Goslar

Ore has been mined in the Harz since Roman times, and the settlement on the Gose creek is first recorded in a deed of Emperor Otto II in 979, probably beside an existing royal palace. Its importance grew with the discovery of rich silver deposits at the nearby Rammelsberg. From 1009 Henry II held imperial synods here, and Conrad II laid the foundations of a new imperial palace in 1025. His son Henry III made Goslar his favourite residence, staying about twenty times; his son, the future Henry IV, was born here in 1050, and in 1051 the collegiate church known as the cathedral was consecrated. Henry III's heart was buried in Goslar.

Control of the silver brought conflict. Henry IV's hold on the mines helped provoke the Saxon revolt of 1073–1075, and in 1180 Henry the Lion had the mines devastated. The town received market rights in 1025, had a council by 1219 and joined the Hanseatic League in 1267, trading in Gose beer and later slate and vitriol. From 1527 the dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel seized the mines and edged out the council, though Goslar kept its status as a free imperial city. Swedish troops occupied it from 1632 to 1635.

In 1802 Prussia annexed the town, which passed through the Kingdom of Westphalia to the Kingdom of Hanover; the cathedral was sold and demolished in 1820–1822. Back under Prussia after 1866, Goslar became a garrison town and a favoured place to retire, and the Hohenzollern emperors restored the palace. In the Cold War it was a garrison town near the inner German border. The Rammelsberg closed in 1988 after more than a thousand years, and in 1992 the mine and the old town became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Goslar's identity rests on silver and empire. The old town's timber-framed houses, its guildhalls and its Romanesque churches reflect a medieval prosperity built on the mine, and the restored Kaiserhaus, with its 19th-century murals by Hermann Wislicenus, recalls the emperors who held court here. The Rammelsberg is now a museum of mining history and part of the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

Since 1975 the town has awarded the Goslarer Kaiserring, a prize for modern art whose winners include Henry Moore, Joseph Beuys and Christo; the winner's work is shown at the Mönchehaus Museum. The alternative theatre Kulturkraftwerk Harz occupies a disused power station.

The year's festivals include the Hanseatic Days in spring and the artisans' market in August, and the Advent market fills the old town at the end of the year. A legend tells that the Rammelsberg takes its name from Ramm, a knight of Otto the Great, who tied his horse to a tree while out hunting. Outdoor life matters too: the Harz offers walking, climbing, mountain biking and skiing, and the town's oldest sports club, MTV Goslar, dates from 1849.

Goslar had 50,184 inhabitants at the end of 2020, including Vienenburg — about 50,000 — and is the administrative centre of the district of Goslar. Tourism, services and the town's role as the shopping centre of the northern Harz carry the economy. Department stores, supermarkets, boutiques and restaurants fill the old town, and farmers sell local produce at the weekly market.

The palace and a large hotel serve as conference venues, most notably for the annual German road traffic law conference, the Deutscher Verkehrsgerichtstag, and a private hospital serves the wider Harz region. A park-and-ride system serves commuters to Braunschweig and Hanover.

The boroughs stretch from Oker on the river to Jürgenohl and up to Hahnenklee in the mountains. Life follows the seasons of the Harz: walkers and cyclists in summer, foliage in autumn, the Advent market at the end of the year and skiing in the higher Harz in winter.

Goslar gave its name to Gose, a beer first brewed in the town at some point between 1181 and 1470 and named after the River Gose. It is a warm-fermented beer made with at least half malted wheat, flavoured with coriander and salt, with lactic acid as its main flavour, so it tastes tart, light and strongly carbonated, with little hop bitterness and 4 to 5 per cent alcohol. Because of the coriander and salt it falls outside the German beer purity law, and is allowed as a regional speciality. Gose was later popular for centuries in Leipzig, but its home is here, and trade in it was once important to Goslar.

The other taste of the region is Harzer cheese, a sour-milk cheese from the Harz made from low-fat curd, usually flavoured with caraway. It comes small and round, as Handkäse or Taler, or in cylinders, as Stangenkäse, and the round cheeses are often sold stacked in a roll. Some varieties ripen with a white mould, others with a red one, which generally gives a stronger flavour; Harzer has a distinctive strong smell.

Restaurants cluster around the market square and along the Gose, where one occupies an old mill and another the former guildhall of the cooks, and the weekly market brings in produce from the surrounding farms.