History
St. Vith was an important marketplace for the region by the 12th century and received town rights in 1350. The town was burnt in 1543, 1602, and 1689. It was part of Luxembourg until the defeat of Napoleon. As a result of the Congress of Vienna it was given to Prussia.
St. Vith was transferred to Belgium on March 6, 1925, by the Treaty of Versailles after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I. An important road and railway junction, St. Vith was fought over in the 1944 Battle of the Bulge during World War II. The United States Army defended the town against German assault for a few days, delaying the German attack plan, before eventually retreating. Once it was captured by German forces, the town was bombed by the US Air Force on 25 and 26 December 1944 and by RAF Bomber Command with 300 aircraft on the 26. St. Vith was largely destroyed during the ground battle and subsequent air attack. American forces retook the town on January 23, 1945. The only remaining pre-war architecture is the Büchel Tower.
St. Vith is the setting for Michael Oren's novel, Reunion, concerning the fictional reunion of an American battalion which participated in the Battle of the Bulge.
Read more about this topic: St. Vith
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)