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Suhl () is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located SW of Erfurt, NE of Würzburg and N of Nuremberg. With its 37,000 inhabitants, it is the smallest of the six urban districts within Thuringia. Together with its northern neighbour-town Zella-Mehlis, Suhl forms the largest urban area in the Thuringian Forest with a population of 46,000. The region around Suhl is marked by up to 1,000-meter-high mountains, including Thuringia's highest peak, the Großer Beerberg (983 m), approximately NE of the city centre.
Suhl was first mentioned in 1318 and stayed a small mining and metalworking town, until industrialization broke through in late 19th century and Suhl became a centre of Germany's arms production, specialized on rifles and guns with companies such as Sauer & Sohn. Furthermore, the engineering industry was based in Suhl with Simson, a famous car and moped producer. In 1952, Suhl became one of East Germany's 14 district capitals, which led to a government-directed period of urban growth and conversion. Its results – a typical 1960s concrete architecture-marked city centre – are defining to the present. With the loss of its administrative and industrial functions, Suhl saw a lasting period of urban decline starting in 1990.
Suhl is known for its sportsmen, especially in shooting, winter sports, and volleyball.
The Reformation was introduced in 1544. Several witch-hunts took place in the area from 1553 until the late 17th century. When the Henneberg counts became extinct in 1583, Suhl passed to the Wettin electors of Saxony, where it remained until 1815. Unlike most of present Thuringia, it didn't belong to the Ernestine line of the Wettins, but to the Albertine cadet branch of Saxe-Zeitz from 1660, so that it had been a Saxonian and later Prussian exclave within Thuringia for nearly 300 years.
During the 16th century, iron mining and metalworking saw a boom, finished by the Thirty Years' War, when marauding Croat mercenaries under Imperial general Johann Ludwig Hektor von Isolani burnt down the city in 1634. From about 1690, Duke Moritz Wilhelm of Saxe-Zeitz supported the reconstruction of Suhl as a mining town.
The later 19th century brought the connection to the railway in 1882 and the industrialisation of the metalworking business. About 1920, Suhl has been a centre of left-wing revolutionary groups, so that the Reichswehr occupied the city (and the neighbour-town Zella-Mehlis) during the Kapp Putsch and ended the workers uprising. After 1935, the military industry saw another boom, caused by the Nazi armament. About 10,000 forced labourers had to work in the city's arms industry after 1940.
The US Army reached Suhl on 3 April 1945 and was replaced by Soviet troops on 1 July 1945. At the same year, Suhl became part of Thuringia, which was replaced by three Bezirks in 1952. Suhl became the capital of the south-western Bezirk Suhl, reaching from Bad Salzungen in the north-west to Sonneberg in the south-east with a population of 550,000. During the GDR period, the upgraded city saw rapid urban growth, which is defining until today.
After the German reunification in 1990, Suhl lost its administrative functions when Thuringia was refounded and replaced the Bezirks. Furthermore, the industry collapsed. Both led to a structural crises, which isn't overcome yet. The population of Suhl declined about 35% since 1988.
Other prominent firearms manufacturers in Suhl included:
During the Cold War, the East Germany national Shooting sports arena was located at Suhl, and hosted many top-level competitions, including the 1986 ISSF World Championships. Although surpassed in this respect in the unified Germany by the Olympic Games shooting centre at Munich, Suhl remains an important place to the sport. It hosts Germany's only school for armorers, and a well equipped museum of weapons.
Suhl sits on the southern edge of the Suhler Scholle, an upthrust granite complex that is streaked by numerous dikes. This is part of the Ruhla-Schleusingen Horst that defines the southwest side of the Thuringian Forest. The southwest side of the Suhler Scholle abuts horizontal sedimentary layers, Buntsandstein (sandstone from the Triassic period) over Zechstein (evaporite deposits from the Permian period). The granite of the Suhler Scholle is capped with Permian sediments and igneous deposits. The higher hills to the northeast are part of the Beerberg Scholle, an irregularly cracked mass of quartz porphyry from the later Permian period. geo.uni-jena.de/geophysik
A band of follows the fault dividing the Suhler Scholle from the sedimentary rocks to the southwest, while the copper and silver deposits are to the northeast in the Permian deposits above the Suhler Scholle. Southeast of town, there is a significant uranium deposit in the Buntsandstein.
