TheSynod of Thionville was held here beginning on 2 February 835. It reinstated EmperorLouis the Pious and reversed his former conviction on crimes — none of which he actually committed — and deposed theArchbishop of Rheims,Ebbo. The Synod was composed of 43 bishops. On 28 February 835, inMainz, Ebbo admitted that Louis had not committed the crimes of which he had been indicted and for which he had been deposed asHoly Roman Emperor.
In 1659Diedenhofen was annexed by France. Fortifications were constructed under the direction ofSébastien de Vauban.
View of the 1558 siege of Thionville by Nicolas Beatrizet, in the Franco Novacco Collection at the Newberry LibrarySiege of Thionville 1643Plan de Thionville, 1741TheHôtel de Ville
After theFranco-Prussian War of 1870, the area ofAlsace-Lorraine was annexed by the newly createdGerman Empire in 1871 by theTreaty of Frankfurt and became aReichsland. Thionville once again becameDiedenhofen and became a prosperous city. Some largeneo-Romanesque buildings typical of the German Empire were constructed in the city. TheGerman Army decided to build a fortress line fromMülhausen toLuxembourg to protect the newReichsland. The centerpiece of this line was the greatMoselstellung, a fortress system protectingMetz and Diedenhofen.
The fortifications around Diedenhofen centred on three main forts: theFort de Guentrange on the northwest side,Fort de Koenigsmacker to the northeast, and theFort d'Illange to the south. Each position was surrounded by several ditches, with shelters and observation cupolas. A large barbed wire belt defended by machine guns completed the defensive system.[citation needed]
During theSecond World War, Lorraine was placed under aGerman civilian administration and was thus once againde facto part of the German Reich (though unrecognized by theWestern Allies), and the city became Diedenhofen once more. In 1944, US troops entered Diedenhofen, which has belonged to France as Thionville since then. In the winter of 1944-45, the Displaced Persons Camp No. 8 was established here. In the following years it was home to the thousands of former concentration camp prisoners and POWs.
After experiencing, along with all of France, an economic upswing during the postwar decades (trente glorieuses), theheavy industry of Thionville suffered setbacks beginning in the 1970s. The city and the entire region have faced hardships andstructural unemployment since then.
Jean-Marie Demange, who had served as the town's mayor for thirteen years, committed suicide in 2008 after killing his mistress with two gunshots in the head.[citation needed]
The area around Thionville has relied on heavy industry, most notably since the end of the 19th century, due to the presence ofiron ore in the area. The first large steel mill in Thionville was opened in 1898. Since thesteel crisis of the 1970s, several steel mills have been closed, and only a few have remained active. A growing number of residents of Thionville commute to nearbyLuxembourg (Thionville is 15 kilometres from the border).
TheGare de Thionville railway station offers connections with Luxembourg, Metz, Nancy, Paris, Strasbourg, Brussels, Zürich, and several regional destinations. TheA31 motorway connects Thionville with Luxembourg and Metz.
The population of Thionville increased mainly in the first half of the 20th century due to industrial development of theUpper Moselle basin. The economic slowdown andsteel crisis of the 1970s affected the town and surrounding area, causing a population stagnation. The population data in the table and graph below refer to the commune of Thionville proper, in its geography at the given years. The commune of Thionville absorbed the former commune of Veymerange in 1966, Volkrange in 1969, and Garche, Kœking, and Œutrange in 1970.[5]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Ebbo".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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