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37-527: The B 243 runs from Hildesheim over Seesen and Herzberg am Harz to Nordhausen . The metalled artificial road ( Chaussee ) between Seesen and Osterode was built between 1785 and 1795 as an extension of the Frankfurt Road and known as the Thuringian Road ( Thüringer Straße ). It was established as Reichsstraße 243 between Hildesheim and Nordhausen in 1937. This federal road was interrupted by

74-565: A Soviet scout unit. In early 1945, Buchenwald had received numerous prisoners moved from camps further east in territory lost to the Soviets, and camp authorities began to close the outlying camps of Buchenwald (such as those in Apolda and Altenburg ) to concentrate prisoners in the main camp. In April 1945, about 28,000 prisoners were marched from Buchenwald on a journey of over 300 kilometers through Jena , Eisenberg , Bad Köstritz , and Gera with

111-576: A death march towards the Austrian border, the path for which generally headed southwards, partly along the eastern shore of the Starnberger See , taking a left turn to the east in the town of Eurasburg and heading towards the Tegernsee . By the second of May 1945, only some of the 6,000 prisoners sent on the death march were still alive; those in failing health had been shot as they fell. On that day, as

148-599: A highly valuable trove of about 70 Roman silver vessels for eating and drinking, the so-called Hildesheim Treasure , was unearthed by Prussian soldiers. Early in World War II , Nazi roundups of the Jewish population began, and hundreds of Hildesheim's Jews were sent to concentration camps . Hildesheim was the location of a forced labour subcamp of the Nazi prison in Celle , and a subcamp of

185-667: A long way; transported for days at a time without food in freight trains; then forced to march again to a new camp. Those who lagged behind or fell were shot. The largest death march took place in January 1945. Nine days before the Soviet Red Army arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp , the Germans marched 56,000 prisoners toward a train station at Wodzisław , 35 miles (56 km) away, to be transported to other camps. Around 15,000 died on

222-421: A result, 29% of the houses were destroyed and 45% damaged, while only 26% of the houses remained undamaged. The centre, which had retained its medieval character until then, was almost leveled. Destruction in the city as a whole was estimated at 20 to 30 percent. Around 200 out of 800 half timer framed houses survived. During the war, valuable world heritage materials had been hidden in underground cellars. After

259-518: A small group of prisoners survived this march of death. A few were able to escape into the woods and join the partisans. In early June 1942, Jews concentrated in Belz were driven in a 60-kilometre (37 mi) death march to Hrubieszow. Those who could not continue on the way were shot by the SS guards. All death march survivors were deported along with about 3,000 Jews from Hrubieszow to Sobibor . The largest and

296-559: A town Hall was built and the citizens gained some influence and independence. Construction of the present Town Hall started in 1268. In 1367 Hildesheim became a member of the Hanseatic League . A war between the citizens and their bishop cost dearly in 1519–23 when they engaged in a feud. Hildesheim became Lutheran in 1542, and only the cathedral and a few other buildings remained in Imperial (Roman Catholic) hands. Several villages around

333-993: Is a regional hub for national roads and railway ( Hildesheim Hauptbahnhof is served by InterCityExpress services), is connected to the motorway ( Autobahn ), has a harbour on the Mittellandkanal (canal) and Hildesheim Betriebsgesellschaft Airfield. There are many secondary schools ( Gymnasiums , comprehensive schools and subject-specific secondary schools): Gymnasium Andreanum, Gymnasium Marienschule, Gymnasium Josephinum Hildesheim, Scharnhorstgymnasium Hildesheim, Goethegymnasium Hildesheim, Michelsenschule, Gymnasium Himmelsthür. Further: Freie Waldorfschule Hildesheim, Robert-Bosch-Gesamtschule. Friedrich-List-Schule (Fachgymnasium Wirtschaft), Herman-Nohl-Schule (Fachgymnasium Gesundheit und Soziales), Walter-Gropius-Schule (Berufsbildende Schule), Werner-von-Siemens-Schule (Fachgymnasium Technik), Elisabeth-von-Rantzau-Schule (Fachakademie für Sozialmanagement). Tertiary Education can be achieved at

370-566: Is connected with Hamburg in the north and Austria in the south. With the Hildesheim Cathedral and the St. Michael's Church , Hildesheim became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. In 2015 the city and the diocese celebrated their 1200th anniversary. According to tradition, the city was named after its founder Hildwin . The city is one of the oldest cities in Northern Germany , became

407-818: The University of Hildesheim or Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaft und Kunst (HAWK), a co-operation with the cities of Holzminden and Göttingen . The community has the headquarters of the Serbian Orthodox Eparchy of Frankfurt and all of Germany . Death marches during the Holocaust During the Holocaust , death marches (German: Todesmärsche ) were massive forced transfers of prisoners from one Nazi camp to other locations, which involved walking long distances resulting in numerous deaths of weakened people. Most death marches took place toward

