Paderborn

Paderborn was founded as a bishopric by Charlemagne in 795, although its official history began in 777 when Charlemagne built a castle near the Paderborn springs.[4] In 799 Pope Leo III fled his enemies in Rome and reached Paderborn, where he met Charlemagne, and stayed there for three months. It was during this time that it was decided that Charlemagne would be crowned emperor. Charlemagne reinstated Leo in Rome in 800 and was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor by Leo in return. In 836, St. Liborius became the patron saint of Paderborn after his bones were moved there from Le Mans by Bishop Badurad.[5] St. Liborius is commemorated in Paderborn every year in July with the Liborifest. The bishop of Paderborn, Meinwerk, became a Prince of the Empire in 1100. The bishop had several large buildings built, and the area became a place for the emperors to stay.[4]

Paderborn in 1647.

The city was taken by Prussia in 1802, then by the French vassal state Kingdom of Westphalia from 1807 to 1813 and then returned to Prussia.

Native Friedrich Sertürner, a pharmacist's apprentice in Paderborn, was the first to isolate morphine from opium in 1804.

In 1914 the Paderborn military camp was turned into a prisoner of war camp named Sennelager.

In 1930, the See of Paderborn was promoted to archdiocese.

During World War II, Paderborn was bombed by Allied aircraft in 1944 and 1945, resulting in 85% destruction, including many of the historic buildings. It was seized by the US 3rd Armored Division after a pitched battle 31 March – 1 April 1945, in which tanks and flamethrowers were used during combined mechanized-infantry assaults against the city's southwestern, southern and southeastern approaches.[6]

After the city was reconstructed in the 1940s and 1950s, Paderborn became a major industrial seat in Westphalia.[5] The British Army retained a significant presence in the area until 2020, when British units were relocated back to the United Kingdom. Only a small training and enabling staff remain at Paderborn to facilitate temporary deployments to use the Sennelager Training Area.[7]

On May 20, 2022, Paderborn was hit by a damaging tornado, leaving 38 injured & considerable damage along its path.[8][9]

Pader River

Eggegebirge

Paderborn is situated at the source of the river Pader, approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) east of Lippstadt and approximately 50 kilometres (31 mi) south of Bielefeld on the Pader. The hills of the Eggegebirge are located east of the city. Paderborn is 104 kilometres (65 mi) east of Dortmund and the Ruhr region. To the north-west, Hannover is 115 kilometres (71 mi) away.

Paderborn has a population of over 144,000, of which approximately 10% are students at the local university (Paderborn University). Additionally, about 10,000 members or relatives of members of the British armed forces live within Westfalen Garrison, but are not included in the nominal population size.

Largest groups of foreign residents
Nationality	Population (2011)
Turkey	2,210
Poland	1,212
Italy	1,206
United Kingdom	903
China	627
Russia	578
Serbia and Montenegro	573
Spain	326

60% of the population are Catholics, 20% Lutherans and 20% members of other faiths or not religious.

Paderborn is the headquarters of the former Nixdorf Computer AG, which was acquired by Siemens in the early 1990s and known as Siemens-Nixdorf for about ten years. The company is now known as Diebold Nixdorf, which is still located in Paderborn, but Siemens retains a considerable presence in the city.

Many other information technology companies as well as industrial enterprises are located in Paderborn, too:

• Benteler AG (steel/tube, automotive, trade)
• Claas (farm machines)
• Deutsche Bahn AG (vehicle maintenance)
• dSPACE GmbH (engineering tools)
• Flextronics
• Fujitsu Technology Solutions
• Orga Systems GmbH
• Secure Computing Corporation
• Siemens AG (Siemens IT Solutions and Services)
• Zuken (PCB EMC Analysis and Design Software)

Paderborn is also home of the "Paderborner" brewery, which has belonged to the Warsteiner group since 1990.

Paderborn has the largest computer museum in the world, the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum, opened in 1996. From 2001 to 2005, it hosted the RoboCup German Open.

The town supports the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie for regular symphony concerts in the Paderhalle.

The city is known today for its exhibitions in three museums: the Kaiserpfalz, The Diocesan Museum and the Art Museum - Städtische Galerie.[11] The city also have some natural tourist attractions within and around.[12]

With the Archdiocese of Paderborn based in the city cathedral, Paderborn has traditionally been a conservative Catholic city. In the Bundestag, it is located in the eponymous electoral district, which is a safe seat for CDU. Only twice (1949 and 2021) has CDU not received a majority of the district's votes, and from 1953 to 1987 always received at least 60% of the district's vote. In the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia, the city currently located in the district Paderborn II, which also has a strong CDU lean.

At local level, the city has always elected CDU mayors since 1946. Until 2009, the CDU held an absolute majority on the city council, and as late as 1979 received over 60% of the vote in the city.

City council

Results of the 2020 city council election.

