A pre-Roman foundation, Worms is one of the oldest cities in northern Europe. It was the capital of theKingdom of the Burgundians in the early fifth century, hence is the scene of the medieval legends referring to this period, notably the first part of theNibelungenlied.
Today, the city is an industrial centre and is famed as the origin ofLiebfraumilch wine.[5] Its other industries include chemicals, metal goods, and fodder.
Heylshof Garden on the location of the formerBischofshof palace
Worms' name is ofCeltic origin:Borbetomagus meant "settlement in a watery area". This was eventually transformed into theLatin nameVormatia, in use since the 6th century, which was preserved in the Medieval Hebrew formVermayza (ורמייזא) and the contemporary Polish formWormacja. It is pronounced in English as/ˈvɒrms/ "vorms".[6][7]
According to a legend printed in the 17th century in the bookMa'aseh Nisim byJuspa Schammes, the origin of the city's name is attributed to the mythical creaturelint-wurm. This creature, resembling asnake and aworm, arrived in the city of Germisa and terrorized its inhabitants. Every day, the people held a lottery to determine which of them would be sacrificed to the lint-wurm in order to spare the city from destruction. Eventually, the lot fell on the queen. One of the city's heroes refused to allow her to sacrifice herself and offered to replace her on the condition that if he survived, she would marry him. The queen agreed, and he donned iron armor. After the lint-wurm swallowed him, he cut his way out from the inside and killed it. He married the queen, became king, and renamed the city to Worms to commemorate this tale.[8]
Worms is located on the west bank of theRiver Rhine between the cities ofLudwigshafen andMainz. On the northern edge of the city, thePfrimm flows into the Rhine, and on the southern edge, theEisbach flows into the Rhine.
The climate in the Rhine Valley is cool in winter and very warm in summer. Rainfall is below average for the surrounding areas. Winter snow accumulation is low and often melts quickly.
Worms was in ancient times a Celtic city namedBorbetomagus, perhaps meaning "water meadow".[9] Later it was conquered by the GermanicVangiones tribe. In 14 BC, Romans under the command ofDrusus captured and fortified the city, and from that time onwards, a small troop of infantry and cavalry was garrisoned there. The Romans renamed the city asAugusta Vangionum, after thethen-emperor and the local tribe. The name does not seem to have taken hold, however, and fromBorbetomagus developed the GermanWorms and LatinWormatia; as late as the modern period, the city name was written asWormbs.[10] The garrison grew into a small town with a regular Roman street plan, a forum, and temples for the main godsJupiter,Juno,Minerva (whose temple was the site of the later cathedral), andMars.
St Martin's Church
Roman inscriptions, altars, andvotive offerings can be seen in the archaeological museum, along with one of Europe's largest collections ofRoman glass. Local potters worked in the town's south quarter. Fragments ofamphorae contain traces of olive oil fromHispania Baetica, doubtless transported by sea and then up the Rhine by ship.
During the disorders of 411–413 AD, Roman usurperJovinus established himself in Borbetomagus as a puppet-emperor with the help of KingGunther of theBurgundians, who had settled in the area between the Rhine andMoselle some years before. The city became the capital of the Burgundian kingdom under Gunther (also known as Gundicar). Few remains of this early Burgundian kingdom survive, because in 436, it was all but destroyed by a combined army of Romans (led byAëtius) and Huns (led byAttila); abelt clasp found at Worms-Abenheim is a museum treasure. Provoked by Burgundian raids against Roman settlements, the combined Romano-Hunnic army destroyed the Burgundian army at the Battle of Worms (436), killing King Gunther. About 20,000 are said to have been killed. The Romans led the survivors southwards to the Roman district of Sapaudia (modern-daySavoy). The story of this war later inspired theNibelungenlied. The city appears on thePeutinger Map, dated to the fourth century.
Map of Worms in 1630: The Jewish ghetto is marked in yellow.
Thebishopric of Worms existed by at least 614. In theFrankish Empire, the city was the location of an important palace of Charlemagne. The bishops administered the city and its territory. The most famous of the early medieval bishops wasBurchard of Worms. In 868,an important synod was held in Worms. Around 900, the circuit wall was rebuilt according to thewall-building ordinance of BishopThietlach.
Worms prospered in the High Middle Ages. Having received far-reaching privileges from KingHenry IV as early as 1074, the city became animperial free city. The bishops resided atLadenburg and only had jurisdiction overWorms Cathedral itself. In 1122, theConcordat of Worms was signed; the1495 imperial diet met here and made an attempt at reforming the disintegratingImperial Circle Estates by theImperial Reform. Most important, among more than 100imperial diets held at Worms, that of 1521 (commonly known astheDiet of Worms) ended with theEdict of Worms, in which Martin Luther was declared a heretic after refusing to recant his religious beliefs. Worms was also the birthplace of the first Bibles of the Reformation, both Martin Luther's German Bible andWilliam Tyndale's first complete English New Testament by 1526.[11]
After theBattle of the Bulge in early 1945, Allied armies advanced into the Rhineland in preparation for a massive assault into the heart of the Reich. Worms was a German strongpoint on the west bank of the Rhine, and the forces there resisted the Allied advance tenaciously. Worms was, thus, heavily bombed by theRoyal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Forces in two attacks on February 21 and March 18, 1945, respectively. A postwar survey estimated that 39% of the town's developed area was destroyed. The RAF attack on Feb. 21 was aimed at the main railway station on the edge of the inner city, and at chemical plants southwest of the inner city, but also destroyed large areas of the city centre. Carried out by 334 bombers, the attack in a few minutes rained 1,100 tons of bombs on the inner city, and Worms Cathedral was among the buildings set on fire. The Americans did not enter the city until the Rhine crossings began after the seizure of theRemagen Bridge.
