Oppenheim - History

History

In 765, the Frankish village had its first documentary mention in the Lorsch codex in connection with a donation by Charlemagne to the Lorsch Abbey, to which in 774 further parts of Oppenheim eventually went. In 1008, Oppenheim was granted market rights. In October 1076 Oppenheim earned special importance in the Investiture Controversy. At the princely session of Trebur and Oppenheim, the princes called on King Henry IV to undertake the "Walk to Canossa". After Oppenheim was given back to the Empire in 1147, it became in 1225 a Free Imperial City during the Staufer emperor Frederick II’s time. At this time, the town was important for its Imperial castle and the Burgmannen who lived there.

In the 14th century, the town was pledged to the Electorate of Mainz, and beginning in 1398 it belonged to the territory of the Electoral Palatinate.

In 1621, the Oppenheim town chronicle reports a meteorite impact on the edge of town that unleashed a great fire in which the Oppenheim Town Hall was almost utterly destroyed. The Electoral Oberamt archive, too, was lost in the fire, and so it was moved to Mainz.

On 14 September 1620, Spanish troops overran the town in the Thirty Years' War. The Spaniards occupied Oppenheim until 1632. In 1688, French troops overran the town in the Nine Years' War (1688–1697). On 31 May 1689, Landskrone Castle and the town were utterly destroyed by the French under General Mélac. Until 1797, Oppenheim remained an Electoral Palatinate holding. After being in French hands, Oppenheim passed in 1816 to the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt. It remained Hessian until 1945.

In March 1945, American troops managed to build a crossing over the Rhine near Oppenheim and to hold it.