Wetzlar () is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany. It is the twelfth largest city in Hesse with currently 55,371 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019 (including second homes). As an important cultural, industrial and commercial centre, the university town is one of the ten regional centres in the state of Hesse. A former free imperial city, it gained much of its fame as the seat of the Imperial Supreme Court (Reichskammergericht) of the Holy Roman Empire. Located 51 kilometres north of Frankfurt, at 8° 30′ E, 50° 34′ N, Wetzlar straddles the river Lahn and is on the German Timber-Frame Road, which passes mile upon mile of half-timbered houses. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Lahn-Dill-Kreis on the north edge of the Taunus. Tourists know the city for its ancient town and its medieval Catholic/Protestant shared cathedral of St. Mary. Notable architectural features include the Eisenmarkt and the steep gradients and tightly packed street layout of a medieval town. The building of the sandstone cathedral commenced in the 12th century in Romanesque style. In the later Middle Ages the construction continued under a master plan in Gothic style. The church was never finished—one steeple still remains uncompleted. The cathedral suffered heavy damage in the Second World War from aerial bombing, but restoration took place in the 1950s. On the outskirts of town along the river stand the ruins of several stone towers.
The town hosted the Hessentag state festival twice (the 15th and the 52nd in 1975 and 2012 respectively).
Geography
Wetzlar lies in the Lahn-Dill area in Middle Hesse on the river Lahn, not far downstream from where it changes direction from south to west in the heights near the mouth of the Dill. The town lies at a point that divides the low Hessian mountain ranges: south of the Lahn lies the Taunus; north of the Lahn and west of the Dill the Westerwald begins; north of the Lahn and east of the Dill the Rothaargebirge begin. The highest point within town limits is the Stoppelberg at 401 m above sea level.
Wetzlar's neighbouring towns and cities are Gießen (up the Lahn from centre to centre about 12 km), Koblenz down the Lahn, Limburg an der Lahn to the west, Siegen to the northwest, Dillenburg to the north, Marburg to the northeast and Frankfurt am Main to the south.
Wetzlar and Gießen are the two cores of this small (about 200,000 inhabitants) urban agglomeration in Middle Hesse. Along the valleys of the Lahn (east and west) and Dill (north) are heavily built-up neighbouring communities, whose built-up areas in some places merge with Wetzlar's. The low mountain ranges around Wetzlar to the northwest, northeast and south, on the other hand, are heavily wooded and very thinly populated.
Neighbouring communities Wetzlar borders in the northwest on the town of Aßlar (Lahn-Dill-Kreis), to the north and northeast on the communities of Hohenahr (Lahn-Dill-Kreis) and Biebertal (Gießen district), to the east on the communities of Lahnau (Lahn-Dill-Kreis) and Heuchelheim and the town of Gießen (both in Gießen district), to the south on the communities of Hüttenberg and Schöffengrund and to the west on the town of Solms (all in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis).
Constituent communities
The core area of Wetzlar with 30,684 inhabitants is divided into twelve boroughs (Stadtbezirke): Altstadt, Neustadt, Hauser Berg, Büblingshausen, Sturzkopf, Stoppelberger Hohl, Nauborner Straße, Silhöfer Aue/Westend, Altenberger Strasse, Dalheim, Dillfeld and Niedergirmes. Niedergirmes is with over 6,000 inhabitants the largest municipality.Stadt Wetzlar: Der Stadtbezirk Niedergirmes
Furthermore, there are 8 districts (Stadtteile) outside the core area. Five of them have long since been swallowed up in Wetzlar's main built-up area. All, however, became part of Wetzlar with the dissolution of the city of Lahn in 1979, excluding Blasbach, Dutenhofen and Münchholzhausen which have long belonged to the city. These are east of the core towns of Naunheim (3882), Garbenheim (2080), Münchholzhausen (2420) and Dutenhofen (3152). Nauborn (3721) is located south of the core area and Steindorf (1704) follows on from the west central area. North of the core area are Blasbach (994) and Hermannstein (3588) (population in brackets, as of 31 December 2007).
Climate Wetzlar has a year-round temperate seasonal climate of the middle latitudes. Between the different elevations there are different small climatic conditions. The daily mean temperature in summer is about and in winter about . The average rainfall is , slightly below the German national average. On the high ground to the south and north of the Lahn valley there is a rainfall of which is exactly the national average.Umweltatlas Hessen. In: Hessisches Landesamt für Umwelt und Geologie, 2005. The wettest months are June and December, with and , the driest month is February with .
Geology Wetzlar lies on the eastern edge of the Rhenish Massif. The substrate consists of geologically young sediments of the Lahn and much older Devonian and Carboniferous rocks of the two main geological units of the massif, the Lahnmulde and the so-called Giessen nappe. The northwestern part of the urban area lies on the Lahntal silt, sand and gravel, which have only slightly hardened. They were deposited by the River Lahn, at a point where its valley (which is still up to one kilometre wide) to the west becomes increasingly narrow and deep. The main part of the city is built on in part intensively folded, faulted and slated layers of shales, sandstone, quartzite and limestone. They were deposited in the Devonian and Carboniferous periods in a sea characterised by island chains, volcanoes and atolls that were pushed together and covered by a layer of rock that had been transported from another location during the period of mountain building known as the Variscan orogeny.Walter, Roland et al.: Geologie von Mitteleuropa. 5. Auflage, Schweizerbarth’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 1992, . The marine sedimentary rocks which resulted from this tectonic action now give the town its character as they were often used for building material.
