Bingen am Rhein () is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

, Germany. The settlement's original name was Bingium, a Celtic word that may have meant "hole in the rock", a description of the shoal behind the Mouse Tower (German: ''Mäuseturm''), known as the ''Binger Loch''. Bingen was the starting point for the ''Via Ausonia'', a Roman military road that linked the town with

Trier Trier ( , ; ), formerly and traditionally known in English as Trèves ( , ) and Triers (see also Names of Trier in different languages, names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle (river), Moselle in Germany. It lies in a v ...

. Bingen is well known for, among other things, the legend about the Mouse Tower, in which Hatto II, the Archbishop of Mainz, was allegedly eaten by mice. Since the 19th century, the legend has increasingly been attributed to Hatto I, a predecessor of Hatto II. Saint Hildegard von Bingen, an important

polymath A polymath or polyhistor is an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their knowledge, ...

, abbess, mystic and musician, one of the most influential

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

composers and one of the earliest Western composers whose music is widely preserved and performed, was born 40 km away from Bingen, in Bermersheim vor der Höhe. Bingen am Rhein was also the birthplace of the poet Stefan George, along with many other influential figures.

Geography

Location

Bingen is situated just southeast of the Rhine knee by the

Bingen Forest The Bingen Forest () is part of the Hunsrück, a low mountain range in the Central Uplands of Germany. It is up to and is located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Location The landscape of the Bingen Forest lies on the boundary of the ...

(''Binger Wald'' – actually a low mountain range), which rises west of the town. Rising to the north on the other side of the Rhine is the

Rheingau The Rheingau (; ) is a region on the northern side of the Rhine between the German towns of Wiesbaden and Lorch, Hesse, Lorch near Frankfurt, reaching from the Western Taunus to the Rhine. It is situated in the German state of Hesse and is part ...

range, the Taunus's southwesternmost outcrop. In Bingen the river Nahe empties into the Rhine Gorge. Bingen forms the southern limit of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

Rhine Gorge

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

. The Rochusberg (mountain) is nearly completely surrounded by the town site.

Constituent communities

Population development

(each time at 31 December)

History

Antiquity

Even before the Romans came, people lived here, because the location favoured transport, being at the confluence of the Nahe and Rhine Rivers, and the Rhine's entry into the gorge. The first settlement seems to have been a Celtic (

Gaulish Gaulish is an extinct Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, ...

) settlement by the name of ''Binge'' – meaning "rift". In the early first century AD, Roman troops were stationed in Bingen on the Rhine Valley Road, and rendered the local name as Bingium in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

. There the Romans erected a wooden bridge across the Nahe and constructed a bridgehead castrum. A Roman Mithraic monument, which included a mutilated sculpture representing the nativity of Mithra from a rock, was discovered in Bingen; one of its inscriptions is dated 236.

Medieval period

The presbyter Aetherius of Bingen founded sometime between 335 and 360 a firmly Christian community. Bearing witness to this time is Aetherius's gravestone, which can still be seen in Saint Martin's Basilica. After the fall of the Limes, the town became a Frankish royal estate and passed in 983 by the Donation of Verona from Otto II to Archbishop Willigis of Mainz. Under Otto III the ''Binger Kammerforst'' (forest) came into being. Under Willigis, some way up the river Nahe, the stone ''Drususbrücke'' (bridge) was built. The inhabitants of Bingen strove time and again for independence, which led in 1165 through disputes between the Archbishop of Mainz and the Emperor to destruction. In the 13th century, Bingen was a member of the Rhenish League of Towns. The building of Klopp Castle (''Burg Klopp'') in the mid 13th century could well be seen as being tied in with this development. A last attempt was the town's unsuccessful participation in the German Peasants' War in 1525. From the Archbishop the Cathedral Chapter of Mainz acquired the town in two halves in 1424 and 1438. Until the late 18th century Bingen remained under its administration. Like many towns in the valley, Bingen suffered several town fires and wars.

Modern period

From 1792 to 1813, the town was, as part of the ''département'' of Mont-Tonnerre (or Donnersberg – both names meaning "Thunder Mountain"), French after French Revolutionary troops had occupied the Rhine's left bank. In 1816, after the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon, Napol ...

