Location

Topography of the Minden area

Mittelland Canal crossing the Weser

The quarters of Minden

Minden is a town in the northeastern part of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The town is crossed by the River Weser in northern direction. The town centre lies on a plateau on the western side of the river 5 kilometres (3 miles) north of the Porta Westfalica gap between the ridges of the Weser Hills and Wiehen Hills, where the Weser leaves the Weser Uplands and flows into the North German Plain. The small Bastau stream flows into the Weser from the west near the town centre. The edge of the plateau marks the transition from the Middle Weser Valley to the Lübbecke Loessland, divides the upper town from the lower town, and marks the boundary between two ecological zones.

In the frame of Natural regions of Germany, the western part of Minden belongs to a sequence of geomorphological units (from south to north): the Wiehen Hills, the Lübbecke Loessland, therein the Bastau depression, and the Dümmer Geest Lowland. The eastern part lies in the Middle Weser Valley depression.

Crossing the Weser valley was once favoured by a ford with a small hill in the middle; there the Weser meander touches the western edge of the valley, the eastern floodplain is usually meadowland, but inundated in times of flood, so that the central bridgehead (Brückenkopf) becomes a river island. Today a system of two bridges crosses the valley.

The Mittelland Canal connecting the river systems of Ems, Weser and Elbe traverses the town from west to east, while the Weser flows from south to north. These waterways cross in the northern area of the town at the Minden Aqueduct (Wasserstraßenkreuz Minden).

The Weser leaves the Minden area at its lowest part in the quarter of Leteln, at 40 metres (131 feet), while the highest part is the top of Häverstädter Berg with 272 metres (892 feet), at the edge of the Wiehen Hills in the quarter of Haddenhausen. The altitude of the town is given officially as 42.2 metres (138.5 feet), based on the elevation of the town hall.

The town covers an area of 101.12 square kilometres (39.04 sq mi). It extends 13.1 km (8.1 miles) from north to south and 14.1 km (9 mi) from east to west.

Minden is 40 kilometres (25 miles) NE of Bielefeld, 60 km (37 miles) W of Hanover, 80 km (50 mi) S of Bremen and 60 km (37 mi) E of Osnabrück.

Neighbouring settlements

The neighbouring towns and communities of Minden are (clockwise from north): Petershagen, Bückeburg (Schaumburg District in Lower Saxony), Porta Westfalica, Bad Oeynhausen, and Hille.

Town subdivision

Minden consists of 19 quarters:

Ancient history

Minden 1641 (Chalcography by Matthäus Merian)

The Minden area shows continuing settlement activity from the 1st to the 4th century, when it belonged to the Weser–Rhine Germanic development sphere. During the Roman campaigns in Germania (12 BC – AD 16), this part of Westphalia came in the focus of military activities. It has been a matter of discussion, whether the Minden region could have been the location of that military camp where commander Publius Quinctilius Varus started from marching to the disastrous Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.^[12] Likewise the localization of the Battle of Idistaviso and the Battle of the Angrivarian Wall as well, both took place in 16 AD, to the eastern part of Minden or its neighbour town Porta Westfalica is doubtful.^[13] Definite archaeological proofs for these locations have yet been missing. In 2008, relicts of a temporary Roman military camp have been found in Barkhausen, about 3.5 km (2.2 mi) south from the centre of Minden.^[14]

Middle Ages

"Old Mint", 13th century, one of Westphalia's oldest profane buildings

Weingarten (vineyard location) from lower to upper town centre

The name "Minda" is firstly mentioned in a Royal Frankish Annals record referring to an army assembly held by Charlemagne in 798.^[15] The location of the so-named settlement is supposed at the left river side, where today's Fischerstadt exists.^[16] Directly neighbouring was the suspected site of a permanent frankish army camp and a royal estate, located favourably, where ways from the south were bundled by the Porta Westfalica gap, connected with a west–east way parallel to the Wiehen and Weser hills, and at a ford through the Weser. The region had already been converted to Christianity, when about 800 a bishopric was founded in Minden, one of the seven diocese foundations established under the rule of Charlemagne. The first cathedral was built nearby to the older village.^[17] After the dissolution of the Duchy of Saxony in 1180 the bishop became sovereign of the Prince-Bishopric of Minden as a constitutional territory of the Holy Roman Empire, and remained in this status until 1648. During the Investiture Controversy two bishops were nominated at the same time in 1080 both by the papal supporters and those of King Henry IV.

The Cathedral close on the lower Weser terrace was soon surrounded to the north and west by a settlement of artisans and merchants, who lived in a parish of their own. The development of the upper town began with the activities of ecclesiastical convents. A convent of Benedictine nuns removed from the Wiehen Hills to the northwestern edge of the town round St Mary c. 1000 AD. In 1029 the Canonical Convent of St Martin appears, and a 1042 founded Benedictine monastery removed in 1434 from the Weser shore to a new upper site, where the monastery of St Mauritius was founded.^[18] The Dominicane convent St Paul was established in 1236.

German medieval sovereigns governed their realms with an itinerant court, travelling from town to town. Louis the German hold an imperial assembly in Minden in 852. The Emperors of the Ottonian and Salian dynasty visited Minden several times.^[19] When Henry IV came to visit in 1062, a dispute between members of his entourage and citizens caused a fire that destroyed the cathedral and parts of the town.^[20] The imperial visit of Charles IV in October 1377 was the last one until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.^[21]

In 1168 Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, married his second wife Matilda, daughter of Henry II of England, in Minden Cathedral; with this marriage Henry maintained the continuance of the House of Welf.^[22]

The rights to hold a market, to mint coins, and to collect customs duties were granted in 977 by Emperor Otto II. Until the beginning of the 13th century, the bishop appointed the Wichgraf as secular administrator of the town. The citizens of Minden and their council obtained independence from the bishop's rule around 1230 and received a town charter in 1301. The increased self-confidence of the citizens was demonstrated by the construction of the town hall, probably adjoining the separately governed cathedral precinct.^[23] As a result, the Bishop moved his official residence from Minden to Petershagen in 1307.

