Bad Wimpfen

Well, after all, Wimpfen is not bad. Our group visited the city on our way home from our trip to Würzburg and had an excellent lunch at an Italian restaurant.

Here is the story. What was called Wimpfen from 1200 to 1930 became a spa in 1937; therefore, the city placed "Bad" before its name.

Spa is a Wallonian city in the Liège province, Belgium; its name is an eponym for mineral baths with supposed curative properties.

Red Baron lived through a similar story when he accompanied his father on his first trip to the States in 1957. Both were exhausted from pavement treading in New York City, so we wanted to refresh ourselves at the hotel bar.

My father ordered Coca-Cola. The barkeeper poured some brown sirup into our glasses and then filled them with ice and sparkling water from a tap connected to a hose. My father, who had expected bottled Coke, asked what he was doing. The short answer was, "Vichy." So water from the French town of Vichy was the eponym in the States for sparkling water at that time?

Coming back to Wimpfen. It was indeed "bad" when, at the beginning of the Thirty Years War, the Imperial and, therefore, Catholic Commander Generalissimo Tilly inflicted a crushing defeat on the Protestant Duke George Frederic von Baden-Durlach in the Battle of Wimpfen in May 1622. As we learned, in September of the same year, Tilly took the Imperial city of Rothenburg.

The battle near Wimpfen was one of the most important and bloodiest of the Thirty Years' War.

©Rudolf Landauer

The Altenberg redoubt, which can still be seen in the aerial photograph, is a relic of that time.

The donjon, the western boundary of the former Hohenstaufen imperial palace,
towers above the city, surpassing the steeple of the town church.        

We approached Wimpfen's upper part from the valley.

Wimpfen's town hall (click to enlarge)

Wimpfen's strange recent history caught my attention. It was a free imperial city until 1802. Then, with the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss (the Imperial Recess of 1803), Wimpfen lost its status and became a Hessian enclave in Baden territory. Since 1952, Wimpfen has belonged administratively to Baden-Württemberg, but it seems the final word has not been spoken.

A historic place

Former inn "Zum Rappen." General Tilly's quarters before the Battle of Wimpfen in 1622.

Before lunch, our group visited the Evangelische Stadtkirche (Protestant town church) ...

... where we listened to an organ concert. Johann Adam Ehrlich built the organ with Rococo ornaments in 1747, and it has remained unchanged since.

Before our group met for the journey home, I photographed the mighty donjon while standing on the site of the former imperial palace.

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