Saarbrücken (; ; Rhine Franconian: Saarbrigge ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken is Saarland's administrative, commercial and cultural centre and is next to the French border.
The modern city of Saarbrücken was created in 1909 by the merger of three towns, Saarbrücken, St. Johann, and Malstatt-Burbach. It was the industrial and transport centre of the Saar coal basin. Products included iron and steel, sugar, beer, pottery, optical instruments, machinery, and construction materials.
Historic landmarks in the city include the stone bridge across the Saar (1546), the Gothic church of St. Arnual, the 18th-century Saarbrücken Castle, and the old part of the town, the Sankt Johanner Markt (Market of St. Johann).
In the 20th century, Saarbrücken was twice separated from Germany: from 1920 to 1935 as capital of the Territory of the Saar Basin and from 1947 to 1956 as capital of the Saar Protectorate.
Etymology
In modern German, Saarbrücken literally translates to Saar bridges (Brücken is the plural of Brücke), and indeed there are about a dozen bridges across the Saar river. However, the name actually predates the oldest bridge in the historic centre of Saarbrücken, the Alte Brücke, by at least 500 years.
The name Saar stems from the Celtic word sara (streaming water), and the Roman name of the river, Saravus.
There are two hypotheses about the origin of the second part of the name Saarbrücken. Most popular states that the historical name of the town, Sarabrucca, derived from the Celtic word briga (hill, or rock, big stone), which became Brocken (which means rock or boulder) in High German. The castle of Sarabrucca was located on a large rock by the name of Saarbrocken overlooking the river Saar. Another opinion holds that the historical name of the town, Sarabrucca, derived from the Old High German word Brucca , meaning bridge, or more precisely a corduroy road, which was also used in fords. Next to the castle, there was a ford allowing land-traffic to cross the Saar.
History
Roman Empire
In the last centuries BC, the Mediomatrici settled in the Saarbrücken area. When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul in the first century BC, the area was incorporated into the Roman Empire.
From the first century AD to the fifth century, there was the Gallo-Roman settlement called vicus Saravus west of Saarbrücken's Halberg hill, on the roads from Metz to Worms and from Trier to Strasbourg. Since the first or second century AD, a wooden bridge, later upgraded to stone, connected vicus Saravus with the south-western bank of the Saar, today's St Arnual, where at least one Roman villa was located. In the third century AD, a Mithras shrine was built in a cave in Halberg hill, on the eastern bank of the Saar river, next to today's old "Osthafen" harbor, and a small Roman camp was constructed at the foot of Halberg hill next to the river.
Toward the end of the fourth century, the Alemanni destroyed the castra and vicus Saravus, removing permanent human presence from the Saarbrücken area for almost a century.
Middle Ages to 18th century
The Saar area came under the control of the Franks towards the end of the fifth century. In the sixth century, the Merovingians gave the village Merkingen, which had formed on the ruins of the villa on the south-western end of the (in those times still usable) Roman bridge, to the Bishopric of Metz. Between 601 and 609, Bishop Arnual founded a community of clerics, a Stift, there. Centuries later the Stift, and in 1046 Merkingen, took on his name, giving birth to St Arnual.
The oldest documentary reference to Saarbrücken is a deed of donation from 999, which documents that Emperor Otto III gave the "castellum Sarabrucca" (Saarbrücken castle) to the Bishops of Metz. The Bishops gave the area to the Counts of Saargau as a fief. By 1120, the county of Saarbrücken had been formed and a small settlement around the castle developed. In 1168, Emperor Barbarossa ordered the slighting of Saarbrücken because of a feud with Count Simon I. The damage cannot have been grave, as the castle continued to exist.
In 1321/1322 Count Johann I of Saarbrücken-Commercy gave city status to the settlement of Saarbrücken and the fishing village of St Johann on the opposite bank of the Saar, introducing a joint administration and emancipating the inhabitants from serfdom.