Erfurt

[10] Other noted Erfurters include the medieval philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1328), the Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706) and the sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920).King Henry VI held council in a building of the Erfurt Cathedral to negotiate peace between two of his vassals, Archbishop Konrad I of Mainz and Landgrave Ludwig III of Thuringia.The university quickly became a hotspot of German cultural life in Renaissance humanism with scholars like Ulrich von Hutten, Helius Eobanus Hessus and Justus Jonas.[38] Similarly the Cyriaksburg Citadel was damaged by the French, with the city-side walls being partially dismantled in the hunt for imagined treasures from the convent, workers being paid from the sale of the building materials.[38][41] Similarly, the Napoleonshöhe – a Greek-style temple topped by a winged victory with shield, sword and lance and containing a bust of Napoleon sculpted by Friedrich Döll[38][41][42] – was erected in the Stiegerwald woods, including a grotto with fountain and flower beds, using a large pond (lavoratorium) from the Peterskirche,[41] inaugurated with ceremony on 14 August 1811 after extravagant celebrations for Napoleon's birthday,[38] which were repeated in 1812 with a concert in the Predigerkirche conducted by Louis Spohr.[38][44] After a first capitulation signed by d'Alton on 20 December 1813 the French troops withdrew to the two fortresses of Petersberg and Cyriaksburg,[44] allowing for the Coalition forces to march into Erfurt on 6 January 1814 to jubilant greetings;[45][46] the Napoleonsäule ceremonial column was burned and destroyed as a symbol of the citizens' oppression under the French;[38][41][45][47] similarly the Napoleonshöhe was burned on 1 November 1813 and completely destroyed by Erfurters and their besiegers in 1814.[45] During the two and a half months of siege, the mortality rate rose in the city greatly; 1,564 Erfurt citizens died in 1813, around a thousand more than the previous year.Under the Nazis, JA Topf & Sons supplied specially developed crematoria, ovens and associated plants to the Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald and Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camps.Bombed as a target of the Oil Campaign of World War II, Erfurt suffered only limited damage and was captured on 12 April 1945, by the US 80th Infantry Division.[52] On 3 July, American troops left the city, which then became part of the Soviet Zone of Occupation and eventually of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).The city's topography creates a microclimate caused by the location inside a basin with sometimes inversion in winter (quite cold nights under −20 °C (−4 °F)) and inadequate air circulation in summer.In addition to the old village, the district of Melchendorf also includes the prefab housing areas of Drosselberg and Buchenberg as well as several four-story apartment blocks from the 1950s and 1960s on Kranichfelder Straße.[62] The most important regions of origin of Erfurt migrants are rural areas of Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony as well as foreign countries like Poland, Russia, Syria, Afghanistan and Hungary.[citation needed][63] Like other cities within the area of former East Germany, foreigners account only for a small share of Erfurt's population: c. 3.0 % are non-Germans by citizenship and overall 5.9 % are migrants (according to the 2011 European Union census).[citation needed] On 12 April 2008, a version of Verdi's opera Un ballo in maschera directed by Johann Kresnik opened at the Erfurt Theatre.The production stirred deep controversy by featuring nude performers in Mickey Mouse masks dancing on the ruins of the World Trade Center and a female singer with a painted on Hitler toothbrush moustache performing a straight arm Nazi salute, along with sinister portrayals of American soldiers, Uncle Sam, and Elvis Presley impersonators.[citation needed] Notable types of sport in Erfurt are athletics, ice skating, cycling (with the oldest velodrome in use in the world, opened in 1885), swimming, handball, volleyball, tennis and football.[citation needed] Erfurt's cityscape features a medieval core of narrow, curved alleys in the centre surrounded by a belt of Gründerzeit architecture, created between 1873 and 1914.In the northern area (districts Andreasvorstadt, Johannesvorstadt and Ilversgehofen) tenements for the factory workers were built whilst the eastern area (Krämpfervorstadt and Daberstedt) featured apartments for white-collar workers and clerks and the southwestern part (Löbervorstadt and Brühlervorstadt) with its beautiful valley landscape saw the construction of villas and mansions of rich factory owners and notables.[82] After World War II and over the whole GDR period, housing shortages remained a problem even though the government started a big apartment construction programme.[citation needed] Examples of Nazi architecture include the buildings of the Landtag (Thuringian parliament) and Thüringenhalle (an event hall) in the south at Arnstädter Straße.[citation needed] The Stalinist early-GDR style is manifested in the main building of the university at Nordhäuser Straße (1953) and the later more international modern GDR style is represented by the horticultural exhibition centre "Egapark" at Gothaer Straße, the Plattenbau housing complexes like Rieth or Johannesplatz and the redevelopment of Löbertor and Krämpfertor area along Juri-Gagarin-Ring in the city centre.[citation needed] The current international glass and steel architecture is dominant among most larger new buildings like the Federal Labour Court of Germany (1999), the new opera house (2003), the new main station (2007), the university library, the Erfurt Messe (convention centre) and the Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann ice rink.There is also growing of fruits (like apples, strawberries and sweet cherries), vegetables (e.g. cauliflowers, potatoes, cabbage and sugar beets) and grain on more than 60% of the municipal territory.Until World War I, many factories were founded in different sectors like engine building, shoes, guns, malt and later electro-technics, so that there was no industrial monoculture in the city.There are regional trains from Erfurt to Weimar, Jena, Gotha, Eisenach, Bad Langensalza, Magdeburg, Nordhausen, Göttingen, Mühlhausen, Würzburg, Meiningen, Ilmenau, Arnstadt, and Gera.[citation needed] Additionally, Erfurt operates a bus system, which connects the sparsely populated outer districts of the region to the city center.Today there are approximately 6,000 students working within four faculties, the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, and three academic research institutes.[citation needed] The world renowned Bauhaus design school was founded in 1919 in the city of Weimar,[116] approximately 20 km (12 mi) from Erfurt, 12 minutes by train.The buildings are now part of a World Heritage Site and are today used by the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, which teaches design, arts, media and technology related subjects.