.
During the Middle Ages, Aachen remained a city of regional importance, due to its proximity to Flanders, achieving a modest position in the trade in woollen cloths, favoured by imperial privilege. The city remained a Free Imperial City, subject to the Emperor only, but was politically far too weak to influence the policies of any of its neighbors. The only dominion it held was that over the neighboring tiny territory of Burtscheid, which was ruled by a Benedictine abbess and forced to accept that all of its traffic must pass through the "Aachener Reich". Even in the late 18th century, the Abbess of Burtscheid was prevented from building a road linking her territory to the neighbouring estates of the duke of Jülich; the city of Aachen even deployed its handful of soldiers to chase away the road-diggers.
From the early 16th century and the advent of the reformation, Aachen preserved not much more than some extended local importance. In 1656, a great fire devastated Aachen.[2]
It still remained a place of historical myth and became newly attractive as a spa by the middle of the 17th century, not so much because of the effects of its hot springs on the health of its visitors but since Aachen was then — and remained well into the 19th century — one of the centres of high-level prostitution in Europe. Traces of this hidden agenda of the city's history can be found in the 18th century guidebooks to Aachen as well as to other spas; the main indication for visiting patients, ironically, was syphilis; only by the end of the 19th century, rheuma had become the most important object of cures at Aachen and Burtscheid. This explains why Aachen was chosen as site of several important congresses and peace treaties: the first congress of Aachen (often referred to as ''Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle'' in English) in 1668, leading to the First Treaty of Aachen in the same year which ended the War of Devolution. The second congress ended with the second treaty in 1748, finishing the War of the Austrian Succession. The third congress took place in 1818 to decide the fate of occupied Napoleonic France.
By the middle of the 18th century, industrialization had swept away most of the city's mediæval rules of production and commerce, although the entirely corrupt remains of the city's mediæval constitution were kept in place (compare the famous remarks of Georg Forster in his ''Ansichten vom Niedrrhein'') until 1801, when Aachen became the "chef-lieu du département de la Roer" in Napoléon's First French Empire. In 1815, the kingdom of Prussia took over and the city became one of its most socially and politically backward centres until the end of the 19th century. By 1880, the population was 80,000. Starting in 1840, the railway from Cologne to Belgium passed through Aachen. The city suffered extreme overcrowding and deplorable sanitary conditions up to 1875 when the mediæval fortifications were finally abandoned as a limit to building operations and new, less miserable quarters were built towards the eastern part of the city where drainage of waste liquids was easiest. In the 19th century and up to the 1930s, the city was important for the production of railway locomotives and carriages, iron, pins, needles, buttons, tobacco, woollen goods, and silk goods.
Before WWII, Anne Frank, with her mother and sister, stayed at Aachen for a short time. Her grandmother, Auguste Holländer, is buried at the Jewish graveyard here.
Aachen was destroyed partially — and in some parts completely — during World War II, mostly by bombing in the latest phase of non-surrender, by American artillery fire and through deliberate destruction wrought by the SS division employed to keep Aachen out of allied hands as long as possible. Damaged buildings include the mediæval churches of St. Foillan, St. Paul and St. Nicholas, as well as the Rathaus (city hall), although the Aachen Cathedral was largely unscathed. The city was liberated, with only 4000 inhabitants who had disobeyed Nazi evacuation orders, on October 21 1944, the first German city to be free from Nazi rule. Its first Allied-appointed mayor, Franz Oppenhoff, was murdered by a Nazi Werwolf commando.
While the kings' palace no longer exists, the church built by Charlemagne is still the main attraction of the city [1]. In addition to holding the remains of its founder, it became the burial place of his successor Otto III. The cathedral of Aachen has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The impressive Aachen Cathedral was erected on the orders of Charlemagne in 786 AD and was on completion the largest dome north of the Alps. On his death Charlemagne's remains were interred in the cathedral and can be seen there to this date.
The 14th century city hall lies on Markt. The coronation hall is on the first floor of the building. Inside you can find five frescos by the Aachen artist Alfre Rethel which show legendary scenes from the life of Charlemagne, as well as Charlemagne's signature.
Aachen is no longer an industrial center of major importance, although it boasts a large number of spin-offs from the university's IT-technology department and still is a major centre of IT development in Germany. Due to the low level of investment in cross-border railway projects, the city has preserved a slot within the Thalys high-speed train network which uses existing tracks on its last 70 km from Belgium to Cologne. Aachen was the administrative centre for the coal-mining industries in neighboring places to the NE; it never played any role in brown coal mining, however, neither in administrative or industrial terms.
