Engers - City History

City History

• The eldest evidences for settlements reach back to 800 - 600BC. A cemetery of the Iron Age was discovered nearby Engers.

• An important historic event was the military activity under Julius Caesar in 55 BC at the town Urmitz with the goal to punish the Germanic Sicambris.

• Around 400 AC a Roman castellum was built. Its ruins can still be seen today.

• 1357 Engers received market rights by German imperator Charles IV.

• 1412 Engers received river tax rights, but they were soon given back to Koblenz because of the adverse position of the Rhine-banks at Engers.

• In 1662 the pestilence killed nearly all families of Engers except six of them. Families from the nearby village Reil relocated to Engers afterwards, thus Engers started expanding again.

• 1938 Under the Nazi regime Jewish families were banished from Engers.

• 1945, the German army destroyed in 1945 the Engers bridge, ignoring the fleeing people still crossing the bridge.

• Until 1970, Engers was an independent minor city, but in this year it was forced to become in-municipated as a district of Neuwied. With this act Engers lost its independence and its city-status.

• 1995 the Villa Musika trust of the Engers-chateau opened its own academy of music. In the year 2003 the country's academy of music of Mainz was relocated to Engers.