Zweibrücken - History

History

The town was the capital of the former Palatinate-Zweibrücken. The ducal castle is now occupied by the chief court of the Palatinate (Oberlandesgericht). There is a fine Gothic Protestant church, the Alexander-Kirche, founded in 1493.

Since the end of the 12th century, Zweibrücken was the seat of the County of Zweibrücken, the counts being descended from Henry I (Heinrich I.), youngest son of Simon I, count of Saarbrücken (d. 1182). The line became extinct on the death of Count Eberhard II (1394), who in 1385 had sold half his territory to the count palatine of the Rhine, and held the other half as his feudal domaine. Louis (d. 1489), son of Stephen, founded the line of the counts palatine of Zweibrücken (Pfalz-Zweibrücken). In 1533, the Counts palatine converted Pfalz-Zweibrücken to the new Protestant faith. In 1559, a member of the line, Duke Wolfgang, founded the earliest grammar school of the town (Herzog-Wolfgang-Gymnasium), which existed until 1987.

After Charles X Gustav, the son of John Casimir, count palatine of Pfalz-Zweibrücken, succeeded his cousin Queen Christina of Sweden on the Swedish throne, Pfalz-Zweibrücken was in personal union with Sweden until 1718.

In 1731, Pfalz-Zweibrücken passed to the Palatinate-Birkenfeld-Zweibrücken branch of the counts palatine, from where it came under the sway of Bavaria in 1799. At the Peace of Lunéville in 1801 Zweibrücken was ceded to France; on its reunion with Germany in 1814 the greater part of the territory was given to Bavaria, the remainder to Oldenburg and Kingdom of Prussia. The city of Zweibrücken became part of the Palatine region of the Kingdom of Bavaria.

At the ducal printing office at Zweibrücken the fine series of the classical editions known as the Bipontine Editions was published (1779 sqq.).

The last prominent social event before the First World War was the inauguration of the Rosengarten (rose garden) by Princess Hildegard of Bavaria in June 1914. As a consequence of the First World War, Zweibrücken was occupied by French troops between 1918 and 1930. In the course of the Kristallnacht in 1938, the Zweibrücken synagogue was destroyed. With the outbreak of the Second World War the city was evacuated in 1939-1940, as it lay in the ‘Red Zone’ on the fortified Westwall (Siegfried Line). Shortly before the end of the war, on 14 March 1945 the city was nearly completely destroyed from bombing by the Royal Canadian Air Force, with the loss of more than 200 lives. On 20 March American ground troops reached Zweibrücken. The city became part of the new state of Rhineland-Palatinate after the war.

In 1990 the city underwent a major change. With the departure of the Americans, the military area became free, which corresponded altogether to a third of the entire city surface area. Unemployment increased to approximately 21%, leading to a decrease in demand in the retail trade of approximately 25%. These events led to rapid, creative decisions on the part of the city, with the resultant changes becoming the model for other communities. Within the core of the city, a small pedestrian precinct was completed, which includes some restored historic buildings.