Rottweil (; Alemannic: ''Rautweil'') is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an o ...

in southwest Germany in the state of

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

. Rottweil was a

free imperial city In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (german: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (', la, urbs imperialis libera), was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that ...

for nearly 600 years. Located between the

Black Forest The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is ...

and the Swabian Alps, Rottweil has nearly 25,000 inhabitants as of 2020. The town is famous for its

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

center and for its traditional carnival (called "

Fasnet The Swabian-Alemannic Fastnacht, Fasnacht (in Switzerland) or Fasnat/Faschnat (in Vorarlberg) is the pre-Lenten carnival in Alemannic folklore in Switzerland, southern Germany, Alsace and Vorarlberg. Etymology Popular etymology often links ...

" in the local

Swabian Swabian or Schwabian, or ''variation'', may refer to: * the German region of Swabia (German: "''Schwaben''") * Swabian German, a dialect spoken in Baden-Württemberg in south-west Germany and adjoining areas (German:"''Schwäbisch''") * Danube S ...

dialect). It is the oldest town in Baden-Württemberg, and its appearance has changed very little since the 16th century. The town gives its name to the

Rottweiler The Rottweiler (, ) is a breed of domestic dog, regarded as medium-to-large or large. The dogs were known in German as , meaning Rottweil butchers' dogs, because their main use was to herd livestock and pull carts laden with butchered meat ...

dog breed.

History

Rottweil was founded by the Romans in AD 73 as Arae Flaviae and became a ''

municipium In ancient Rome, the Latin term (pl. ) referred to a town or city. Etymologically, the was a social contract among ("duty holders"), or citizens of the town. The duties () were a communal obligation assumed by the in exchange for the priv ...

'', but there are traces of human settlement going back to 2000 BC. Roman baths and an Orpheus mosaic of c. AD 180 date from the time of Roman settlement. The present town became a ducal and a royal court before 771 and in 1268 it became a

. In 1463 Rottweil joined the Swiss Confederacy under the pretence of a temporary alliance. In 1476 the Rottweilers fought on the Swiss side against Charles the Bold in the Battle of Morat. In 1512, Pope Julius II gave the city a valuable "Julius banner" for its services in the 1508–1510 "Great Pavier Campaign" to expel the French. In 1519, the Rottweilers left the old Swiss alliance. They joined a new one in which their membership was extended indefinitely – the so-called "Eternal Covenant". Rottweil thus became a centre of the Swiss Confederation. The relations between the Swiss Confederation and Rottweil cooled rapidly during the Protestant Reformation. When Rottweil was troubled by wars, however, it still asked the Confederates for help. In the Rottweil Witch Hunts from 1546 to 1661, 266 so-called witches, wizards and magicians were executed in the imperial city of Rottweil. On April 15, 2015, they were given a posthumous pardon. An official apology was given by the City Council about 400 years after their violent deaths. Rottweil lost both its status as free city and its alliance with the Swiss Confederacy with the conquest of the region by

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...

in 1803.

Lord mayors since the 19th century

* 1820–1833: Max Joseph von Khuon, Schultheiß * 1833–1845: Max Teufel * 1845–1848: Karl Dinkelmann * 1848–1851: Kaspar Rapp * 1852–1887: Johann Baptist Marx * 1887–1923: Edwin Glückher * 1924–1943: Josef Abrell * 1943–1944: Otto Mann * 1944–1945: Paul Fritz * 1945–1946: Franz Mederle * 1946–1965: Arnulf Gutknecht * 1965–1985: Ulrich Regelmann, mayor; from 1970 Lord Mayor * 1985–2001: Michael Arnold * 2001–2009: Thomas Engeser * 2009–present: Ralf Broß

Economy

During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, Rottweil used to be a flourishing

imperial city In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (german: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (', la, urbs imperialis libera), was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that ...

with great economic and cultural influence. In 1868, Rottweil was connected to

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the Sw ...

by rail, which boosted the economy of the region. Today, most companies in Rottweil are either small or medium sized. A trading and shopping town with a high level of

innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed enti ...

that benefits from its well developed educational and transport infrastructure, Rottweil has many industrial companies and a steadily growing proportion of knowledge-intensive service jobs. At 7.9%, Rottweil has one of the highest academic rates in the region.

Media

Local events in Rottweil are reported in the daily newspaper ''

Schwarzwälder Bote ''Schwarzwälder Bote'', also known as ''Schwabo'', is a German regional daily newspaper for the Black Forest and Upper Neckar region. ''Schwabo'' operates a network of 15 branches, three service points, and 18 local editorial offices. The m ...

'', the ''Stadtanzeiger'', online and once a week in the print edition ', the TV station ' and the local radio station ', which is based in the district.