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444-525: The Baltic Sea and shot. Elie Wiesel , Holocaust survivor and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize , describes in his book Night (1960) how he and his father, Shlomo, were forced on a death march from Buna (Auschwitz III) to Gleiwitz . In December 1939, 2,000 male Jews from Chełm , Poland, were forced on a death march to the nearby town of Hrubieszów ; 200–800 died during the march. At Hrubieszów, another 2,000 Jews were rounded up and forced to join

481-497: The Neuengamme concentration camp . After the dissolution of the latter, the surviving prisoners were sent on a death march to Ahlem . The city was heavily damaged by British air raids in 1945, especially on 22 March. Although Hildesheim had little military significance, two months before the end of the war the historic city was bombed as part of Britain's Area Bombing Directive in order to undermine German civilian morale. As

518-509: The division of Germany and was only opened again from end to end on 18 November 1989 when the border crossing between Nüxei and Mackenrode was installed. Hildesheim The Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious founded the Bishopric of Hildesheim in 815 and created the first settlement with a chapel on the so-called Domhügel . Hildesheim is situated on the north–south Autobahn 7 , and hence

555-532: The Auschwitz camps, most of them 63 km (39 mi) west to the train depot at Wodzisław Śląski (Loslau), while others marched 55 km (34 mi) northwest to Gliwice (Gleiwitz), with some being marched to other locations, through Racibórz (Ratibor), Prudnik (Neustadt), Nysa (Neisse), Kłodzko (Glatz), Bielawa (Langenbielau), Wałbrzych (Waldenburg) and Jelenia Góra (Hirschberg). Temperatures of −20 °C (−4 °F) and lower were recorded at

592-503: The Auschwitz concentration camp, prisoners were sent on a march to Dachau concentration camp. The ten day journey was on foot and by cattle car: many prisoners were killed along the way. The evacuation of about 50,000 prisoners from the Stutthof camp system in northern Poland began in January 1945. About 5,000 prisoners from Stutthof subcamps were marched to the Baltic Sea coast, forced into

629-576: The Chełm Jews. In January 1940, the Germans deported a group of prisoners from the Lipowa 7 prisoner of war camp to Biała Podlaska and then to Parczew . They rushed them on foot among snowstorms and temperatures below −20 °C (−4 °F). Those POWs who did not follow orders were killed by the German guards. The inhabitants of the nearby villages were forced to collect and bury the bodies in mass graves. Only

666-694: The West, and the Red Army advanced from the East, trapped in the middle, the German SS divisions abandoned the concentration camps, moving or destroying evidence of the atrocities they had committed. Thousands of prisoners were killed in the camps before the marches commenced. These executions were deemed crimes against humanity during the Nuremberg trials . Although most of the prisoners were already very weak or ill after enduring

703-638: The city remained Roman Catholic as well. During the Thirty Years' War , Hildesheim was besieged and occupied several times: in 1628 and 1632 by imperial troops; and in 1634 by troops from Brunswick and Lüneburg. In 1813, after the Napoleonic Wars , the town became part of the Kingdom of Hanover , which was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia as a province after the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. In 1868

740-468: The eastwards-marching prisoners had passed through Bad Tölz and were nearing Waakirchen , nearly sixty kilometers (37 miles) south of Dachau, several hundred of the dead and dying were lying on open ground, nearly all covered in freshly fallen snow. They were spotted by advance scouts of the U.S. Army's 522nd Field Artillery Battalion , the only segregated Japanese American -manned military unit in Germany at

777-602: The end of World War II , mostly after the summer/autumn of 1944. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, from Nazi camps near the Eastern Front were moved to camps inside Germany away from the Allied forces . Their purpose was to continue the use of prisoners' slave labour , to remove evidence of crimes against humanity , and to keep the prisoners to bargain with the Allies. Prisoners were marched to train stations, often

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814-475: The evacuation from Stutthof and its subcamps. One hundred prisoners were liberated from Stutthof on May 9, 1945. In late March 1945, the SS sent 24,500 women prisoners from Ravensbrück concentration camp on death march to the north, to prevent leaving live witnesses in the camp when the Soviet Red Army would arrive, as was likely to happen soon. The survivors of this march were liberated on 30 April 1945, by

851-525: The inhabitants became Lutherans. Today, 28.5% of the inhabitants identify themselves as Roman Catholics ( Hildesheim Diocese ) and 38.3% as Protestants ( Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover ). 33.0% of the inhabitants are adherents of other religions or do not have a religion at all. Up until 2015 the Serbian Orthodox Bishop of Germany had his seat in Himmelsthür (a locality of Hildesheim), before

888-559: The intended destination of Dachau , Flossenbürg , and Theresienstadt . The remaining 21,000 prisoners in Buchenwald were liberated by the U.S. Third Army on April 11, 1945. On April 24, 1945, the satellite labor camps around Dachau were being cleared out by the Nazis ahead of the advancing Allied troops, and some 15,000 prisoners were first marched to the Dachau camp, only to be sent southwards on

