In addition, fighting at Nijmegen cost hundreds of civilian lives, and caused significant damage to many buildings in the city.

The River Waal at Nijmegen was an important natural barrier, which was not overarched until by the Railway Bridge, and in by the Road Bridge, commonly known as the Waal Bridge.

At the time, the Waal Bridge was a remarkable feat of engineering: it was the longest tied-arch bridge in Europe.

On 10 May , during the German invasion of the Netherlands , the Waal Bridge had been demolished by Dutch military engineers to prevent a rapid advance of the Wehrmacht.

On 22 February , the Allied Bombing of Nijmegen took place. Its intended target of opportunity was the railway station area which the Germans used for weapons transport , but because the attack was carelessly executed, most bombs dropped on residential buildings in the city centre, killing about civilians.

Their efforts failed, however, and may have even been counterproductive. On the eve of Market Garden, most Nijmegeners were passionately awaiting Allied liberation, despite the bombardment.

That liberation seemed to come soon when in late August Heeresgruppe B collapsed in Normandy and made a rushed, chaotic retreat to Germany, leaving the Allies to capture Northern France and Belgium in a matter of days.

This gave rise to a euphoric ambiance throughout the Netherlands on the next day, later known as Mad Tuesday , when one exaggerated rumour after another fed the hope that liberation would occur in a matter of hours.

However, the German forces managed to regroup, and would not be driven out of the Netherlands without a fight. British general Montgomery then designed the ambitious plan Market Garden, to surprise the Germans by the deployment of airborne forces.

These would quickly seize several crucial bridges across major rivers, after which the heavy armour could advance straight through the Netherlands, along Eindhoven , Nijmegen and Arnhem, and reach the Ruhr , where a vital part of Germany's war industry was located.

The airborne landings were given the codename "Market," and the ground force operation was given codename "Garden.

The airborne drop would secure the bridges that were vulnerable to being blown up by the Germans and protect the invasion route.

The operation may have been sufficient to finish the war before the end of The success of Market Garden depended on the timely and intact capture of a number of bridges in the southeastern Netherlands by American, British, Polish and Canadian airborne forces.

These were to clear the way, Highway 69 or later nicknamed " Hell's Highway "— from Belgium to the north Nether Rhine bank for the advance of the heavily armed British XXX Corps supported by the Guards Armoured Division , consisting of dozens of Sherman tanks and artillery.

If this firepower could be moved across all major Dutch rivers in time, Germany might be defeated and the war ended before The 82nd's main body and the th PIR would land north and south of Grave to capture the first 5 bridges, while the th and th PIRs would jump at Groesbeek to secure the vital Groesbeek Heights to block any German counterattacks from the Klever Reichswald , [14] to advance towards Nijmegen and lastly to occupy the Waal Bridge.

On 17 September at , Companies D, E and F of the th PIR placed under the 82nd Division for the operation were dropped near the Grave Bridge, which was seized and defended successfully against German counterattacks after a two to three hour firefight.

The 82nd Division's own website states:. After long waiting, the American soldiers decided to march on. Several blocks before the Keizer Karelplein, a platoon came under fire by a German machine gun, which, however, was soon taken out.

On the square, a major firefight broke out: German soldiers shot at the paratroopers from the square's centre and the houses surrounding it.

They relinquished the Keizer Karelplein, and tried a more eastern route, systematically cleaning up every German guard post underway, and almost reaching the bridge.

The Allies' greatest fear was that the Germans would blow up the Road Bridge, which would render Market Garden a failure.

Indeed, the Germans had already installed explosives on the bridge, ready to be detonated when that would be deemed necessary, but this never happened during the entire battle.

Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model , commander of the German forces in the Netherlands, counted on an Allied defeat at Arnhem.

This meant the bridge could still be of use for a large-scale counteroffensive, and so it was not destroyed on 17 September.

However, when he was arrested and executed by the Germans the next day, he was soon heroised as the "Saviour of the Waal Bridge". An official investigation after the war concluded the Germans would have had enough time to charge the bridge with explosives once more and demolish it anyway; however, they again did not do so out of strategic considerations.

