Augsburg

Augsburg, city, Bavaria Land (state), southern Germany. It lies at the junction of the Wertach and Lech rivers and extends over the plateau country between the two rivers. In 1974 Augsburg annexed the neighbouring cities of Göggingen and Haunstetten.

Traces of an Early Bronze Age settlement have been found at the site. The town was founded as a Roman colony (Augusta Vindelicorum) by Nero Claudius Drusus, younger brother of Tiberius (later emperor), in 15 bce. It was the seat of a bishopric by 739 ce, and the invading Hungarians were decisively defeated by King Otto I in 955 on the plain south of the town. Augsburg became an imperial free city in 1276 and joined the Swabian League in 1331. The business houses, headed by the Fugger and Welser merchant families, were responsible for Augsburg’s development in the 15th and 16th centuries as a major European banking and commercial centre, encouraging both the arts and the sciences. The artists Hans Holbein the Elder, Hans Holbein the Younger, and Hans Burgkmair the Elder were natives of the town. At an imperial Diet held in the city in 1530, the Lutherans presented their Augsburg Confession to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and at the Diet of 1555 the Peace of Augsburg was concluded between Roman Catholics and Lutherans within the empire. The League of Augsburg, which opposed the expansionist policies of Louis XIV of France, was agreed upon in Augsburg in 1686. The city declined during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) and fell to Bavaria in 1806.

Although Augsburg was considerably damaged in World War II, many of its historic landmarks survived. The cathedral’s west end and crypt date from 994 to 1065 and the Gothic additions from 1331 to 1432; its chief monuments are the 11th-century bronze doors, five Romanesque stained-glass windows in the nave, the bishop’s throne, and the altarpieces by Holbein the Elder and Christoph Amberger. The church of Saints Ulrich and Afra (1474–1604) contains a late-Gothic statue of the Madonna (c. 1500), stained-glass windows in the vestry, and a Baroque wrought-iron gate (1712). The town hall (1615–20) and the famous Fuggerei (1519), the oldest housing settlement for the poor in the world, were damaged in World War II. Both have been restored, but the famous Golden Hall in the town hall was destroyed. There are other medieval churches, three 16th-century fountains on the main street, a town museum, art galleries, and a municipal library.

An important traffic junction, Augsburg is also an industrial centre, with manufactures that include machinery and electrical equipment. The city is the seat of the University of Augsburg, founded in 1970 as a regional Bavarian university; the city also has several colleges of music and a technical college (founded 1971) featuring courses in engineering, economics, and business administration. The house of Leopold Mozart, father of the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is now a Mozart museum. German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht was born in the city in 1898. Pop. (2003 est.) 259,217.