Products manufactured in or around Aachen include electronics, chemicals, plastics, textiles, glass, cosmetics, and needles and pins. Its most important source of revenue, the textile industries, have been dead for almost half a century now.
Robert Browning's poem "How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix" refers to Aachen, but not to any historical fact.
The annual CHIO (short for the French ''Concours Hippique International Officiel'') is the biggest equestrian meeting of Germany and among horsemen considered to be as prestigious for equitation as the tournament of Wimbledon for tennis. Aachen was also the host of the 2006 FEI World Equestrian Games.
The local soccer team Alemannia Aachen had a short guest play in Germany's first division, after its promotion in 2006. Unfortunately, the team could not sustain its status. Thus, the team is now back in the second division. Their stadium is called Tivoli.
Since 1950, a committee of Aachen citizens annually awards the Karlspreis (German for ''Charlemagne Award'') to personalities of outstanding service to the unification of Europe. In 2003 the medal was awarded to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. In 2004, Pope John Paul II's efforts to unite Europe were honored with an ''Extraordinary Charlemagne Medal'', which was awarded for the first time ever.
The local speciality of Aachen is an originally stonehard type of sweet bread, baked in large flat loaves, called ''Aachener Printen''. Unlike gingerbread (), which is sweetened with honey, ''Printen'' are sweetened with sugar. Today, a soft version is sold under the same name which follows an entirely different recipe.
In 1372, Aachen became the first coin issuing city in the world to regularly place an Anno Domini date on a general circulation coin, a groschen. It is written MCCCLXXII. None with this date are known to be in existence any longer. The earliest date for which an Aachen coin is still extant is dated 1373.
King Ethelwulf of Wessex, father of Alfred the Great was born in Aachen.
Mies van der Rohe, one of founders of modern architecture and a member of the Bauhaus during its period in Dessau was born in Aachen as well.
Aachen has the hottest springs of Central Europe with water temperatures of 74°C. The water contains a considerable percentage of common salt and other sodium salts and sulphur.
RWTH Aachen, Aachen University of Technology, established as Polytechnicum in 1870, is a centre of technological research of worldwide importance, especially for electrical and mechanical engineering, computer sciences and physics. The university clinics attached to the RWTH, the Klinikum Aachen, is the biggest single-building hospital in Europe. Over time, a host of software and computer industries have developed around the university.
FH Aachen, Aachen University of Applied Sciences (AcUAS)
founded in 1971,The AcUAS does not only offer the classical engineering education in professions like Mechatronics,Construction Engineering, Mechanical Engineering or Electrical Engineering – in an intensive dialogue with commerce, politics and professional practice new and application-oriented programs have been and are continually developed, which exceed today’s requirements by far.
Internationality is also underlined by the range of academic courses on offer: German and international students are educated in more than 20 international or foreign-oriented programs and can acquire German as well as international degrees (Bachelor/Master) or Doppeldiplome (double degrees). The fraction of foreign students meanwhile amounts to more than 21%.
The German Army's Technical School (''Technische Schule des Heeres und Fachschule des Heeres für Technik'') is also situated in Aachen.
★ Reims, France, since January 28 1967
★ Halifax, Great Britain, since November 14 1979
★ Toledo, Spain, since January 26 1985
★ Ningbo (宁波), People's Republic of China, since October 25 1986
★ Naumburg, Germany, since May 30 1988
★ Arlington County, USA, since September 17 1993
★ Cape Town, South Africa, since 1999
★ Kostroma, Russia, since June 9 2005
★ Rosh HaAyin, Israel, since may 12 2007
Aachen is known in different languages by different names (see also Names of European cities in different languages).
See also: Aachen dialect
★ Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
★ Aachen (district)
★ List of mayors of Aachen
★ Aachener
1. Pépin le Bref, ''Annales d'Éginhard''
2. "Aachen". (2006). In ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved December 9, 2006, from ''Encyclopædia Britannica Online''.
