Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is a landlocked state in central Germany. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area. It is the country's centermost state.
Erfurt is the capital and largest city. Other cities include Jena, Gera and Weimar. Thuringia is bordered by Bavaria, Hesse, Lower Saxony, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt. It has been known as "the green heart of Germany" () from the late 19th century due to its broad, dense forest. Most of Thuringia is in the Saale drainage basin, a left-bank tributary of the Elbe.
The Frankish Duchy of Thuringia was established around 631 AD by King Dagobert I. The modern state was established in 1920 by the Weimar Republic through a merger of the Ernestine duchies, save for Saxe-Coburg. After World War II, Thuringia came under the Soviet occupation zone in Allied-occupied Germany, and its borders were reformed, to become contiguous. Thuringia became part of the German Democratic Republic in 1949, but was dissolved in 1952 during administrative reforms, and divided into the Districts of Erfurt, Suhl and Gera. Thuringia was re-established in 1990 following German reunification, slightly re-drawn, and became one of the new states of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Thuringia is home to the Rennsteig, Germany's best-known hiking trail. Its winter resort of Oberhof makes it a well-equipped winter sports destination – half of Germany's 136 Winter Olympic gold medals had been won by Thuringian athletes as of 2014. Thuringia was favoured by or was the birthplace of three key intellectuals and leaders in the arts: Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Friedrich Schiller. The state is home to the University of Jena, the Ilmenau University of Technology, the University of Erfurt, Bauhaus University of Weimar and the .
Etymology and symbols
The name Thuringia or Thüringen derives from the Germanic tribe Thuringii, who emerged during the Migration Period. Their origin is largely unknown. An older theory claims that they were successors of the Hermunduri, but later research rejected the idea. Other historians argue that the Thuringians were allies of the Huns, came to central Europe together with them, and lived before in what is Galicia today. Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus first mentioned the Thuringii around 400; during that period, the Thuringii were famous for their excellent horses.
The Thuringian Realm existed until after 531. The Landgraviate of Thuringia was the largest state in the region, persisting between 1131 and 1247. Afterwards the state known as Thuringia ceased to exist; nevertheless the term commonly described the region between the Harz mountains in the north, the White Elster river in the east, the Franconian Forest in the south and the Werra river in the west. After the Treaty of Leipzig, Thuringia had its own dynasty again, the Ernestine Wettins. Their various lands formed the State of Thuringia, founded in 1920, together with some other small principalities. The Prussian territories around Erfurt, Mühlhausen and Nordhausen joined Thuringia in 1945.
The coat of arms of Thuringia shows the lion of the Ludowingian Landgraves of 12th-century origin. The eight stars around it represent the eight former states which formed Thuringia. The flag of Thuringia is a white-red bicolor, derived from the white and red stripes of the Ludowingian lion. The coat of arms and flag of Hesse are quite similar to the Thuringian ones, since they are also derived from the Ludowingian symbols.
During the 15th century, additional coat of arms for the Count Palatine of Thuringia () was created in order to strengthen positions of Thuringian landgraves from the House of Wettin in regions between their Thuringian and Saxon domains, thus leading to the inclusion of Thuringian-palatine symbols into the Wettin coats of arms.
Symbols of Thuringia in popular culture are the Bratwurst and the Forest, because a large amount of the territory is forested.
History
Named after the Thuringi, a Germanic tribe that occupied the region around AD 300, Thuringia came under Frankish domination in the 6th century. The first documented duke of Thuringia was a local noble named Radulf I, who was appointed by the king Dagobert I in the early 630s. At that time, the Franks were in conflict with the Slavic tribal alliance that included Thuringian neighbors, the Sorbs. Duke Radulf was able to secure the Thuringian borders along the river Saale from Slavic incursions, but he later (641/642) rebelled against Dagobert's successor, king Sigebert III, and even declared himself king (rex) of Thuringia, concluding treaties with Slavs and other peoples.
Later Thuringian dukes were subjects of Frankish rulers, and by the middle of the 9th century, within the Carolingian Empire and its East Frankish Realm (after the 843 Treaty of Verdun), eastern borders of Thuringia were organized as the Limes Sorabicus, and placed under duke Thachulf.
Within the Holy Roman Empire, Thuringia became a landgraviate in 1130, and by that time several Thuringian counties were also merged or divided (counties of Weimar, Orlamünde and others), leading to frequent recompositions and ultimately to fragmentation of Thuringian domains. In 1246, Thuringian landgrave Henry Raspe (d. 1247) was proclaimed King of the Romans, but failed to secure the throne. After the extinction of the reigning Ludowingian line of counts and landgraves in 1247 and the War of the Thuringian Succession (1247–1264), the western half became independent under the name of "Hesse", never to reunite with Thuringia again. The remaining Landgraviate of Thuringia came under the rule of the Wettin dynasty of the neighboring Margraviate of Meissen and the Palatinate of Saxony.
