Schwäbisch Hall is a town in the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 state

States of Germany

Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...

 of Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...

 and capital of the district

District

Districts are a type of administrative division, in some countries managed by a local government. They vary greatly in size, spanning entire regions or counties, several municipalities, or subdivisions of municipalities.-Austria:...

 of Schwäbisch Hall

Schwäbisch Hall (district)

Schwäbisch Hall is a district in the north-east of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Neighboring districts are Main-Tauber, the Bavarian district Ansbach, Ostalbkreis, Rems-Murr and Hohenlohe.-History:...

. The town is located in the valley of the river Kocher

Kocher

The Kocher is a 168 km long right tributary of the Neckar in the north-eastern part of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The name "Kocher" originates from its Celtic name "cochan" and probably means winding, meandering river. The Kocher rises in the eastern foothills of the Swabian Alb from two karst...

 in the north-eastern part of Baden-Württemberg.
The first part of the name, "Schwäbisch" refers to the name of the region, Swabia

Swabia

Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany.-Geography:Like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabia's borders are not clearly defined...

. The most probable origin of the second part of the name "Hall" is a west Germanic

Germanic languages

The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...

 word family that means "drying something by heating it", likely referring to the salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

 production method of heating salty groundwater

Groundwater

Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock...

. The salt mine closed in 1925.

Early history

Salt was distilled by the Celts at the site of Schwäbisch Hall as early as the fifth century.
The first time it was mentioned in a forged document called "Öhringer Stiftungsbrief" that dates in the final years of the 11th century. The village probably belonged first to the Counts of Comburg-Rothenburg and went from them to the Imperial house of Hohenstaufen

Hohenstaufen

The House of Hohenstaufen was a dynasty of German kings in the High Middle Ages, lasting from 1138 to 1254. Three of these kings were also crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In 1194 the Hohenstaufens also became Kings of Sicily...

 (ca 1116). It was probably Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa

Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor

Frederick I Barbarossa was a German Holy Roman Emperor. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 March, crowned King of Italy in Pavia in 1155, and finally crowned Roman Emperor by Pope Adrian IV, on 18 June 1155, and two years later in 1157 the term...

 who founded the imperial mint and started the coining of the so-called Heller

Heller (money)

The Heller or Häller was originally a German coin valued at half a pfennig and named after the city of Hall am Kocher...

. Hall flourished through the production of salt and coins. Since 1204 it has been called a town.

After the fall of the house of Hohenstaufen, Hall defended itself successfully against the claims of a noble family in the neighbourhood (the Schenken von Limpurg). The conflict was finally settled in 1280 by King Rudolph I of Habsburg; this allowed the undisturbed development into an Free Imperial City

Free Imperial City

In the Holy Roman Empire, a free imperial city was a city formally ruled by the emperor only — as opposed to the majority of cities in the Empire, which were governed by one of the many princes of the Empire, such as dukes or prince-bishops...

 (Reichsstadt) of the Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...

. Emperor Louis IV the Bavarian

Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor

Louis IV , called the Bavarian, of the house of Wittelsbach, was the King of Germany from 1314, the King of Italy from 1327 and the Holy Roman Emperor from 1328....

 granted a constitution that settled internal conflicts (Erste Zwietracht) in 1340. After this, the city was governed by the inner council (Innerer Rat) which was composed by twelve noblemen, six "middle burghers" and eight craftsmen. The head of the council was the Stättmeister (mayor). A second phase of internal conflicts 1510–12 (Zweite Zwietracht) brought the dominating role of the nobility to an end. The confrontation with the noble families was started by Stättmeister Hermann Büschler, whose daughter Anna Büschler is the subject of a popular book by Harvard professor Steven Ozment

Steven Ozment

Steven E. Ozment is an American historian of early modern and modern Germany, the European family, and the Protestant Reformation....

 ("The Bürgermeister's Daughter: Scandal in a sixteenth-century German town"). The leading role was taken over by a group of families who turned into a new ruling class. Amongst them where the Bonhöffers, the ancestors of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and martyr. He was a participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism and a founding member of the Confessing Church. He was involved in plans by members of the Abwehr to assassinate Adolf Hitler...

.

