Elberfeld

Geschichte

Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929.HistoryThe first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "elverfelde" was in a document of 1161. Etymologically, elver is derived from the old Low German word for "river." (See etymology of the name of the German Elbe River; cf. North Germanic älv.) Therefore, the original meaning of "elverfelde" can be understood as "field on the river." Elverfelde received its town charter in 1610.In 1726 Elias Eller and the pastor Daniel Schleyermacher founded a Philadelphian society. They later moved to Ronsdorf in the Duchy of Berg, becoming the Zionites, a fringe sect.The 1820s saw the commencement of the Plymouth Brethren in Dublin, Ireland. This evangelical religious movement spread to the Continent and emerged in Germany chiefly out of Pietist groups through the work of Julius Anton von Poseck, William Henry Darby and Carl Brockhaus. By the 1850s the resultant group had a focal point in Elberfeld and are known to the present as the Elberfelder Brethren. They have branches throughout Germany and Switzerland and beyond. A translation of the Bible into German was produced by this group and is known as the Elberfelder Bibel''.