The economic development of Minden was influenced by its location on a navigable river and by its success in grain trading since the Middle Ages. Minden got the right to store goods and could force passing ships to unload their cargo; further on the town became a flourishing member of the Hanseatic League.^[24] The year of construction of the first Weser bridge is not known. A previous wooden pedestrian bridge was replaced in the late 13th century by another one fit for wagon transport. In the early 16th century Minden got a stone arch bridge.^[25]

Modern era since the Reformation

St John's church, now the event location Bürgerzentrum

At the end of the medieval age the papal legate Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa visited some German church provinces in order to remedy deficits in pastoral care and clerical administration. During his journey he stayed in Minden for one week in August 1451, where he signed various decrees, but on the whole this project could not achieve the intended aims.^[26] The Lutheran Reformation was introduced in 1529 during a vacancy after the death of the not very respected Bishop Francis of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and a 36-man unit constituted itself as town regiment. A new church order, based on Martin Luther's principles, was announced from the pulpit of St Martin's Church (Martinikirche) on 13 February 1530. The Dominican convent was dissolved in 1529, and its buildings were used since 1530 as the site of the new founded municipal Gymnasium, the first Protestant Gymnasium in Westphalia.

Imperial Catholic troops occupied Minden from 1625 to 1634 during the Thirty Years' War. Protestant Swedish troops laid siege to Minden and captured it in 1634. Queen Christina of Sweden (r. 1632–1654) granted Minden full sovereignty in internal and external affairs. During the Catholic occupation the bishop ordered the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1630; the calendar was re-set in 1634 under the Swedish régime, but finally standardized in 1668.^[27]

The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 secularized the Prince-Bishopric to the Principality of Minden and assigned the territory to the Prince Electorate of Brandenburg,^[24] later named Brandenburg-Prussia. Swedish troops moved back in 1650, and the principality administration was restored from Petershagen to Minden in 1668. The Prussian "Great Elector" Frederick William (r. 1640–1688) confirmed all traditional rights of the town,^[28] but under his successors King Frederick I (r. 1688–1713) and Frederick William I (r. 1713–1740) the town was subordinated to the strongly centralized Prussian government in the spirit of absolutism. The 400-year civil self-determination ended with two town regulations from 1711 and 1721; the representatives of the town were no longer elected for a certain period, but for life, and they needed royal confirmation for inauguration.^[29]

The Battle of Minden took place some miles to the north of Minden on 1 August 1759, during the Seven Years' War of 1756 to 1763. The allied forces of Prussia, Great Britain, and some German allies defeated the allied French and Saxonian troops in a decisive battle. The region remained Prussian, with the adjacent region in the possession of the British King George II (being the Prince-elector of Hanover in personal union). Because French troops had occupied the town twice during the war, King Frederick the Great realized that it could no more be defended in the old manner; thus he gave order to annul Minden's status as a fortress in 1764.^[30]

The town functioned as the capital of the Prussian territory of Minden-Ravensberg from 1719 to 1807 and as the seat of the upper administrative authority named Kriegs- und Domänenkammer (Chamber of War Affairs and State Property), that ruled Minden-Ravensberg together with the Prussian territories of the County of Lingen and the County of Tecklenburg. The most prominent president of the chamber was the Baron vom Stein (in office from 1796 to 1803).

The Weser had long been an important trade route, and the legal regulation of trading had immense significance. In 1552 Emperor Charles V conferred the privilege of its merchants' unhindered trading on the whole Weser to the town of Minden. During the Thirty Years' War, Emperor Ferdinand II confirmed the staple right to Minden in 1627, meaning that all passing merchants had to offer their goods for sale for some days. As other towns on the Weser - like Bremen or Münden - had similar rights, many conflicts arose about the partly contradictory legal positions.^[31][32]

From the Napoleonic Wars to World War I

Defensionskaserne (defension barracks, 1829) on Simeon Square, now site of the Prussia Museum; in front: starting point of the Minden planet path

Workers' housing estate in the railway quarter from 1899

Weser with Glacisbridge, view to the Porta Westfalica with the Emperor William Monument from 1896

In course of the War of the Fourth Coalition French troops occupied the town on 13 November 1806. In the following year Napoleon founded the Kingdom of Westphalia, governed by his brother Jerome Bonaparte as the King; Minden became part of this client state until 1810 as district capital in the Weser department. On 1 January 1811 Napoleon put Minden to the department Ems-Supérieur of the French Empire; now the Weser formed the eastern frontier between France and Westphalia. The rights of the Cathedral chapter in the cathedral close were abolished, the still existing convents were dissolved, and some ecclesiastical buildings like St John's church were secularized and used for military purpose. Before the French troops abandoned Minden on 3 November 1813 after the disastrous Battle of Leipzig, they blew up some arches of the Weser bridge; the defect was repaired with a wooden auxiliary construction for the following decades.^[33]

Minden became part of the Kingdom of Prussia again as capital both of the District of Minden and the government region (Regierungsbezirk Minden) in the new formed Province of Westphalia. By royal order it was declared a fortress once more. The fortress regulations ordered a 600-meters area in front of the wall being free of any buildings, not even vertical gravestones were allowed.^[34] The refortification had severe consequences, it hindered any extension of the town area and thus the economic development. The Infanterie-Regiment „Prinz Friedrich der Niederlande“ (2. Westfälisches) Nr. 15 was stationed in the garrison from 1820 to 1919, when it was dissolved; the naming Colonel-in-chief was Prince Frederick of the Netherlands and after his death Queen Emma of the Netherlands. Frederick's wife Princess Louise of Prussia was Colonel-in-chief of the Infanterie-Regiment „Graf Bülow von Dennewitz“ (6. Westfälisches) Nr. 55, that was partly stationed in Minden, too. Since 1999, the Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 58 encamped a new barracks area in the nordwest of the town centre. The Hanoveran Pionier-Battalion No. 10 was part of the X Corps, that was incorporated to the Prussian Army after the Austro-Prussian War 1866, and had its barracks near to Minden station. The main military training area was a large location in the today quarter of Minderheide at the very northwest frontier of the town; this area had already been part of the main fighting place during the Battle of Minden in 1759.^[35]

After the Congress of Vienna of 1815 had passed general principles of free traffic on the main rivers, the six Weser-states of the German Confederation annulated all restrictions and most of the financial burdens for shipping on the river by the Weser Shipping Act (Weserschifffahrtsakte) of 1823.^[36] The first steam ship was put in operation in 1836; a first harbour basin was built in 1859 on the east side of the river, connected with the railway in 1863. In the first decades, the great majority of transferred goods were imported goods, export was of low importance. Inland shipment grew enormously after the completion of the Mittelland Canal and its connection to the Weser by the shaft lock in 1915.^[31]

The trunk line of the Cologne-Minden Railway Company was opened in 1847 with a solidly fortified station and connected with the Hanover–Minden railway.^[37] After the defortification the railway got an important momentum for economic growth in Minden.

