Heringen

Heringen
Town
Coat of arms
Location of Heringen within Hersfeld-Rotenburg district
Hersfeld-Rotenburg
Subdivisions	8 districts
Government
• Mayor (2022–28)	Daniel Iliev[1] (SPD)
Area
• Total	61.18 km2 (23.62 sq mi)
Elevation	221 m (725 ft)
Population  (2022-12-31)[2]
• Total	7,080
• Density	120/km2 (300/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	36266
Dialling codes	06624
Vehicle registration	HEF
Website	www.heringen.de

Heringen (Werra) is a small town in Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in eastern Hesse, Germany lying right at the boundary with Thuringia.

Geography

Location

The nearest major towns and cities are Bad Hersfeld (28 km to the west), Eisenach (30 km to the northeast) and Kassel (80 km to the north). The town lies on the river

The lowest point in town is found on the Werra floodplain at 210 m above sea level. The highest point within town limits is the Lehnberg at 471 m above sea level.

Neighbouring communities

Clockwise from the north, these are Wildeck, Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Berka/Werra, Philippsthal (Werra) und Friedewald.

Constituent communities

Heringen's

History

In 1153, Heringen had its first documentary mention. The

With the opening of the Wintershall potash works, which began mining in 1903, the community got its first industrial jobs. Later, the Neu-Heringen and Herfa-Neurode potash mines were built. The mine is today the world's biggest potash-mining area and has an area about the same as Greater Munich's.

At the end of World War II, the libraries of the German Army's

Between 1968 and 1972 the above-named centres were amalgamated into a greater community, which was granted town rights in 1977 by the Hesse Land government.

Population development

Politics

Town council

This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (July 2021)

The municipal election held on 26 March 2006 yielded the following results:

The town's executive (Magistrat) is made up of six councillors, with two seats allotted to the SPD, two to the CDU and 2 to the WGH. Manfred Wenk is the first ever WGH councillor.

Mayor

Mayor Daniel Iliev was elected in 2016 and 2022.

Coat of arms

The town's arms might be described thus: Azure a bend wavy sinister argent between a sledgehammer and a cross-peen hammer per saltire, and three fish of the last.

The bend wavy sinister, that is, slanted wavy stripe beginning on the sinister (armsbearer's left, viewer's right) side and stretching down across the escutcheon, stands for the river Werra. The three fish come from the arms formerly borne by the Lords of Heringen (Hering is German for “herring”). The mining tools are, of course, a traditional miner's symbol. This charge was added to the coat of arms in 2003,^[5] as potash had been being mined here for a hundred years. The old arms are shown at right.

Town partnerships

• Rombas, Moselle, France

In 2007, partnership documents were signed with the following towns:

• Heringen, Thuringia
• Ostrów Wielkopolski, Poland

Museums

• Werra-Kalibergbaumuseum (potash mining museum)

Buildings

• Potash
  “Monte Kali”
  (Heringen “landmark”)
• Walterskirche church ruins (from a village thought to have been forsaken in the 15th century)
• Bodesruh memorial (tower, originally built as a monument to German division)
• Successor buildings of the knightly estate of Vultejus

Parks

• Rohrlache and Säulingssee (wetlands on the Werra floodplain)
• Herfa forest botany garden

Regular events

• Weekly market (Thursday mornings)

Economy and infrastructure

Research and development

It was in Heringen that the groundbreaking invention of the electrostatic salt separation facility (elektrostatische Salz-Trennungsanlage, or ESTA) was first realized and further developed. After former mining director Prof. Dr.-Ing. Arno Singewald's research and inventions, the German potash-mining industry could introduce a thoroughly novel, environmentally friendly means of processing the mined salts. Salt-saturated water is avoided when the ESTA is used. These facilities built at the potash works along the Werra have also seen to it that a river that was once thoroughly salted – by East German potash works – has been brought back to life.

Established businesses

• K+S Kali GmbH – potash mining (district's biggest employer)
• Schwabenhaus GmbH + Co. KG –
  prefabricated buildings
• Messer Industriemontagen & Apparatebau GmbH – pipeline and special steel construction

Notable people

• Uwe Bein (b. 26 September 1960 in Heringen), professional footballer and world champion in 1990
• CSU
  Bundestag faction.
• Michael Roth (b. 24 August 1970 in Heringen), German SPD politician and Member of the Bundestag

References

Bibliography

• Hadden, Robert Lee. 2003. "The Heringen Collection of the US Geological Survey Library" Geological Society of America. Seattle Annual Meeting (November 2–5, 2003). Paper No. 94-7. Abstract: "One special collection of German, Polish and Russian language books, maps and reports in the US Geological Survey Library has an interesting and unusual history. The “Heringen Collection” came from Nazi Germany. In the last days of the war, these maps, photos and other records were sent from the Military Geology offices in Berlin to the safety of a deep potash mineshaft in Heringen (Werra), in Hessen, Germany. A special group of US Army soldiers were ordered to find these lost records of the Third Reich. When found and removed from the Heringen mine, those records which dealt with the earth sciences, terrain analysis, military geology and other geological matters were sent to the USGS, and eventually came to reside at the USGS Library. The printed papers and books were mostly incorporated into our main collection, but a significant portion of the materials were never cataloged, calendared or indexed. This paper describes the history of the USGS Library's “Heringen Collection,” and some overview of the scope of the materials."
• Hadden, Robert Lee. 2008. "The Heringen Collection of the US Geological Survey Library of Reston, Virginia." Earth Sciences History, Volume 27, Number 2. Pages 242-265.
  ISSN 0736-623X
  . Abstract: "A special collection of German, Polish, and Russian language books, maps and reports in the US Geological Survey Library has an interesting and unusual history. The so-called ‘Heringen Collection’ came from Nazi Germany. Many of these items were captured from libraries, offices and even private homes as the German Army advanced into neighboring countries. In the last days of the war, these maps, reports, photos and other records were sent from the Military Geology offices in Berlin to the safety of a deep potash mineshaft in Heringen (Werra), in Hessen, Germany. A group of US Army soldiers found these lost records of the Third Reich. When removed from the Heringen mine, those records that dealt with the earth sciences, terrain analysis, military geology and other geological matters were sent to the USGS, and eventually came to reside at the USGS Library. The printed papers and books were mostly incorporated into the main collection, but a portion of the materials have never been cataloged, calendared or indexed. These materials have many current uses, including projects of value to citizens in their nations of origin."
• Willig, Dierk. 2009. "Die Odyssee des Wehrgeologenarchivs als Teil der Heringen Collection: Versuch einer Rekonstruktion der Vorgänge von März 1945 bis heute." Euskirchen: Amt für Geoinformationswesen der Bundeswehr. 31 pages.

External links

• Official website (in German)

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