, the town passed to the

Grand Duchy of Hesse The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine () was a grand duchy in western Germany that existed from 1806 to 1918. The grand duchy originally formed from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1806 as the Grand Duchy of Hesse (). It assumed the name ...

-Darmstadt while today's outlying centre of Bingerbrück went to

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

Rhine Province The Rhine Province (), also known as Rhenish Prussia () or synonymous with the Rhineland (), was the westernmost Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia, within the German Reich, from 1822 to 1946. ...

, making Bingen a border town until 1871, when the

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

was founded. On 7 June 1969, the formerly Prussian municipality of Bingerbrück was amalgamated. On 22 April 1972 came Dromersheim's and Sponsheim's amalgamation with Bingen. The epithet ''am Rhein'' has been borne since 1 July 1982. For the State Garden Show in 2008 in Bingen, the Rhineside areas in the town underwent extensive modernization.

Jewish history

Benjamin of Tudela mentioned a Jewish community in Bingen in the mid-12th century. Christian inhabitants attacked the small Jewish quarter on

Rosh Hashanah Rosh Hashanah (, , ) is the New Year in Judaism. The Hebrew Bible, biblical name for this holiday is Yom Teruah (, , ). It is the first of the High Holy Days (, , 'Days of Awe"), as specified by Leviticus 23:23–25, that occur in the late summe ...

in 1198 or 1199, and the Jews were driven from the city. Jews again lived in Bingen as moneylenders in the middle of the 13th century under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Mainz. In 1343, French Jews settled in Bingen. In 1405, the archbishop declared a moratorium on one-fifth of the debts owed to Jews by Christians, and subsequently the archbishops repeatedly extorted large sums. Noted rabbis who taught in the small community included Seligmann Oppenheim, who convened the Council of Bingen (1455–56) in an unsuccessful attempt to establish his authority over the whole of

Rhineland The Rhineland ( ; ; ; ) is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly Middle Rhine, its middle section. It is the main industrial heartland of Germany because of its many factories, and it has historic ties to the Holy ...

Jewry. After the proposal was opposed by Moses Minz, the matter was referred to Isaac Isserlein, who rejected the project. The Jews were again expelled from Bingen in 1507, and did not return until the second half of the 16th century. The Jewish population was 465 in 1933, and 222 in 1939 due to flight and emigration. The 169 Jews who remained in Bingen in 1942 were sent to concentration camps, and only four ultimately returned. The synagogue was demolished in 1945, and the community was not reestablished after World War II.

Politics

Town council

The council is made up of 36 members. The mayor since 2012 has been the CDU politician Thomas Feser. Seats are apportioned thus:

Coat of arms

The town's

arms Arms or ARMS may refer to: *Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to: People * Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader Coat of arms or weapons *Armaments or weapons **Fi ...

show Saint Martin cutting off a piece of his cloak for a poor man and, in a small inescutcheon in dexter chief, the

Wheel of Mainz The Wheel of Mainz or , in German language, German, was the coat of arms of the Archbishopric of Mainz and thus also of the Electorate of Mainz (Kurmainz), in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It consists of a silver wheel with six spokes on a red ...

Main sights

* Mouse Tower * Former monastery church, the Basilica of St. Martin, from the 15th century with Romanesque

crypt A crypt (from Greek κρύπτη (kryptē) ''wikt:crypta#Latin, crypta'' "Burial vault (tomb), vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, Sarcophagus, sarcophagi, or Relic, religiou ...

* Klopp Castle (''Burg Klopp'') * ''Rochuskapelle'' * ''Drususbrücke'' (bridge) with Romanesque bridge chapel * Old Rhine Crane * ''Haferkasten'' ("Oat Shed", from after 1689) with Stefan-George-Museum * Puricellipalais, an Empire style building from 1780 * Old Graveyard from the 19th century with Napoleon monument * Historical Museum on the theme "Hildegard of Bingen" * Roman '' villa rustica'' in the Bingen Forest * Rhine

Floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

Special Protection Area * Bingerbrück Reiter Signal Box technological cultural monument * A new concept was introduced with the ''Route der Industriekultur Rhein-Main'' ("Rhine-Main Industrial Culture Route"), along which industrial building works on the 160 km between Miltenberg and Bingen are linked together into an adventure route about the Industrial Age in southern Germany. Already 700 buildings are scientifically catalogued.

