Ansbach was originally called Onoltesbach (about 790 AD), a term composed of three parts.
The individual word elements are "Onold" (the city founder's name), the Suffix "-es" (a possessive ending, like "-'s" in English) and the Old High German expression "pah" or "bach" (for brook). The name of the city has slightly changed throughout the centuries into Onoltespah (837 AD), Onoldesbach (1141 AD), Onoldsbach (1230 AD), Onelspach (1338 AD), Onsbach (1508 AD) and finally Ansbach (1732 AD).[3][4]
According to folklore, towards the end of the 7th century a group of Franconian peasants and their families went up into the wilderness to found a new settlement. Their leader Onold led them to an area called the "Rezattal" (Rezat valley). This is where they founded the "Urhöfe" (meaning the first farms: Knollenhof, Voggenhof and Rabenhof). Gradually more settlers, such as the "Winden-Tribe" came, and the farms grew into a small village. Many villages around Ansbach were founded by the "Winden" during that period (even today, their settlements can easily identified by their names, like Meinhardswinden, Dautenwinden or Brodswinden). A Benedictine monastery was established there around 748 by the Frankish noble St Gumbertus. The adjoining village of Onoltesbach was first noticed as a proper town in 1221.[6]
Jewish families were resident in Ansbach from at least the end of the 18th century. They set up a Jewish Cemetery in the Ruglaender Strasse, which was vandalised and razed under the Nazi regime in the Kristallnacht. It was repaired in 1946, but it was damaged several times more. A plaque on the wall of the cemetery commemorates these events. The Jewish Congregation built its synagogue at No 3 Rosenbadstrasse, but it too was damaged by the SA, though it was not burnt down for fear of damaging the neighbouring buildings. It serves today as a "Symbolic House of God". A plaque in the entrance serves as a memorial to the synagogue and to Jewish residents who were murdered during the Holocaust.[citation needed] In 1940, at least 500 patients were deported from the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Ansbach [Ansbach Medical and Nursing Clinic] to the extermination facilities Sonnenstein and Hartheim which were disguised as psychiatric institutions, as part of the Action T4 euthanasia action. They were gassed there. At the clinic in Ansbach itself, around 50 intellectually disabled children were injected with the drug Luminal and killed that way. A plaque was erected in their memory in 1988 in the local hospital at No. 38 Feuchtwangerstrasse.[citation needed]
During World War II, a subcamp of Flossenbürg concentration camp was located here.[10] Also during the Second World War the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht had bases here. The nearby airbase was the home station for the Stab & I/KG53 (Staff & 1st Group of Kampfgeschwader 53) operating 38 Heinkel He 111 bombers. On 1 September 1939 this unit was one of the many that participated in the attack on Poland that started the war. All of its bridges were destroyed during the course of the war. During the Western Allied invasion of Germany in April 1945, the airfield was seized by the United States Third Army, and used by the USAAF354th Fighter Group which flew P-47 Thunderbolts from the aerodrome (designated ALG R-82) from late April until the German capitulation on 7 May 1945.[11][12][13] At the end of the war, 19-year-old student Robert Limpert tried to get the town to surrender to the US Forces without a fight. He was betrayed by Hitler Youth and was hanged from the portal of the City Hall by the city's military commander, Col. (Oberst) Ernst Meyer. Several memorials to his heroic deed have been erected over the years, despite opposition from some residents — in the Ludwigskirche, in the Gymnasium Carolinum and at No 6 Kronenstrasse.[14] After the Second World War, Ansbach belonged to the American Zone. The American Military authorities established a displaced persons (DP) camp in what used to be a sanatorium in what is today the Strüth quarter.[15]
Bachwoche Ansbach has been held in Ansbach since 1947. Since 1970, Ansbach has enlarged its municipal area by incorporating adjacent communities. Ansbach hosts several units of the U.S. armed forces, associated with German units under NATO. There are five separate U.S. installations: Shipton Kaserne, home to 412th Aviation Support Battalion, Katterbach Kaserne, formerly the home of the 1st Infantry Division's4th Combat Aviation Brigade, also home of 501st M.I. Bn and 501st Avn Bn. which has been replaced by the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade as of 2006, as part of the 1st Infantry Division's return to Fort Riley, Kansas; Bismarck Kaserne, which functions as a satellite post to Katterbach, hosting their Post Theater, barracks, Von Steuben Community Center, Military Police, and other support agencies, Barton Barracks, home to the USAG Ansbach and Bleidorn Barracks, which has a library and housing, and Urlas, which hosts the Post Exchange as well as a housing area opened in 2010. Ansbach was also home to the headquarters of the 1st Armored Division (United States) from 1972 to the early 1990s.[16]
On 24 July 2016 a bomb was detonated in a restaurant in the city, killing only the bomber himself and injuring few people. The perpetrator was reported to be a Syrian refugee whose asylum application had been rejected but who had been given exceptional leave to remain until the security situation in Syria returned to a safe condition. Witnesses reported he had tried to enter a nearby music festival but had been turned away, before detonating his device outside a nearby wine bar.[17][18]
Boroughs
Eyb bei Ansbach, part of Ansbach since 1 October 1970
Bernhardswinden, part of Ansbach since 1 July 1972
Brodswinden, part of Ansbach since 1 July 1972
Claffheim, part of Ansbach since 1 July 1972
Elpersdorf bei Ansbach, part of Ansbach since 1 July 1972
Pinchas Kohn (1867–1941), was the last rabbi of Ansbach. He was the rabbinical advisor to the German occupying forces of Poland in the First World War and was also one of the founders of the World Agudath Israel movement
Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566), botanist and physician to margrave Georg Friedrich
Simon Marius (1573–1625), astronomer lived in Ansbach, he observed Jupiter's moons from the castle's tower, which led to a dispute with the true discoverer, Galileo Galilei
In the novel The Schirmer Inheritance (1953) by Eric Ambler (1909–1998), Sergeant Franz Schirmer of the Ansbach Dragoons is wounded in the battle of Preussisch-Eylau in 1807. He returns to Ansbach to settle but changes his name as he has been posted as a deserter. The bulk of the novel concerns efforts by an American law firm to trace his descendants to claim an inheritance.
^Heinz Bischof, Wilhelm Sturmfels: Unsere Ortsnamen. Im ABC erklärt nach Herkunft und Bedeutung (eng: "Names of our towns. A Guide to name origins and significance"), Dümmler Verlag, Rastatt 1961, (in German)
^"AAF Airfields". Archived from the original on 2009-01-06.((cite web)): CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^Gedenkstätten für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus. Eine Dokumentation (in German) (Band 1 ed.). Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. p. 113. ISBN978-3-89331-208-5.
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