Birkenfeld () is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

in the Enz district, in

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, 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 i ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It is situated in the Northern Black Forest, 6 km southwest of

Pforzheim Pforzheim () is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city of over 125,000 inhabitants in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, in the southwest of Germany. It is known for its jewelry and watch-making industry, and as such has gained the ...

. The town is located on the top plain, the area extends down to the river Enz valley. Birkenfeld has a stop on route S6 of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn, which operates over the '' Enztalbahn'' railway.

Geography

Birkenfeld is located about from

in the Enz river valley at an elevation of to meters above sea level ( NHN). Birkenfeld borders Pforzeim and the

Enzkreis Enzkreis is a ''Landkreis'' (district) in the northwest of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from west clockwise) Karlsruhe, Heilbronn, Ludwigsburg, Böblingen and Calw. The district-free Pforzheim area in the south is ne ...

municipalities of Keltern, Straubenhardt, Neuenbürg and Engelsbrand. The former municipality of Gräfenhausen falls within Birkenfeld, therefore placing the villages Gräfenhausen and Obernhausen within Birkenfeld.

History

The earliest known history in Birkenfeld is to be found in grave finds in a

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

settlement in the municipality dated to 400 BC. Around 100 AD, the area came under the control of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

and a Roman estate was built nearby. Birkenfeld was inhabited from 500 AD by the

Alemanni The Alemanni or Alamanni were a confederation of Germanic peoples, Germanic tribes * * * on the Upper Rhine River during the first millennium. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Roman emperor Caracalla of 213 CE ...

and then the

Franks file:Frankish arms.JPG, Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty The Franks ( or ; ; ) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine river, Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which wa ...

. Birkenfeld is first mentioned in a 1302 document. Twenty years it came under the control of the County of Württemberg, at which time a mill was documented for the first time. The first school in the village was constructed in 1566. Though not destroyed during the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

, Birkenfeld was still plundered. When the

Kingdom of Württemberg The Kingdom of Württemberg ( ) was a German state that existed from 1806 to 1918, located within the area that is now Baden-Württemberg. The kingdom was a continuation of the Electorate of Württemberg, which existed from 1803 to 1806. Geogr ...

reorganized its in 1810, the township was placed under Neuenbürg. Birkenfeld was connected to the traffic of

when the Royal Württemberg State Railways opened the Enz Valley Railway in 1836. Its first industrial enterprise, a branch of Neuenbürg's scythe factory, opened in 1856. The district reform of 1938 under the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

placed Birkenfeld under the administration of Calw District. It then became part of the with the defeat of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. Two years later, it was assigned to the state of Württemberg-Hohenzollern which then joined the state of

with the formation of

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

in 1952. Birkenfeld became part of

with the .

Economy

Stratec Biomedical Systems has their headquarters in Birkenfeld, as well as ''Müller Group'' slaughterhouses.

Citations

References

* * {{Authority control Enzkreis