Ingelheim Am Rhein - History

History

The Ingelheim area was already settled in prehistoric times. The place first earned itself particular importance, though, only under Charlemagne and his successors. Charlemagne had the Ingelheim Imperial Palace (Ingelheimer Kaiserpfalz) built here, where synods and Imperial diets were held in the time that followed. His son and successor, Emperor Louis the Pious, died on 20 June 840 in Ingelheim.

In the High and Late Middle Ages, the Palatinate’s, and thereby also Ingelheim’s, importance shrank.

For German justice history, the Ingelheimer Oberhof (“Ingelheim Upper Court”) is of particular importance, as a unique collection of judgments from the 15th and 16th centuries that it handed down has been preserved.

Late 19th century Ingelheim was the residence of the Dutch writer Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker).

In 1939, the formerly self-administering municipalities of Nieder-Ingelheim, Ober-Ingelheim and Frei-Weinheim were merged into the Town of Ingelheim am Rhein.

From the Second World War, Ingelheim emerged as the only unscathed town between Mainz and Koblenz. Today, Ingelheim is a middle centre in Rhineland-Palatinate, a Great District-Bound Town (Große kreisangehörige Stadt – a status deriving from the Rhineland-Palatinate Municipal Order) and the seat of district administration for Mainz-Bingen.

Furthermore, Ingelheim harbours the business Boehringer Ingelheim which has become active worldwide.