1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Karlsruhe

KARLSRUHE, or Carlsruhe, a city of Germany, capital of the grand-duchy of Baden, 33 m. S.W. of Heidelberg, on the railway Frankfort-on-Main-Basel, and 39 m. N.W. of Stuttgart. Pop. (1895), 84,030; (1905), 111,200. It stands on an elevated plain, 5 m. E. of the Rhine and on the fringe of the Hardtwald forest. Karlsruhe takes its name from Karl Wilhelm, margrave of Baden, who, owing to disputes with the citizens of Durlach, erected here in 1715 a hunting seat, around which the town has been built. The city is surrounded by beautiful parks and gardens. The palace (Schloss), built in 1751–1776 on the site of the previous erection of 1715, is a plain building in the old French style, composed of a centre and two wings, presenting nothing remarkable except the octagon tower (Bleiturm), from the summit of which a splendid view of the city and surrounding country is obtained, and the marble saloon, in which the meridian of Cassini was fixed or drawn. In front of the palace is the Great Circle, a semicircular line of buildings, containing the government offices. From the palace the principal streets, fourteen in number, radiate in the form of an expanded fan, in a S.E., S. and S.W. direction, and are again intersected by parallel streets. This fan-like plan of the older city has, however, been abandoned in the more modern extensions. Karlsruhe has several fine public squares, the principal of which are the Schlossplatz, with Schwanthaler’s statue of the grand duke Karl Friedrich in the centre, and market square (Marktplatz), with a fountain and a statue of Louis, grand duke of Baden. In the centre of the Rondelplatz is an obelisk in honour of the grand duke Karl Wilhelm. The finest street is the Kaiserstrasse, running from east to west and having a length of a mile and a half and a uniform breadth of 72 ft. In it are several of the chief public buildings, notably the technical high school, the arsenal and the post office. Among other notable buildings are the town hall; the theatre; the hall of representatives; the mint; the joint museum of the grand-ducal and national collections (natural history, archaeology, ethnology, art and a library of over 150,000 volumes); the palace of the heir-apparent, a late Renaissance building of 1891–1896; the imperial bank (1893); the national industrial hall, with an exhibition of machinery; the new law courts; and the hall of fine arts, which shelters a good picture gallery. The city has six Evangelical and four Roman Catholic Churches. The most noteworthy of these are the Evangelical town church, the burial-place of the margraves of Baden; the Christuskirche, and the Bernharduskirche. Karlsruhe possesses further the Zähringen museum of curiosities, which is in the left wing of the Schloss; an architectural school (1891); industrial art school and museum; cadet school (1892); botanical and electro-technical institutes; and horticultural and agricultural schools. Of its recent public monuments may be mentioned one to Joseph Victor von Scheffel (1826–1886); a bronze equestrian statue of the emperor William I. (1896); and a memorial of the 1870–71 war. Karlsruhe is the headquarters of the XIV. German army corps. Since 1870 the industry of the city has grown rapidly, as well as the city itself. There are large railway workshops; and the principal branches of industry are the making of locomotives, carriages, tools and machinery, jewelry, furniture, gloves, cement, carpets, perfumery, tobacco and beer. There is an important arms factory. Maxau, on the Rhine, serves as the river port of Karlsruhe and is connected with it by a canal finished in 1901.

See Fecht, Geschichte der Haupt- und Residenzstadt Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe, 1887); F. von Weech, Karlsruhe, Geschichte der Stadt und ihrer Verwaltung (Karlsruhe, 1893–1902); Naeher, Die Umgebung der Residenz Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe, 1888); and the annual Chronik der Haupt- und Residenzstadt Karlsruhe.