In 814 the
Carolingian emperor
Louis the Pious made the Christian mission in the German stem
duchy of Saxony the
episcopal see of the
Diocese of Halberstadt. It was granted
market rights by King
Otto III in 989. The town became the administrative centre of the Saxon
Harzgau and an important trading location. The Halberstadt bishops had the Church of Our Lady erected from about 1005 onwards. In his fierce conflict with Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa, the forces of the Saxon duke
Henry the Lion devastated the town in 1179. On Henry's downfall, the Halberstadt diocese was elevated to a
prince-bishopric about 1180. Its cathedral was rebuilt from 1236 and consecrated in 1491. Halberstadt,
Quedlinburg and
Aschersleben joined a
league of towns (
Halberstädter Dreistädtebund) in 1326; from 1387 the city was also a member of the
Hanse. From 1479 the diocese was administered by the
Archbishops of Magdeburg. While the Halberstadt citizens turned
Protestant around 1540, the cathedral chapter elected Prince
Henry Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel first Lutheran bishop in 1566. During the
Thirty Years' War the town was occupied by the troops of
Albrecht von Wallenstein in 1629 and temporarily re-Catholicized according to the imperial
Edict of Restitution. According to the 1648
Peace of Westphalia the prince-bishopric was finally
secularized to the
Principality of Halberstadt held by
Brandenburg-Prussia. The first secular governor was
Joachim Friedrich von Blumenthal. In 1699,
Swiss religious refugees founded a French Reformed community in the town. Halberstadt became part of the newly established
Kingdom of Prussia in 1701. From 1747
Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim worked here as a government official and made his home an intellectual centre of the
German Enlightenment (his house, the
Gleimhaus, is now a museum). Under the 1807
Treaty of Tilsit the town became part of the
Kingdom of Westphalia, a
Napoleonic client-state and administrative seat of the Westphalian
Department of
Saale. On 29 July 1809 a Westphalian regiment was defeated by the
Black Brunswickers under Prince
Frederick William of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in the
Battle of Halberstadt. After the defeat of Napoleon the town was restored to Prussia and subsequently administered within the
Province of Saxony. From 1815 Halberstadt was home to the Prussian
7th (Magdeburg) Cuirassiers "von Seydlitz" regiment, with
Otto von Bismarck in the rank of an officer
à la suite from 1868. The town's economy was decisively promoted by the opening of the
Magdeburg–Halberstadt Railway in 1843. The tramway was inaugurated in 1903. wing production In 1912 the
Halberstädter Flugzeugwerke aircraft manufacturer was founded followed by the opening of a military airbase, providing the German
Luftstreitkräfte in
World War I. After the war it had to close down in accordance with the regulations of the
Treaty of Versailles, until in the course of the
German re-armament, it opened again in 1935 as a branch of the
Junkers company in
Dessau. The aircraft factory was the site of an
SS forced labor camp, one of several
subcamps of
Buchenwald; the production facilities and the nearby
Luftwaffe airbase were targets of
Allied bombing during the '
Big Week' in February 1944. In the last days of
World War II, in April 1945, US forces approached Halberstadt as they attacked remaining Nazi troops in the short-lived Harz pocket. They dropped leaflets instructing Halberstadt's Nazi ruler to fly a white flag on the town hall as a token of surrender. He refused, no white flag was raised and on 8 April 1945, 218
Flying Fortresses of the
8th Air Force, accompanied by 239 escort fighters, dropped 595 tons of bombs on the center of Halberstadt. This killed about 2,500 people and converted most of the old town into some 1.5 million cubic meters of rubble, which American troops briefly occupied three days later. Around 450 of 1600
timber framed houses survived in the city centre. By June 1945, the town and its garrison was handed over to the
3rd Shock Army of the Soviet
Red Army forces. Halberstadt was part of newly established
Saxony-Anhalt from 1945 to 1952, after which it was within
Bezirk Magdeburg in
East Germany. During the
Peaceful Revolution in Autumn 1989 St Martin's Church was a centre of the
Swords to ploughshares movement. After the
reunification of Germany Halberstadt became part of the restored state of Saxony-Anhalt.
Jewish culture ) Halberstadt's Jewish community is mentioned in records from the 13th century and the town had a synagogue in 1464. In the early 18th century, Halberstadt had one of the largest
Jewish communities in central Europe and was known as a center of theology and learning after
Berend Lehmann (1661–1730) founded a
beth midrash there in 1703. The building, called the "Klaus", included a library and living quarters for scholars to study the
Talmud. Lehmann also financed an impressive
Baroque synagogue that was completed in 1712. The synagogue's Torah scrolls were removed and burned in the street. On 18 November 1938, the local building authority ordered the demolition of the synagogue and required the Jewish community to pay the cost of the work. Today the
Moses Mendelssohn Academy is based in the "Klaus", providing exhibitions, presentations, and information about
Jewish culture.
One of the world's slowest, longest "concerts" A performance of
John Cage's
organ piece
As Slow As Possible began in the Burchardikirche in Halberstadt in September 2001; the performance is scheduled to take 639 years. The concert began on 5 September 2001 with a rest lasting 17 months. On the dates of the sound changes the church is usually well visited. ==Education==