★
★ City of Aachen (partly available in English)
★ ASEAG (public bus transport) (in German)
★ RWTH Aachen (University of technical science, Aachen)
★ Fachhochschule Aachen (Aachen University of Applied Sciences)
★ Google Earth placemark with official image overlays
★ Panorama pictures of landmarks and places of interest
★ Einhard's Annals: first mention of ''Aquis villa'', 765
★ Aachen Zoo at Zoo-Infos.de (in English)
★ Article on Aachen's historic buildings
★ Map of the Aachen Area in 1789
'' (Ripuarian: ''Oche'', French: ''Aix-la-Chapelle'') is a spa city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on the border with Belgium and the Netherlands, 65 km to the west of Cologne, and the westernmost city in Germany.Bridgwater, W. & Beatrice Aldrich. (1966) ''The Columbia-Viking Desk Encyclopedia''. Columbia University. p11.
| Contents |
| History |
| Middle Ages |
| 18th century |
| 20th century |
| Main sights |
| Economy |
| Sports |
| Miscellaneous |
| Education |
| Sister cities |
| Name in different languages |
| See also |
| Notes |
| External links |
History
A quarry on the Lousberg which was first used in Neolithic times attests to the long occupation of the site of Aachen. No larger settlements, however, have been found to have existed in this remote rural area, distant at least 15 km from the nearest road even in Roman times, up to the early medieval period when the place is mentioned as a king's mansion for the first time, not long before Charlemagne became ruler of the Franks.
Since Roman times, the hot springs at Aachen have been channeled into baths (none of which are currently in use). There is some documentary proof that the Romans named the hot sulphur springs of Aachen ''Aquis-Granum''. The name ''Granus'' has lately been identified as that of a Celtic deity, but there is no proof of this since a deity of this name is not attested anywhere. In French-speaking areas of the former Empire, the word ''aquas'' was turned into ''aix'', hence Aix-la-Chapelle.
Middle Ages
Construction of Aix-la-Chapelle, by Jean Fouquet.
After Roman times, Einhard mentions that in 765–6 Pippin the Younger spent both Christmas and Easter at ''Aquis villa'' ("Et celebravit natalem Domini in Aquis villa et pascha similiter.")[1], which must have been sufficiently equipped to support the royal household for several months. In the year of his coronation, 768, Charlemagne came to spend Christmas at Aachen for the first time. He liked the place and stayed there in a mansion which he may have extended, although there is no source attesting any wider building activity at Aachen in his time apart from the building of the collegiate church wrongly described as "the palace chapel" (since 1929, cathedral). Charlemagne spent most winters between 800 and his death in 814 in Aachen in order to enjoy the hot springs. Afterwards, the king was buried in the church which he had built; his original tomb has been lost, while his alleged remains are preserved in the shrine where he was reburied after being declared a saint; his saintliness, however, was never very widely acknowledged outside the bishopric of Liège where he may still be venerated "by tradition".
In 936, Otto I was crowned king in the collegiate church built by Charlemagne. Over the next 500 years, most kings of Germany destined to be emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were crowned "King of the Germans" in Aachen. The last king to be crowned here was Ferdinand I in 1531.
During the Middle Ages, Aachen remained a city of regional importance, due to its proximity to Flanders, achieving a modest position in the trade in woollen cloths, favoured by imperial privilege. The city remained a Free Imperial City, subject to the Emperor only, but was politically far too weak to influence the policies of any of its neighbors. The only dominion it held was that over the neighboring tiny territory of Burtscheid, which was ruled by a Benedictine abbess and forced to accept that all of its traffic must pass through the "Aachener Reich". Even in the late 18th century, the Abbess of Burtscheid was prevented from building a road linking her territory to the neighbouring estates of the duke of Jülich; the city of Aachen even deployed its handful of soldiers to chase away the road-diggers.
From the early 16th century and the advent of the reformation, Aachen preserved not much more than some extended local importance. In 1656, a great fire devastated Aachen.[2]
It still remained a place of historical myth and became newly attractive as a spa by the middle of the 17th century, not so much because of the effects of its hot springs on the health of its visitors but since Aachen was then — and remained well into the 19th century — one of the centres of high-level prostitution in Europe. Traces of this hidden agenda of the city's history can be found in the 18th century guidebooks to Aachen as well as to other spas; the main indication for visiting patients, ironically, was syphilis; only by the end of the 19th century, rheuma had become the most important object of cures at Aachen and Burtscheid. This explains why Aachen was chosen as site of several important congresses and peace treaties: the first congress of Aachen (often referred to as ''Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle'' in English) in 1668, leading to the First Treaty of Aachen in the same year which ended the War of Devolution. The second congress ended with the second treaty in 1748, finishing the War of the Austrian Succession. The third congress took place in 1818 to decide the fate of occupied Napoleonic France.