Because elements of the British 1st Airborne Division were still in control of the Arnhem bridge at the time, [24] the 1. Fallschirmjäger Oberst Henke prepared the Railway Bridge's defences.

The two roundabouts and beltway were reinforced during the next 48 hours. The Americans would have to wait for the XXX Corps' help in taking the bridges, even though according to the planning, they should have been captured before the British arrival.

The binational force was split in two groups: the western group would take the Railway Bridge, and the eastern group the Road Bridge.

The arrival of the British gave Gavin the necessary sense of security to send some of his troops from the Groesbeek Heights to join the assault.

At , the Anglo-American combat forces moved into town, resulting in a heavy firefight at the Keizer Lodewijkplein.

The British tanks and armour exchanged fire with the German anti-tank cannons and infantry entrenched at the Valkhof fortress, while the American paratroopers fortified themselves in residential buildings on the square's south side.

The Dutch organization for investigating wartime atrocities, the NIOD , announced in January that its study [ citation needed ] of the incident confirmed that it was an accident caused by poor communications and chaos in the airspace.

Over people died in the bombardment. During September , the city saw heavy fighting during Operation Market Garden. The objective of the Battle of Nijmegen was mainly to prevent the Germans from destroying the bridges.

The bridge was heavily defended by over German troops on both the north and south sides with close to 20 anti-tank guns and two anti-aircraft guns , supported with artillery.

The Germans' late attempt to blow the road bridge was possibly foiled by a local Dutch resistance hero, Jan van Hoof , who is said to have cut the wires to the bridge.

The Germans made repeated attacks on the bridge using bombs attached to driftwood, midget submarines and later resorted to shelling the bridge with 88mm barrages.

Troops [ clarification needed German or Allied? Troops that couldn't fit onto the bridge were positioned in a bombed-out house slightly upstream of the bridge.

During the shelling, the house was hit, killing six soldiers and wounding one more. The city would later be used as a springboard for Operation Veritable , the invasion across the Rhine River by Allied Troops.

On 23 February , the Nijmegen police department and the Dutch Army stormed the Piersonstraat and Zeigelhof, a squatters housing block in the city centre of Nijmegen.

Using riot vans, three Leopard 1s , three armoured personnel carriers , a helicopter, 1, policemen, and members of the armed forces , they evicted the squatters and demolished the block, while clouding the entire area in teargas and CS gas.

This received enormous backlash in local politics. While the city government wanted the squatters out to build a parking garage, most of the population wanted affordable housing to be built in the area.

As of this date, Nijmegen is still called " Havana on the Waal " among some right-wingers. The city council was largely dominated by left-wing and progressive parties such as Green Party , Democrats 66 , Socialist Party , and Labour.

At times Nijmegen has been the only major city in the Netherlands with a solely left-wing government. Nijmegen celebrated its th year of existence in It is considered the oldest city in the Netherlands.

In gaining this qualification, it has competed with the city of Maastricht. Marcel T. Nijmegen has an oceanic climate Cfb.

It is one of the warmest cities of the Netherlands, especially during summer, when the highest temperatures in the country are usually measured in the triangle Roermond—Nijmegen—Eindhoven.

The lack of north—south oriented mountain ranges in Europe make this area prone to sudden shifts in weather, giving the region a semi-continental climate.

Some of the northernmost wineries in the world are found just outside Nijmegen, around Groesbeek , a suburban village south-east of Nijmegen.

During the European heat wave , closest official weather station Volkel reached a high of The heat wave coincided with that year's Four Day Marches, which were cancelled after the first day, when two people died of hyperthermia -related causes.

Few Roman remains are visible today; a fragment of the old city wall can be seen near the casino and the foundations of the amphitheatre are traced in the paving of the present-day Rembrandtstraat.

The Valkhof Museum , on the Valkhof, has a permanent display of the history of Nijmegen, including artifacts from the Roman era. Additionally, they usually have temporary exhibitions of more and less famous artists.

