Friedrichshafen

Friedrichshafen (German pronunciation: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪçsˌhaːfn̩] or [fʁiːdʁɪçsˈhaːfn̩] ^ⓘ; Low Alemannic: Hafe or Fridrichshafe) is a city on the northern shoreline of Lake Constance (the Bodensee) in Southern Germany, near the borders of both Switzerland and Austria. It is the district capital (Kreisstadt) of the Bodensee district in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. Friedrichshafen has a population of about 63,000.

Friedrichshafen was established in 1811 as part of the new Kingdom of Württemberg, an ally of France during the Napoleonic Wars. It was named for King Frederick I of Württemberg, who privileged it as a free port and transshipment point for the kingdom's Swiss trade. Friedrichshafen was created from the former city of Buchhorn, whose coat of arms it adopted. The new city also incorporated the former village of Hofen, whose monastery was refurbished to serve as the summer residence of the Württemberger kings.

King William I continued improving the city, including the purchase of the steamship Wilhelm. Ministers and senior officials built villas around the royal castle, and many foreign tourists visited the city as well, including Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The first track laid by the Royal Württemberg State Railways connected the port to Ravensburg in 1847. Heilbronn was connected in 1850, and a ferry to Romanshorn in Switzerland began operating in 1869. Despite their previous opposition to Prussia, under the federal structure of the German Empire, Württemberg and Friedrichshafen continued to enjoy some special privileges following their incorporation into Germany following the Franco-Prussian War.

Ferdinand von Zeppelin established his famous dirigible factory at the end of the 19th century. The 128m-long LZ1 airship rose from its mooring on July 2, 1900. Other aviation companies, including Maybach, also arose in Friedrichshafen to help service the industry, which received a major impetus from World War I. Following the Treaty of Versailles, the Kingdom of Württemberg was dissolved but the deposed royal family continued in their possession of their castle in Friedrichshafen, despite a workers' revolution there in November, 1918.

Friedrichshafen served the Nazi regime as a resort for workers. The presence of Zeppelin, Maybach, Dornier, and Zahnradfabrik made it an important German industrial center during World War II. Between 1942 and 1945, the factories used slave labor of hundreds of concentration camp prisoners from Dachau and Dora-Mittelbau. They were housed first at Zeppelin's hangar and then, following its destruction during a raid, the V-2 factory Raderach. The prisoners were also used to dig tunnels near Friedrichshafen to protect production sites from the repeated bombing.

Between June 1943 and February 1945, the city was targeted for Allied bombing attacks. The most accurate took place on April 28, 1944, and destroyed most of the old town center. Approximately two-thirds of the city was destroyed over the course of the war.

Following World War II, Friedrichshafen was part of the French occupation zone before its incorporation into Baden-Württemberg, West Germany. In the aftermath of the war, Maybach and many other aviation companies turned to automobile construction, while Claudius Dornier purchased Theodor Kober's failed Flugzeugbau Friedrichshafen and established Dornier Flugzeugwerke. Owing to the provisions of the Versailles treaty, many of the planes were initially produced in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands or Japan, but resumed work at its Friedrichshafen and other German factories following the rise of the Nazi regime. The 1937 Hindenburg disaster and a subsequent embargo on sending American helium to Germany, however, effectively ended the production of German dirigibles. The German aeronautics industry was again banned for many years after the war, and companies again failed or shifted production.

The city's principal recovery dates to its establishment as the administrative seat of the Bodenseekreis district of West Germany, in 1973. The last French troops withdrew from their "Durand de Villers" Quarter (Quartier Durand de Villers) in 1992.