Buchen


Buchen is a town in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is situated in the Odenwald low mountain range, 23 km northeast of the regional center Mosbach.
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Geography

Buchen is situated on the seam between the south-eastern Odenwald and the Bauland area, along the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes. It lies geographically in the triangle formed by the cities of Mannheim, Würzburg and Heilbronn. The precincts of the municipality lie in the Natural Park of the Neckar Valley and the Odenwald and in the Bergstraße-Odenwald Nature Park, at an altitude of between 250 and 500 metres.

Structure of the city

The municipality of Buchen consists of 14 city areas: Bödigheim, Buchen-City, Eberstadt, Einbach, Götzingen, Hainstadt, Hettigenbeuern, Hettingen, Hollerbach, Oberneudorf, Rinschheim, Stürzenhardt, Unterneudorf and Waldhausen. The city areas cover the same areas that were occupied by the former townships with the same names, with the exception of the city area called Buchen-Stadt which is officially designated 'Buchen -.... The city areas are, at the same time, subdivided into 13 residential districts in terms of the arrangement of municipalities in Baden-Württemberg, whereby the city areas of Buchen-Stadt and Hollerbach are joined together into one residential district. With the exception of the city area of Buchen-Stadt, all city areas contain towns in terms of the Baden-Württemberg arrangement of municipalities, each having its own town council and provost.
To the city area of Bödigheim belong the village of Bödigheim, the farms of Faustenhof, Griechelternhöfe, Rosshof and Sechelseehöfe and the Sägmühle House. To the city area of Buchen-Stadt belongs the town of Buchen. To the city areas of Eberstadt, Götzingen, Hettigenbeuern, Hettingen, Hollerbach, Oberneudorf und Stürzenhardt belong all the villages of the same names. To the city area of Einbach belongs the village of Einbach and the farmstead of Einbacher Mühle. To the city area of Hainstadt belong the village of Hainstadt and the land covered by the Hainstadt train station. To the city area Unterneudorf belong the village of Unterneudorf and the house Unterneudorfer Mühle. To the city area of Waldhausen belong the village of Waldhausen the farmstead Gehöft Glashof.
In the city area of Eberstadt lie the deserted medieval towns of Klarenhof and Reinstadt and in the city area of Götzingen the deserted towns of Rönningen and Buklingen.

History

In Roman times, a wall known as the Limes Germanicus was built in the area as a fortification. Many stretches of this wall are still visible today.
Buchen was first mentioned in the Lorscher Codex, the deeds of the Lorsch Monastery, where it appears as Buchheim, and makes a number of donations to the monastery in the year 773. The location was already populated in prehistoric and in Roman times and in Carolingian times it was under the influence of the Amorbach Monastery, the Reeves of which, the Lords of Dürn, held the rights of jurisdiction over Buchen. In the second half of the 13th Century Buchen was given the right to call itself a city. On the fall of the Lords of Dürn, Buchen was sold in 1303/1309 to the Archbishop of Mainz and remained his territory for 500 years. In 1346 Buchen formed the Federation of Nine Towns along with Amorbach, Aschaffenburg, Dieburg, Külsheim, Miltenberg, Seligenstadt, Tauberbischofsheim and Walldürn.
In 1382 the Elector Ruprecht I. failed in an attempt, to break the town during a battle with the Mainz Electorate. The already formidable medieval town fortifications were again strengthened in about 1490 and now even enclosed the western suburbs. During the course of the town's expansion in 1492 the so-called Wartturm on the Wartberg was built higher, and in the same year the so-called Steinerne Bau or ‘Stony Building’ took its place as the seat of the Official belonging to the Electorate of Mainz. The town had early importance as a market town. Alongside the four great Yearly Markets were especially the Yarn, Cloth and Horse Markets as well as the ‘Weekly Market, held every Monday.
During the Peasants' Revolt in 1525 Götz von Berlichingen was forced to become the leader of the Peasant mob in the courtyard of the Steineres Haus ‘the Stony House’. After the defeat of the Peasants the Nine City Federation of the provincial administration was in fact dissolved, and Buchen lost its right to self-government.
In the Thirty Years War the place was now conquered by the Swedes. These had to yield, however, about 1634 royal troops. On this occasion a great fire broke out in the town, in which 153 houses were sacrificed. The church, the Parsonage, the Upper Mill, the Hausener Court and probably the castle was also destroyed here. Further sacrifices had to be suffered with the arrival of famines and epidemics. Out of 215 citizens and 16 Jews only 29 citizens, 5 widows und 26 houses survived. The fields were poisoned.
In 1688 French troops laid siege to the town. When lightning struck in 1717, a catastrophic fire started in the centre of town, with about half of the buildings in the old town falling victim to the conflagration, including the old Town Hall and the Catholic church.
In 1803, after the dissolution of the electorate of Mainz and as a result of decisions made by national deputies, Buchen was assigned to the Principality of Leiningen, which had been resettled on the orders of Napoleon. In 1806 it was then transferred to the Grand Duchy of Baden. In 1815, three of the city towers were torn down and only the western gate was retained. The Baden Revolution of 1848/49 also found support in Buchen, and some of its citizens burned the records of the Leiningen rent offices. Despite the failure of the revolution, the citizens retained some of the rights they had fought for.
Buchen was already the seat of a district office in the Prince Elector Era of Mainz. This position as centre of administrative power kept the city under the rule by Leining and Baden. In 1938 the Bezirk administration of Buchen became the Landkreis of Buchen.
Eventually leading to the Final Solution all across Germany, on November 9–10, 1938 the Kristallnacht, or November Pogrom, also resulted in synagogues in Buchen and Bödigheim being ransacked, looted and desecrated. After being deported to concentration camps, the 34 inhabitants of Jewish faith who had been living in Buchen as of the 1933 census, at least 13 were killed. The former common cemetery in Bödigheim still bears witness to the earlier life of the Jewish community in the close-knit, surrounding area, which was otherwise predominantly Catholic or Lutheran.
During the course of the district reforms in 1973, the county seat of Buchen was dissolved and the city was incorporated into the Neckar Odenwald District.

