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Antiquity

Worms was in ancient times a Celtic city named Borbetomagus, perhaps meaning "water meadow". Later it was conquered by the Germanic Vangiones tribe. In 14 BC, Romans under the command of Drusus captured and fortified the city, and from that time onwards, a small troop of infantry and cavalry was garrisoned there. The Romans renamed the city as Augusta Vangionum, after the then-emperor and the local tribe. The name does not seem to have taken hold, however, and from Borbetomagus developed the German Worms and Latin Wormatia; as late as the modern period, the city name was written as Wormbs. The garrison grew into a small town with a regular Roman street plan, a forum, and temples for the main gods Jupiter, Juno, Minerva (whose temple was the site of the later cathedral), and Mars.

Roman inscriptions, altars, and votive offerings can be seen in the archaeological museum, along with one of Europe's largest collections of Roman glass. Local potters worked in the town's south quarter. Fragments of amphorae contain traces of olive oil from Hispania Baetica, doubtless transported by sea and then up the Rhine by ship.

During the disorders of 411–413 AD, Roman usurper Jovinus established himself in Borbetomagus as a puppet-emperor with the help of King Gunther of the Burgundians, who had settled in the area between the Rhine and Moselle some years before. The city became the capital of the Burgundian kingdom under Gunther (also known as Gundicar). Few remains of this early Burgundian kingdom survive, because in 436, it was all but destroyed by a combined army of Romans (led by Aëtius) and Huns (led by Attila); a belt clasp found at Worms-Abenheim is a museum treasure. Provoked by Burgundian raids against Roman settlements, the combined Romano-Hunnic army destroyed the Burgundian army at the Battle of Worms (436), killing King Gunther. About 20,000 are said to have been killed. The Romans led the survivors southwards to the Roman district of Sapaudia (modern-day Savoy). The story of this war later inspired the Nibelungenlied. The city appears on the Peutinger Map, dated to the fourth century.

Modern era

In 1689 during the Nine Years' War, Worms (like the nearby towns and cities of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Oppenheim, Speyer, and Bingen) was sacked by troops of Louis XIV of France, though the French only held the city for a few weeks. In 1743, the Treaty of Worms was signed, forming a political alliance between Great Britain, Austria, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. In 1792, the city was occupied by troops of the First French Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars. The Bishopric of Worms was secularized in 1801, with the city being annexed into the First French Empire. In 1815, Worms passed to the Grand Duchy of Hesse in accordance with the Congress of Vienna, and the city was subsequently administered within Rhenish Hesse.

After the Battle of the Bulge in early 1945, Allied armies advanced into the Rhineland in preparation for a massive assault into the heart of the Reich. Worms was a German strongpoint on the west bank of the Rhine, and the forces there resisted the Allied advance tenaciously. Worms was, thus, heavily bombed by the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Forces in two attacks on 21 February and 18 March 1945, respectively. A postwar survey estimated that 39% of the town's developed area was destroyed. The RAF attack on 21 February was aimed at the main railway station on the edge of the inner city, and at chemical plants southwest of the inner city, but also destroyed large areas of the city centre. Carried out by 334 bombers, the attack in a few minutes rained 1,100 tons of bombs on the inner city, and Worms Cathedral was among the buildings set on fire. The Americans did not enter the city until the Rhine crossings began after the seizure of the Remagen Bridge.

In the attacks, 239 inhabitants were killed in the first and 141 in the second; 35,000 (60% of the population of 58,000) were made homeless. In all, 6490 buildings were severely damaged or destroyed. After the war, the inner city was rebuilt, mostly in modern style. Around a third of Worms's buildings are from before 1950. Postwar Worms became part of the new state of Rhineland-Palatinate; the borough Rosengarten, on the east bank of the Rhine, was lost to Hesse.

Worms today fiercely vies with the cities Trier and Cologne for the title of "Oldest City in Germany". A multimedia Nibelungenmuseum was opened in 2001, and a yearly festival in front of the Dom, the Worms Cathedral, attempts to recapture the atmosphere of the pre-Christian period.

In 2010, the Worms synagogue was firebombed. Eight corners of the building were set ablaze, and a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a window, but with no injuries. Kurt Beck, Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate, condemned the attack and vowed to mobilize all necessary resources to find the perpetrators, saying, "We will not tolerate such an attack on a synagogue".

The Jewish community of Varmayza

The Free Imperial City of Worms, known in medieval Hebrew by the name Varmayza or Vermaysa (Hebrew: וורמיזא, וורמישא), was a centre of medieval Ashkenazic Jewry. The Jewish community was established there in the late 10th century, and Worms's first synagogue was erected in 1034. The Jewish community settled in a separate neighborhood in the city called the Judengasse. In 1096, 800 to 1000 Jews were murdered by crusaders and the local mob, what later became known as Rhineland massacres or Gzerot Tatnó (Hebrew: גזרות תתנ"ו, "Edicts of 4856"). The Jewish Cemetery in Worms, dating from the 11th century, is believed to be the oldest surviving in situ cemetery in Europe. The Rashi Synagogue, which dates from 1175 and was carefully reconstructed after its desecration on Kristallnacht, is the oldest in Germany.

