The Site

The Petrisberg Mountain was named Martinsberg up to the beginning of the 19th century; it was called by the new name only after 1823, named for the owner of a farm located at the extension of the present Sickingen Street. In the Middle Ages and Early Modern Era, the Petrisberg was used primarily as a livestock pasture, as can still be seen in the field names Lämmerwiese (lambs’ meadow) and Geissberg (goats’ hill). Wine growing had been a tradition for centuries on the slopes of Kürenz and Olewig and in the Avel Valley, Brettenbach, and Retzgrube; going back to the 12th century, these areas were on the list of property belonging to the St. Maximin Abbey; and, going back to the 15th century, the Kleeburg farming estate was cultivated somewhat below the present University campus. 

Beginning in the early Middle Ages, chapels or small churches were located on the Kürenz slope below “Franzensknüppchen” (Franz’s Knoll).Towards the end of the 12th century, a Dominican convent was founded in the vicinity which was moved to Trier proper in 1280 under the name of St. Catherine’s Convent; the convent owned large areas of farm and hunting land on the mountain, later run by the above-mentioned Kleeburg farming estate.

Following the secularization in 1802 during the French Revolutionary period, the Petrisberg continued to be used agriculturally in the way described above. After the Nazi government occupied the Rhineland in 1936, that government began to use the facilities for military purposes; by 1938, the Kemmel Barracks had been built and a large portion of the site was used by the military. And it was on this site during WWII that a prisoner of war camp was installed in the barracks, the notorious STALAG XII, housing primarily French prisoners. Directly after the war, the barracks was used as an internment camp for German civilian prisoners. 
In the period following, the entire complex was taken over by the French military and was expanded to become the military base Belvédère with its own infrastructure of hospital, sports facilities, etc. After the French withdrew in the mid-1990s, the site was again available for civilian purposes.