Middle Ages The
Franks colonized the area around Nordhausen about 800, many place names here have a Frankish origin, discernible by the suffix
-hausen (like Nordhausen itself, Sundhausen, Windehausen and the later abandoned settlement Stockhausen as well as the neighbouring cities of
Mühlhausen,
Sondershausen,
Frankenhausen and
Sangerhausen). Nordhausen itself is first mentioned in a 13 May 927 document of King
Henry the Fowler. He built a castle here, which is traceable between 910 and 1277 and became a centre of the empire during the 10th century.
Gerberga of Saxony, Henry's daughter is supposed to have been born there, as was
Henry I, Duke of Bavaria. The first market was established in the 10th century, as was a chapter of nuns (961). During the 12th century, the
old town was semi-planned and established around the new market place and St. Nicholas' Church. Nordhausen was
Reichsgut (estate of the German emperor) from the beginning, but in 1158,
Frederick Barbarossa donated it to the local chapter of nuns, which was converted to a cathedral chapter by
Frederick II in 1220, whereby the city came back to the empire and became an
Imperial Free City. Nordhausen was granted the privileges of a town around 1200, in 1198 it was first mentioned as a
villa and in 1206, there was a mayor, a
Vogt and citizens. The municipal law of Nordhausen was similar to that of Mühlhausen, hence the Mühlhausen Book of Law was adopted in the mid-13th century. Today's city wall was established between 1290 and 1330 and cut the old town off from
Altendorf in the north-west, the
new town in the west and
Altnordhausen in the south. Nevertheless, the new town was legally incorporated in 1365. Besides the parish churches, many monasteries were founded during the late Middle Ages in Nordhausen (Cistercians in Altnordhausen (Frauenberg, about 1200) and Altendorf (1294), Augustines where the Nordhäuser distillery is today (1312), Franciscans at Georgengasse (1230) and Dominicans at Predigerstraße (1287)). As distinct from Mühlhausen and many other free imperial cities, Nordhausen did not own any territories or villages in the surrounding area. The city's independence was endangered by the ambitions of regional counts, especially by those of Hohnstein County (based in near
Ilfeld), who extorted funds from Nordhausen during the 14th century. On the other hand, the debts of the Hohnstein Counts were gigantic: they owed 86 citizens of Nordhausen 5744 Mark silver in 1370. In 1306, Nordhausen allied with the two other major Thuringian cities
Erfurt and
Mühlhausen against the
Wettins and the local counts (Hohnstein,
Stolberg,
Schwarzburg,
Beichlingen etc.) and joined the
Hanseatic League together with them in 1430. Further alliances were concluded with
Goslar,
Halberstadt,
Quedlinburg and
Aschersleben to represent urban interests against the landlords. In 1349, during a plague epidemic, some number of Jewish residents were killed by the citizenry with support from
Frederick II, Margrave of Meissen. According to legend, they danced on their way to the pyre.
Early modern period In 1500 it became part of the
Lower Saxon Circle, and from around the same year the city began producing fermented grain liquor, which became famous under the name
Nordhäuser Doppelkorn. In 1523, a year in which
Thomas Müntzer spent some time in the city, the
Protestant Reformation came to Nordhausen, which was one of the first cities that adopted the new doctrine. The cathedral chapter stayed catholic, protected by the
Habsburg emperors but the other monasteries got closed during the following decades and their heritage came to the city. During the 16th century, Nordhausen succeeded to push back the influence of the Wettins and the Hohnstein counts by buying back their privileges over the city. This marked the peak in pre-modern urban development, followed by some centuries of decline introduced by the
Thirty Years' War. In 1551, the Jews were expelled from the city. They were not generally permitted to live there again until 1807. was established in 1943 during
World War II after the destruction of
Peenemünde, and located on the outskirts of Nordhausen to provide labor for the
Mittelwerk V-2 rocket factory in the
Kohnstein. Over its period of operation, around 60,000 inmates passed through Dora and its system of subcamps, of whom around 20,000 died from bad working conditions, starvation, and diseases, or were murdered. Around 10,000 forced labourers were deployed in several factories within the city; up to 6,000 of them were interned at Boelcke Kaserne, working for a
Junkers factory. On 24 August 1944, 11
B-17 Flying Fortresses of Mission 568 bombed the airfield at Nordhausen as a target of opportunity. From January 1945, sick and dying prisoners were interned at Boelcke Kaserne. On 3 and 4 April 1945 three-quarters of Nordhausen was destroyed by bombing raids of the
Royal Air Force, resulting in the deaths of around 8,800 people, including 1,300-1,500 sick prisoners at the Boelcke Kaserne barracks within Nordhausen. On 11 April 1945, United States troops occupied the town, and on 2 July the
Red Army of the Soviet Union took over. A Special Mission V-2: US operation was undertaken by Maj. William Bromley, intended to recover V-2 rocket parts and equipment. Maj. James P. Hamill co-ordinated the rail transport of said equipment with the 144th Motor Vehicle Assembly Company, from Nordhausen to Erfurt (
Operation Paperclip). On 18 July the Soviet administration created the
Institute Rabe to develop Soviet rocket technology on the basis of the substantially more sophisticated
V-2 rockets. In May 1946 the Institute was subsumed into the new Institute Nordhausen, under an expanded programme of research across the
Soviet occupation zone, including a new Institute Berlin. On 22 October 1946, under
Operation Osoaviakhim, 10–15,000 German scientists, engineers and their families were deported to the Soviet Union, including around 300 from Nordhausen. Transplanted along with their equipment, many of the scientists and their families lived there until the early 1950s. Nordhausen became part of
East Germany in 1949. It was administered as part of
Bezirk Erfurt from 1952. The reconstruction of Nordhausen took a long time during the 1950s and 1960s and was carried out in modern architectural style. Town hall, the cathedral and St. Blaise's Church were the only rebuilt historic monuments. The
Uprising of 1953 in East Germany found a centre in Nordhausen, because the living conditions within the destroyed city were still bad, and the people were exceedingly dissatisfied. Only the Soviet army could defeat the uprising. Within the GDR, Nordhausen was the centre of tobacco and liqueur production. After the
German reunification of 1990, Nordhausen was made part of the recreated state of
Thuringia. The 1990s brought an economic crisis with high unemployment rates, and many uncompetitive communist-era factories had to close. Nevertheless, local industry revived after the crisis. Since 2000 the economy has been growing again, with the unemployment rate decreasing and Nordhausen has established itself as the urban centre of northern Thuringia. The
Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences was founded in 1997, attracting students to the town. The
Landesgartenschau (Land's horticultural exhibition) in 2004 was an impetus to further urban development. == Geography and demographics ==