of the local Transylvanian Saxon community Reghin was first mentioned in 1228 in a charter of
Hungarian King Andrew II as
Regun – however, evidence of its strategic location and defence system suggests that the town might have been considerably older, possibly founded by
Ladislaus I. Despite the devastations of the city during the
Mongol invasion (1241) and during the
Tatar and
Cuman incursions (1285), the town developed rapidly: already in the second half of the 13th century the city was the residence and power centre of the families Tomaj and Kacsik, to whom the nearby lands were awarded by the Hungarian Crown. Reghin became a minor ecclesiastical centre in 1330, with the building of the
Gothic church (
Roman Catholic at the time, it now serves the
Protestant community) in the German part of the city; it is still the largest church in the area, and hosts the oldest
Medieval Latin inscription of any church in Transylvania. The Hungarian part of the city has an even older church, initially built in the
Romanesque style. At the beginning of the 15th century the settlement gained
city rights, and, from 1427, the right to hold fairs. In the 16th and 17th century Reghin was devastated by
Habsburg and
Ottoman troops on several occasions. It burned to the ground in 1848. In 1850 the town had 4,227 inhabitants, of which 2,964 were
Germans, 644
Romanians, 556
Hungarians, 40
Jews, and 3
Roma. In 1910, the population of the city included 7,310 inhabitants, of which 2,994 were
Germans, 2,947
Hungarians, and 1,311
Romanians. After the collapse of
Austria-Hungary at the end of
World War I and the declaration of the
Union of Transylvania with Romania, the
Romanian Army took control of the area in December 1918, during the
Hungarian–Romanian War. The city officially became part of the
Kingdom of Romania in June 1920 under the terms of the
Treaty of Trianon, under which Hungary relinquished all of Transylvania. In August 1940, the
Second Vienna Award, arbitrated by
Germany and
Italy, reassigned the territory of
Northern Transylvania (which included Reghin) from Romania to
Hungary. Almost 30% of the inhabitants were Jews at that time. In May 1944, the Jews were gathered in the
Reghin ghetto and on 4 June 1944 were deported to the
Auschwitz concentration camp. Towards the end of
World War II, Romanian and
Soviet armies entered the city in October 1944. The territory of Northern Transylvania remained under Soviet military administration until March 9, 1945, after the appointment of
Petru Groza as
Prime Minister, when the city again became part of Romania. After the war, Reghin lost some of its former Transylvanian Saxon character — as many Germans left for
West Germany during the later stages of
Communist Romania — and ethnic
Romanians and
Hungarians were settled in their place. The data of the 1992 census showed a population of 24,601 Romanians, 12,471 Hungarians, 1,790
Romani, and 346 Germans. In 1994, Reghin was declared a
city. == Jewish history of Reghin ==