Antique map - Düsseldorf 1917

Pharus-Plan of Düsseldorf in 1917 : the former capital of Napoleon's Grand Duchy of Berg, the city of Heinrich Heine and Rheinmetall, four years before the French occupation.

This Pharus-Plan shows Düsseldorf in 1917. At that time, the city was Prussian, in the Rhineland province, on the banks of the river. Today it is the capital of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen), a title given to it in 1946 by the British military government. Its name is the same in French and German.

Düsseldorf's history is closely linked to that of France. In 1806, it became the capital of the Grand Duchy of Berg, a satellite state of Napoleon, ruled first by his brother-in-law Joachim Murat, then by the emperor himself from 1808. Napoleon visited it from November 2 to 5, 1811, and the young Heinrich Heine, then 13 years old, witnessed his entry into the city. And four years after the map, on March 8, 1921, French and Belgian troops occupied Düsseldorf, Duisburg and Ruhrort, the "sanction cities"; Düsseldorf became the French headquarters for the occupation of the Ruhr, and the troops did not leave the city until August 25, 1925.

Places and neighborhoods shown:

• The Hofgarten - Germany's oldest public park, whose older part was landscaped in 1769 by the architect Nicolas de Pigage, between the Jägerhof Palace and the old fortifications. On December 17, 1811, Napoleon signed a "decree of embellishment" which gave the city the ramparts, up to the Rhine, to turn them into gardens. He also gave his name to the Napoleonsberg, a hill in the park, and to a boulevard, the Boulevard Napoléon, renamed Heinrich-Heine-Allee in 1963.
• The Altstadt and Bolkerstraße - in the old town, on the banks of the Rhine, Bolkerstraße is the street where Heine was born on December 13, 1797. The poet, later settled in Paris, died there in 1856 and rests in the Montmartre cemetery.
• The Oberkassel Bridge and the Rhine bank - the metal arch drawn by the map north of the old town is the Oberkassel Bridge, put into service on August 12, 1898. From 1898 to 1902, the bank was advanced into the river (Rheinufervorschiebung).
• Derendorf and Rheinmetall - the Derendorf neighborhood, in the north, has housed since 1889 the factory founded by Heinrich Ehrhardt under the name Rheinische Metallwaaren- und Maschinenfabrik, ancestor of Rheinmetall, which makes Düsseldorf a major center of metallurgy and armaments.
• The stations and electric lines - the map names the Hauptbahnhof, the Derendorf and Bilk stations, and the Haupt-Güterbahnhof, the freight station, as well as several interurban electric railway lines, towards Kaiserswerth and Duisburg, Krefeld and Vohwinkel.
• The neighborhoods - the map names Karlstadt, Friedrichstadt, Pempelfort, Flingern, Oberbilk and Unterbilk, as well as the Volksgarten in the southeast and the Zoologischer Garten in the northeast.

Cartographic reference: this "Pharus-Plan Düsseldorf" belongs to the same series as the plans of Berlin, Aachen, Bremen, Breslau, Koblenz, Cologne, Darmstadt, Dresden and Duisburg from 1917, with the stations in red and the buildings in perspective. The Magdeburgische Zeitung banners frame the map on the sides, and an orange legend indicates the exit routes for cars and bicycles. Orange labels on the edges give the directions to Duisburg and Essen. A grid of letters and numbers allows you to locate each place.

In short: for anyone with ties to Düsseldorf or the Rhineland, interested in Napoleon, Heine or the occupation of the Ruhr, this map shows the city of the emperor and the poet before the French troops of 1921.

What area does this Düsseldorf map cover? It covers Düsseldorf and its surroundings, on the right bank of the Rhine: the old town and the Hofgarten, Karlstadt, Friedrichstadt, Pempelfort, Derendorf, Flingern, Oberbilk and Unterbilk, as well as the stations and the Oberkassel Bridge.

In what year was this map published? This map dates from 1917. It was published by Pharus-Verlag in Berlin.

Reproduction of the "Pharus-Plan Düsseldorf", published in 1917 by Pharus-Verlag in Berlin.

Printed on 200 g/m² textured art paper. Portrait orientation, standard sizes 50x70cm 70x100cm: easy to frame.