18th century
By the middle of the 18th century, industrialization had swept away most of the city's mediæval rules of production and commerce, although the entirely corrupt remains of the city's mediæval constitution were kept in place (compare the famous remarks of Georg Forster in his ''Ansichten vom Niedrrhein'') until 1801, when Aachen became the "chef-lieu du département de la Roer" in Napoléon's First French Empire. In 1815, the kingdom of Prussia took over and the city became one of its most socially and politically backward centres until the end of the 19th century. By 1880, the population was 80,000. Starting in 1840, the railway from Cologne to Belgium passed through Aachen. The city suffered extreme overcrowding and deplorable sanitary conditions up to 1875 when the mediæval fortifications were finally abandoned as a limit to building operations and new, less miserable quarters were built towards the eastern part of the city where drainage of waste liquids was easiest. In the 19th century and up to the 1930s, the city was important for the production of railway locomotives and carriages, iron, pins, needles, buttons, tobacco, woollen goods, and silk goods.
20th century
Before WWII, Anne Frank, with her mother and sister, stayed at Aachen for a short time. Her grandmother, Auguste Holländer, is buried at the Jewish graveyard here.
Aachen was destroyed partially — and in some parts completely — during World War II, mostly by bombing in the latest phase of non-surrender, by American artillery fire and through deliberate destruction wrought by the SS division employed to keep Aachen out of allied hands as long as possible. Damaged buildings include the mediæval churches of St. Foillan, St. Paul and St. Nicholas, as well as the Rathaus (city hall), although the Aachen Cathedral was largely unscathed. The city was liberated, with only 4000 inhabitants who had disobeyed Nazi evacuation orders, on October 21 1944, the first German city to be free from Nazi rule. Its first Allied-appointed mayor, Franz Oppenhoff, was murdered by a Nazi Werwolf commando.
While the kings' palace no longer exists, the church built by Charlemagne is still the main attraction of the city [1]. In addition to holding the remains of its founder, it became the burial place of his successor Otto III. The cathedral of Aachen has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Main sights
The impressive Aachen Cathedral was erected on the orders of Charlemagne in 786 AD and was on completion the largest dome north of the Alps. On his death Charlemagne's remains were interred in the cathedral and can be seen there to this date.
The 14th century city hall lies on Markt. The coronation hall is on the first floor of the building. Inside you can find five frescos by the Aachen artist Alfre Rethel which show legendary scenes from the life of Charlemagne, as well as Charlemagne's signature.
Economy
Aachen is no longer an industrial center of major importance, although it boasts a large number of spin-offs from the university's IT-technology department and still is a major centre of IT development in Germany. Due to the low level of investment in cross-border railway projects, the city has preserved a slot within the Thalys high-speed train network which uses existing tracks on its last 70 km from Belgium to Cologne. Aachen was the administrative centre for the coal-mining industries in neighboring places to the NE; it never played any role in brown coal mining, however, neither in administrative or industrial terms.
Products manufactured in or around Aachen include electronics, chemicals, plastics, textiles, glass, cosmetics, and needles and pins. Its most important source of revenue, the textile industries, have been dead for almost half a century now.
Robert Browning's poem "How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix" refers to Aachen, but not to any historical fact.
Sports
The annual CHIO (short for the French ''Concours Hippique International Officiel'') is the biggest equestrian meeting of Germany and among horsemen considered to be as prestigious for equitation as the tournament of Wimbledon for tennis. Aachen was also the host of the 2006 FEI World Equestrian Games.
The local soccer team Alemannia Aachen had a short guest play in Germany's first division, after its promotion in 2006. Unfortunately, the team could not sustain its status. Thus, the team is now back in the second division. Their stadium is called Tivoli.
Since 1950, a committee of Aachen citizens annually awards the Karlspreis (German for ''Charlemagne Award'') to personalities of outstanding service to the unification of Europe. In 2003 the medal was awarded to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. In 2004, Pope John Paul II's efforts to unite Europe were honored with an ''Extraordinary Charlemagne Medal'', which was awarded for the first time ever.