Culture

Bingen 2008 State Garden Show

Bingen was from 18 April to 19 October 2008 host for the Rhineland-Palatinate State Garden Show. The event was held along a 2.8 km stretch of the Rhine waterfront on 24 ha of exhibition area. With 1.3 million visitors, the expected number of 600,000 was greatly exceeded.

Regular events

* Bingen swingt – jazz festival * Binger Open Air Festival – Alternative festival *

Breakpoint In software development, a breakpoint is an intentional stopping or pausing place in a computer program, program, put in place for debugging purposes. It is also sometimes simply referred to as a pause. More generally, a breakpoint is a means o ...

– worldwide, one of the

demoscene The demoscene () is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off computer programmi ...

's biggest events (no longer held) * Nacht der Verführung – (literally "Night of Seduction") wine festival in the vines * Rhein im Feuerzauber – great firework event * Rochusfest (Saint Roch's Festival) – church festival with folk character, Bishopric of Mainz

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a travel, journey to a holy place, which can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life. A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) w ...

* Winzerfest (winemakers' festival) – lasting 11 days, the longest wine festival on the Rhine

Economy and infrastructure

The region is characterized economically by winegrowing, especially as in Bingen three winegrowing areas ( Rheinhessen, Mittelrhein and Nahe) meet. The town is also the winegrowing ''Bereich's'' (''Bereich Bingen'') namesake in German wine law. Other industries that once did business in Bingen when there was a harbour have left the town over the years. The service industries here today are found mainly in the industrial park (

Autobahn The (; German , ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'. Much of t ...

interchange Bingen-Ost / Kempten / Industriegebiet) and in the Scharlachberg commercial park. Tourism also plays an important role.

Resident businesses

* NSM-Löwen (slot machines) * Oerlikon Balzers Coating Germany GmbH

Transport

Rail

The main railway station, ''

Bingen (Rhein) Hauptbahnhof Bingen (Rhein) Hauptbahnhof is a railway station in the Germany, German city of Bingen am Rhein on the West Rhine Railway. It is located in the borough of Bingerbrück. The station that serves central Bingen is called Bingen Stadt railway station ...

'', lies in the outlying centre of Bingerbrück. It is served by

InterCity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the train categories in Europe, classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to InterRegio, regional train, r ...

trains as well as one

ICE Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally oc ...

line. Bingen (Rhein) Stadt station lies 2 km farther east, right across from the historical harbour crane. This station is important only for local transport. There is also a stop in Bingen-Gaulsheim. The reason that two railway stations arose in Bingen is historical. The main railway station was originally a

n border station built by the Rhenish Railway Company on its West Rhine Railway, whilst the station in town belonged to the Hessian Ludwig Railway. The stops at Drususbrücke on the Bingen Hbf-Bad Kreuznach line and Bingen-Kempten and Büdesheim-Dromersheim on the Bingen/Rhein Stadt– Alzey line are no longer served.

Road

Bingen lies next to

en A 60 and A 61, which are linked to the town by ''

Bundesstraße ''Bundesstraße'' (, ), abbreviated ''B'', is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways. Germany Germany's ''Bundesstraßen'' network has a total length of about 40,000 km. German ''Bundesstraßen'' are labelled with re ...

'' 9.

Water

Only private transport is still of importance today. The cargo harbour has been abandoned. The former winter harbour is now a

marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : "related to the sea") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or cargo ...

. There are landing stages of the tourist lines Köln-Düsseldorfer, Bingen-Rüdesheimer Fahrgastschifffahrt and Rösslerlinie. A passenger ferry and a car ferry link Bingen with Rüdesheim. Until the late 1970s Bingen was a piloting station.