Prominent students, rabbis, and scholars of Worms include Shlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi) who studied with R. Yizhak Halevi, Meir of Rothenburg (Maharam), Elazar Rokeach, Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Moelin (Maharil), and Yair Bacharach. At the rabbinical synod held at Worms at the turn of the 11th century, Rabbi Gershom ben Judah (Rabbeinu Gershom) explicitly prohibited polygamy for the first time. The community's customs were collected and written by Juspa Schammes in a Minhagbuch (book of customs) and preserved ancient traditions unique to the community.

The Jewish community was destroyed and expelled from the city several times. The main expulsions were both in 1615 after the city's residents committed a pogrom against the Jewish community and in 1689 during the Nine Years' War by troops of Louis XIV (with all the city's citizens), After a few years, the Jews were allowed to return to live in the city. Despite this, until Kristallnacht in 1938, the Jewish Quarter of Worms was a centre of Jewish life. It was among the oldest Jewish communities that maintained continuity over time, and a beautiful example of this is the 900th anniversary celebrations of the synagogue held in 1934.

Worms today has only a very small Jewish population, and a recognizable Jewish community as such no longer exists. After renovations in the 1970s and 1980s, though, many of the buildings of the quarter can be seen in a close-to-original state, preserved as an outdoor museum. The Jewish sites (along with those in Speyer and Mainz) were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2021.

People

Saint Erentrude, or Erentraud (c. 650–710), virgin saint of the Roman Catholic Church

Heribert of Cologne (c. 970–1021, archbishop-elector of Cologne and Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empıre

Isaac ben Eliezer Halevi (died 1070), French rabbi

Minna of Worms (died 1096), influential Jewish citizen, victim of the Worms massacre (1096)

Rashi (Shlomo Yitzhaki; 1040–1105), rabbi, studied in the Worms Yeshiva in 1065–1070

Meir of Rothenburg (c. 1215–1293), rabbi and poet

Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Moelin (1365–1427), Rabbi of Mainz

Hans Folz (1435/1440–1513), notable medieval author

Conrad Meit (or Conrat Meit) (1480s–1550/1551), Renaissance sculptor, mostly in the Low Countries

Isaac ben Eliezer, 15th century rabbi

Juspa Schammes (1604–1678), caretaker of the Worms Synagogue and writer

Yair Bacharach (1638–1702), rabbi, was the chief rabbi of worms in 1699–1702

Johann Nikolaus Götz (1721–1781), poet

Ferdinand Eberstadt (1808–1888), textile merchant and mayor of Worms

Samuel Adler (1809–1891), German-American Reform rabbi

Solomon Loeb (1828–1903), American banker and philanthropist

John Derst (1838–1928), baker

Friedrich Gernsheim (1839–1916), composer, conductor and pianist

Ida Straus (1849–1912), wife of Isidor Straus, voluntarily remained with husband on board the RMS Titanic

Ludwig Edinger (1855–1918), anatomist and neurologist

Siegfried Guggenheim (1873–1961), lawyer, notary and art collector

Hugo Sinzheimer (1875–1945), legal scholar, member of the Constitutional Convention of 1919

Hermann Staudinger (1881–1965), organic chemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1953

Emil Stumpp (1886–1941), cartoonist, died in jail after doing an unflattering portrait of Adolf Hitler

Rudi Stephan (1887–1915), composer

Hanya Holm (1893–1992), choreographer, dancer, educator and one of the founders of American Modern Dance

Richard Hildebrandt (1897–1951), politician in Nazi Germany and member of the Reichstag executed for war crimes

Curtis Bernhardt (1899–1981), film director

Hans Hinkel (1901–1960), journalist and Nazi cultural functionary

Hans Diller (1905–1977), classical scholar specializing in Ancient Greek medicine

Vladimir Kagan (1927–2016), furniture designer

Rolf Wilhelm Brednich (born 1935), folklorist

Florian Gerster (born 1949), politician (SPD), former chairman of the Federal Employment Agency

Rod Temperton (1949–2016), English songwriter, record producer and musician

Monika Stolz (born 1951), politician (CDU), Member of Landtag Baden-Württemberg since 2001

Petra Gerster (born 1955), television journalist (ZDF)

Markus Weinmann (born 1974), agricultural scientist in the area of plant physiology

Timo Hildebrand (born 1979), footballer

Marvin Dienst (born 1997), German racing driver

Alica Schmidt (born 1998), track and field athlete, fitness coach

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