Guide to Bach Tour
Görlitz [V]

Contents

Description | History
J.S. Bach: Connection | Events in Life History | Performance Dates of Vocal Works | Festivals & Cantata Series
Features of Interest | Information & Links
Photos: Part 1 | Part 2 | Maps

Description

Görlitz [Polish: Zgorzelec, Upper Sorbian: Zhorjelc, Lower Sorbian: Zgórjelc, Czech: Zhořelec] is a town in the German federal state of Saxony. Located in the region of Lusatia on the Lusatian Neisse River, it is the second largest town of Lusatia after Cottbus, and the largest in Upper Lusatia. Görlitz is the capital of the district of Görlitz, the easternmost district of Germany. It lies opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was a part of Görlitz until 1945.

Görlitz belonged to the Electorate of Saxony after 1635. In 1815, due to the partition of Saxony, some parts of Lusatia were integrated into the Prussian Province of Silesia, and later into the Province of Lower Silesia. Görlitz is the largest town of the former Province of Lower Silesia that lies west of the Oder-Neisse line and hence remains in Germany today. Thus it is both the most Silesian town, in terms of character, and the largest in Germany today. The town combines Lusatian and Silesian traditions as well as German and Sorbian culture. It has around 55,000 inhabitants.

Görlitz has a rich architectural heritage. Many movie-makers have used the various sites as locations.

Country: Germany | State: Saxony | District: Görlitz | Area: 67.22 km² | Population: 55,904 (December 2016)

History

As a small Sorbian village named Gorelic in the region of Upper Lusatia in the March of Lusatia of the Holy Roman Empire, it was temporarily conquered and held by the Kingdom of Poland during Bolesław I Chrobry's invasion of Lusatia between 1002 and 1031, after which the region fell back to the March of Lusatia under the counts of the Margraviate of Meissen. Around 1072 the village was assigned to the duchy of Bohemia. The date of the town's foundation is unknown. However, Goreliz was first mentioned in a document from the King of Germany, and later Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV in 1071. This document granted Görlitz to the Diocese of Meissen, then under Bishop Benno of Meissen. Currently, this document can be found in the Saxony State Archives in Dresden. The origin of the name Görlitz is derived from the Slavic word for "burned land", referring to the technique used to clear land for settlement. Zgorzelec and Czech Zhořelec have the same derivation. In the 13th century the village gradually became a town. Due to its location on the Via Regia, an ancient and medieval trade route, the settlement prospered.

In the following centuries Görlitz was a wealthy member of the Lusatian League, which consisted of Bautzen, Görlitz, Kamenz, Lauban, Löbau and Zittau. In 1352 during the reign of Casimir the Great, Lusatian German colonists from Görlitz founded the town of Gorlice in southern Poland near Kraków.

The Protestant Reformation came to Görlitz in the early 1520's and by the last half of the 16th century, it and the surrounding vicinity, became almost completely Lutheran.

After suffering for years in the Thirty Years' War, the region of Upper Lusatia (including Görlitz) was ceded to the Electorate of Saxony in 1635. After the Napoleonic Wars, the 1815 Congress of Vienna transferred the town from the Kingdom of Saxony to the Kingdom of Prussia. Görlitz was subsequently administered within the Province of Silesia, and, after World War I, the Province of Lower Silesia, until 1945.

Near the end of World War II, German troops destroyed all bridges crossing the Lusatian Neisse. The redrawing of boundaries in 1945 - in particular the relocation of the German-Polish border to the present Oder-Neisse line—divided the town. The right bank became part of Poland and was renamed Zgorzelec by the Polish communist government in 1948, while the main portion on the left bank remained part of Germany, now within the state of Saxony. When the East German states were dissolved in 1952, Görlitz became part of the Dresden District, but the states were restored upon German reunification in 1990.

On 27 June 1994, the town became the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Görlitz, but it remains a Lutheran Protestant stronghold.

In 2002 Lake Berzdorf, located south of Görlitz, began to flood. The Altstadtbrücke (literally old town bridge) between Görlitz and sister city Zgorzelec was rebuilt between 2003 and 2004. It was officially opened on 20 October 2004. As soon as Poland signed the Schengen Agreement (20 December 2007), movement between the two banks of the river again became unrestricted, since border controls were eliminated. Indeed, users of the new pedestrian bridge are not told by any signs that they are leaving one country and entering another.

