Stories
Since 777
1250 years – a lot has happened! We have done our best to tell our story briefly and concisely…but it spans 1250 years. And this is how it all began:
Our year of birth!!!
We are first mentioned in the imperial annals in connection with the military conflicts between the Franks and Saxons: the Frankish king Charles had summoned the secular and spiritual leaders of his domain to an imperial assembly and synod in the newly built Karlsburg castle. The annals report on the construction and consecration of “a church of astonishing size”. This refers to the Salvatorkirche, a forerunner of today’s cathedral. Incidentally, we were called “padresbrunnun” back then…
Meeting place Paderborn
In September 799, Charlemagne met with Pope Leo III in the northern part of the Frankish Empire in Paderborn. The talks presumably centred on preparations for Charlemagne’s coronation as emperor in Rome the following year.
Our first bishop
Hathumar becomes the first bishop of the diocese of Paderborn, founded in 806. The young nobleman was educated at the Würzburg cathedral school and trained as a churchman. Little is known about his episcopate.
We needed a saint
To consolidate the new faith among the initially superficially Christianised Saxons, the relics (remains) of Saint Liborius were transferred from Le Mans to Paderborn in 836. Liborius was bishop of Le Mans at the turn of the 4th and 5th centuries. The brotherhood of prayer agreed between the churches of Le Mans and Paderborn in 836 is now regarded as the oldest town twinning in Europe.
Our second founder
Bishop Meinwerk, who was consecrated Bishop of Paderborn in 1009, is regarded as the “second founder” of the diocese of Paderborn. With his building activities, the bishop, who came from a noble and wealthy Saxon aristocratic family and died in 1036, characterised the image of the Paderborn city right up to the present day (St Bartholomew’s Chapel, Abdinghof Monastery, Busdorf Abbey).
A wall with five gates
We build the city wall, which encloses an area of 66 hectares. There were a total of five city gates: the Western Gate, the Spiring Gate (Kassel Gate), the Heier Gate (Detmold Gate), the Gier Gate and the Riemek Gate (Neuhäus Gate). Remains of the town wall are now a listed building.
Our first seal
The long-simmering controversy between the town, which had been striving for autonomy, and its lord escalated in 1222 when the citizens barred the town gates to their lord, Bishop Bernhard III von Oesede. The revolt ended only at first glance with a defeat for the citizens, who were now recognised as a legal entity. It was at this time that the seal of the town – inscribed “Cives Paderbornensis” – was used for the first time.
When Henry III went to Neuhaus Castle
In the “Privilegium Bernhardi”, the urban emancipation phase came to a provisional conclusion when Bishop Bernhard V formally recognised the right of free council elections. In the second half of the 14th century, episcopal rule over Paderborn was reduced to a more formal supremacy. In 1370, Bishop Henry III moved his residence to Neuhaus Castle for good.
We in the Hanseatic League
Paderborn was first documented as a member of the Hanseatic League in 1295, but did not subsequently take part in Hanseatic League life. It was not admitted to the Hanseatic League until 1430. Although the city on the river Paderborn remained associated with the Hanseatic League until almost the dissolution of the League in 1669, it did not achieve any outstanding significance within the League of Cities.
The Jesuits arrive
Dietrich von Fürstenberg’s election as Prince-Bishop in 1585 heralds the change to a consistent Catholic confessionalisation (Change during this time, when religious beliefs became more entrenched) of the now almost completely Protestant city, which can be seen above all in the promotion of the Jesuits, whom Dietrich brought to the Pader in 1592/93. The re-Catholicisation was only completed under Dietrich’s successor Ferdinand I of Bavaria in the 1620s.
“The Battle for Paderborn”
As mayor, the leader of the Protestant civil opposition Liborius Wichart pursued the goal of enforcing the autonomy of the Protestant city based on the privileges of the late Middle Ages. Dietrich von Fürstenberg occupied the city: the “Battle for Paderborn” ended in 1604 with Wichart’s execution and the loss of the city’s independence.
Our town hall as we know it today
On the orders of Prince-Bishop Dietrich von Fürstenberg, the present town hall was built between 1613 and 1615 in place of the town hall first mentioned in documents in 1279 and renovated in 1473. The building, constructed by master builder Heinrich Baumheuer in the Weser Renaissance style, was almost completely destroyed during the Second World War, but was subsequently rebuilt.
The goings-on of the “mad Christian”
For Paderborn, the Thirty Years’ War began in early 1622 with the entry of Christian of Brunswick into the city and the theft of the Libori shrine, which he had melted down to make the so-called “Pfaffenfeindtalers”. Although hardly any other city experienced as much looting, pillaging, shelling and sieges between 1618 and 1648 as Paderborn, it was above all the activities of the “mad Christian” that have remained in the collective memory of its inhabitants. Incidentally, the Liborius relics did not finally return to Paderborn until 1650.