In the attacks, 239 inhabitants were killed in the first and 141 in the second; 35,000 (60% of the population of 58,000) were made homeless. In all, 6,490 buildings were severely damaged or destroyed. After the war, the inner city was rebuilt, mostly in modern style. Around a third of Worms's buildings is from before 1950.[12] Postwar Worms became part of the new state ofRhineland-Palatinate; the borough Rosengarten, on the east bank of the Rhine, was lost to Hesse.
Worms today fiercely vies with the citiesTrier andCologne for the title of "Oldest City in Germany". A multimediaNibelungenmuseum was opened in 2001, and a yearly festival in front of theDom, theWorms Cathedral, attempts to recapture the atmosphere of the pre-Christian period.
In 2010, the Worms synagogue was firebombed. Eight corners of the building were set ablaze, and aMolotov cocktail was thrown at a window, but with no injuries.Kurt Beck,Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate, condemned the attack and vowed to mobilize all necessary resources to find the perpetrators, saying, "We will not tolerate such an attack on a synagogue".[13]
The Free Imperial City of Worms, known in medieval Hebrew by the nameVarmayza orVermaysa (Hebrew: וורמיזא, וורמישא), was a centre of medievalAshkenazic Jewry. The Jewish community was established there in the late 10th century, and Worms's firstsynagogue was erected in 1034.[14] The Jewish community settled in a separate neighborhood in the city called theJudengasse. In 1096,800 to 1000 Jews were murdered by crusaders and the local mob, what later became known asRhineland massacres orGzerot Tatnó (Hebrew: גזרות תתנ"ו, "Edicts of 4856").[15] TheJewish Cemetery in Worms, dating from the 11th century, is believed to be the oldest survivingin situ cemetery inEurope.[16] TheRashi Synagogue, which dates from 1175 and was carefully reconstructed after its desecration onKristallnacht, is the oldest in Germany.[17]
A painting of the city of Worms, featuring the mythical creaturelint wurm, as depicted in the bookMa'aseh Nissim byJuspa Schammes. At the top of the image, the word "wormaish" (ווירמש) can be seen. The painting was displayed inCold Synagogue, Mogilev.
The Jewish community was destroyed and expelled from the city several times. The main expulsions were both in 1615 after the city's residents committed apogrom against the Jewish community and in 1689 during theNine Years' War by troops ofLouis XIV of France (with all the city's citizens), After a few years, the Jews were allowed to return to live in the city.[19] Despite this, For hundreds of years, untilKristallnacht in 1938, the Jewish Quarter of Worms was a centre of Jewish life. It was among the oldest Jewish communities that maintained continuity over time, and a beautiful example of this is the 900th anniversary celebrations of the synagogue held in 1934.[20]
Worms today has only a very small Jewish population, and a recognizable Jewish community as such no longer exists. After renovations in the 1970s and 1980s, though, many of the buildings of the quarter can be seen in a close-to-original state, preserved as an outdoor museum.[21] The Jewish sites (along with those in Speyer and Mainz) were inscribed on theUNESCOWorld Heritage List in 2021.[4]
^David Nirenberg, 'The Rhineland Massacres of Jews in the First Crusade, Memories Medieval and Modern', in Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography, pp. 279–310
^Roemer, Nils (2010).German City, Jewish Memory: The story of Worms. Hanover and London: University Press of New England. pp. 37–38, 46.
^Reuter, Fritz (2015). "Warmaisa – das jüdische Worms: Von den Anfängen bis zum jüdischen Museum des Isidor Kiefer (1924)". In Bönnen, Gerold (ed.).Geschichte der Stadt Worms [History of the City of Worms] (in German) (2., aktualisierte und erweiterte Auflage ed.). Darmstadt: Theiss. p. 690.ISBN978-3-8062-3158-8.
Bönnen, Gerold (ed.).Geschichte der Stadt Worms [History of the City of Worms] (in German) (Second edition, supdated and expanded edition). Darmstadt: Theiss.ISBN978-3-8062-3158-8.
Reuter, Fritz (2009).Warmaisa: 1000 Jahre Juden in Worms [Warmaisa: 1000 Years of Jews in Worms] (in German) (3. Aufl ed.). Norderstedt: Books on Demand.ISBN978-3-8391-0201-5.
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