Wiesloch (, locally ; South Franconian: Wissloch) is a town in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated 13 kilometres south of Heidelberg. After Weinheim and Sinsheim, it is the third largest town in the Rhein-Neckar-Kreis. It shares Wiesloch-Walldorf station with its neighbouring town Walldorf. Also in the vicinity of Wiesloch are Dielheim, Malsch (bei Wiesloch), Mühlhausen, Rauenberg and Sankt Leon-Rot.
Wiesloch's population grew to more than 20,000 when the administration of the area was reorganised in the 1970s. Wiesloch became a Große Kreisstadt on 1 January 1973, when Altwiesloch, Baiertal, Frauenweiler and Schatthausen were amalgamated with Wiesloch to form the present municipality.
History
The settlement that is now Wiesloch town centre originated during the expansion of silver mining in the vicinity in the 10th century.
[Ludwig H. Hildebrandt: Mittelalterliche Urkunden über Wiesloch und Walldorf, Ubstadt-Weiher 2001, p 110 ]
Fossil site
The fossil remains of the oldest
hummingbird found to date,
Eurotrochilus inexpectatus, were found in a clay pit at Frauenweiler. This bird lived during the Early
Oligocene (30 mya), when the area had a humid, subtropical climate similar to the northern
Caribbean today.
Emperor Henry IV
In 1077, Emperor Henry IV locked more than 100 of his enemies in the early church at
Wizinloch (as the place was then known) on the site of the present Protestant church (
Stadtkirche) and burnt the building down.
[Ludwig H. Hildebrandt: Mittelalterliche Urkunden über Wiesloch und Walldorf, Ubstadt-Weiher 2001, p 114, no. W20 ] (There is no historical evidence that HRE Henry IV did this. It's either hearsay, or a story conflated with acts perpetrated by other rulers.)
Battles
There were three battles near Wiesloch, the Battle of Mingolsheim on 27 April 1622 (during the Thirty Years' War), the 1632 Battle of Wiesloch on 16 August 1632, (during the same war) and the 1799 Battle of Wiesloch on 3 December 1799 (during the War of the Second Coalition).
Wiesloch was attacked on 28 January 1689 by French troops under Ezéchiel du Mas, Comte de Mélac, during the Nine Years' War, and was almost completely burnt down and destroyed.
Bertha Benz
The city pharmacy in Wiesloch was the first "
filling station" in the world, because
Bertha Benz stopped there on 5 August 1888, on the first long distance car trip, to refill the tank of her
automobile, which her husband
Karl Benz had invented. She was supplied with
ligroin by the
apothecary Willi Ockel.
In 2008, the Bertha Benz Memorial Route was officially designated an industrial heritage route, following Bertha Benz's route on the world's first long-distance journey by automobile. It is a 194 km signposted circuit from Mannheim via Heidelberg and Wiesloch to Pforzheim in the Black Forest, and back.
The Minnesinger von Wissenlo
The
Codex Manesse includes four sophisticated Middle High German
lyrics in the
tagelied genre ascribed to the Minnesinger von Wissenlo (meaning "
minnesang poet from Wiesloch").
[ Nu wol ûf, ritter, ez ist tac! – Die Tagelieder des von Wissenlo booklet accompanying a music CD (same title) by Freiburger Spielleyt, distributed by Verlag der Spielleute. (The booklet includes full texts of the four known lyrics by Von Wissenlo) ][Carl von Kraus: Deutsche Liederdichter des 13. Jahrhunderts, Part I Text, pp 593ff, and Part II Commentary, pp 644ff, Tübingen 1978 ] The identity of the Minnesinger von Wissenlo is not known, but the poet is conjectured to be Heinrich Swendinger von Wissenloch, who lived in the second half of the 13th century.
[ der Minnesänger von Wissenlo on the official civic site for Wiesloch ] An illustration titled
von Wissenlo in the Codex Manesse shows a lady, a child, and a knight, and includes an escutcheon which does not match that of the Von Wissenloch family.
[Karl Zangemeister: Die Wappen, Helmzierden und Standarten der Grossen Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (Manesse-Codex), p. 18, Görlitz 1892; available to download from Heidelberg University Library at http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/Zangemeister1892 ]
There are two statues of the Minnesinger von Wissenlo in Wiesloch town centre: one, by Hatto Zeidler from 1978, is in the square by the united Protestant church ( Stadtkirche) and shows the poet playing the lyre;[ Article about the statue, with photograph, on the official civic site for Wiesloch ] the other, an equestrian statue on a tall column, is part of a group by Karel Fron that was erected in the market square near the town hall in 1988.[ Article about the group, with photographs, on the official civic site for Wiesloch ]
Geography
Wiesloch is situated partly on the southern foothills of the
Odenwald, partly in the
Rhine Valley, and partly in the
Kraichgau.
Five brooks flow through Wiesloch: the Leimbach, the
Gauangelbach, the
Waldangelbach, the Ochsenbach, and the Maisbach.
Economy
MLP AG, a large German broker of
personal finance services, is headquartered at Wiesloch. Wiesloch also hosts the world's largest printing press manufacturing site, operated by Heidelberger Druckmaschinen.
[ Heidelberger Druckmaschinen annual report 2006/2007, p. F-5 ] Other large companies in the close vicinity are
HeidelbergCement, the central
cool store warehouses for the
REWE Group supermarket chain, and the global headquarters of
SAP SE.
"MetropolPark Wiesloch-Walldorf" is the brand name for the commercial and industrial business park surrounding Wiesloch-Walldorf railway station.
Leisure
The open-air
Leimbach Park and Wiesloch Feldbahn and Industrial Museum are in the region surrounding the joint railway station.
Twin towns – sister cities
Wiesloch is
Sister city with:
-
Amarante, Portugal
-
Fontenay-aux-Roses, France
-
Sturgis, United States
-
Ząbkowice Śląskie, Poland
Notable people
-
Karl Hermann Zahn (1865–1940), botanist, studied Hieracium
-
Werner Zahn (1890–1971), bobsledder
-
Erich Schelling (1904–1986), architect, worked in Karlsruhe
-
Rudolf Wild (1904–1995), businessman, founded WILD, a food company
-
Alfred Schön (born 1962), football manager and former player who played over 330 games.
-
Klaus Weese (born 1967), freestyle skier
External links