Incorporation of new areas

Thirteen new localities were incorporated into Buchen as a result of the municipality reforms up to 1975: Stürzenhardt in 1971; Unterneudorf in 1972; Oberneudorf, Bödigheim, Waldhausen and Einbach in 1973; Götzingen, Hainstadt, Hettigenbeuern, Hettingen and Rinschheim in 1974; and, finally, Eberstadt and Hollerbach in 1975. In 1986 the 'Home Days' for Baden-Württemberg took place for the first time.

Politics

The Municipal Council

The local elections of the 13th of June 2004 produced the following results:

Mayor

Since February 2006 Roland Burger has been the mayor of the city of Buchen. He had previously been the mayor of the city of Osterburken. The former mayor of Buchen became a county commissioner for the NOK in Mosbach.

The coat of arms

The blazon of the Buchen municipal coat of arms is as follows: Argent (silver), two branches flanking a beech tree growing from the center of a trimount, vert (green), with a leaning shield, gules (red), placed against the trunk, upon which a six-spoked Wheel of Mainz, argent, is placed.

Economy and infrastructure

Ideally located halfway between the Neckar and Main rivers, Buchen enjoys a favorable geographic location which has allowed it to develop infrastructure and transport connections conducive to production, retail and commercial businesses, the skilled trades and service providers while attracting a highly skilled workforce to the region.
The District Hospital in Buchen serves the whole area, and there are also a number of senior citizens’ assisted living centers. Buchen offered one of the first housing facilities in Germany based on the assisted living concept.

Transport

Buchen can be reached via Bundesautobahn 81, Adelsheim/Osterburken exit, the main road or from the Tauberbischofsheim exit, Bundesstrasse 27 and also via the A6 by taking the Sinsheim, B292 and B27 exit.
The Buchen railway station is on the rail line connecting Seckach and Miltenberg, which has a further stop at Buchen Ost. Railway services are run by the Westfrankenbahn. Bus service between smaller towns and villages is operated by the Rhein-Neckar-Verkehr GmbH, which has an extensive network of light rail, tram and bus routes in Mannheim, Heidelberg and Ludwigshafen and the greater region.
Stuttgart Airport and Frankfurt (am Main) Airport are both about 100 km away. The closest airport, for aircraft with a MTOW of 5.7 tons or less, is the Walldürn Airfield. The nearest inland port is Wertheim am Main.