Whilst the town was well preserved, it was notably grey and colourless under communist East German rule. Since reunification, and as of 2013, over 700 buildings have been renovated. It is a popular place to which the elderly of Germany retire, being quiet and relatively affordable by German standards. Its tourist potential is rapidly expanding, being very much an eastern counterpart to towns such as Heidelberg. In the case of Görlitz, much of the funding for the renovations of the towns buildings comes from an anonymous donor, who, from 1995 onward, has sent an annual donation of over €500,000, totalling over €10,000,000.

Arts and Culture

Today Görlitz and Zgorzelec, two towns on opposite banks of the narrow river, get along well. Two bridges have been rebuilt, a bus line connects the German and Polish parts of the town, and there is a common urban management, with annual joint sessions of both town councils.

The town has a rich architectural heritage (Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, Art Nouveau). One example of this rich architectural heritage is the Schönhof, which is one of the oldest civic Renaissance buildings in Germany. Another medieval heritage is a model of the Holy Sepulchre (de) which was constructed in the late 15th century.

In 2006 the twin city Görlitz/Zgorzelec applied to be the European City of Culture 2010. It was hoped that the concept of Polish-German cooperation would be sufficient to convince the jury, but Essen won. Görlitz was placed second. As a result of the campaign Görlitz was renamed City of Culture in order to further German-Polish relations and to attract tourists from all over the world.

As Görlitz was part of Silesia from 1815 onward, it has a Silesian Museum dedicated to the region (Schlesisches Museum zu Görlitz) and even holds a Silesian Music festival (Schlesisches Musikfest). In addition, Görlitz is the seat of the Silesia Youth Group (Schlesische Jugend). There is also a newspaper in Görlitz called the Lower Silesian Kurier (Niederschlesischer Kurier).

Görlitz is also the birthplace of the German version of nonpareils, popularly known in Germany as liebesperlen (German: love pearls). Invented by confectioner Rudolf Hoinkis (1876–1944), the name derives from a conversation Hoinkis had with his wife, proclaiming his love for her like these "pearls", the nonpareil. Unsure of what to call the treat he invented, his wife suggested calling them love pearls, and the name stuck. The factory where he first manufactured the treat, founded in 1896, is now run by his great-grandson, Mathias.

Due to the historical parts of the city, many movie-makers have used the various sites as locations. Eli Roth shot the movie-in-a-movie Stolz der Nation (Pride of the Nation) for Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (which incidentally purports to be Sicily) on the Untermarkt and Obermarkt in Görlitz' oldest parts of the city. Other films shot in Görlitz include the 2013 war drama The Book Tand the teen years in The Reader. Görlitz was used as the primary shooting location for the Wes Anderson film The Grand Budapest Hotel, with Görlitz standing in for a resort in the fictional Eastern European country of Zubrowka. A vacant department store in the city was redecorated to serve as the hotel itself.

Governance

Görlitz is twinned with:
Poland Zgorzelec, Poland
Germany Wiesbaden, Germany
Czech Republic Nový Jičín, Czech Republic
France Amiens, France
Italy Molfetta, Italy

Being the easternmost town in the country, Görlitz has formed a "Compass Alliance" (Zipfelbund) with the northernmost, westernmost and southernmost towns, List, Selfkant and Oberstdorf respectively. They always participate in the German Unity Day celebrations to represent the modern limits of Germany.

Notable People

Anna Sophia Backhaus (b 1985), soprano
Michael Ballack (b 1976), football player
Jakob Böhme (1575-1624), mystic and theologian
Johann Christoph Brotze (1742-1823), educator
Hans Georg Dehmelt (1922-2017), co-recipient of 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics
Hans-Jürgen Dörner (b 1951), football player and coach
Werner Finck (1902-1978), comedian, actor and writer
Richard Foerster (1843-1922), classical scholar
Johann Carl Gehler (1732-1796) physician, anatomist and mineralogist
Johann Gottlob Harrer (1703-1755), composer; succeeded J.S. Bach as Thomaskantor in Leipzig (1750-1755)
Siegfried Härtel (b 1927), bass-baritone
Johann Adam Hiller (1728-1804), composer; Thomaskantor in Leipzig (1789-1800)
Torsten Gütschow (b 1962), football player
Herbert Hirche (1910-2002), architect and designer
Hanna von Hoerner (1942-2014), astrophysicist
Emil Jannings (1884-1950), first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor
Jens Jeremies (b 1974), football player
Reinhart Koselleck (1923-2006), historian
Lars Kaufmann (b 1982), handball player
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), musician, professor of harmony at the Paris Conservatoire
Martin Moller (1547-1606), mystic and hymn writer
Oskar Morgenstern (1902-1977), economist
Gustavus Adolphus Neumann (1807-1886), publisher
Arthur Pohl (1900-1970), set designer, director and screenwriter
Pavle Jurišić Šturm (1848-1922), Serbian Army general
Alfred Wagenknecht (1881-1956), American Marxist politician.
Giorgio Zur (b 1930), Catholic Archbishop and Apostolic Nuncio in Austria