The spatial narrowness in the fortress restricted the development of industrial firms of different branches only to a certain degree, but did not prevent it.^[38] The dominant industry, as well as in the whole district, was the manufacture of cigars; this branch decreased after World War I and finally vanished, because the growing market share of cigarettes had been ignored. Minden was seat of a Chamber of commerce from 1849 to 1932, when it was merged with those of Bielefeld.^[39]

Overpopulation and unemployment were the reasons for an enormous emigration from the Minden Land; various emigration agencies had their location in Minden.^[40]

The town remained a Prussian fortress until 1873, when Germany's Imperial Diet (Reichstag) passed the law to remove the fortress status of several fortified places, among them Minden. The fortress walls were razed until 1880 – the town had to pay for it –, and a new Weser bridge was constructed, permitting the town to catch up economically. However, it was never able to regain its former political and economic importance.^[41]

The upper class used the new conditions for construction of a new town quarter in a half-circle to the north and west of the old centre with prestigious buildings on spacious plots, but the urgent narrowness inside the centre maintained.^[42] A lot of buildings in the style of historicism replaced older ones at the market place and in the main streets.^[43] The lack of buildings outside the fortifications was favourable for planning a road network in the outer areas of the town. Since the 1890s a sequence of six ring roads in the west and north of the town has formed the backbone of the road network.^[44]

Grandiose festivities took place, when Emperor William II and Empress Auguste Victoria visited Minden and the southern village of Barkhausen for inauguration of the Emperor William Monument on the Wittekindsberg above the Porta Westfalica gap on 18 October 1896; since then the monument is a remarkable element of the southern horizont view from Minden.^[45] The first line of the Minden tramway connected the basic site of the memorial with Minden since 1893, when it was yet under construction.^[46]

The Minden District Railways (Mindener Kreisbahnen), founded in 1898, built up a narrow-gauge railway net with three lines until World War I.^[47] Minden got a municipal water supply system in the 1880s^[48] and an electric power station in 1902.^[49]

The Weimar Republic and the Nazi Regime

Fort B

The republican November Revolution of 1918 passed with only small disturbances that occurred in a few barracks of the Minden garrison on 7 and 8 November 1918. A Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council, most of them members or supporters of the Social Democratic Party, took control in the afternoon of 18 November, but co-operated both with the town council and the military and civil administration as well and was successful in calming the situation.^[50]

The situation got more critical during the Kapp Putsch of March 1920, when right-wing officers tried to overthrow the legal government of the German Reich. The majority of the town council declared their loyalty to President Friedrich Ebert and Chancellor Gustav Bauer, who for their part confirmed the authority of the Minden Workers' Council. The assassination of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau on 24 June 1922 resulted in serious rioting in Minden. A demonstration of 15,000 people in support of the government was held at the market square on 27 June. The public opinion changed during the time of the Great Depression : in the 1930-election of the town council the NSDAP got 6 of 31 seats, in the 1933-election, the last democratic one, they won the majority with 16 of 28 seats.^[51] The NSDAP increased their Minden results of the Reichstag elections from 2.0 percent in May 1928 to 40.1 percent in July 1932.^[52]

Although the German armed forces were considerably restricted by the regulations of the Treaty of Versailles, Minden remained a garrison town of the Reichswehr with the Pioneer Battalion No. 6 and the Artillery Regiment No. 6, both parts of the 6th Division. The soldiers got more and more in connection with right-wing groups, though officially obliged to political neutrality. The military units put forward the construction of sporting facilities : a stadium (Adolf-Hitler-Kampfbahn, now Weserstadion), a public open-air pool (now Sommerbad), and a horse racecourse. Minden was career ladder station of two later army leaders: Lieutenant-Colonel Walther von Brauchitsch organized annual horse tournaments from 1925 to 1927, and Wilhelm Keitel succeeded him in the same function until 1929.^[53]

When the Reichswehr was transformed to the Wehrmacht in 1935, the army unities were enlarged. Minden got another pioneer battalion (No. 46), new barracks (Mudra-Kaserne, after WWII "Clifton barracks") and an exercise place at the Weser shore were built. After the last priosoners of war had left the camp area Minderheide in 1922, the place was used again for military exercise, horse and motorcycle sport, and a part from it as place to land for small planes, as it already had happened since 1910. Two hangars and workshops for repairing and overhauling were built since 1936 on this area, where also new types of planes were tested.^[54]

After the war, the Minden District railway opened a fourth line to the coal mine of Meißen and the ore mine of Kleinenbremen, and in 1924 began to convert the narrow gauge to standard gauge tracks.^[55] The Minden tram was electrified in 1920, and three lines were added until 1930.^[46]

In 1929 the Melitta firm transferred its production from Dresden to Minden. Since 1935 the Chemische Werke Minden produced chemicals for pharmaceutical use, e.g. codeine; because of potentially military interest the producing company Knoll AG in Ludwigshafen had decided for a more inner-German producing location.

From 1934 to 1940 two suburbs with single-family houses of modest size (Siedlung Kuhlenkamp and Siedlung Rodenbeck) were created in considerable distance to the previous settlements.^[56] Like in other communities, the names of some streets or places were changed by political reasons during the Nazi time, but most of them were reverted in 1945.^[57]

World War II

Stumbling Stones in Minden

During World War II, underground factories were built in the Weser Hills and Wiehen Hills near Minden. Slave labourers from a nearby subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp were forced to produce weapons and other war materiel. After the war the machinery was removed by American troops, the entrances were sealed.