Not many very old buildings are left in town: first the Americans carpet-bombed it in February , later the Germans shelled it for about five months after the liberation in September , and finally there were a number of vigorous city planners in the s, 60s and 70s who finished the demolition.

There are still a few noteworthy sights, however. Valkhof hill downtown features a Carolingian chapel eighth, ninth century AD and a small remainder of an imperial castle that was demolished in The city council has 39 seats.

After the municipal elections, the three major parties, GroenLinks 9 seats , PvdA 8 seats and SP 6 seats formed a coalition. Because these are all left-wing parties, Nijmegen received the nickname ' Havana on the Waal'.

Although such majorities are not exceptional compare Amsterdam and sometimes also form coalitions see Muntendam , this is unusual for a city this size.

Since such a left-wing coalition might be possible at a national level after the general election, the achievements of this council are often scrutinised.

After the municipal election such a coalition became possible in many more municipalities, making the example even more interesting. However, nationally these parties scored much better, recovering from an electoral blow of the elections.

Then again, the Leefbaar parties that caused the loss then and lost most of their votes this time have no branch in Nijmegen, which makes this comparison less valid.

Among the three big parties, there was a shift from GroenLinks, who lost 6. As a result, it is no longer the biggest party.

The seat assignment is now as shown in the table. The three-party coalition was returned to office. After the Dutch municipal election, the PvdA lost three of its eleven seats.

Short before the elections, there were problems with the SP. The municipal elections of 19 March saw the Socialist Party narrowly becoming the largest party in the Nijmegen city council after gaining three more seats.

The Greens were only some votes behind, while the Liberal Democrats D'66 gained another seat, while Labour lost half their support, becoming as small as the liberal-conservative VVD.

The former leader of the group, Hayke Veldman, had gone to the House of Representatives, and thus left the city council.

Eigenhuijsen had been second on the party list, but he was not elected to the position of leader. Thereafter, he left the group and started his own one-man group, called Liberal Nijmegen.

Nijmegen is twinned with:. Nijmegen has long been known for its annual Four Days Marches , beginning on the third Tuesday of each July.

In , prominent liberal theologians in the Roman Catholic Church issued what is now known as the Nijmegen Statement , demanding sweeping reforms in the Vatican's Holy Office, previously known as The Inquisition, and calling for greater scope for theological inquiry.

Among its signatories was the then-progressive theologian Fr. Joseph Ratzinger , then a member of the faculty at the University of Tübingen , but later a much more conservative figure as the head of the successor to the Holy Office , the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , and later still Pope Benedict XVI.

The Nijmegen Statement said: "Any form of Inquisition however subtle, not only harms the development of sound theology, it also causes irreparable damage to the credibility of the church".

The signatories, a group of predominantly German-speaking theologians asserted that "the freedom of theologians, and theology in the service of the church, regained by Vatican II , must not be jeopardised again.

Sport in the city is principally focused on its football club N. Met onze winkel in hartje Nijmegen staan wij garant voor persoonlijke bediening, veel kennis van zaken en een zeer uitgebreide collectie.

Wij zijn gespecialiseerd in de betere merk- en pasvorm schoenen voor dames. Breedte maten of eigen steunzolen zijn voor ons geen enkel probleem.

Onze zeer uitgebreide collectie geschikt voor uw eigen steun zolen bestaat uit merken als Durea, Finn Comfort, Waldläufer, Wolky, Lerora en Xsensible.

U bent ook bij ons aan het goede adres voor een prachtige tas van het merk Suri Frey. Van het zeer bekende en super comfortabele merk Wolky hebben wij de alleenverkoop voor Nijmegen en bieden u hierin dan ook de totale collectie.

Een nieuwe ontwikkeling is dat wij naast onze bestaande Wolky shop-in-shop nu tevens een Gabor shop-in-shop hebben. Gabor is een divers merk dat aansluit bij de huidige trends en zich onderscheid in pasvorm.