Middle ages

From the 14th to the 16th centuries, Hall systematically acquired a large territory in the surrounding area, mostly from noble families and the Comburg

Comburg

Comburg was a Benedictine monastery near Schwäbisch Hall in Baden-Württemberg in Germany.It was founded in the late 1070s by the Counts of Comburg-Rothenburg on the site of their castle. They retained the office of Vogt, which continued until their extinction in the Staufer dynasty...

 monastery. The wealth of this era can still be seen in some gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 buildings like St. Michael's Church (rebuilt 1427–1526) with its impressive stairway (1507). The town joined the Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

 very early. Johannes Brenz

Johannes Brenz

Johann Brenz was a German theologian and the Protestant Reformer of the Duchy of Württemberg.-Early Advocacy of the Reformation:...

, a follower of Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

, was made pastor of St. Michael's Church in 1522 and quickly began to reform the church and the school system along Lutheran lines.

Hall suffered severely during the Thirty Years' War

Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....

, though it was never besieged

Siege

A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit". Generally speaking, siege warfare is a form of constant, low intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static...

 or scene of a battle

Battle

Generally, a battle is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. In a battle, each combatant will seek to defeat the others, with defeat determined by the conditions of a military campaign...

. However, it was forced to pay enormous sums to the armies of the various parties, especially to the imperial

Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...

, Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 and French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 troops, who also committed numerous atrocities and plundered the town and the surrounding area. Between 1634 and 1638 every fifth inhabitant died of hunger and diseases, especially from the bubonic plague

Bubonic plague

Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...

. The war left the town an impoverished and economically ruined place. But with the help of reorganizations of salt production and trade and a growing wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

 trade, there was an astonishingly fast recovery.

17th century to early 20th century

Fires were a constant threat to the mostly wooden houses of the town. The great fires of 1680 and especially of 1728 destroyed much of the city, which led to new buildings in the Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 style, such as the city hall.

The Napoleonic wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 brought the history of Hall as a Free Imperial City to an end. Following the Treaty of Lunéville

Treaty of Lunéville

The Treaty of Lunéville was signed on 9 February 1801 between the French Republic and the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, negotiating both on behalf of his own domains and of the Holy Roman Empire...

 (1801), the duke of Württemberg

Württemberg

Württemberg , formerly known as Wirtemberg or Wurtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....

 was allowed by Napoleon to occupy the town and several other minor states as a compensation for territories on the left side of the Rhine that fell to France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. This took place in 1802 — Hall lost its territory and its political independence and became a Oberamtsstadt (seat of an Oberamt, comparable to a county

County

A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...

). Ownership of the salt works was handed over to the state. A long economic crisis during the 19th century forced many citizens to move to other places in Germany or to emigrate overseas, mostly to the USA. While other towns like Heilbronn

Heilbronn

Heilbronn is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is completely surrounded by Heilbronn County and with approximately 123.000 residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state....

 grew steadily due to the Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

, the population of Hall stagnated. The economic situation improved during the second half of the 19th century — a main factor was the railway line to Heilbronn (1862) — but was not followed by a significant growth of the town. It was not until the 1920s and 1930s that new settlements were built on the heights surrounding the old town. Hall also grew through the incorporation of Steinbach (1930) and Hessental (1936).

1827, a health spa was founded on one of the islands in the Kocher river. Especially after the building of the railway (1862) it became a considerable economical factor. The well-preserved old town also brought a rising number of tourists. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Hall has developed many festivities. Especially well known are the theatre productions which are performed every year in the centre of the city on the steps of St. Michael.

Nazi Germany and World War II

In 1934, Hall was officially named Schwäbisch Hall. During the Third Reich a Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe

Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

 air base was built at Hessental. During Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...

 on 9 November 1938, local Nazis burned the synagogue in Steinbach and devastated shops and houses of Jewish citizens. Approximately 40 Jewish citizens of Schwäbisch Hall fell victim to the Holocaust in extermination camps in Eastern Europe. In 1944 a concentration camp was established next to the train station Hall-Hessental. The train station at Hall was targeted by an American air raid on February 23, 1945, but the devastation was mostly limited to the suburbs of St. Katharina and Unterlimpurg. The town was occupied by US Army troops on April 17, 1945 without serious resistance; though several buildings were destroyed or damaged, the historical old town suffered comparatively little.

