If the pastor Paul Fronmüller hadn’t existed, Fürth would probably be a pretty part of Nuremberg today. Together they would be the sixth largest city in the republic, almost on a par with Frankfurt. And roughly where today a sewage treatment plant between Fürth and Nuremberg ensures clean water, Mayor Marcus König would initiate the anniversary celebrations on the occasion of the unification of Nuremberg with the western suburb of Fürth in a late Gründerzeit town hall. Whereby: would King then even be the head of the town hall? Fürth is red, really red. With the votes from Fürth, the CSU man would probably have looked in the tube in the 2020 local elections – and a Social Democrat would be mayor today.
The case of the Oberkirchenrat Paul Adolf Theodor Fronmüller is a good example of how a man – and his helpers – can intervene in the wheels of history. What is often forgotten when people philosophize about the allegedly centuries-old rivalry between the two largest and fundamentally different cities in Middle Franconia: In December 1921, Fürth’s city council had already decided to end its own city – at least as an independent municipality. The councilors racked their brains for about 20 hours before finally deciding on a proposal of Nuremberg provenance with a clear majority. A large Franconian community was to emerge from the two opponents, similar to what was later to happen in Hamburg and Altona: with the refreshingly fair long name Nuremberg-Fürth – and a fictitious new center halfway between. Roughly where the sewage treatment plant is today.
According to the plan, a joint new city center should be created at about the level of the Nuremberg districts of Gostenhof and Eberhardshof.
(Photo: Olaf Przybilla)
Purely in terms of size, this would have brought it closer to the state capital of Munich. But that was probably not the main reason for the desire to merge. At the latest after the First World War, Fürth complained about a disastrous budgetary situation and, in its distress, had taken up a not entirely new idea as a lifeline. The idea of not burdening two separate households with the construction of double structures had already been discussed several times before (especially when planning large new buildings: hospital, port, a slaughterhouse). Finally, in 1921, the time had come: In the future, the left-wing forces in the Fürth city council in particular decided that joint plans could be made instead. Together with the old workers and industrial city of Nuremberg.
If it hadn’t been for Fronmüller. As spokesman for the association for safeguarding the interests of the city of Fürth – “Treu Fürth” for short – the studied theologian threw himself into the ground. After the councilors wanted to secure their vote with a referendum, the city pastor and his family placed advertisements in the newspaper; Leaflets were distributed, poems fighting the merger were written. When the people of Fürth were to decide in January 1922, horse-drawn carriages made their rounds through the city with a clear message: “We are Fürther and we will remain Fürther.” The residents of the city apparently saw it the same way: almost 65 percent voted against the unified community, and the city council resigned as a whole.
The “Treu Fürth” association fought against the merger of Fürth and Nuremberg.
(Photo: Olaf Przybilla)
If there were such a vote today, “90 percent” would speak out against a unified municipality with Nuremberg, suspects Fürth’s mayor Thomas Jung. What may surprise non-Franconians: Schwabach has merged with Nuremberg on its northern edge, Nuremberg on its western edge with Fürth, and Fürth on its northern edge with Erlangen. If these four cities alone were to join forces, the resulting municipality would play in a completely different league in terms of size – as the fifth largest German municipality, it would be right behind the megacities of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne. With a (purely administrative) stroke of the pen, there can hardly be any more talk of “Franconian province”. Mayor Jung still considers the idea out of the question. “The four individual cities are more than the sum of their parts,” the social democrat is certain. And the same applies to the cities of Fürth and Nuremberg – which have long been linked by an underground system.
Accordingly, Fürth is celebrating the anniversary of “Hundred years of referendum” with a special exhibition in the city museum. Its title is a bit unwieldy, but diplomatic: “Fürth and Nuremberg – 100 years of failed unification – 100 years of shared history”. Jung explained that 1922 in Fürth was not intended to be an “anti-Nuremberg year” under any circumstances. What might have been different in the past, as the mayor concedes. Not so long ago, people would have preferred “Leipzig rather than Nuremberg” to have a new university, he says. But those times are over, at least for the most part. At the latest since both cities are part of a “metropolitan region”, people have started to think about common interests. And try to be “big hearted”.
Leaflets campaigned for Fürth to remain independent.
(Photo: Olaf Przybilla)
In the special exhibition (on view until September 11, 2022) you can observe this beautifully. The first division culminated in Pastor Fronmüller’s victory march against the loss of urban identity. The second section – visually opposed to the first – deals with the real existing connections between the two cities, on water, on the ground and underground. In 1967, the Fürth city council decided to continue the Nuremberg subway to the city limits of Fürth – and since then it has been considered the smallest German city with its own subway. Without Nuremberg, of course, there would not be.
Without the vote against the unification, Fürth would probably no longer exist. Because whether the merger name Nuremberg-Fürth would have lasted long given the real proportions can at least be considered questionable. Without activists like Fronmüller, the much smaller Fürth would be more like Zerzabelshof today: a popular district of Nuremberg, just in the west.
Incidentally, Pastor Fronmüller has not become a real icon in Fürth, he is more known to specialists. Which may have something to do with his not exclusively glorious past: he is said to have been no stranger to populism, and he is also said to have made anti-Semitic statements. “Treu Fürth”, on the other hand, made no secret of its basic sympathy with the Nazi regime, and the association dissolved for the first time in 1939. After the war he was revived briefly. But he had no future.