Neu-Ulm

Neu-Ulm is a town in Bavarian Swabia. It's just across the Danube from Ulm. In many ways Neu-Ulm serves as a suburb of Ulm, but it has attractions of its own. Despite being the "new" part of Ulm, Neu-Ulm offers many historically significant buildings, churches and streets. At just under 60,000 inhabitants it serves as a local centre for the Neu-Ulm Landkreis (district).

Understand

Until 1810, Neu-Ulm was a part of Ulm, which was a Reichsstadt, a self-governing free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. What is now Neu-Ulm was very small with little more than a few houses, taverns, pieces of land, and the village of Offenhausen. In that year, Ulm was split at the Danube between the kingdoms of Württemberg and Bavaria,

In 1841, Ulm became the site of a "federal fortress" ("Bundesfestung") of the new German Confederation which was built for a potential defensive war of the German Confederation against French or Russian aggression. Neu-Ulm was included in the fortress, which never saw a shot fired in anger. The connection to Ulm was maintained by a streetcar line that opened in 1897, and which was later abandoned. There are now talks on both sides of the Danube to extend the Ulm tram network into Neu-Ulm again.

The city was bombed in World War II because of the military presence. The former Wehrmacht barracks were taken over by an American Army garrison after the war, but the Americans left at the end of the Cold War, and the former site of the garrison has been turned into a new quarter. A major development of the 21st century was "Neu-Ulm 21" which changed the layout of the railway infrastructure enabling the redesign of the city center. Unlike the sister projects in Stuttgart or Lindau Neu-Ulm 21 was relatively uncontroversial locally and never attracted nationwide media attention. The Landesgartenschau ("state gardening exhibition") of 2008 was used - as is often the case for such events - to further build on the urban redesign enabled by Neu-Ulm 21. A debate of the 2010s was "Nuxit", the proposal by some politicians in Neu-Ulm to exit the Landkreis and become a self-governing city (as it had been prior to the 1970s) however, despite a lot of heated debate and attempts to hold a referendum on the issue, it was ultimately shot down by the Bavarian ministry of the interior in 2019.

Get in

By train

By car

There are three major road crossings of the Danube from Ulm to Neu-Ulm

  • 🌍 Gänstorbrücke. 
  • 🌍 Herdbrücke. 
  • 🌍 Konrad-Adenauer-Brücke. 

Get around

See

Walk along the river bank to get some great views of Ulm.

  • 🌍 Neu-Ulmer Wasserturm. A water tower built in 1900. It is also connected to the federal fortress. It is built on one of the powder magazines and rises 47 m in height. Today the water tower is the symbol of the city of Neu-Ulm. 
  • 🌍 Saint John the Baptist's church (St. Johann Baptist). A Catholic church built in 1857, and re-built in 1927. It is an important expressionist building. Like many other buildings in the city, it is "connected" to the federal fortress: the bricks and limestone come from the broken parts of the fortress wall. It used to be the church of the local military garrison. 
  • 🌍 Petruskirche (St. Peter's), Memminger Str. at Friedenstraße. The Lutheran church in the centre of Neu-Ulm. It was built in the neo-Gothic style in 1867, and rebuilt in 1971. 
  • Petrusplatz. The square in front of the church, is home to the hotel "Bayerischer Hof" and its beer garden, and modern houses with shops. The square is a very lively place with a weekly market and various events such as the market for handicrafts, pottery market, and festivals. The meridian of the 10th degree of longitude runs through this square, and is marked in the northeast corner by a metal rail in the pavement. (updated Aug 2020)
  • 🌍 Kollmannspark. On the western edge of downtown Neu-Ulm. It is part of a long contiguous green belt, which includes a part of the former fortress. Several water-bound paved footpaths lead through the park with its manicured lawns and large deciduous trees that are now more than a hundred years old. The Kollmannspark can be accessed via Turmstraße, Schützenstraße and the adjacent “Kollmannspark” path. Entry to the park is free and possible at any time of the day or night. 
  • Maxplatz. A public space for art. The sayings were submitted by citizens of Neu-Ulm. The orange-colored benches on the red asphalt with metal lamps in the design of a living room floor lamp invite you to play and linger. (updated Aug 2020)

Do

Buy
  • 🌍 Glacis-Galerie. M-Sa 10:00-20:00. "Glacis" is a term referring to early modern fortress building. 

Eat

Sleep

Learn

Go next
  • Ulm is just across the Danube
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