Against the witch craze
The persecution of witches also claimed its victims in Paderborn from 1555. In early 1631, the “Cautio Criminalis” was published in Rinteln, a harsh indictment against the inhumane practices of the witch trials. The author was Father Friedrich Spee, who taught at the Jesuit University in Paderborn.
The first synagogue
After the Jews, who were first mentioned in documents in 1342, fell victim to the medieval plague pogroms, it was not until the end of the 17th century that Jewish families began to settle again. The first evidence of a synagogue dates back to 1764, but the exact location is unknown.
The Prussians come…
As a result of secularisation (Time in which faith loses its social significance), the Paderborn diocese falls to Prussia. The prince-bishop loses his secular office as sovereign. Paderborn, until then the capital of an albeit small independent territory, becomes a district town in the Prussian province of Westphalia formed in 1815. With the takeover of power, Protestant Christians returned to the city in significant numbers for the first time.
When the Pope made us bigger….
The diocese of Paderborn, which had been reduced to its ecclesiastical function, was considerably enlarged by the papal bull (an official document of the Catholic Church) “De salutate animarum” in 1821, which in turn led to the existence of a large number of ecclesiastical authorities, institutions and establishments in the city.
Centre of the revolution
Paderborn – led by Franz Löher – becomes a centre of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1848 in East Westphalia. With the lifting of press censorship, the “Westfälische Zeitung”, published by Wilhelm Crüwell, appears. The “Westfälisches Volksblatt”, published by Schöningh-Verlag since 1849, developed into the mouthpiece of the conservative-Catholic movement.
By rail to Hamm
The “Köln-Minden-Thüringer Verbindungseisenbahngesellschaft” (Cologne-Minden-Thuringia Liaison Railway Company), licensed in 1846 and based in Paderborn, was nationalised in 1848 as the “Königlich Westfälische Eisenbahn” (Royal Westphalian Railway). The Paderborn – Hamm line began operations in October 1850. The Hamm – Paderborn – Kassel line has been in continuous operation since 1853 and the network was extended between 1898 and 1906 (Almetalbahn, Sennebahn).
Now comes the archbishop
The Prussian Concordat (a state church contract dated June 14, 1929, between the Free State of Prussia and the Holy See) and the papal bull “Pastoralis officii nostri” elevated the diocese of Paderborn to the status of archbishopric in 1930. Bishop Caspar Klein and his successors have held the title of archbishop ever since.
Almost completely destroyed during the war
The old town of Paderborn was almost completely destroyed by Allied air raids at the end of the Second World War. The fires from the heavy attack on 27 March 1945 were still smouldering when the city was occupied by American troops on 1 April. Reconstruction succeeded quickly and was completed in 1955.
When Nixdorf conquered the (computer) world
“Nixdorf Computer AG” emerged in 1968 from the “Laboratory for Impulse Technology” founded by Heinz Nixdorf in Essen in 1952 and relocated to Paderborn in 1958. After a meteoric rise in the early 1980s, the company became one of the world’s largest manufacturers of information processing systems with almost 8,000 employees in Paderborn alone. To this day, “Nixdorf Computer AG” is regarded as a symbol of entrepreneurial success and has permanently changed and modernised the city and region.
Our partners – our joy
On 3 June 1967, the town twinning between Paderborn and Le Mans was officially established in the town hall of Le Mans. Both cities deliberately built on the centuries-old ecclesiastical connection. The signing of the twinning documents sealed a friendship that was initially slow to get off the ground after two world wars. Today, Paderborn is twinned with Bolton (1975), Belleville (1990), Pamplona (1992), Przemyśl (1993) and Debreccen (1994).
Our path to becoming a university city
The Paderborn University of Applied Sciences emerged in 1972 from the Pedagogical Academy founded in 1946 and the State Engineering School for Mechanical Engineering established in 1963 – and has been a university since 2002.
The stroke of the pen to become a major city
The step from a medium-sized to a major centre was completed in 1975 with the municipal reorganisation. With the stroke of a pen (“Paderborn-Sauerland Act”), Paderborn became a major city (with a good 103,000 inhabitants at the time) and at the same time the dominant centre of the new district of Paderborn (with just under 213,000 inhabitants in 1975) formed from the old districts of Büren and Paderborn.
We are first-class
SC Paderborn 07’s promotion to the Bundesliga for the first time in 2014 (and later again in 2019) attracted nationwide attention. The club was formed in 1985 from the merger of TuS Schloß Neuhaus and 1. FC Paderborn, both of which in turn had predecessor clubs. The name suffix “07” can be traced back to the oldest football club in the region, Arminia Neuhaus, which was founded in 1907.
