Growing Up Female in Nazi Germany

CHAPTER 4: A Study in Local History: Minden in Westphalia

CHAPTER 4 A Study in Local History: Minden in Westphalia Minden, a Prussian, Protestant Town of Civil Servants and Soldiers Those likable Westphalians I always loved them dearly: So ‹rm, so sure, so loyal, without Pride or hypocrisy—nearly. How ‹ne they looked in the fencing hall: Like lions and just as ‹erce! How true their blows and so well meant Each quarter and every tierce. They fence so well, they drink so well, They shake hands with you like oaks When they want to make friends, and they always weep. They’re sentimental old soaks. May Heaven preserve you, doughty folk, And bless your crops and your seeds, And keep you from war and things like fame And free from heroic deeds. May Heaven provide an easy exam To all your sons in common And bring your daughters in good time Safe to the altar—Amen! —Heinrich Heine 102 On his trip through Germany in 1844, later immortalized in his book Germany: A Winter’s Tale, the poet Heinrich Heine paid a visit to Minden . Then still ringed by moats and bastions, this small Westphalian town symbolized for Heine the narrowness and lack of liberalism of the Prussian state.1 In the period of our historical focus, the forti‹cations had long since been dismantled, save for a sole reminder of their former construction, the remaining green belt around the city, the so-called Glacis. But Minden had continued to be a narrow and sti›ing town, with rigid social barriers and an irrevocable moral code. I only know, I thought Minden was incredibly narrow and restricting . And I thought to myself: OK, once you got your high school diploma, the ‹rst thing will be to get out of the place. It’s a God awful place, you just can’t live here, it’s suffocating. (M 10) Minden’s location directly on the Weser River was a determinant factor, especially in the town’s early history. The presence of a ford here led early on to the formation of trade routes. Pottery ‹nds date back to 500 BCE, and there was continuous settlement documented from the eighth century. The ‹rst reference to the town in writing is from 775, when Charlemagne crossed the Weser using the ford at Minda. In 803, Minden became a bishopric, and construction was started on a cathedral that was forti‹ed with palisades and moats. Between 800 and 1100, a trade settlement called the “Wik” sprang up around this bishopric, and by 1230 the Wik had become an actual town with its own laws, municipal seal, and city council. In the thirteenth century, work was begun on a town hall. It emerged as an autonomous urban community vis-à-vis the bishop, and Minden’s importance grew in proportion to the economic dependence of the ‹nancially strapped bishops on the town. The bishops’ ‹nancial problems were due in large measure to expenses for maintaining a court and footing the bills for knightly ostentation. In 1306, the bishop left the town, relocating to Petershagen. Eighty years prior to this, in 1226, Minden together with two other Westphalian towns, Münster and Osnabrück, had established the Landsberg Alliance, the ‹rst Westphalian urban league. Minden became a member of the Rhenish-Westphalian League of Towns and the “Hanse,” the Hanseatic League. The leading social stratum in the Minden in Westphalia 103 1. Heinrich Heine, Germany: A Winter’s Tale, trans. Herman Salinger (New York, 1944), 46f.; originally published in German, 1844. city was merchants. There were ‹erce political struggles for local political power between the artisans and merchants in the early ‹fteenth century. One result was that the guilds were granted the right to be elected in the Committee of the Forty, a kind of municipal council. The Reformation arrived in Minden early, between 1525 and 1530. In 1529, a dispute erupted between the Protestant guilds and the Catholic city council. A short time later a ban in the emperor’s name, the so-called Reichsacht, was placed on Minden, and the Swedes occupied the town in 1634 during the Thirty Years’ War. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 awarded the princely bishopric of Minden to the prince-elector of Brandenburg: against its will, the town came under the thumb of Prussia.2 With the change in political rule, Minden not only lost its political freedom, but it also forfeited its economic importance. In...