Most of the Jewish citizens were deported, dispossessed and murdered. The Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) have been laid on Minden's pavements as a memorial to them.^[58]

Minden sustained severe damage from Allied bombings during World War II. These attacks were minor during the early phase of the war. The raid on 26 October 1944 on the canal aqueduct damaged the wall of the Mittelland Canal, and numerous workers in a nearby air raid shelter were drowned. The last and most devastating air raid was conducted by United States Army Air Forces Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress aircraft on 28 March 1945 and destroyed great parts of the town centre, including the town hall and cathedral, and resulted in the death of over 180 people.^[59] At the end of the war 13% of all buildings were destroyed or damaged.^[60]

When the Allied troops were approaching, the Nazi officials were ordered to leave the town to the east or the north; even the police and the firebrigade draw back, but Mayor Werner Holle remained. The 1st Canadian Airborne Battalion of the 3rd Parachute Brigade came from Bad Oeynhausen in the south, not through the Porta Westfalica gap but over the Wiehen Hills at the pass of Bergkirchen. On the evening of 4 April 1945 they took the town centre nearly without resistance. Almost all the bridges over the Weser and Mittelland Canal as well as the canal aqueduct had just been blown up by the German Army in a futile attempt to delay the Allied advance, according to Hitler's Nero Decree.^[61][62] Before the retreat the army set fire to the Granary and the Army bakery; the spreading out of fire to the St Martin's church could be avoided only with great difficulties for lack of the fire brigade. In the first days of occupation a lot of plunder took place in the now police-less town.^[63]

Postwar time

Postwar reconstructed Cathedral with new town hall on the left side, seen from the medieval arch of the old town hall

In the early post-war time the Minden region became an important part of the British Occupation Zone. The British Military Government took its main location in Bad Oeynhausen before it moved to Berlin. The headquarter of the British Forces remained there until 1954. All the German Wehrmacht barracks in Minden were taken by the British Army, as well as the former exercise area on Minderheide, where the St George's barracks were built in the following years, and on a nearby location the Kingsley barracks.^[64] 466 houses were confiscated in 1945. As immediate measure, the British Army set up an auxiliary bridge ("Francis bridge"), that was in use until the restoring of the regular bridge in 1947.^[60]

The Wirtschaftsrat für die britische Besatzungszone ("Economic Council for the British Occupation Zone") was founded in Minden on 11 March 1946 for reactivation of German economic power and supervised the work of the Zentralamt für Wirtschaft ("Central Office for Economy") at the same place. The Zentralamt under its head Viktor Agartz fought against the policy of industrial dismantling and tried to reorganize the economy with perspectives of planned economy.^[65] After the partial conjunction of the American and British Occupation Zones in 1947 to the Bizone, the Bizonal Economic Council continued the activities of the Minden Wirtschaftsrat in Frankfurt in the American occupation zone, where with Ludwig Erhard the course was changed to a market economy.

The town administration resumed its work on 9 April 1945 on a provisional basis. Following to the foundation of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1946, the Free State of Lippe was adjoined to it in 1947; as a result of it Minden lost its position as a regional capital to the former Lippian capital Detmold in 1947. In contrast to the other Allied Powers, the British changed the German community regulation for their occupation zone in the way of strict separation of powers. Since 1946 the Mayor was merely an honorary position as head of town and chairman of the town council; a professional Stadtdirektor (town director) was chief of the administration.^[66] In North Rhine-Westphalia these regulations were in force until 1998.

Parts of the Federal Railways Central Offices Bundesbahn-Zentralämter were moved to Minden in 1950. In course of the West German rearmament, the Herzog-von-Braunschweig-Kaserne (Duke of Brunswick Barracks) was built for the new garrison of the Federal Forces (Bundeswehr) in 1959 in the western quarter of Rodenbeck and another barracks in the quarter of Minderheide.

The town centre reconstruction adapted largely to the pre-war situation, the previous road system remained, but the destroyed houses were rebuilt in the 1950s style. Even in the undestroyed areas dilapidated buildings were replaced by new ones that deviated from the quarter's character by form and volume.^[67] The renewal of the main shopping street Scharn was planned by Werner March.^[68]

The serious lack of housing in the 1950s and 1960s, caused by bombing and the post-war migration of refugees, was sorted with new housing areas, especially in the west and north of the centre. Furthermore, some housing estates for British soldiers' families were developed.^[69]

The Minden tramway reduced the lines and finally stopped running in 1959; a trolley bus line on the right side of the Weser run from 1953 to 1965.^[46]

From the local government reorganization to present day

Market square (2008)

New Town hall (view from the cathedral)

On 1 January 1973, the previously separate surrounding communities of Aminghausen, Bölhorst, Dankersen, Dützen, Haddenhausen, Hahlen, Häverstädt, Kutenhausen, Leteln, Meißen, Päpinghausen, Stemmer, Todtenhausen as well as parts of Barkhausen, Hartum and Holzhausen II were incorporated into the town of Minden. Thereby its area increased from 29 km to 101 km and the population number from about 54.000 to 84.000.^[70] At the same time the former districts of Minden and Lübbecke were merged to the new district (Kreis) of Minden-Lübbecke, from which Minden became the capital. A new district administration building was constructed south of the town centre on the site of an old barracks; the former administrative building is since then used as a community archive.