Some villages were incorporated during the 20th and 21st century to form the present-day districts of Suhl:
| { class="wikitable" ! style="background:#EFEFEF;" | Year ! style="background:#EFEFEF;" | Population |
| 1,255 | ||
| 4,486 | ||
| 5,189 | ||
| 6,060 | ||
| 5,598 | ||
| 5,922 | ||
| 7,150 | ||
| 8,127 | ||
| 10,512 | ||
| 10,004 | ||
| 10,602 | ||
| 11,533 | ||
| 11,900 | ||
| 13,000 | ||
| 13,814 | ||
| 14,468 | ||
| 14,820 | ||
| valign="top" |
| 14,639 |
| 14,742 |
| 15,579 |
| 15,477 |
| 25,530 |
| 25,084 |
| 24,598 |
| 24,020 |
| 25,215 |
| 25,497 |
| 28,190 |
| 31,661 |
| 37,771 |
| 49,849 |
| 54,392 |
| 56,345 |
| 54,731 |
| valign="top" |
| 53,591 |
| 50,182 |
| 49,206 |
| 48,025 |
| 46,765 |
| 45,569 |
| 44,529 |
| 43,652 |
| 42,689 |
| 41,861 |
| 41,015 |
| 40,173 |
| 39,526 |
| 38,776 |
| 38,219 |
| 35,967 |
| 35,665 |
| valign="top" |
| 36,208 |
| 36,778 |
| 35,892 |
The area around Suhl was settled during the later Middle Ages, nevertheless, Suhl stayed a village resp. small town of 1,000 to 2,000 inhabitants during this period. The growth of proto-industrial manufacturing businesses in 17th and 18th century led to a first increase of population up to 6,000 around 1800. During the following decades, the industrial revolution in other German regions led to an economic crisis in Suhl, because of the bad traffic conditions for exporting products. Nevertheless, the population grew further to 10,000 in the 1880s, as the city got finally connected to the railway. Compared to other upcoming cities in Germany, the growth of population stayed slight until 1935, as Suhl counted 15,000 inhabitants. Then, the arm production for World War II brought an economic boom to Suhl and a growth of population up to 26,000 in 1940, which stayed the same until the early 1960s. Between 1960 and 1988, the population grew up to 56,000, forced by the government's expansion of Suhl as a capital of one of the 14 Bezirks in GDR. After the reunification in 1990, the city lost its administrative and economic functions, which led to an extreme decline in population. It shrank to 48,000 in 2000 and 36,000 in 2012. With a decline of more than 35% since 1988, Suhl is among the heaviest shrinking cities in Germany.
The average decrease of population between 2009 and 2012 was approximately 1.68% p. a, which is faster than in bordering rural regions. Suburbanization played only a small role in Suhl. It occurred after the reunification for a short time in the 1990s, but most of the suburban areas were situated within the administrative city borders. During the 1990s and the 2000s, many inhabitants left Suhl to search a better life in west Germany or other major east German cities like Erfurt, Jena or Leipzig. The birth deficit, caused by the high average age of the population, is becoming a bigger problem because there is no immigration to compensate it yet. Urban planning activities to tear down unused flats led to a relatively low vacancy rate of 8% (according to 2011 EU census), compared with a loss in population of more than 35% since 1988.
The birth deficit was 207 in 2012, this is −5.8 per 1,000 inhabitants (Thuringian average: −4.5; national average: −2.4). The net migration rate was −11.5 per 1,000 inhabitants in 2012 (Thuringian average: −0.8; national average: +4.6).According to Thüringer Landesamt für Statistik The most important target regions of Suhl migrants are other Thuringian regions like Erfurt, Jena and Eisenach same as the western German conurbations.
Like other eastern German cities, Suhl has only a small amount of foreign population: around 1.5% are non-Germans by citizenship and overall 3.9% are migrants (according to 2011 EU census). Differing from the national average, the biggest groups of migrants in Suhl are Russians and Vietnamese people. During recent years, the economic situation of the city improved: the unemployment rate declined from 16% in 2006 to 7% in 2013, which is one of the lowest rates among Thuringia's major cities. Due to the official atheism in former East Germany, most of the population is non-religious. 12.6% are members of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany and 2.5% are Catholics (according to 2011 EU census).
