Bielefeld - History

History

Holy Roman Empire 1214-
Hanseatic League 14th century-
Berg (state) 1346-
Margraviate of Brandenburg 1614-
Minden-Ravensberg 1719–1807
Kingdom of Westphalia
Kingdom of Prussia (Province of Westphalia) 1815-
Nazi Germany 1933-1945

Founded in 1215 by Count Hermann IV of Ravensberg to guard a pass crossing the Teutoburg Forest, Bielefeld was the "city of linen" as a minor member of the Hanseatic League.

After the Cologne-Minden railway opened in 1849, the Bozi brothers constructed the first large mechanised spinning mill in 1851. The Ravensberg Spinning Mill was built from 1854 to 1857, and metal works began to open in the 1860s.

Between 1904 and 1930, Bielefeld grew, opening a railway station, a municipal theatre, and finally, the Rudolf-Oetker-Halle concert hall, renowned for its excellent acoustics. The Dürkopp car was produced 1898-1927. After printing emergency money (German: Notgeld) in 1923 during the inflation in the Weimar Republic, Bielefeld was one of several towns that printed very attractive and highly collectable banknotes with designs on silk, linen and velvet. These pieces were issued by the Bielefeld Stadtsparkasse (town's savings bank) and were sent all around the world in the early 1920s. These pieces are known as 'stoffgeld' – that is, money made from fabric.

Nazi Germany

The town's synagogue was burned in 1938. In 1944, B-17 Flying Fortresses bombed Bielefeld on September 20 (the gas works) & October 7, and the RAF bombed on December 4/5. In 1945, B-17s bombed the Paderborn marshalling yard, the "Schildesche Rail Viaduct" was bombed on January 17, 1945, and on March 14 the Grand Slam bomb was used the very first time against The Viaduct. American troops entered the city in April 1945.

Founded in 1867 as a Bielefeld sewing machine repair company, AG Dürkoppwerke employed 1,665 people in 1892; it used Waffenamt code "WaA547" from 1938 to 1939 as the Dürkopp-Werke, and merged with other Bielefeld companies to form Dürkopp Adler AG in 1990.

In 1973 the first villages on the south side of the Teutoburg Forest were incorporated.