Source: mostly Wikipedia (March 2018), BCW

Bach Connection (1707-1708?)

J.S. Bach's presence in Götlitz can be inferred from a report by Johann Andreas Silbermann (1712-1783), Gottfried Silbermann’s nephew. Iohann Andreas visited Götlitz in 1741, at which time a Leipzig student of Bach's, David Nicolai (1702-1764), demonstrated the famous "sun organ" (Sonnenorgel). “It has three manuals. . . . I pushed a few keys, but they were so hard and resistant and, moreover, had to be pressed down so far that I couldn’t have played anything on it. The old famous Mr. Bach of Leipzig did not judge this instrument unfairly when, in discussing it with my cousin, he called it a “horse organ” (PferdsOrgel), because one has to be as strong as a horse to play it.” (The cousin referred to was most likely a distant family member, Johann Georg Silbermann (1698-1749), who worked in Gottfried's shop in Freiberg. BDOK II, no. 486.)

In 1729 another student of J.S. Bach’s, Johann Caspar Vogler (1696-1763), applied for the organist post in Götlitz, boasting: “I [have been] a pupil of the famous Mr. Bach, who . . . as he himself told me, has not yet been personally in Götlitz but whose reputation is perhaps known there. As regards virtue on the organ and speed of hands and feet, I come closest to him here in Saxony” (NBR, p. 320).

Johann Caspar Vogler did not get the position because, according to the church records, he played too quickly. Assuming these accounts are credible, J.S. Bach visited Götlitz sometime between 1729 and 1741, presumably in connection with one of his Dresden visits. (Götlitz lies 109 km/68 miles east of Dresden, along a major trade and postal route passing through Bautzen.)

Literature: Homann; BDOK II; NBR; Winzeler 2010; Organs; Yearsley 2012.
Source: Robert L. Marshall & Traute M. Marshall: Exploring the World of J.S. Bach - A Traveller's Guide (University of Illinois Press, 2016), pp 140-142

Events in Life History of J.S. Bach: See above.

Performance Dates of J.S. Bach’s Vocal Works: None.

Bach Festivals & Cantata Series

Görlitzer Bachwoche (Biennial Festival)
Neue Bachgesellschaft: Bachfest: 87. Bachfest: Sep 7-12, 2012 Görlitz/Breslau

Features of Interest

With an abundance of well-preserved Renaissance and Baroque houses, Götlitz is considered by many today to be Germany’s most beautiful city. It appears in so many historical movies and TV series (among them the 2014 film The Grand Budapest Hotel), that it has been dubbed “Görliwood.”

Church of St. Peter and Paul: After a devastating fire in 1691 entirely destroyed the interior of the Gothic church (including two organs), it was redecorated in a flamboyant Baroque style that included the current white and malachite-green organ case. The new furnishings, donated by private citizens, attested to the town’s wealth derived from its role as a major trading center on the via regia connecting Poland and Germany.

The father-son team of Eugenio and Adam Horatio Casparini (German-born despite their Italianized names) created the monumental “sun organ” in the Church of St. Peter and Paul between 1697 and 1703, upon returning to Germany after decades in Italy.

Information & Links

Görlitz (Official Website) [multi-lingual]
Görlitz (Wikipedia) [English]

Contact:
Stadt Görlitz
Untermarkt 6-8
02826 Görlitz
Tel.: +49 3581 67-1217
Fax: +49 3581 67-1441
E-Mail: presse@goerlitz.de

Prepared by Aryeh Oron (April 2018)