Bad Gandersheim (; Eastphalian: Ganderssen) is a town in southern Lower Saxony, Germany, located in the district of Northeim. , it had a population of 9,492.
Bad Gandersheim has many half-timbered houses and is located on the German Timber-Frame Road (). The town contains an airport as well.
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When a mineral spring was discovered in 1240, Pope Gregory IX initiated the erection of the Holy Spirit hospital. Around 1330, the Dukes of Brunswick built a castle as a secular counterbalance to the abbey church. This building serves today as the magistrates' court and youth correctional facility.
In the late 19th century, the town began to become known for the curative powers of its mineral springs, and in 1932 Gandersheim received the official right to call itself a spa town, thus Bad Gandersheim, on account of these springs.
In the summer of 1926 there was a three-day "Roswitha Memorial Celebration in 1000-year old Gandersheim". This was the first time the medieval author was used as a symbolic figure for the town. Similar celebrations took place in 1930 and 1933; these had clear national-socialist themes: "German Culture" versus "Jewish-Communist Decadence."
During World War 2, from October 1944 to April 1945, the town was the site of a subcamp of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp that produced aircraft parts.
In 1952, the town celebrated the 1100-year jubilee of the founding of the monastery by Liudolf. A history play, The Song of Gandersheim, was presented in the market square. This was the unofficial prelude to the summer festival Gandersheimer Domfestspiele, which has been presented yearly on the plaza in front of the abbey church since 1959. Since this time, it has established itself as Lower Saxony's largest professional summer theatre festival. In 2006, its four major productions were attended by approximately 55,000 theatre visitors.
In 2004, Klaus Weineck established Weineck Engineering, which produced the Weineck Cobra from 2006-2011. The engineering firm, produced 15 cars before going bankrupt do to lack of orders for the car.
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