In the 1960s the maintaining problems of the town centre got more and more urgent, as for example a high population density, a great percentage of low-income persons, houses in poor condition, business premises not up-to-date, endangered pedestrians, and severe shortage of parking lots. Therefore, an urban renewal was carried out in the 1970s, within the frame of the federal law for urban development promotion (Städtebauförderungsgesetz, 1971), and subsidized by public money. Dilapidated buildings were renovated or replaced by new structures, but the removal of timbered houses was later regretted. The height of buildings was restricted to four or five storeys. The main shopping areas were rearranged to a pedestrian zone. Public traffic was kept away from the inner part with a new central bus station nearby. Since then the individual traffic has been hindered crossing through the centre, but houses can be reached by a dead end system. Two large parking areas at the edge of the town centre, an underground car park and several multistorey car parks provide parking facilities. To keep away the regional traffic two new Weser bridges and a new bypass road in the very east were built; the old bridge was replaced in 1978.^[71]

The administration of the enlarged town required a new appropriate building. Architect Harald Deilmann planned this complex directly from the old town hall to the cathedral court in the style of structuralism, but since its completion in 1977 it has been discussed quite controversially in Minden's public opinion, not only for the look of the façade, but also for blocking the scenic view of the cathedral from the arches of the old town hall.^[72] In 2006 a controversial resolution by the town council proposed the demolition of the town hall extensions to make room for a new shopping mall. However, a 57% majority opposed this plan in a referendum. Today the whole town hall building complex is classified as historical monument, an extensive renovation is going on since 2019.^[73]

The shoreline of the Weser was improved in 1976 by extending the promenade to the Fischerstadt (Fishermen's Town). The Glacis, a park-like open space in front of the old fortifications, which was important as a green belt, was altered and made more accessible. The old town wall fronting the Fischerstadt was restored to its former height. The opposite shore area (Kanzlers Weide) has been made accessible by a footbridge. This improves access to a large parking area and festival site.

After the British troops had left Minden in 1994, their barracks areas became valuable sites for further town development ("conversion areas").

Place of prosecution and imprisonment

Minden was location of criminal prosecution or imprisonment in a number of very different cases.

• After the time of reformation Minden was a stronghold of witch-hunt in Germany. There were 128 prosecutions for witchcraft between 1603 and 1684. As in nearby regions, almost all those sentenced persons were women.^[74][75]
• Clemens August Droste zu Vischering (1773–1845), Archbishop of Cologne, was brought to Minden, where he was taken under house arrest from November 1837 to April 1839; he never returned to Cologne. During the so-called Cologne confusions (Kölner Wirren), Droste zu Vischering got in trouble with the Prussian state on the question of interconfessional marriages and the independence of the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Bonn.^[76]
• The physician Abraham Jacobi was born in the nearby village of Hartum and educated at the gymnasium in Minden. Though being acquitted as defendant in the Cologne Communist Trial in 1852, he was afterwards imprisoned and condemned of lese-majesty by the district court of Minden. After his release he emigrated to the US, where he became an important pediater.
• During World War I, a large prisoner-of-war camp was established in the western quarter of Minderheide. In September 1914 the first French and British soldiers were brought to that military place, and only at the end of the year baracks were built for about 3.300 prisoners, but over the years more than 25.000 prisoners lived there. The camp was a main camp (Stammlager) with several external labour camps (Arbeitslager). Apart from British and French soldiers (incl. auxiliary troops from the colonies) Italians, Russians, Serbians, Croats, Poles, and Armenians were captured. The camp was dissolved after the Armistice of 11 November 1918, but the total dismantling lasted until 1922. The name Franzosenfriedhof (Cemetery of the French) of the nearby cemetery derives from a war memorial for French soldiers and is misleading, as far as the dead French, British, and Italian soldiers were transferred to their native countries after war. Until today the gravesites of Russians, Serbians, Armenians, etc. are remaining. In September 1917, Apostolic Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli visited the camp.^[77][78][79]
• Auschwitz concentration camp commander Rudolf Höss was brought to Minden after being captured by the British in Schleswig-Holstein. In Minden, he was examined in the so-called "Camp Tomato", where he, for the first time, confessed the murders of millions of Jews in his camp and signed a protocol on 15 March 1946. On 31 May he was brought to Nuremberg, where he repeated the confession as witness in the Nuremberg trials.^[80][81]

Christians

St Mary's church

Non-Christian Religions

Minden Synagogue

Mayor

The Mayor is the head of the town, the leader of town administration and chairman of the city council. The Mayor is elected every five years.

The current Mayor of Minden is Michael Jäcke of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) since 2015 and re-elected in 2020 with 54.3% of the votes.

City council

Hanging flag of Minden combining flag and coat of arms

The Minden city council governs the city together the Mayor. Municipal elections are held every five years, the recent election on 13 September 2020. Apart from the nationwide parties, the members of Minden council belong also to three local associations of independent voters.

Party		Votes	%	+/-	Seats	+/-
	Social Democratic Party (SPD)	10,856	36.38	4.2	21	3
	Christian Democratic Union (CDU)	8,164	27.36	0.6	15	2
	Alliance 90/The Greens (Grüne)	4,636	15.54	5.5	9	3
	Free Democratic Party (FDP)	1,037	3.74	0.4	2	±0
	The Left (Die Linke)	951	3.19	1.3	2	1
	Alternative for Germany (AfD)	1,714	5.74	1.4	3	±0
	Mindener Initiative (MI)	1,062	3.56	1.4	2	1
	BürgerBündnis Minden (BBM)	735	2.46	0.6	1	±0
	Wir für Minden	584	1.96	New	1	New
Total			100.0		56	4
Electorate/voter turnout			47.14	1.5
Source: State Returning Officer Kommunalwahlen 2020

Elections to parliaments

The constituencies for state parliament (Landtag) and federal parliament (Bundestag) elections Minden belongs to, have been mostly won by candidates of the Social Democratic Party.

Coat of arms, flag, motto

The coat of arms shows the doubled-headed imperial eagle (Reichsadler) of the Holy Roman Empire on the right, awarded in 1627 by emperor Ferdinand II for support of the town in the Thirty Years' War. The left side shows the crossed keys of Saint Peter, patron of Minden cathedral, as part of the Prince-Bishop's coat of arms.

The red-white flag shows the colours of the Hanseatic league. The town's motto is Ius et aequitas civitatum vincula (Law and justice are the towns' ties).

Theatre and cabaret revues

The neo-baroque municipal theater (Stadttheater Minden) from 1908 has no ensemble, but is performance location for guest ensembles and regular symphony concerts of the North West German Philharmonic Orchestra (Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie). Since 2002 a project (Der Ring in Minden) has been running to perform all the operas of Richard Wagner.

