A History of Zierenberg part 1

A long lane runs from the lonely end of Friedrichsaue through farmland to Zierenberg, squatting contentedly above the river Warme. From a distance one can still see make out the core of the old medieval town, a cluster of steep eaves and chimneys huddled about the church spire, overlooked by rising peaks and forests on every side. Now houses spill over what remains of the town walls, market gardens tumble down the former embankments and up the opposite slopes creep the modern forces of prosperity: red-tiled roofs, gleaming cars, swimming pools and tidy little yards with swing sets and orchards.

"All this is new," Herr K said in a vaguely disapproving tone, waving his arm at the extra-mural estates as he and his wife and neighbour took me on a guided tour of the town. "Thirty years ago there was nothing there."

Zierenberg's present contentment has been well earned. On balance the town has not known much peace since its founding in the thirteenth century, what with the major medieval pastimes of being killed by war, famine or plague. When the historian Michael Hederich wrote a book on the town's history in 1962, he dedicated an entire chapter to 'the time of the great town fires, 1538-1707', because for these centuries the town was destroyed by fire - accidental or deliberate - more times than seems reasonable. The earliest records of the town are essentially a catalogue of destruction and reconstruction.

The Thirty Years War was especially unamusing: by 1639 a quarter of all married women in Zierenberg were widows, and in 1648, when the Swedish army was finally driven out of Hesse, two thirds of the town lay in ruins and it was surrounded by more than thirty abandoned farms. Unfortunately war was not the only cause of devastation. Following another fire just three days after Christmas 1651, the town council finally got on with supplying piped water from the many surrounding hills, not that it saved the town from being burned to the ground yet again in 1707.

Friday night in Zierenberg, 1640

The weary Zierenbergers had barely got the town back on its feet before the Seven Years War broke out in 1756, which again saw armies marching to and fro beneath its walls. The whole region was occupied and abandoned by the hostile French no fewer than four times. Zierenberg itself was recaptured in 1759 by British forces in a dramatic night assault that caught the French entirely by surprise: final score 705 to 13. The tenacious French were back in 1760, 1761 and 1762, each time plundering the area, although one suspects that the pickings were rather thin the fourth time round.

Peace came again, bringing with it the high taxes necessary for reconstruction, refortification and the Landgrave Wilhelm IX's ostentatious residence in Kassel.

Unnecessary

This last endeavour in particular proved so costly that the Landgrave could only pay for it by conscripting 17,000 men, including citizens of Zierenberg, and selling them to the British as mercenaries - the (in)famous Hessian soldiers of the American Revolution.

A typical Hessian scene

According to tradition, one third of the Hessian mercenaries were killed, one third settled in America and one third came home: in good time, in fact, to see Napoleon occupy the region. In 1809 local citizens joined a general Hessian revolt against the occupiers, but since they were mostly armed with hayforks and harsh language, they did not fare all that well, and spent a few weeks hiding in the forests of Gudenberg before they were captured and punished by Napoleon's brother Jerome, the newly installed King of Westfalen, who was by all accounts a bit of a wanker.