Notable former companies

* Moker * * Peter-Uhren * Rhodia * * Brauerei Pflug

Infrastructure

Road traffic

By car, Rottweil can be reached via the

Bundesautobahn 81 is a motorway in Germany. It branches off the A 3 at the Würzburg-West triangle and ends near the border with Switzerland. The oldest part of the A 81 between the Weinsberg intersection ( A 6) near Heilbronn and Dreieck Leonbe ...

- Singen, exit Rottweil. The city lies on the Bundesautobahn 27 between Schaffhausen and Stuttgart, on the

Bundesautobahn 14 is an autobahn in eastern Germany. The route comprises two disconnected sections: * The old A 241. A North-South route in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern which runs from Wismar to Schwerin. * The original A 14. A West-East route which start ...

, which runs from Stockach on

Lake Constance Lake Constance (german: Bodensee, ) refers to three bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Lak ...

via

Tuttlingen Tuttlingen ( Alemannic: ''Duttlinga'') is a town in Baden-Württemberg, capital of the district Tuttlingen. Nendingen, ''Möhringen'' and ''Eßlingen'' are three former municipalities that belong to Tuttlingen. Tuttlingen is located in Swabia ea ...

to Rottweil and on via Horb am Neckar to Stuttgart, and on the

Bundesstraße 462 The Bundesstraße 462 (B 462) is a German ''Bundesstraße'' or federal road. It runs from the Upper Rhine Plain near Rastatt for about through the northern Black Forest to Rottweil. The section from Rastatt to Freudenstadt, which runs through the ...

from Rottweil through the

to Freudenstadt and Rastatt.

Bicycle traffic

Rottweil is located on the along the Neckar River via

Horb Horb am Neckar is a town in the southwest of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river, between Offenburg to the west (about away) and Tübingen to the east (about away). It has around 25,000 inhabitants, of wh ...

, Tübingen, Stuttgart,

Heilbronn Heilbronn () is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany, surrounded by Heilbronn District. With over 126,000 residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. From the late Middle Ages, it developed into an important trading centre. A ...

and

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German: ') is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914, of which roughly a quarter consisted of students ...

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's ...

Air traffic

Aerial image of the Rottweil-Zepfenhan airfield

In the neighboring village of Zepfenhan, about away, is the (Rottweil-Zepfenhan airfield), which can be approached by small aircraft. The nearest commercial airports are

Stuttgart Airport Stuttgart Airport (German: ''Flughafen Stuttgart'', formerly ''Flughafen Stuttgart-Echterdingen'') is the international airport of Stuttgart, the capital of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is christened in honor of Stuttgart's for ...

and

Zurich Airport Zürich Airport (), french: Aéroport de Zurich, it, Aeroporto di Zurigo, rm, Eroport da Turitg is the largest international airport of Switzerland and the principal hub of Swiss International Air Lines. It serves Zürich, Switzerland's l ...

Education

Rottweil has three Gymnasien (''Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium'', ''Droste-Hülshoff-Gymnasium'', ''Leibniz-Gymnasium''), one Realschule, one Förderschule (''Achert-Schule''), three Grundschulen (''Eichendorff-Grundschule'', ''Grundschule Neufra'' and ''Grundschule Neukirch''), and four Hauptschulen (''GHS Göllsdorf'', ''Johanniter-Grund- und Hauptschule'', ''Konrad-Witz-Grund- und Hauptschule'' and ''Römer-Grund- und Hauptschule'').

Main sights

* The late- Romanesque and

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

–era ''Münster Heiliges Kreuz'' ("Minster of the Holy Cross"), built over a pre-existing church from 1270. It features a

crucifix A crucifix (from Latin ''cruci fixus'' meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the ''corpus'' (La ...

by Veit Stoss and noteworthy Gothic sculptures. * ''Kapellenkirche'' (1330–1340), a Gothic church with a tower and with three statue-decorated portals * ''Lorenzkapelle'' ("Church of St. Lawrence", 16th century) in late Gothic style. It houses some two hundred works by Swabian masters and Gothic altarpieces from the 14th and 15th centuries. * The town's museum, including a notable Roman mosaic with the legend of

Orpheus Orpheus (; Ancient Greek: Ὀρφεύς, classical pronunciation: ; french: Orphée) is a Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet in ancient Greek religion. He was also a renowned poet and, according to the legend, travelled with J ...

* The late-Gothic town hall (1521) * St. Pelagius, a Romanesque church from the 12th century. Excavations have brought to light Roman baths on the same site. * Dominican Museum of Rottweil – local branch of the Landesmuseum Württemberg * As of 2015,

ThyssenKrupp ThyssenKrupp AG (, ; stylized as thyssenkrupp) is a German industrial engineering and steel production multinational conglomerate. It is the result of the 1999 merger of Thyssen AG and Krupp and has its operational headquarters in Duisburg a ...

was constructing a $45 million, tower, the

Rottweil Test Tower The TK Elevator Test Tower (TK-Elevator-Testturm) is an elevator test tower in Rottweil, Germany. It is owned by TK Elevator, who have their elevator research campus nearby. It stands tall and was built to test the company's MULTI elevator syst ...

