Roland statue in Nordhausen

Nordhausen is a city^[1] of about 45,000 people at the southern border of the Harz mountains, in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Nordhausen. It was once known for its tobacco industry, and is still known for its eponymous brandy, Nordhäuser Doppelkorn. Bet Shemesh (בית שמש; unofficially also spelled Beit Shemesh) is a city in the Jerusalem District in Israel. ... Location within France Charleville-Mézières is a town and commune in northeastern France, préfecture (capital) of the Ardennes département which is itself part of the Champagne-Ardenne région. ... Map of Germany showing location of Bochum Bochum is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. ... Ostrów Wielkopolski (often abbreviated , formerly called only Ostrów or Ostrowo, Latin: Ostrovia) is a town in central Poland with 73100 inhabitants (2005). ... The Harz is a mountain range in northern Germany. ... The Free State of Thuringia (German Freistaat Thüringen) lies in central Germany and is among the smaller of the countrys sixteen Bundesländer (federal states), with an area of 16,200 sq. ... Nordhausen is a Kreis (district) in the north of Thuringia, Germany. ...

The city is first attested in a 13 May 927 document of Henry the Fowler, but an earlier settlement on the site dates back to around 785. In 1220, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor made it an Imperial Free City, and in 1430 Nordhausen joined the Hanseatic League. From around 1500 the city began producing brandy, which became famous under the name Nordhäuser Doppelkorn. In 1523, a year in which Thomas Müntzer spent some time in the city, the Reformation came to Nordhausen. May 13 is the 133rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (134th in leap years). ... Henry I, the Fowler (German: Heinrich der Vogler) (876 - July 2, 936), was Duke of Saxony from 912 and king of the Germans from 919 until his death in 936. ... Frederick II (December 26, 1194 – December 13, 1250), Holy Roman Emperor of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was pretender to the title of King of the Romans from 1212, unopposed holder of that monarchy from 1215, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 until his death in 1250. ... In the Holy Roman Empire, an imperial free city (in German: freie Reichsstadt) was a city formally responsible to the emperor only — as opposed to the majority of cities in the Empire, which belonged to a territory and were thus governed by one of the many princes (Fürsten) of... The Hanseatic League (German: die Hanse, Dutch: de Hanze) was an alliance of trading cities that established and maintained a trade monopoly over the Baltic Sea and most of Northern Europe for a time in the later Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, between the 13th and 17th century. ... Brandy pot stills at the Van Ryn Brandy Cellar near Stellenbosch, South Africa Brandy (short for brandywine, from Dutch brandewijn—fire wine) is a general term for distilled wine, usually 40–60% ethyl alcohol by volume. ... Thomas Müntzer, in a 18th century engraving by C. Van Sichem Thomas Muentzer (or Müntzer, Münzer) (1489 or 1490–27 May 1525) was an early Reformation-era German pastor who was a rebel leader during the Peasants War. ... The Protestant Reformation was a movement which began in the 16th century as a series of attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church, but ended in division and the establishment of new institutions, most importantly Lutheranism, Reformed churches, and Anabaptists. ...

In 1866 the railway connected Nordhausen to Halle, Saxony-Anhalt. Halle (also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish from Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia) is the largest town in the German Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. ...

On 3rd and 4th April 1945 three-quarters of the town was destroyed by bombing raids of the Royal Air Force, in which around 8,800 people died. On 11 April the Americans occupied the city, and on 2 July the Red Army took over. It has since been rebuilt, and, primarily since German reunification, had its ancient city center restored. The Royal Air Force (often abbreviated to RAF) is the air force branch of the British Armed Forces. ... The short forms Red Army and RKKA refer to the Workers and Peasants Red Army, (in Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия - Raboche-Krestyanskaya Krasnaya Armiya), the armed forces first organised by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War in 1918. ... West Germany and the GDR German reunification (Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) took place on October 3, 1990, when the areas of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, in English commonly called East Germany) were incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, in English commonly called West Germany). After the GDRs...

Sights

• A 17th-century statue of Roland, at the outer wall of the Town Hall. It is considered a symbol of the town.
• The Cathedral of the Holy Cross (Dom Zum Heiligen Kreuz). It dates back to a church built in the mid-10th century. In 1220 the church was converted to a cathedral. The building has a Late Gothic nave, while the towers, crypt and cloisters are in Romanesque style.
• The Frauenberger Kirche (St. Maria auf dem Berg), a Romanesque church.
• The Petriturm (St. Peter's Tower), the remaining tower of a 14th-century church destroyed in 1945.
• The Kunsthaus Meyenburg, an early 20th-century Jugendstil villa which houses a small museum of contemporary art.
• The theater, built in 1917.

Roland pledges his fealty to Charlemagne; from a manuscript of a chanson de geste. ... Gothic art refers to the art of the Gothic cultural movement in northern Europe. ... Romanesque St. ... Alfons Mucha, lithographed poster, 1898 Art Nouveau (French for New art) is an art and design style that peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th century. ...

Notes

1. ^  The city name Nordhausen is sometimes incorrectly used when referring to the nearby WW II concentration camp of Mittelbau-Dora. This concentration camp, which included the Mittelwerk underground city in the Kohnstein mountain (production site of the V-2 rockets), was indeed close to the city of Nordhausen, but the names Dora or Mittelbau-Dora are more accurate designations for the said concentration camp (now a memorial site).

Combatants Allied Powers Axis Powers Commanders {{{commander1}}} {{{commander2}}} Strength {{{strength1}}} {{{strength2}}} Casualties 17 million military deaths 8 million military deaths {{{notes}}} World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a military conflict that took place between 1939 and 1945. ... A concentration camp is a large detention center created for political opponents, enemy aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. ... Categories: Stub | Nazi concentration camps ... Part of Montreals underground city, a concourse in Bonaventure metro station, showing directional signs leading to buildings accessible through the underground city An underground city is a network of tunnels that connect buildings, usually in the downtown area of a city. ... The V-2 rocket or Vergeltungswaffe 2 (Nemesis- or retaliation weapon 2) was an early ballistic missile used by the German Army during the later stages of World War II against mostly British and Belgian targets. ... Categories: Stub | Nazi concentration camps ...

External links

• Official homepage of the city of Nordhausen
• The Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp memorial