Education

* University of Applied Sciences Bingen * Stefan-George- Gymnasium * Hildegardisschule, Bishopric of Mainz Catholic private school * Rochus- Realschule * Rupertus

Hauptschule A ''Hauptschule'' (, "general school") is a secondary school in Germany, starting after four years of elementary schooling (''Grundschule''), which offers Lower Secondary Education (Level 2) according to the International Standard Classification ...

* Berufsbildende Schule Bingen (

vocational school A vocational school (alternatively known as a trade school, or technical school), is a type of educational institution, which, depending on the country, may refer to either secondary education#List of tech ed skills, secondary or post-secondar ...

) * Bingen town library * Folk high school

Notable people

Born before 1900

* Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), abbess and author, mystic, writer, composer, musician, and medic. After her the Bingen girls' school ( Gymnasium and

), the Hildegardisschule ("Higa"), is named. On 7 October 2012, Pope Benedict XVI named her a Doctor of the Church. * Bertha of Bingen () * (1754–1825), writer * Philipp Foltz (1805–1877), painter * (1828–1912), Mayor of Bingen and Member of the ''Landstände'' of the

* Heinrich Brück (1831–1903), Bishop of Mainz * Johann Baptist Hilsdorf (1835–1918), photographer and father of Theodor and Jacob * (1843–1905), Catholic priest, writer and Rhenish Hessian local historian * Alice Bensheimer (1864–1935), politician and feminist * Theodor Hilsdorf (1868–1944), photographer * Stefan George (1868–1933), poet * Carl Friedberg (1872–1955), pianist and music pedagogue * Jacob Hilsdorf (1872–1916), photographer * (born 1882), Member of the ''Landtag'' (Zentrum) * Saladin Schmitt (1883–1951), theatre researcher, producer and theatre manager * (1891–1960), leading Jewish architect who designed synagogues, department stores, and the first skyscraper in

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (), is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, second-largest city in Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, the States of Ger ...

Born 1900 and later

* (1900–1983), geologist and paleontologist, professor at the Freie Universität Berlin * (1908–1980), trade unionist and politician (CDU), Member of the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet (assembly), Diet") is the lower house of the Germany, German Federalism in Germany, federal parliament. It is the only constitutional body of the federation directly elected by the German people. The Bundestag wa ...

* (1913–1984), ecclesiastical historian, librarian at the ''Martinus-Bibliothek'' * (born 1922), docent for pastoral liturgy at the Episcopal Seminary, diocesan president of church choirs in the Bishopric of Mainz * (born 1940), politician, former Bundestag Armed Forces Commissioner * Mary Roos (born 1949), singer and actress * Tina York (born 1954), singer * Thomas Kling (1957–2005), lyric poet * Peter Frey (born 1957), journalist * (born 1964), singer and actor * Dajan Šimac (born 1982), footballer * Jan Schlaudraff (born 1983), footballer and first national player from Bingen

Twin towns – sister cities

Bingen am Rhein is twinned with: *

Hitchin Hitchin () is a market town in the North Hertfordshire Districts of England, district of Hertfordshire, England. The town dates from at least the 7th century. It lies in the valley of the River Hiz at the north-eastern end of the Chiltern Hills ...

, England, United Kingdom (1958) * Nuits-Saint-Georges, France (1960) *

Venarey-les-Laumes Venarey-les-Laumes () is a commune in the Côte-d'Or department in eastern France. Population See also *Communes of the Côte-d'Or department The following is a list of the 698 communes of the Côte-d'Or department of France. The comm ...

, France (1967) *

Prizren Prizren ( sq-definite, Prizreni, ; sr-cyr, Призрен) is the second List of cities and towns in Kosovo, most populous city and Municipalities of Kosovo, municipality of Kosovo and seat of the eponymous municipality and District of Prizren, ...

, Kosovo (1968) * Anamur, Turkey (2011) * Kutná Hora, Czech Republic (2011)

References

External links

Town's official webpage

Tourist Information on Bingen am Rhein

Information on Bingen

''Jewish Encyclopedia'': "Bingen"
by Kaufmann Kohler & A. M. Friedenberg (1906).
Jewish History of Bingen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bingen Am Rhein Populated places on the Rhine Rhenish Hesse Mainz-Bingen Naheland Holocaust locations in Germany Middle Rhine