! colspan=2| Candidate ! Party ! Votes ! % |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| André Knapp | align=left| Christian Democratic Union | 13,572 | 82.1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Steffen Hartwig | align=left| The Left | 2,958 | 17.9 |- ! colspan=3| Valid votes ! 16,530 ! 95.8 |- ! colspan=3| Invalid votes ! 726 ! 4.2 |- ! colspan=3| Total ! 17,256 ! 100.0 |- ! colspan=3| Electorate/voter turnout ! 30,226 ! 57.1 |- | colspan=5| Source: Wahlen in Thüringen |}
The most recent city council election was held on 26 May 2024, and the results were as follows:
! colspan=2| Party ! Lead candidate ! Votes ! % ! +/- ! Seats ! +/- |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Christian Democratic Union (CDU) | align=left| André Knapp | 18,541 | 37.2 | 7.7 | 13 | 2 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alternative for Germany (AfD) | align=left| Henry Kraus | 11,825 | 23.8 | 11.7 | 9 | 5 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Free Voters (FW) | align=left| Jens Triebel | 5,717 | 11.5 | 7.8 | 4 | 3 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| The Left (Die Linke) | align=left| Philipp Weltzien | 5,352 | 10.8 | 7.5 | 4 | 3 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Social Democratic Party (SPD) | align=left| Annette Nagel | 3,014 | 6.1 | 5.8 | 2 | 2 |- | | align=left| Citizens for Suhl (BfS) | align=left| Michael Brüßler | 2,357 | 4.7 | New | 2 | New |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alliance 90/The Greens (Grüne) | align=left| Bernhard Hofmeier | 1,810 | 3.6 | 2.1 | 1 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Free Democratic Party (FDP) | align=left| Andreas Schmidt | 1,161 | 2.3 | 1.0 | 1 | 0 |- ! colspan=3| Valid votes ! 49,777 ! 100.0 ! ! ! |- ! colspan=3| Invalid balltos ! 539 ! 3.1 ! ! ! |- ! colspan=3| Total ballots ! 17,339 ! 100.0 ! ! 36 ! ±0 |- ! colspan=3| Electorate/voter turnout ! 30,226 ! 57.4 ! 2.7 ! ! |- | colspan=8| Source: Wahlen in Thüringen |}
Suhl's industry has always been based on metalworking. In the past, the city was a leading arms producer in Germany and the vehicle production was another pillar of the local industry. After the reunification in 1990, the industry collapsed and the most factories got closed. Important companies of today are CDA, a producer of data replication media, Zimbo, a meat producer, Gramss, an industrial bakery, Paragon, a car parts supplier, and Merkel, the last remained arms producer in Suhl. In 2012, there were 27 companies in industrial production with more than 20 workers employing 2,000 persons and generating a turnover of €295 million.
Services in Suhl are including the typical regional supply (like retail, hospital, cinema etc.) and some preserved administrative functions over the surrounding districts like the Industrie- und Handelskammer and the regional centres of Arbeitsagentur and Rentenversicherung. Furthermore, tourism plays a role because of the beautiful landscape around. In 2012, there were 93,000 hotel guests having 245,000 overnight stays in Suhl.
Suhl is situated at the junction of Bundesautobahn 71 (Erfurt–Würzburg) and Bundesautobahn 73 (Suhl–Nuremberg). Both got opened during the 2000s and host some impressive bridges and tunnels around Suhl, like the Rennsteig Tunnel in the north and the 82 m high Haseltalbrücke at Heinrichs district. A Bundesstraße through Suhl was the Bundesstraße 247 from Gotha in the north to Schleusingen in the south. It was annulled after the opening of both Autobahns and is now a secondary road. Other important secondary roads run to Meiningen in the west and Ilmenau in the east.
Biking is getting more and more popular since the construction of quality cycle tracks began in the 1990s. For tourism serve the Hasel track from Suhl to the Werra valley near Meiningen. Furthermore, there are some mountainbiking tracks within the Thuringian Forest.
Public transport is carried out by a bus line network connecting the city centre with the outskirts, Zella-Mehlis and neighbouring villages. A trolleybus system was planned during the late 1980s, but not realized after the reunification.
===Image gallery===
In October 2024 the city council voted to turn down a request from the Ukrainian city of
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