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Monheim is a municipality in the Donau-Ries district, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated 15 km northeast of Donauwörth, and 27 km east of Nördlingen. It lies in the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben. ==History== The origins of Monheim date back into the 7th century, when a village was formed at the crossing of the Gailach, a small river running into the Altmühl. From 870, a Benedictian convent existed within the small town. In 893, the abbess of the convent, Mother Liubila, transferred it to the Bishop of Eichstätt, Erchanbald, and it was then that Monheim was first mentioned in an official document. It became an important place of pilgrimage due to the relics of Saint Walpurga, a former abbess of the convent in Eichstätt. Unlike virtually all of Schwaben, which belongs to the Diocese of Augsburg, Monheim is still part of the Diocese of Eichstätt today. The village of Monheim came into possession of the ''Graf von Oettingen'', now the House of Oettingen-Wallerstein, around the year 1325. Monheim was awarded its town rights shortly after and the oldest seal of the town dates from 1340. The seal from 1340 already shows the moon, which is still part of the towns crest today. The name ''Monheim'' however does not derive from ''moon''. Until 1821, the crest's colors were red and silver, the colors of the House of Oettingen. Only after 1821 were the current blue and gold adopted. The town was fortified, lying at the intersection of the important trade route from Augsburg to Nürnberg, which is nowadays the Bundesstraße 2, and the road from Nördlingen to Neuburg an der Donau. Some of this wall still remains today, including both gates. The town remained a possession of Oettingen until the end of the ''Landshut war of succession'' in 1505. Monheim was then handed to the duchy Palatinate-Neuburg (German: ''Pfalz-Neuburg''), whom it remained with until 1808. The duke Heinrich introduced the Reformation to his lands and Monheim in 1530 and the convent in town was dissolved. Monheim lost its relics and with it much of its religious importance for the region. The convent building was taken down in 1574 but the large Saint Walpurga church, the current building dating from 1509, and some of the convents Romanesque courtyard, dating from the 12th century, remained. The courtyard was fully restored in 1977. Martin Luther spent a night in Monheim, traveling back from an interrogation in 1518. A large plaque of this notable event remains at the location he stayed. In 1614, the Elector Wilhelm reintroduced Catholicism in Palatinate-Neuburg, including Monheim, but the convent was not restored. The Swedish army under the King of Sweden, Gustav Adolf, ransacked Monheim in 1632 during the Thirty Years' War, an event the town took long to recover from. From 1523 onwards, Monheim also became the seat of the county court (German:''Landgerichtssitz'') for the surrounding region and in 1650 a small palace (German:''Schloß'') was built for the duke's administrator. The year 1697 saw the first arrival of Jews in Monheim. In 1741, they had to leave the town again, under pressure from the authorities. The current town hall was built by a rich Jewish merchant, the Court Jew Abraham Elias Model, between 1714 and 1720. Model was the chief creditor for the ''Graf von Wallerstein'' at that time.〔(The Court Jew - A Contribution to the History of the Period of Absolutism ) Google book review, Page 100 Author: Selma Stern, Published: Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1950〕 The upper floor of his house originally was thought to have served as the synagogue for the small Jewish community, a fact since disproved, and in 1978 and 1994 the original ceilings, displaying motives from the Old Testament, or Tanakh, were fully restored. The fact that they were covered by a layer of gipsum, which had to be removed, saved them from almost certain destruction by the Nazis. The rooms now serve as the meeting hall for the town council. The end of the War of Bavarian Succession in 1779 saw the reunification of Bavaria with Palatinate-Neuburg and Neuburg lost its status as a capital. Monheim was now Bavarian again. Like most of Bavaria, the age of industrialisation bypassed Monheim and it remained predominantly agricultural. The two world wars saw great personal losses but no real destruction for the town. During the Nazi era, Monheim saw its mayor, Josef Hofmann, replaced with local party leader Albert Königsdorfer. Some of the members of the local council were temporarily taken in "protective custody". Resistance to the Nazis was passive, at best. When the figurine of Saint Walpurga on the fountain of the market square was replaced by a more war-like motif in October 1937, the Catholic parish priest, Anton Geitner, an anti-Nazi, refused the Nazi salute and found himself heavily criticised.〔 ''Monheim - Kleine Stadt mit grosser Vergangenheit'', Chapter: Monheim during the pre-war, war and post-war times, by: Theo Schmiedt, page: 157–170〕 Liberation came to Monheim on 24 April 1945, with only limited amounts of fighting taking place. A number of houses in town were shelled and the white flag was raised in town by Matthias Schmied, mayor of Monheim from 1945 to 1947, who was quickly followed in his example by other citizens. In appreciation of the fact that the town survived the war with such little damage, the local town council degreed that a church service was to be held annually on the 24 April. Monheim experienced a short occupation of four days before the US soldiers left the town again.〔 The post-World War II years saw a growth in small industries in town. The county court was relocated from Monheim in 1957. The reorganisation of communities in Bavaria and Germany between 1972 and 1978 meant that Monheim came in charge of the previously independent surrounding villages, enlarging the town in size and population. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Monheim, Bavaria」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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