. The tower is a research facility for the company and is to be used to test new elevator cars and technologies. When the tower was completed in 2017, it was the tallest elevator test tower in the world. The windowless building is to have 12 elevator shafts.

Twin towns – sister cities

Rottweil is twinned with: *

L'Aquila L'Aquila ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in central Italy. It is the capital city of both the Abruzzo region and of the Province of L'Aquila. , it has a population of 70,967 inhabitants. Laid out within medieval walls on a hill in the wide valle ...

, Italy * Brugg, Switzerland * Hyères, France *

Imst Imst (; Southern Bavarian: ''Imscht'') is a town in the Austrian federal state of Tyrol. It lies on the River Inn in western Tyrol, some west of Innsbruck and at an altitude of above sea level. With a current population (2013) of 9,552, I ...

, Austria

Notable people

Konrad Witz Konrad Witz (1400/1410 probably in Rottweil, Germany – winter 1445/spring 1446 in Basel, in current day Switzerland) was a German painter, active mainly in Basel. His 1444 panel '' The Miraculous Draft of Fishes'' (a portion of a lost altarpiec ...

(1400/10–1445/46), painter * Adam of Rottweil, 15th-century scholar and printer *

Franz Xavier Wernz Franz Xavier Wernz SJ (December 4, 1842 – August 19, 1914) was the twenty-fifth Superior General of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit order). He was born in Rottweil, Württemberg (afterwards part of Germany). Life Wernz was the first of ...

(1842–1914),

Superior General of the Society of Jesus The superior general of the Society of Jesus is the leader of the Society of Jesus, the Catholic religious order also known as the Jesuits. He is generally addressed as Father General. The position sometimes carries the nickname of the Black Po ...

Erwin Teufel Erwin Teufel (born 4 September 1939, in Zimmern ob Rottweil) is a German politician of the CDU. Political career Teufel was the leader of the CDU parliamentary group in the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg from 1978 to 1991. Teufel was Minister ...

(born 1939), politician ( CDU), former minister president of Baden-Württemberg * Rüdiger Safranski (born 1945), writer and literary scholar * Matthias Hölle (born 1951), opera bass * Anne Haigis (born 1955), musician and singer *

Wolfgang Stryi Wolfgang Stryi (4 March 1957 – 22 February 2005) was a German composer, bass and double bass clarinetist, tenor saxophone player and a permanent member of the Ensemble Modern. Life and career Stryi was born in Rottweil. For twenty-four years, ...

(1957–2005), jazz musician *

Andreas Schwab Andreas Schwab (born 9 April 1973) is a German politician and member of the European Parliament for Germany. He is a member of the Christian Democratic Union, part of the European People's Party. Since 2009, he has been Of Counsel with CMS ...

(born 1973), politician (CDU) and member of the European Parliament *

Johannes Erath Johannes Erath (born 1975) is a German opera director. Career Erath was born in 1975 in Rottweil. First he studied violin with Rainer Küchl at der University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna and with Hansheinz Schneeberger in Freiburg. H ...

(born 1975), opera director * Christoph Burkard (born 1983), Paralympic swimmer * Maximiliane Rall (born 1993), footballer *

Joshua Kimmich Joshua Walter Kimmich (; born 8 February 1995) is a German professional footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder or right-back for club Bayern Munich and the Germany national team. Known for his complete playstyle, versatility, aggression ...

(born 1995), footballer

Trivia

* The

dog breed is named after this town; it used to be a butcher's dog in the region. * "Das Mädchen aus Rottweil" is a song by the German band Die Toten Hosen.

Gallery

Rottweil 20.jpg Germany Rottweil Münster Heiliges Kreuz.jpg, Depiction of St. Veronica's sudarium over the portal of the Minster of the Holy Cross Rottweiler Denkmal in Rottweil.JPG, A statue for Rottweiler dogs in Rottweil Rottweiler Fassnacht.JPG, Rottweiler "

" TyssenKrupp Test Tower, Rottweil.jpg,

Rottweil station, ThyssenKrupp Test Tower (2018).jpg,

Rottweil station Rottweil (; Alemannic: ''Rautweil'') is a town in southwest Germany in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Rottweil was a free imperial city for nearly 600 years. Located between the Black Forest and the Swabian Alps, Rottweil has nearly 25,00 ...

with ThyssenKrupp Test Tower in the background

Notes

References

External links

*
Feast of Fools: Medieval Carnival Celebrations in RottweilHistory and territory of the former Reichsstadt RottweilPictures of and stories about Rottweil
{{Authority control Towns in Baden-Württemberg Rottweil (district) Associates of the Old Swiss Confederacy Former states and territories of Baden-Württemberg Germania Superior Free imperial cities Former republics States and territories established in 1140 States and territories disestablished in 1802 Populated places on the Neckar basin Populated riverside places in Germany Württemberg