The Paderborn city council governs the city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows:

Party		Votes	%	+/-	Seats	+/-
	Christian Democratic Union (CDU)	22,412	40.3	6.1	24	6
	Alliance 90/The Greens (Grüne)	13,412	24.1	9.6	14	5
	Social Democratic Party (SPD)	7,101	12.8	9.5	7	7
	Free Democratic Party (FDP)	3,152	2.7	1.1	3	±0
	Alternative for Germany (AfD)	2,811	5.1	1.5	3	1
	The Left (Die Linke)	2,554	4.6	0.0	3	±0
	For Paderborn (Für PB)	1,541	2.8	New	2	New
	Die PARTEI	1,485	2.7	New	2	New
	Free Citizens' Initiative – Free Voters (FBI)	564	1.0	1.9	1	1
	Volt Germany (Volt)	536	1.0	New	1	New
Valid votes		55,568	98.9
Invalid votes		604	1.1
Total		56,172	100.0		60	4
Electorate/voter turnout		118,244	47.5	1.1
Source: City of Paderborn

Paderborn is twinned with:[13]

• Le Mans, France (officially since 1967, traditionally since 836, the oldest partnership of its kind)[14]
• Bolton, England, United Kingdom (1975)
• Belleville, Illinois, United States (1990)
• Pamplona, Spain (1992)
• Przemyśl, Poland (1993)
• Debrecen, Hungary (1994)
• Qingdao, China (2003)

Paderborn is nationally known as a center for American Sports. The local baseball team, the Paderborn Untouchables, has won many German championships. The local American Football team, the Paderborn Dolphins, has also enjoyed considerable success. In 2006 the Paderborn Baskets, the home basketball team of the city was promoted to the Bundesliga.

University of Paderborn

Paderborn was once the oldest academic site in Westphalia. In 1614, the University of Paderborn was founded by the Jesuits but was closed in 1819. It was re-founded in 1972 as Universität-Gesamthochschule and transformed into a university in its own right in 2002. Today, it is attended by about 20,000 students.

There also are several theological and private academic institutes in Paderborn.

There are a number of grammar schools in the city, the most prominent of which are the Theodorianum and St. Michael Gymnasium, along with others such as the Goerdeler-Gymnasium. There are also a few British primary schools such as John Buchan School, which was located in Sennelager and mainly educated children of British military personnel and the garrison's employees until its closure in 2019.

Sophie Schröder in 1828

Friedrich Sertürner

Joseph Hermann Schmidt

Karl von Plettenberg

• Heinrich Aldegrever (1502–1558?), painter and engraver.[15]
• Carl Ferdinand Fabritius (1637–1673), painter
• Franz Anton Cramer (1776–1829), apothecary, supported the discovery of morphine
• Sophie Schröder (1781–1868), singer and actress.[16]
• Friedrich Sertürner (1783–1841), pharmacist, first to isolate morphine from opium
• Joseph Hermann Schmidt (1804–1852), physician, director, Charité Birth Department, Berlin
• George Henry Backhaus (1811–1882), Catholic priest
• Franz von Löher (1818–1892), politician, jurist and historian
• Christoph Ernst Friedrich von Forcade de Biaix (1821–1891), owner of the estate, judge and member of the German Reichstag
• Julius von Ficker (1826–1902), German-Austrian historian
• Joseph F. Rigge (1842–1913), the first president of Marquette College (now Marquette University)
• Aloys Loeher (1850–1904), American sculptor, exhibited at the 1893 Columbian Exposition
• Karl von Plettenberg (1852–1938), Prussian officer and later General of Infantry during WW1
• Clemens Baeumker (1853–1924), Catholic philosopher and philosophy historian
• Augustus F. Fechteler (1857–1921), Rear Admiral of the United States Navy during World War I
• Ella Bergmann-Michel (1895–1971), painter, photographer and documentary filmmaker
• Gustav Simon (1900–1945), Nazi Gauleiter in the Moselland Gau from 1940 until 1944 and Chief of the Civil Administration in occupied Luxembourg, died here
• Josef Wirmer (1901–1944), jurist and resistance fighter against National Socialism
• Friedrich Wilhelm Christians (1922–2004), banker
• Heinz Nixdorf (1925–1986), computer pioneer, entrepreneur and founder of Nixdorf Computer AG
• Walter Salmen (1926–2013), musicologist
• Werner Franke (1940–2022), professor of cell and molecular biology
• Ulrich Vogt (born 1941), teacher and non-fiction author
• Mechtild Rothe (born 1947), politician (SPD) and member of the European Parliament
• Franz-Josef Bode (born 1951), bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Osnabruck since 1995
• Rüdiger Hoffmann (born 1964), cabaret artist and musician
• Bernd Hüttemann (born 1970), Vice President of the European Movement International and Secretary General of the European Movement Germany
• Stefan Gödde (born 1975), television presenter, radio presenter and reporter
• Judith Rakers (born 1976), journalist and television supporter (ARD)
• Carsten Linnemann (born 1977), economist and politician (CDU), member of the German Bundestag

• Paderborn method for teaching languages
• Disappearance of Katrice Lee

• John M. Jeep, ed. (2001). "Paderborn". Medieval Germany: an Encyclopedia. Garland Publishing. ISBN 0-8240-7644-3.
• Makos, Adam (2019). Spearhead (1st ed.). New York: Ballantine Books. pp. 245, 255, 268. ISBN 9780804176729. LCCN 2018039460. OL 27342118M.

• Media related to Paderborn at Wikimedia Commons

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Paderborn.

• Official website (in German)
• Paderborn region website —(in German)
• Ordinances of the "Fürstbistum Paderborn" online—(in German)
• Homepage of the annual RoboCup competition—(in English)
• University of Paderborn—(in German)
• Basketball: Paderborn Baskets—(in German)
• Introduction to the History of Paderborn—(in English)
• "Paderborn" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). 1911.