History
Haguenau dates from the beginning of the 12th century, and owes its origin to the erection, by the dukes of Swabia, of a hunting lodge on an island in the Moder River in former Germany. The mediæval German King and Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa fortified the settlement and gave it town rights, important for further development, in 1154. On the site of the hunting lodge he founded an imperial palace he chose as his favourite residence. In this palace were preserved the "Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Empire", i.e. the jewelled imperial crown, sceptre, imperial orb, and sword of Charlemagne.
Subsequently Haguenau became the seat of the Landvogt of Hagenau, the German imperial advocatus in Lower Alsace. Richard of Cornwall, King of the Romans, made it an imperial city in 1257. In the 14th century, it housed the executive council of the Decapole, a defensive and offensive association of ten German towns in Alsace against French aggression and related political instability. In the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the Alsace was ceded to France, which had repeatedly invaded and looted the region before. In 1673 King Louis XIV had the fortifications as well as the remains of the kings palace razed in order to extinguish German traditions. Haguenau was recaptured by German troops in 1675, but it was taken by the French two years later, nearly being destroyed by fire set by French troops when looting.
In 1871 Haguenau was ceded to the German Empire due to the German victory in the Franco-Prussian War, and made part of Alsace-Lorraine using the original name Hagenau.
The Haguenau Airport was built in 1916 by the German military to train fighter and bomber pilots to fight in World War I.
It was part of the independent Republic of Alsace-Lorraine after World War I, but it was annexed by France shortly after that in 1919.
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