Further theatre and cultural events occur with private sponsorship and are held in such locations as the civic centre Bürgerzentrum and the Theater am Weingarten. There are also theatre groups without fixed performance venues.

Minden is seat of the European Association of authors Die Kogge.^[89]

Minden is the original location of the nationally known amateur cabaret Mindener Stichlinge; its foundation in 1966 makes it the oldest active cabaret in Germany. The town awards the prize Kabarett-Förderpreis Mindener Stichling every two years to support literary-political cabarets; the 4,000 euro prize is sponsored by the Melitta company as well as the local savings bank.^[90]

Museums

Minden has a municipal archive and two significant museums. The Prussia Museum (Preußenmuseum Minden) is one of two museums of Prussian history in North Rhine-Westphalia. It is quartered in old barracks on Simeonsplatz (Simeon Square).^[91] The second one is the Minden Museum of History, Cultural Studies and Folklore (Mindener Museum für Geschichte, Landes- und Volkskunde), housed in a Weser Renaissance style row of patrician houses (Museumszeile).^[92] The attached Coffee Museum (Kaffee-Museum) focuses on the 100-year-old coffee producer, Melitta.

Minden in seat of a mill association that takes care of over 40 historical mills in the surrounding district (wind-, water-, and horse mills), which have been restored as technical monuments; on Minden area two windmills are in Meißen and Dützen, and a reconstructed ship mill at the Weser shore.^[93]

The Minden Museum Railway operates with old Prussian rolling stock on the Minden District Railway tracks.

Buildings

Haus Hill with Weser Renaissance façade

"Army bakery" (left) and "Granary" on the Martinikirchhof

Neue Regierung (1906)

Minden Cathedral originally dates from the 11th century, the westwerk with its entrance façade built in Romanesque style, while the early Gothic nave and aisles date from the 13th Century. Most of the old buildings around the cathedral were severely destroyed in World War's bomb attacks. The cathedral was reconstructed by architect Werner March until 1957. The nearby town hall with its picturesque 13th century arcade is a complete postwar construction in its upper floors.

The market square is surrounded by buildings in the 19th century style of historicism. The façade of house Flamme/Schmieding obtained a twice daily clock display in 2010. It features the popular origin myth of last independent Saxon leader Duke Widukind shaking hands with Charlemagne.^[94][95]

The main pedestrian zone in the commercial centre of Minden extends from the market place to the north (Scharn) and then turning rectangular in the Bakers' street (Bäckerstraße) eastward to the Weser. The present buildings mostly date from the late 19th century, but some show reconstructed façades in the Weser Renaissance manner. North of the Bakers' Street there are few 17th to 18th century half-timber framing buildings and the secularized St John's church, now being the event location Bürgerzentrum (BÜZ). The pedestrian zone continues the market place to the south as Obermarktstraße (Upper market street) and leads to the upper town centre. Its skyline is dominated from the three churches of (from south to north) St Simeon, St Martin and St Mary, the tower of the latter being an eye-catcher over a long distance. In the southwestern part of the town centre many 16th to 18th century residential buildings have remained intact.

The upper town is accessible on a short way from the market place by the St Martin's steps (Martinitreppe) to the St Martin's churchyard (Martinikirchhof), today a parking area surrounded by the St Martin's church, the Old Mint (Alte Münze), the oldest profane stone building of Minden and one of the oldest in Westphalia, the Schwedenschänke (Swedish tavern, reminding of the Swedish occupation during the Thirty Years War), the renewed synagogue, and the "Granary" (Proviant-Magazin, now used as Weser-Kolleg school) and adjacent "Army Bakery" (Heeresbäckerei, now used as St Martin's parish centre) as military buildings of the 19th century. The last two buildings belong to the so-called Schinkel buildings (Schinkelbauten), as well as some buildings round the Simeon square south of the centre, for their style showing great resemblance to the manner of the famous Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. One of the smallest buildings in Minden is the Windloch (wind hole) near St Martin's.

Some great public buildings have been placed in the glacis area from 1880 to the very modern times: the schools Ratsgymnasium, Kurt-Tucholsky-Gesamtschule, Herder-Gymnasium, Domschule, the Centre of justice, and the Regional Government's building (Neue Regierung) and the neighboured old district administration building (now the local archive) both in neo-renaissance style; the new district administration building from 1977 follows to the south.

Because of its location near to the frontier between the Kingdoms of Prussia and Hanover, the railway station was strongly fortified from the beginning in 1847. Relicts of the station fortification with three forts have still remained. The station building itself is classified as historical monument.

The picturesque Fischerstadt (fishermens' town) lies northeast of the town centre along the Weser, where remnants of the old town fortification wall are reconstructed. In the old villages now being town quarters a lot of half-timbered houses have remained. Schloss Hadenhausen (Haddenhausen Palace) is a 17th-century Weserrenaissance style manor house, still owned by the Bussche family, on the outskirts of the town.

The Kampa-Halle from the 1970s is a large gym-complex for sports and other events.

Monuments

Pegelschlange (Gauge snake)

Minden contains several monuments harking back to Prussian history. The monument of the Great Elector, the only one for a sovereign in Minden, stands alongside the Weser bridgehead to commemorate its first Prussian ruler. In the glacis area, monuments are placed for the infantry brigade and the artillery regiment stationed in Minden, for the World War I deads of the pioneer battalion, and the deads of both World Wars. Another memorial is topped by a bust of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778–1852), the "father of gymnastics", and reminds especially at the dead gymnasts of Minden. The monument to the Battle of Minden is in the Todtenhausen quarter of the town; it commemorates the decisive victory of the forces of Great Britain and their German allies. On the Great cathedral court an obelisk-like monument, topped by the Prussian eagle, reminds at the Prussian victories in the Second Schleswig War of 1864 and the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, and a sarcophagus-like memorial in the glacis, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, at Major General Ernst Michael von Schwichow (1759–1823), fortress commander of Minden.

