Osnabrück is located in North-West Germany. With approximately 165,000 inhabitants, it is the third largest city in Lower Saxony.

The word ‘Osnabrück’ means (in old German) ‘Bridge over the Hase’, which immediately tells us the city rests on the banks of the River Hase. Osnabrück nestles between the northern part of the Teutoburger Forest and the hills of the Wiehengebirge. At one time an intersection for old trading routes, nowadays the railway and motorway networks meet here. As a result the town has become an important trade centre as well as the economic focal point of a region with around 700,000 people.     

Osnabrück is quite a young city although it is over 1,200 years old. With two universities, it is home to 16,000 students. Accordingly there is a vigorous cultural scene. The city is the main centre for a large surrounding countryside and offers residents of the area a wide range of leisure and cultural activities, with theatres and museums, function and conference centres.

Welcoming and cosmopolitan (people from 140 nations live here), a city in the middle of Europe. Besides Derby, Osnabrück is twinned with Haarlem in the Netherlands, Angers in France, Tver in Russia, Çanakkale in Turkey, Vila Real in Portugal and Greifswald in the former East Germany. It also has special friendship bonds with Evansville in the USA, Gmünd in Austria, Kwangmyong in Korea and Hefei in China.

History of Osnabrück

Stone Age tombs have been found at the site of Osnabrück, although the actual city was established by Charlemagne in 780AD. Shortly after in 804AD, the Carolinum was founded, which is now considered to be the oldest school in Germany which still stands in the same place it was originally built.

Osnabrück’s biggest claim to fame, however, is that in 1648 it was the site of the signing of the Westphalian Peace Treaty which ended the Thirty Years’ War. This was primarily a religious war, so one of the outcomes was that Osnabrück would be subject to ‘successive alternation’. This meant that in future, Catholic bishops would alternate with Guelpic princes as rulers – a good example of tolerance and the ability to compromise.

For many years, Osnabrück has been known as the Friedensstadt, or the ‘City of Peace’. Ever since it was so instrumental in the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia, the city has been characterised by tolerance, understanding and an active interest in other cultures. This can easily be demonstrated by the fact that it has taken such care to cultivate twinning and friendship links with so many other cities.

Some significant figures associated with Osnabrück are Erich Maria Remarque, a writer born in the city in 1898 who is best-known for his novel All Quiet on the Western Front, and the Jewish painter Felix Nussbaum, who was born here in 1904 but tragically murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. The Felix Nussbaum House boasts the largest collection of his paintings in the world.

One of the most important British visitors to the city, apart from the Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2007, has been George I of England who died there on his way back to Hanover.

Sadly much of Osnabrück was destroyed by bombing at the end of the Second World War. However, great care has been taken to reconstruct everything as it was before. As a result, the old town still has a very distinctive character, and a very medieval feel.

Virtual Tour of Osnabrück

Rathaus (Town Hall)

The most important building in Osnabrück. It took 10 years to gather enough materials together to start construction, and 25 years to build it. And then the Council still ran out of money so they decided to raise taxes. This led to a public demonstration on the Market Place, as a result of which the leader of the protest was beheaded before the stone steps of the Rathaus. Today the Rathaus is still the home of the local government, which includes the Lord Mayor and the Derby Envoy. The current Lord Mayor, Boris Pistorius has been in office since November 2006 and will hold the position for eight years.

Inside the town hall, this is the very room where the Westphalian Peace Treaty was signed in 1648. The name ‘Friedenssaal’ means Chamber of Peace. After the town hall was bombed in 1944, this room was reconstructed to look exactly as it was in when this famous agreement was signed.

Osnabrück Dom (Catherdral)

The city was founded on the site of the cathedral. The building that stands there today was probably constructed in the course of the 11th century. Originally, the two towers were the same size, but between 1502 and 1543 the south western tower was enlarged, supposedly to make space for new cathedral bells which had been ordered and turned out to be too large.

Felix Nussbaum Museum

The Jewish painter Felix Nussbaum was born in Osnabrück in 1904. He was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.  The museum here contains the world’s largest collection of his works. This unique museum to house these paintings was especially designed by the American architect Daniel Libeskind, who has just won the competition to redesign the site of the World Trade Centre in New York. 

Heger Tor

This was built in rememberance of troops from Osnabrück who died at the battle of Waterloo. It was completed a year after the war ended, and for a brief time was called the ‘Waterloo Gate’.

Schloss

Nowadays home to one of Osnabrück's two universities, this impressive yellow building is also where King George I of England died.

Bucksturm

This is the oldest tower in Osnabrück. It is around 800 years old, and once formed part of the city walls. Through the centuries it has been used as a prison, most notably to house women accused of being witches (around 300 women were burnt after being accused of this in Osnabrück), but also, strangely, to imprison a man condemned to spend six years in a wooden box.

Derby Square

Derby Square was named in 1984 in honour of the City of Derby and of the shared relationship between the two cities. A year later, the Mayor of Derby presented a red British telephone box to Osnabrück, which now stands on Derby Square. There is also a red Royal Mail post box.

Marktplatz

Eighty percent of Osnabrück was destroyed during the Second World War. Only the front of these houses with the stepped gables remained, but they have been carefully restored so as to look as authentic as possible from the outside. Nowadays the Marktplatz is the setting for several festivals during the year, for example the Steckenpferdreiten (hobby horse parade), the Maiwoche (May Week) and the famous Christmas market.

Theater

Osnabrück's main theatre was built from 1905-1909, has the characteristic Art Nouveau style of that time and can seat over 640 visitors. In the front of the building you can see the sculpture "Gleiches Gewicht - Gleichgewicht" (equal weight - balance) of the Osnabrück artist Joachim Bandau, which was installed in 1998.

Hotel Walhalla

Another example of a house that luckily survived the war. This hotel is one of several beautiful examples in Osnabrück centre. But such wooden-fronted houses only survived the fires at the time because the owners were rich enough to afford to have water trained on the roofs of their properties at all times during the bombings. The Hotel Walhalla is one of the oldest – but not quite the very oldest – houses in Osnabrück. It was built as a hotel in 1586 and has been used for the same purpose ever since.

Useful Links

www.osnabrueck-tourism.de (partially available in English)
Official Website of the Osnabrück Marketing and Tourism Department

www.panorama-cities.net (available in English)
One of the best ways to get an idea of what Osnabrück is like, without actually travelling there!

www.uni-osnabrueck.de and www.fh-osnabrueck.de (available in English)
The websites of the two universities of the city.

www.marktplatz-osnabrueck.de (available in German only)
General information on Osnabrück

www.neue-oz.de (available in German only)
Website of Osnabrück’s most popular local newspaper.

www.vfl.de (available in German only)
Website of Osnabrück’s local football club.

http://dict.leo.org
Very useful German/English dictionary.