Post World War II

In 1960, Schwäbisch Hall reached the status of a "Große Kreisstadt." This means that the city took over some tasks of the district.

Demographics

As of December 31, 2009, Schwäbisch Hall has a population of 36,799. The residents of Schwäbisch Hall come from over 100 countries. As of December 31, 2008, there are 18,838 Protestants, 7,375 Roman Catholics and 10,234 who are either in another religion or not religious.

Culture

There is an outdoor summer theater which performs on the open-air staircase at St. Michael's Church and at the Globe Theatre. The Hällisch-Frankische Museum and the Hohenloher Freilandmuseum shows the history of the region starting from the Middle Ages. Schwäbisch Hall and the surrounding area offer a plenty of leisure activities which includes sports flying, swimming, hiking and cycling. Other parts of the city's culture includes Baker's Oven Festival and the Christmas Market which includes traditional handicrafts.

Education

Schwäbisch Hall has a long tradition as a university town.

Schwäbisch Hall offers education opportunities through Vocational schools and vari ous technical schools. Programs are offered in schools such as Schwäbisch Hall Evangelical School of Social Work, Social Service Department of Social Professions, Protestant vocational school for the elderly, School of Alternative Ed ucation Nursing, School of Nursing and the Ayurvedic teaching and training institute, the Institute of Ayurveda and Yoga.

Due to the location of a Goethe-Institut

Goethe-Institut

The Goethe-Institut is a non-profit German cultural institution operational worldwide, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange and relations. The Goethe-Institut also fosters knowledge about Germany by providing information on German...

, Schwäbisch Hall attracts up to 2,000 students from countries around the world every year to study the German language. The programs are especially popular during the summer, as college students attend the program over their break to earn credits and advance their German.

There is The City Archives Hall which is a documentation centre which allows for historical research and memory management. The duties of the City Archives Hall is the ordering, preparing, evaluating and deploying it's archives and collections, care and support historical research, collaborating in exhibitions and publishing their own or other authors authored publications on the history of Schwäbisch Hall.

The archive keeps official records and files of the present city administration and it's predecessor, and collection items of different type and origin, which refers to the city, such as photographs, posters, graphics, paintings, maps and plans, or a newspaper clipping collection. There are also offer extensive library collections in the literature on the history of Schwäbisch Hall and the region, as well as valuable historical prints.

Politics

Hermann-Josef Pelgrim is the current Lord Mayor. The city administration was an early mover in the migration from Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 to GNU

GNU

GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...

/Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 and open source software in the early years of the 21st century.

Next scheduled elections for citizens of Schwäbisch Hall

Election	Timeframe	Length of Term	Source
Mayor	Spring 2013	8 Years
Federal Bundestag The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...	Autumn 2013	4 Years
Ortschaftsrat	Summer 2014	5 Years
Council	Summer 2014	5 Years
District Council	Summer 2014	5 Years
European Parliament	Summer 2014	5 Years
State	Spring 2016	5 Years

Economy

Schwäbisch Hall is the most important regional economic hub between Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

, Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

 and Nuremberg

Nuremberg

Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...

. Formerly, salt was important to Schwäbisch Hall. However, salt isn't as important anymore and Schwäbisch. The economy is currently shaped by a group of medium-sized industrial companies. In the 1970s Schwäbisch Hall expanded when some agricultural villages became part of the municipality. Schwäbisch Hall economy is based mainly on trade and services sectors. Businesses from the property finance, solar energy and telecommunications sectors have their headquarters in Schwäbisch Hall. Today it is known for Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall AG, a housing credit company, founded in 1944, as well as a local centre for service industries.