The Weserspucker (Weser spitter) in the pedestrian zone symbolizes the connection with the river; he is spitting in intervalls. A memorial in pyramidion-form at the Mittelland Canal reminds of Leo Sympher (1854–1922), the leading hydraulic engineer of the canal construction, and a bust at the Martinitreppe of the Minden born astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel.

The new steel sculpture named Keilstück (Wedge piece) by artist Wilfried Hagebölling, that decorates the Martinikirchhof since 1987, has been disputed controversially in public opinion. In the early 2000s the town council decided to remove the sculpture, but caused thereby legal proceedings with the artist; finally the court of appeal confirmed the location at the original place. In January 2022 the sculpture Pegelschlange (gauge snake) is placed in the flooding area at the Weser shore.^[96]

• 
  The Great Elector by Wilhelm Haverkamp
• 
  Memorial to the Battle of Minden in Todtenhausen
• 
  Memorial for fortress commander Schwichow by Schinkel
• 
  War memorial (Großer Domhof)
• 
  Memorial to the Infantry Regiments
• 
  Memorial to the Artillery Regiments by Eberhard Encke
• 
  Memorial to the deads of the Artillery Regiment No. 58
• 
  Memorial for the deads of the Pioneer Battalions
• 
  Memorial for war-killed Minden gymnasts
• 
  Leo Sympher memorial at the Mittelland Canal
• 
  Keilstück on the Martinikirchhof in front of "Army bakery" (left) and "Granary"
• 
  The Weser spitter
• 
  Bust of astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel

Parks

The town centre is surrounded by the Glacis, a parklike green belt replacing the fortifications after their demolition. In its western part the glacis widens to a botanical garden with old tree specimens and thematic gardens on the site of the old cemetery, that was established in 1807, after burials on the old churchyards inside the town had been forbidden. In 1904 a new great cemetery was laid out in the north of the centre, and in 1957 another one in the south.^[97]

Sport

Kampa Hall

About 25.000 people are members of more than a hundred sport clubs, which are organized in a municipal sport association (Stadtsportverband), covering a great variety of disciplines.^[98] The most successful club, the handball club GWD Minden, has played in the Handball-Bundesliga (national handball league) with some interruptions since the league's founding in 1966. GWD now plays in the "Kampa-Halle".

Minden has a reputation as a water sports centre with swimming, kanoe and kayak sport, and rowing, aided by its location on the Weser and the Canal. Many organizations participate in the organization of the major water sport festival "Blaues Band der Weser" which is held every other year.^[99]

Mindener Freischießen

Mindener Freischießen (2010)

Hahler Kranzreiten

The Mindener Freischießen (Minden Free Shooting) is a unique public festival that takes place usually every two years. It is arranged by the military-like organized Mindener Bürgerbatallion (Minden Citizen Battalion) with the Stadtmajor (Town Major) on top. The battalion is divided into six companies, a squadron and a drummer corps, each of them headed by a captain.

In the Middle Ages the right of self-government corresponded with the duty of self-defence, and the citizen battalion was established for this purpose. Since 1682 the obligatory shooting exercises were arranged as a public festival, and as a reward the best shooter was exempted from taxation in the current year. The festival's name refers to this rule. In 1685 the Great Elector changed the rule, so that the winner got a reward of 50 Thaler. This rule has remained to present days: now the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia as legal successor of the Prince-Elector pays the honour sum in present currency; due to the biennial rhythm two winners are determined.

The festival usually takes place in June or July from Thursday to Sunday in the town centre. The Freischießen should not be confused with a marksmen's festival.

Other Events

The Mindener Messe is a one-week travelling funfair every May and every November on the wide event-place Kanzlers Weide at the right Weser shore; it was founded in 1526 by the Prince-Bishop.

The Hahler Kranzreiten takes place every summer in the quarter of Hahlen. It is an equestrian competition where the contestants try to catch a gallows-hanging garland while riding on a galloping horse in several rounds; every following round the gallows is lifted to a higher position.^[100]

Traditional Marksmen's festivals (Schützenfest) are arranged by marksmen's clubs (Schützenverein) in some quarters of Minden like in many other German cities.

Traffic

Rail and bus

Minden railway station from 1848

Fishermen's Town; background: bridge of the Minden District Railways

Minden station is connecting point of the Hanover–Minden railway and the Hamm–Minden railway, which are part of the main lines connecting the Rhine-Ruhr region and Amsterdam with Berlin, and the secondary Weser-Aller Railway between Minden and Nienburg. The railway station is a stop for local and express trains such as Intercity-Express and InterCity.

Regional lines:

• RE 6 (Rhein-Weser-Express) Düsseldorf–Bielefeld–Minden,
• RE 60 (Ems-Leine-Express)/ RE 70 (Weser-Leine-Express) Bielefeld/ Rheine–Minden–Hannover–Braunschweig
• RE 78 (Porta-Express) Bielefeld–Minden–Nienburg

Minden is terminal station of line S 1 of the Hanover S-Bahn to Hanover. All passenger platforms are accessible to handicapped persons.

The Minden Districht Railways (Mindener Kreisbahnen) run two freight lines, one from Minden to Hille (Mittelland Canal port) in the west and the other one to Kleinenbremen in the east. The Minden Museum Railway (Museumseisenbahn Minden) operates restored locomotives and rolling stock on these lines, in Kleinenbremen with the end at the visitors' mine.

The main station is connected by bus with the central bus terminal (Zentraler Omnibusbahnhof, ZOB) in the town centre, where 13 bus lines rendezvous every half hour.^[101] The local buses are coordinated with the regional buses to the other towns of the district.

Waterways and harbours

Minden Aqueduct

The crossing of the navigable Weser and the Mittelland Canal is an important junction of the inland waterways system. Two locks (built 1914 and 2018) connect the River with the canal to overcome a difference in height of 13 m (43 ft).^[102] The multimodal transport harbours on both Weser and Mittelland Canal are experiencing increasing volume because of the good waterway connections to the seaports of Bremen, Bremerhaven, and Hamburg. A new container port is in construction to the east of the present Mittellandkanal harbour, the so-called "RegioPort OWL", at the boundary to stat of Lower Saxony, being a seldom example of cross-border planning in the Federal Republic.