In 1423, the Wettins also acquired the Electorate of Saxony, and during the course of the 15th century they also claimed to hold the Palatinate of Thuringia (), a newly coined designation, created in order to strengthen Wettin positions in regions between their Thuringian and Saxon domains. With the division of the house of Wettin in 1485 (Treaty of Leipzig), southern and central parts of Thuringia went to the senior Ernestine branch of the family, while northern parts went to the junior Albertine branch.
Early modern period
Thuringia generally accepted the Protestant Reformation, and Roman Catholicism was suppressed as early as 1520; priests who remained loyal to it were driven away and churches and monasteries were largely destroyed, especially during the German Peasants' War of 1525. In Mühlhausen and elsewhere, the Anabaptists found many adherents. Thomas Müntzer, a leader of some non-peaceful groups of this sect, was active in this city. Within the borders of modern Thuringia the Roman Catholic faith only survived in the Eichsfeld district, which was ruled by the Archbishop of Mainz, and to a small degree in Erfurt and its immediate vicinity.
In 1547, under the Capitulation of Wittenberg, the Ernestines lost the Saxon Electorate, but kept most of their Thuringian domains. According to the Saxon tradition of dividing inheritance amongst male heirs, the remaining Ernestine domains in Thuringia were subsequently subdivided into a number of smaller states. These were the "Ernestine duchies", also known as the Saxon duchies, since their rulers derived their ducal titles from the Saxon ducal traditions. Ernestine states that emerged in Thuringia were, among others: Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Eisenach, Saxe-Jena, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg, and Saxe-Gotha.
The modern German black-red-gold tricolour flag's first appearance anywhere in a German-ethnicity sovereign state, within what today comprises Germany, occurred in 1778 as the state flag of the Principality of Reuss-Greiz, a defunct principality within the modern state's borders.
Some reordering of the Thuringian states occurred during the German Mediatisation from 1795 to 1814, and the territory was included within the Napoleonic Confederation of the Rhine organized in 1806. The 1815 Congress of Vienna confirmed these changes and the Thuringian states' inclusion in the German Confederation; the Kingdom of Prussia also acquired some Thuringian territory and administered it within the Province of Saxony. The Thuringian duchies which became part of the German Empire in 1871 during the Prussian-led unification of Germany were Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and the two principalities of Reuss Elder Line and Reuss Younger Line.
Free State of Thuringia
In 1920, after World War I, these small states merged into one state, called the State of Thuringia (Land Thüringen); only Saxe-Coburg voted to join Bavaria instead. Weimar became the new capital. The coat of arms of this new state was simpler than those of its predecessors. The Landtag of the newly established state first convened in 1920 in Weimar. Its deputies were elected for three years according to proportional representation, with a minimum voting age of 21. Between 1920 and 1932, under the Weimar Republic, six Landtag elections were held.
Thuringia was one of the states where the Nazi Party first gained real political power during the Weimar Republic. Wilhelm Frick was appointed Minister of the Interior in the state coalition government after the Nazi Party won six deputies to the Thuringian Landtag in the December 1929 election. In this position, he removed from the Thuringian police force anyone he suspected of being a republican and replaced them with men who were favourable towards the Nazis. He also ensured that, whenever an important position came up within Thuringia, a Nazi was given that post. Following the Nazi seizure of power in Berlin, the Landtag was formally abolished as a result of the "Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich" of 30 January 1934, which replaced the German federal system with a unitary state. Thuringia was the location of the Buchenwald concentration camp with multiple subcamps.
After being controlled briefly by the US following the end of the Second World War, from July 1945 the state of Thuringia came under the Soviet occupation zone and was expanded to include parts of Prussian Saxony, such as the areas around Erfurt, Mühlhausen, and Nordhausen. Erfurt became the new capital of Thuringia. Ostheim, an exclave of Landkreis Eisenach, was ceded to Bavaria.
In 1952, the German Democratic Republic dissolved its states, and created districts () instead. The three districts that shared the former territory of Thuringia were Erfurt, Gera and Suhl. Altenburg Kreis was part of Leipzig Bezirk.
The present Free State of Thuringia was recreated with slightly altered borders during German reunification in 1990.
Geography
Topography From the northwest going clockwise; Thuringia borders on the German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Bavaria and Hesse.