The local speciality of Aachen is an originally stonehard type of sweet bread, baked in large flat loaves, called ''Aachener Printen''. Unlike gingerbread (), which is sweetened with honey, ''Printen'' are sweetened with sugar. Today, a soft version is sold under the same name which follows an entirely different recipe.
Miscellaneous
In 1372, Aachen became the first coin issuing city in the world to regularly place an Anno Domini date on a general circulation coin, a groschen. It is written MCCCLXXII. None with this date are known to be in existence any longer. The earliest date for which an Aachen coin is still extant is dated 1373.
King Ethelwulf of Wessex, father of Alfred the Great was born in Aachen.
Mies van der Rohe, one of founders of modern architecture and a member of the Bauhaus during its period in Dessau was born in Aachen as well.
Aachen has the hottest springs of Central Europe with water temperatures of 74°C. The water contains a considerable percentage of common salt and other sodium salts and sulphur.
Education
The main building of the Aachen Technical University.
Typical Aachen street with early 20th century Gründerzeit houses.
RWTH Aachen, Aachen University of Technology, established as Polytechnicum in 1870, is a centre of technological research of worldwide importance, especially for electrical and mechanical engineering, computer sciences and physics. The university clinics attached to the RWTH, the Klinikum Aachen, is the biggest single-building hospital in Europe. Over time, a host of software and computer industries have developed around the university.
FH Aachen, Aachen University of Applied Sciences (AcUAS)
founded in 1971,The AcUAS does not only offer the classical engineering education in professions like Mechatronics,Construction Engineering, Mechanical Engineering or Electrical Engineering – in an intensive dialogue with commerce, politics and professional practice new and application-oriented programs have been and are continually developed, which exceed today’s requirements by far.
Internationality is also underlined by the range of academic courses on offer: German and international students are educated in more than 20 international or foreign-oriented programs and can acquire German as well as international degrees (Bachelor/Master) or Doppeldiplome (double degrees). The fraction of foreign students meanwhile amounts to more than 21%.
The German Army's Technical School (''Technische Schule des Heeres und Fachschule des Heeres für Technik'') is also situated in Aachen.
Sister cities
★ Reims, France, since January 28 1967
★ Halifax, Great Britain, since November 14 1979
★ Toledo, Spain, since January 26 1985
★ Ningbo (宁波), People's Republic of China, since October 25 1986
★ Naumburg, Germany, since May 30 1988
★ Arlington County, USA, since September 17 1993
★ Cape Town, South Africa, since 1999
★ Kostroma, Russia, since June 9 2005
★ Rosh HaAyin, Israel, since may 12 2007
Name in different languages
Aachen is known in different languages by different names (see also Names of European cities in different languages).
| Language | Name | Pronunciation in IPA |
|---|---|---|
| German | Aachen | |
| Local dialect | ''Oche'' | |
| Dutch | Aken | |
| Serbian | Ahen/Ахен | |
| French | Aix-la-Chapelle | |
| Polish | Akwizgran | |
| Russian | Аахен/Ахен | |
| Catalan | Aquisgrà | |
| Spanish | Aquisgrán | |
| Portuguese | Aquisgrão, Aquisgrana | , |
| Italian | Aquisgrana | |
| Latin | Aquīsgrānum | |
| Czech | Cáchy | |
| Chinese (Simplified) | 亚琛 | (PY: yà chēn) |
| Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan form) | 亞亨 | (PY: yà hēng) |
| Chinese (Traditional, HK form) | 亞琛 | (JP: aa3 sam1) |
| Thai | อาเค่น | |
| Arabic | آخن | |
| Bulgarian | Ahen/Ахен |
See also: Aachen dialect
See also
★ Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
★ Aachen (district)
★ List of mayors of Aachen
★ Aachener
Notes
1. Pépin le Bref, ''Annales d'Éginhard''
2. "Aachen". (2006). In ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved December 9, 2006, from ''Encyclopædia Britannica Online''.
★
External links
★ City of Aachen (partly available in English)
★ ASEAG (public bus transport) (in German)
★ RWTH Aachen (University of technical science, Aachen)
★ Fachhochschule Aachen (Aachen University of Applied Sciences)
★ Google Earth placemark with official image overlays
★ Panorama pictures of landmarks and places of interest
★ Einhard's Annals: first mention of ''Aquis villa'', 765
★ Aachen Zoo at Zoo-Infos.de (in English)
★ Article on Aachen's historic buildings
★ Map of the Aachen Area in 1789
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