Minden is location of a section of the Waterways and Shipping Authority Mittelland Canal / Elbe Lateral Canal (Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsamt Mitelllandkanal/ Elbe-Seitenkanal) for the administration of the maintenance and regulation of these waterways.^[103] An information centre is located at the Minden Aqueduct (Wasserstraßenkreuz Minden), where the canal system and the function of the locks are explained.

Economy

View to the industrial estate east of the town centre

Melitta headquarters

Harting administration building by Mario Botta

Minden is the economic centre of the district and the bordering region of Lower Saxony. It is part of an agglomeration corridor that extends along the A 2 Autobahn from Minden through Herford, Bielefeld, Gütersloh and on to the Ruhr area. Traffic connections by railway, highway, federal routes, and waterways are favourable factors for growing industry and trade with about 3,300 firms and 40,000 employees in regular conditions (2020).^[109] A multitude of economic branches include the chemical, metalworking, electronic, paper, ceramic, and woodworking spheres, located on industrial areas mainly in the west and east parts of the town.

According to the three-sector model, the Minden employees work in the primary sector (agriculture, forestry) at 0.1%, in the secondary sector (industrial production) at 27.6%, and in the tertiary sector (mainly service and administration) at 72.4%; these numbers are roughly in accordance to the average of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The number of about 28,000 daily commuters exceeds the 17,000 citizens of Minden, who work outside the town's limits.^[109] The disposable income per capita amounts slowly below to the average of North Rhine-Westphalia.^[110]

Like in other towns, some great retail areas have deloped apart from the centre in the outer parts of the town. A very special problem of Minden results from the local government reorganization of 1973, when most of the surrounding suburbs were adjointed to the town administratively. The southern suburbs of Barkhausen and Neesen however became parts of the new founded town of Porta Westfalica, that since then has developed a large trading estate ("Porta Markt") in the most northwestern part of its quarter Barkhausen, directly to the border of Minden. The now established shopping scene is situated extremely marginally in the Porta Westfalica area, but the distance to Minden town centre is only 3 km (1.9 mi); by the federal route 65 even parts of the western community of Hille and the eastern town of Bückeburg are in the 15-minute radius.^[111]

Media

The only local daily newspaper is the Mindener Tageblatt. The WDR (West German Broadcast) studio in Bielefeld provides a regional public broadcast, supporting the region of East Westphalia-Lippe with both radio and television programs. The TV transmission has its regional antenna on the Jakobsberg near Minden. The private radio station Radio Westfalica is part of the Radio-NRW group and transmits a local program from Minden focused on the District Minden-Lübbecke.

Public services and establishments

Entrance to the Centre of justice

The administration offices of the district of Minden-Lübbecke are located in the Kreishaus (district building), and a section of the regional administration that deals with water affairs is still located in Minden.

The Minden Holding, a company in hands of the towns of Minden and Hameln, manages the supply with gas, electricity, and water with its subsidiary firms Mindener Stadtwerke^[120] and Mindener Wasser; the waste disposal is done by the Städtische Betriebe Minden (municipal enterprises).^[121] The 864 bed hospital Johannes-Wesling-Klinikum is one of four sites of the "Mühlenkreiskliniken" hospital-complex serving the district of Minden-Lübbecke. The new hospital building was completed in 2008 and is located in the southern town-quarter of Minden-Häverstädt.^[122]

Minden is site of a Centre of justice containing one of the seven Administrative courts for North Rhine-Westphalia with competence for the whole administrative region of Detmold,^[123] the Labour court (Arbeitsgericht) for controversies in employee-employer relationship in the district Minden-Lübbecke,^[124] and one of the three Local courts (Amtsgericht) for criminal and civil cases in the district of Minden-Lübbecke.^[125]

Minden is base of a German-British pioneer battalion (Deutsch/Britisches Pionierbrückenbataillon 130) with location in the Herzog-von-Braunschweig-Kaserne (Duke of Brunswick barracks) at the western town frontier.

Education

Campus Minden of the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences

The town provides all types of general-educating school. At present time (2022) there are eleven elementary schools (age 6 to 10),^[126] three secondary schools (age 10 to 16), and five secondary schools with upper-level education (age 10 to 19, ending with the university entrance exam (Abitur),^[127] two of them as comprehensive schools and the other three of type "gymnasium", a Freie Waldorfschule (age 6 to 18) and furthermore two vocational colleges.^[128] The Weser-Kolleg offered adult people a "second way of education" to get the Abitur, that provides access to university education.^[129]

Minden is site of a branch of the Hochschule Bielefeld – University of Applied Sciences and Arts specializing in architecture, construction engineering, technology, engineering and mathematics, social studies, business and health. Its location is the Campus Minden, a former artillery barracks area of the Wehrmacht.^[130] The Medizin Campus OWL is adjoint to the Johannes-Wesling-Klinikum as one of the study locations of the University Hospitals of the Ruhr-University of Bochum within a decentralized educational concept for students of medicine.^[131] The RailCampus OWL, a cluster of some universities, enterprises and the German Railway for education and research in railway systems, started working in 2022.^[132]

Minden offers a Folk high school (Volkshochschule) in cooperation with the bordering communities of Hille, Petershagen, Porta Westfalica and Bad Oeynhausen,^[133] and musical education in a municipal music school.^[134]

Notable residents

Decorative manhole cover

• Heinrich von Herford (c. 1300–1370), Dominican
• Friedrich Hoffmann (1660–1742), physician in Minden garrison, inventor of the Hoffmannstropfen (Compound spirit of ether)
• Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach (1759–1845), composer and music director
• Melitta Bentz (1873–1950), inventor of the coffee filter

Honorary citizens

Honorary citizenship was awarded to fourteen people totally;^[135] yet living are handball player Herbert Lübking (born 1941) and former mayor Heinz Röthemeier (born 1924). Other honorary citizens were :

• Ludwig von Vincke (1774–1844), Prussian statesman
• August Karl von Goeben (1816–1880), General
• Alfred Meyer (1891–1945), Nazi official

Bibliography