THE HISTORY OF FREDERICIA
Fredericia was founded as a totally new town at the middle of the 17th Century. Background were the many wars which harassed Europe in the first part of the 17th Century. Especially the Thirty Years´ War from 1618 till 1648 had been harsh to Europe´s population and countries. Jutland was occupied 1626-1629, 1643-45 and again in 1657-1660.
The Danish King wanted to strengthen the defence of Jutland and one of the means to this end was constructing a new fortress. In the end of the 1640s the commencement began of a completely new town which later got the name of Fredericia. The town was founded as a fortified town in 1650 at a place where it normally didn´t make any sense to place a town. The area was buggy without a natural hinterland. However, as a defensive military position it was a different matter. From this flank position it was both possible for the army to make sorties (attacks) against hostile armies occupying Jutland and defend the Danish islands at the same time. The town was stormed by Swedish troops in 1657 and in 1849 the Danish army made a successful sortie against the besieging Schleswig-Holstein troops. Fredericia therefore has a unique military history which also is central in a national perspective.
The Swedish storm on the city in 1657
The history of Fredericia was characterized by a number of circumstances. The fortification and its garrison together with the town´s status as a religious free town thus became the basic pillars of the existence of the town.
In the 19th Century Fredericia became one of the most important industrial towns in Denmark and only the two Schleswig Wars from 1848-50 and in 1864 stopped this development for a short while. Innumeable enterprises and factories shot up in the town during the 19th and 20th Centuries. Especially industries such as iron and metal, textile and tobacco were significant and marked the industrialization in Fredericia. In the 1860s Fredericia became connected with Vamdrup and Aarhus by railway and during the 20th Century the harbor was enlarged several times. In this way the precondition was created for Fredericia to become an important traffic junction of Denmark.