925-486: The most notorious of the death marches took place in mid-January 1945. On January 12, the Soviet army began its Vistula-Oder Offensive , advancing on occupied Poland and reaching near enough such that artillery fire could be heard from the camps. By January 17, orders were given to vacate the Auschwitz concentration camp and its subcamps . Between the 17th and 21st, the SS began marching approximately 56,000 prisoners out of

962-700: The routine violence, overwork, and starvation of concentration camp or prison camp life, they were marched for kilometres in the snow to railway stations, then transported for days without food, water, or shelter in freight carriages originally designed for cattle. On arrival at their destination, they were then forced to march again to new camps. Prisoners who were unable to keep up due to fatigue or illness were usually executed by gunshot. The evacuation of Majdanek inmates began in April 1944. The prisoners of Kaiserwald were transported to Stutthof or killed in August. Mittelbau-Dora

999-478: The seat moved to Frankfurt and, in 2018, to Düsseldorf. Other places of interest include the theatre, offering opera, operetta and musicals, drama, ballet and concerts. On 31 Dec 2017 Hildesheim had 103,970 inhabitants. The following list shows the largest foreign groups in the city of Hildesheim as of 2013 : Hildesheim is twinned with: Important and significant companies in the city of Hildesheim are: Hildesheim has an efficient traffic infrastructure: it

1036-652: The seat of the Bishopric of Hildesheim in 815 and may have been founded when the bishop moved from Elze to the ford across the River Innerste , which was an important market on the Hellweg trade route. The settlement around the cathedral very quickly developed into a town and was granted market rights by King Otto III in 983. Originally the market was held in a street called Alter Markt ( lit.   ' old market ' ) which still exists today. The first marketplace

1073-565: The time of these marches. Some residents of Upper Silesia tried to help the marching prisoners. Some of the prisoners themselves managed to escape the death marches to freedom. At least 3,000 prisoners died on the Gleiwitz route alone. Approximately 9,000-15,000 prisoners in total died on death marches out of Auschwitz's camps, and those who did survive were then put on freight trains and shipped to other camps deeper in German held territory. On 17 January 1945, when Russian troops were approaching

1110-566: The time. Only days earlier, they had liberated the Kaufering IV Hurlach satellite slave labor camp of the Dachau main camp's "system". They and the other American troops did what they could to save those left alive, for at least two days before dedicated medical personnel could take over. A memorial to the rescue by the 522nd exists at 47°46′6.15″N 11°38′55.30″E  /  47.7683750°N 11.6486944°E  / 47.7683750; 11.6486944 , just under two kilometers west of

1147-520: The unattractive concrete buildings around the market place were torn down and replaced by replicas of the original buildings. In the autumn of 2007, a decision was made to reconstruct the Upended Sugarloaf ( Umgestülpter Zuckerhut ), an iconic half-timbered house famous for its unusual shape. In 2015 the city and the diocese celebrates their 1200 anniversary with the Day of Lower Saxony . In 1542 most of

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1184-454: The war and its aftermath, priority was given to rapid building of housing, and concrete structures took the place of the wrecked historic buildings. Most of the major churches – two of them now UNESCO World Heritage sites – were rebuilt in the original style soon after the war. In 1978, the University of Hildesheim was founded. In the 1980s a reconstruction of the historic centre began. Some of

1221-428: The water, and machine gunned. The rest of the prisoners were marched in the direction of Lauenburg in eastern Germany. They were cut off by the advancing Soviet forces. The Germans forced the surviving prisoners back to Stutthof. Marching in severe winter conditions and treated brutally by SS guards, thousands died during the march. In late April 1945, the remaining prisoners were removed from Stutthof by sea, since it

1258-580: The way. Earlier marches of prisoners, also known as "death marches", include those in 1939 in the Lublin Reservation , Poland, and in 1942 in Reichskommissariat Ukraine . Towards the end of World War   II in 1945, Nazi Germany had evacuated an estimated 10 to 15 million people, mostly from East Prussia and occupied Eastern and Central Europe . While the Allied forces advanced from

1295-546: Was completely encircled by Soviet forces. Again, hundreds of prisoners were forced into the sea and shot. Over 4,000 were sent by small boat to Germany, some to the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg, and some to camps along the Baltic coast. Many drowned along the way. Shortly before the German surrender, some prisoners were transferred to Malmö, Sweden , and released into the care of that neutral country. It has been estimated that over 25,000 prisoners, around half, died during

1332-458: Was evacuated in April 1945. The SS killed large numbers of prisoners by starvation before the marches and shot many more dead both during and after for not being able to keep pace. Seven hundred prisoners were killed during one ten-day march of 7,000 Jews, including 6,000 women, who were being moved from camps in the Danzig region. Those still alive when the marchers reached the coast were forced into

1369-464: Was laid out around the church St. Andreas . When the city grew further, a larger market place became necessary. The present market place of Hildesheim was laid out at the beginning of the 13th century when the city had about 5,000 inhabitants. When Hildesheim obtained city status in 1249, it was one of the biggest cities in Northern Germany. For four centuries the clergy ruled Hildesheim, before

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