Elberfeld
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
city of Wuppertal
Wuppertal
Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...
; it was an independent town until 1929.
History
The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's WupperWupper
The Wupper is a right tributary to the Rhine river in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Rising near Marienheide in western Sauerland it runs through the mountainous area of the Bergisches Land Berg County and enters the Rhine at Leverkussen, south of Düsseldorf...
River as "elverfelde" was in a document of 1161. Etymologically, elver is derived from the old Low German
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
word for "river." (See etymology of the name of the German Elbe River; cf. Scandinavian älv.) Therefore the original meaning of "elverfelde" can be understood as "field on the river." Elverfelde received its town charter in 1610.
In 1726 Elias Eller and the pastor Daniel Schleyermacher founded a Philadelphian society. They later moved to Ronsdorf
Ronsdorf
Ronsdorf is a district of the German town Wuppertal. It has population of about 22.500. Ronsdorf was first mentioned in 1494, and in 1745 it received its town character. It was founded only a few years before by Elias Eller when he relocated the Zionites there from Elberfeld...
in the Duchy of Berg, becoming the Zionites
Zionites (Germany)
The Zionites were a sect of visionary fanatics which flourished in the eighteenth century at Ronsdorf in the Duchy of Berg. The sect sprang from a Philadelphian society founded at Elberfeld in 1726 by Elias Eller and the pastor Daniel Schleiermacher. Eller was the foreman of a factory owned by a...
, a fringe sect.
The 1820s saw the commencement of the Plymouth Brethren
Plymouth Brethren
The Plymouth Brethren is a conservative, Evangelical Christian movement, whose history can be traced to Dublin, Ireland, in the late 1820s. Although the group is notable for not taking any official "church name" to itself, and not having an official clergy or liturgy, the title "The Brethren," is...
in Dublin, Ireland and Georgetown, British Guyana. This evangelical religious movement spread to the Continent and emerged in Germany chiefly out of Pietist groups through the work of Julius Anton von Poseck, William Henry Darby and Carl Brockhaus. By the 1850s the resultant group had a focal point in Elberfeld and are known to the present as the Elberfelder Brethren. They have branches throughout Germany and Switzerland and beyond. A translation of the Darby Bible
Darby Bible
The Darby Bible refers to the Bible as translated from Hebrew and Greek by John Nelson Darby. Darby published a translation of the New Testament in 1867, with revised editions in 1872 and 1884...
into German was produced by this group and is known as the Elberfelder Bibel.
In 1826 Friedrich Harkort, a famous German industrialist and politician, had a type of suspension railway built as a trial and ran it on the grounds of what is today the tax office at Elberfeld. In fact the railway, the Schwebebahn Wuppertal
Schwebebahn Wuppertal
- Current modernisation :The Wuppertal Schwebebahn nowadays carries up to 82,000 passengers a day through the city. Since 1997, the supporting frame has been largely modernised, and a lot of stations have been reconstructed and brought technically up to date...
, was eventually built between Oberbarmen and Vohwinkel and runs through Elberfeld.
In 1888 the district of Sonnborn was incorporated into Elberfeld. In 1929 the towns of Barmen
Barmen
Barmen is a former industrial metropolis of the region of Bergisches Land, Germany, which in 1929 with four other towns was merged with the city of Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia. Barmen was the birth-place of Friedrich Engels and together with the neighbouring town of Elberfeld founded the...
, Elberfeld, Vohwinkel, Cronenberg and Ronsdorf became a municipal entity officially called "Barmen-Elberfeld;" in the same year, the unified city administration through a vote of its council members decided to rename the newly-incorporated city "Wuppertal." This took place in 1930. Today Elberfeld is the largest municipal subdivision of Wuppertal.
Notable residents
- Arno BrekerArno BrekerArno Breker was a German sculptor, best known for his public works in Nazi Germany, which were endorsed by the authorities as the antithesis of degenerate art....
, sculptor - Wilhelm Busch (clergyman), Lutheran minister
- Werner EggerathWerner EggerathWerner Eggerath was an East German author and communist politician. He was a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and its first secretary in Thuringia from 21 April 1946 to 1947, already having held that position in the Communist Party of Germany before its merger into the SED...
, East GermanGerman Democratic RepublicThe German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
politician - Karl GermerKarl GermerKarl Germer was the Outer Head of the Order of Ordo Templi Orientis from 1947 until his death in 1962...
, Outer Head of the Ordo Templi OrientisOrdo Templi OrientisOrdo Templi Orientis is an international fraternal and religious organization founded at the beginning of the 20th century...
(1947-1962) - Carl GrossbergCarl GrossbergCarl Grossberg was a German painter associated with the New Objectivity movement.Grossberg was born in Elberfeld and studied architecture in Aachen and Darmstadt prior to his military service in World War I. He later studied at the Weimar Academy of Art and at the Bauhaus...
, artist - Walter Kaufmann (physicist)Walter Kaufmann (physicist)Walter Kaufmann was a German physicist. He is most well known for his first experimental proof of the velocity dependence of mass, which was an important contribution to the development of modern physics, including special relativity.-Life:In 1890/91 he studied mechanical engineering at the...
, physicist - Erich KochErich KochErich Koch was a Gauleiter of the Nazi Party in East Prussia from 1928 until 1945. Between 1941 and 1945 he was the Chief of Civil Administration of Bezirk Bialystok. During this period, he was also the Reichskommissar in Reichskommissariat Ukraine from 1941 until 1943...
, NSDAP Gauleiter of East Prussia, Reichskommissar of Ukraine - Johann Peter LangeJohann Peter LangeJohann Peter Lange , was a German Calvinist theologian of peasant origin.-Biography:...
, Protestant theologian - Else Lasker-SchülerElse Lasker-SchülerElse Lasker-Schüler was a Jewish German poet and playwright famous for her bohemian lifestyle in Berlin. She was one of the few women affiliated with the Expressionist movement. Lasker-Schüler fled Nazi Germany and lived out the rest of her life in Jerusalem.-Biography:Schüler was born in...
, poet - Julius Pluecker, mathematician and physicist
- Sigurd RaschèrSigurd RaschèrSigurd Manfred Raschèr was an American saxophonist of German birth. He became one of the most important figures in the development of the 20th century repertoire for the classical saxophone.-Career in Europe:...
, saxophonist - Sir Hans Wolfgang Singer, economist
- Horst SteinHorst SteinHorst Walter Stein was a German conductor.- Biography :...
, conductor - Horst TappertHorst TappertHorst Tappert was a German movie and television actor who played Inspector Stephan Derrick in the television drama Derrick.-Biography:...
, actor - Günter WandGünter WandGünter Wand was a German orchestra conductor and composer. Wand studied in Wuppertal, Allenstein and Detmold. At the Cologne conservatory, he was a composition student with Philipp Jarnach and a piano student with Paul Baumgartner...
, Conductor - Carl WirthsCarl WirthsCarl Wirths was a German politician of the Free Democratic Party . He was a representative of the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia from October 2, 1946 until September 1, 1949 and the national Bundestag from 1949 until his death.- Life and career :Wirths was born in 1897 in Elberfeld, today a...
, politician