There are up to 600 overnight stays in Schwäbisch Hall hotels from visitors of Goethe-Institut

Goethe-Institut

The Goethe-Institut is a non-profit German cultural institution operational worldwide, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange and relations. The Goethe-Institut also fosters knowledge about Germany by providing information on German...

 students.

overnight stays		Source
Total	193,213
By foreigners	41,600
Tax rates	Rate	Source
Land tax A	400 v.H.
Land tax B	400 v.H.
Trade tax	280 v.H.
Retail trade		Source
Catchment area	160,000 people
Town SHA	305.1 Mio. Euro
Per capita	8,320 Euro
Purchasing power of town	100.2
Employment stats		Source
People employed and subjected to social insurance	20,563
producing trade	5,188
trade, restaurants and traffic	3,424
service sector	11,951
Incoming commuters	12,119
Outgoing commuters	4,809
Unemployment rate	4.5%

Health

Schwäbisch Hall has a history with brine

Brine

Brine is water, saturated or nearly saturated with salt .Brine is used to preserve vegetables, fruit, fish, and meat, in a process known as brining . Brine is also commonly used to age Halloumi and Feta cheeses, or for pickling foodstuffs, as a means of preserving them...

. The first brine bath started in 1827. Diakonie-Krankenhaus, with 574 beds, is the main hospital in Schwäbisch Hall. There are 100 general practitioners, medical specialists and physiotherapists in Schwäbisch Hall. There are health fairs such as Well-Vital Health Fair and the Haller Gesundheits- und Naturheiltagen in Schwäbisch Hall.

Sports

The sports played in Schwäbisch Hall includes swimming, light athletics, tennis, shooting, soccer, baseball, handball and American football

Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns

The Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns are an American football team from Schwäbisch Hall, Germany.The clubs greatest successes were winning the southern division title in the German Football League in 2009 and 2011, followed up by winning the German Bowl in 2011....

. There are 22 sports halls and 25 outdoor playing fields.

People from Schwäbisch Hall

• Tobias Weis
  Tobias Weis
  Tobias Weis is a German footballer who plays as a midfielder for 1899 Hoffenheim.-Club career:Weis began his career 1990 with SC Bibersfeld and joined after three years in summer 1993 to SF Schwäbisch Hall...
  
   — Footballer for TSG 1899 Hoffenheim.
• Walter Haeussermann
  Walter Haeussermann
  Walter Haeussermann was a German-American aerospace engineer and member of the "von Braun rocket group", both at Peenemünde and later at Marshall Space Flight Center, where he was the director of the guidance and control laboratory...
  
   — German-American aerospace engineer and physicist.

Twin and sister cities

Schwäbisch Hall is twinned

Town twinning

Twin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...

 with:

City	Region	Country	Year
Épinal Épinal Épinal is a commune in northeastern France and the capital of the Vosges department. Inhabitants are known as Spinaliens.-Geography:The commune has a land area of 59.24 km²...	Lorraine (région)	Early Modern France	1964
Loughborough Loughborough Loughborough is a town within the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England. It is the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and is home to Loughborough University...	Kingdom of England	United Kingdom	1966
Lappeenranta Lappeenranta Lappeenranta is a city and municipality that resides on the shore of the lake Saimaa in South-Eastern Finland, about from the Russian border. It belongs to the region of South Karelia. With approximately inhabitants Lappeenranta is the largest city in Finland...	South Karelia South Karelia South Karelia is a region of Finland. It borders to the regions of Kymenlaakso, Southern Savonia, North Karelia and to Russia. The term "South Karelia" might also be used to refer to the southern parts of the entire Karelia — the Region of South Karelia is termed "South" because it is the...	Finland	1985
Neustrelitz Neustrelitz Neustrelitz is a town in the Mecklenburgische Seenplatte district in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is situated on the shore of the Zierker See in the Mecklenburg Lake District. From 1738 until 1918 it was the capital of the duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz...	Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania	Germany	1988
Zamość Zamosc Zamość ukr. Замостя is a town in southeastern Poland with 66,633 inhabitants , situated in the south-western part of Lublin Voivodeship , about from Lublin, from Warsaw and from the border with Ukraine...	Lublin Voivodeship Lublin Voivodeship - Administrative division :Lublin Voivodeship is divided into 24 counties : 4 city counties and 20 land counties. These are further divided into 213 gminas....	Poland	1989
Balıkesir Balikesir Balıkesir is the capital city of Balıkesir Province. Balıkesir is in the Marmara region of Turkey and has a population of 265,747 inhabitants. Old name is Karesi or Karasi.- History :...	Marmara Region	Turkey	2006

External links

• Official website