Demography Wetzlar had on 31 December 2005 a municipal census for the city of 52,741 inhabitants (of which 21,946 are male and 24,313 female), 31,022 of which came from the core city (Kernstadt) and 21,719 in the 8 districts. Thus Wetzlar it the eleventh largest city in Hesse. The proportion of foreigners is 11.6% (6371 inhabitants), these are spread over 103 nations.wetzlar.de Stadtporträt, Bevölkerungsstatistik, Nationalitätenstatistik The unemployment rate in the district of the employment agency without the offices of Dillenburg and Wetzlar Biedenkopf (which includes the city of Wetzlar, and 12 surrounding municipalities) was in July 2009 6.9%, which corresponds to 5698 unemployed.Agentur für Arbeit Wetzlar, 2009.
History The town's founding date is not known. There were "Bandkeramiker" settlements right on the western town limits, partly from 5,000 years BC.
Iron ore extraction and smelting in and around Wetzlar has been documented as early as the Celtic La Tène period. Iron processing has a tradition of around 2500 years there. There were also pit fields for copper, silver and gold in and around Wetzlar, albeit much later.
In the proximity of Wetzlar there are also a few Roman remains, which were constructed during the reign of the emperor Augustus (reigned 27 BC – 14 AD). There was a military camp at Dorlar and some Roman roadwork. The most important finding however is an uncompleted city (Waldgirmes Forum), which has been excavated since 1993. After their defeat in the battle of the Teutoburg Forest the Romans abandoned the area and withdrew to the Rhine border.
The name "Wetzlar" had come into being most likely by the 3rd century to the 8th century. The last syllable "―lar" suggests that the town was in existence by the 3rd century. The ending may be Celtic or Frankish (in the latter case, most likely referring to wooden defences around the town). The Conradine Gebhard, Count in the Wetterau, and as of 904 Duke of Lorraine, had a Church of the Saviour consecrated in 897, which replaced earlier structures. In the early 10th century came the founding of the Marienstift (monastery).
Free Imperial City
At some unknown time, Wetzlar was granted market rights, and thereby, the right to levy market dues. Within a year, a market community came into being. The monastery's forerunners were surely part of the crystallization point at which believers, traders and craftsmen met, above all on holidays.
The Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (r. 1152–1190) created a Reichsvogtei (roughly "Imperial Bailiwick"), and in 1180 put Wetzlar's citizens on the same level as Frankfurt's. Wetzlar became a Free Imperial City and kept this distinction until 1803. For the town's protection, and to secure the Wetterau as an Imperial Province, he expanded high above Wetzlar the Imperial Castle (Reichsburg), which had most likely already stood in one form or another before then. The origin of the name "Reichsburg Kalsmunt" is not quite clear. The following explanation cannot be ruled out: Kals- = Karls and munt ≈ vassal, that is, a liege of the Frankish court. Thus it would seem to be a case of a building work from Charlemagne's time ("Charlemagne" is "Karl der Große" – "Charles the Great" (740s–814) – in German). Imperial coinage was struck at Kalsmunt. The commercial road, which crossed the Lahn at Wetzlar, the town's iron production, to which the Iron Market (forum ferri) still bears witness, the wool weaving mill and tanning seemed a good basis on which to develop the town further.
In 1285 the "false emperor" Dietrich Holzschuh, called Tile Kolup, who claimed to be Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (who actually had already died in Italy in 1250) came to Wetzlar. When the rightful king, Rudolph I (r. 1273–1291), heard of this and came to Wetzlar, the city leaders seized Tile Kolup and handed him over. He was sentenced as a warlock, a heretic and a blasphemer to a fiery death, which he suffered the next day in Wetzlar at the stake.
Until 1250, most of the town fortifications, whose remains can still be seen today, were complete. By the middle of the 14th century, it is reckoned, the town's population was 6,000, making it by the standards of the time a "city". About 1350, the high point of the town's development in the Middle Ages was reached.
Decades-long feuds with the Counts of Solms, who were trying to make Wetzlar into a Solms-domain city, threatened the vital commercial road. The Emperor supported the town, albeit vainly. The city plunged into debt and in 1387 it fell under forced administration; however, it was incorporated into the Swabian League of Towns. The town's decline led by the end of the Thirty Years' War to a drop in population, to 1,500.
In 1689, the Holy Roman Empire's highest court, the Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber Court), was moved from Speyer to Wetzlar after Speyer had been devastated by the French in the War of the Palatinate Succession. Besides Vienna (residence of the Emperor) and Regensburg (seat of the Imperial Diet) Wetzlar thus gained a central function within the Holy Roman Empire and although it remained a tiny town it was regarded as one of its capitals. The court became the town's main employer; at the Empire's dissolution in 1806, it had a staff of about 150 including 20 judges, while a further 750 derived their income from it.Peter H. Wilson, "Bolstering the Prestige of the Habsburgs: The End of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806", The International History Review, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Dec. 2006), p. 732.