Authorities, courts and public establishments

Buchen is the seat of a local court, which belongs to the court circuit of Mosbach. Furthermore, in Buchen-Hainstadt is the headquarters of the regional office of the Archbishopric of Freiburg for the region of Odenwald-Tauber, to which belong the Deanery of Mosbach-Buchen and the home of the Bishop of Tauber.

Educational institutions

Buchen has a wide variety of schools, as a result of which many students commute daily to the former county town. There is a technical vocational school, with a high school for those who want to specialize in engineering or information technology; a high school for general education; a technical school for social education; a home economics school; as well as several secondary modern schools, junior schools, primary schools and special schools.

Media

Media in Buchen include:Fränkische Nachrichten, published in Buchen/Walldürn with Buchen editorial departmentRhein-Neckar-Zeitung, published as Nordbadische Nachrichten with local editorial department and printshop n Buchen
Buchen has a correspondent's office of South-West Broadcasting and since 1951 there has been a transmitter for the company in the north-west of the city, in Walldürner Straße. Until 1993, the first station of South-West Broadcasting was being broadcast over this transmitter on the middle-wave frequency 1485 kHz, although support for the antenna was a unharnessed, steel-framed mast that served as a self-beaming mast fed from the nadir and insulated against earthing. In 1993, the medium-wave service was tweaked and the VHF antenna on its tip was expanded. As a result, it was not only increased in height but also made to cover a greater area. Since there were no more plans to receive the medium wave transmissions, the guy wires of the uppermost level were not provided with isolators.

Culture and sights

Buchen lies on the Siegfriedstraße, a scenic 300-km tourist route originating in Worms, also called the featuring many worthwhile sights.

Theatres

  • Productions of the Baden Regional Theatre
  • The ‘Buchen in concert’ subscription concert series brings leading concert artists to Buchen, from soloists to quartets and symphonies, to perform attractive programming, including one cabaret evening each year

Museums and cultural institutions

  • The Regional Museum of Buchen
  • The Culture Forum Vis-à-Vis.
  • The City Library
  • The Adult Education Centre
  • The City Joseph Martin-Kraus Music School
  • The City Home Library ‘Between the Neckar and the Main“
  • The Library of Judaism
  • The Hermann Cohen Academy for Religion, Science and Art
  • The International Joseph Martin Kraus Society
  • The memorial marking the former synagogue
  • The City Archives
  • The commemorative plaque for the victims of fascism in the old Jewish cemetery, with the names of eight Jewish victims of the Holocaust from Kleineichholzheim
  • A memorial plaque at number 35 Vorstadtstrasse, commemorating the destruction of the synagogue during the Nazi regimeFaschenachtsmuseum – a small display of carnival characters and memorabilia in the Guildhall of the Faschenachtsgesellschaft Narrhalla, tours by previous appointment

The Eberstadt Stalactite Cave

The Eberstadt Stalactite Cave. The cave contains a wide range of stalactites, including very slender examples and highly conical stalagmites, flags of calc-sinter, terraces of calc-sinter and crystals. Because the cave remained sealed after being discovered and electric lighting has always been used for visitor tours since 1973, the stalactites are generally still as white as chalk, unlike most older German caves that are open to the public where black soot has discolored the stalactites from historical use of open candle and torch flames for lighting.

Further sights and buildings

  • The Roman Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, the greatest ground monument in Europe runs round the edge of the city area Walldürn through Buchen, in the direction of Osterburken. Until around the year 260 the Romans used the Limes as a protective wall keeping them safe from the Alamanni and from other Germanic tribes. They built it all the way from Rheinbrohl a distance of 500 km up to the Danube
  • One of the original buildings by the architect Egon Eiermann, the annex to the Hotel Prinz Carl built in 1967, in which the rooms and features created by him are still in use
  • Where the present-day town of Bödigheim now stands the knight Wiprecht Rüdt built a castle in the year 1286; at the end of the 16th Century it was upgraded into a Renaissance palace. Between 1712 and 1720 the new Castle of Rüdt von Collenberg was built by Johann Jakob Rischer in Bödigheim
  • The ruins of a Jewish Mikveh in Bödigheim
  • The Old Town Hall in the centre of the old town
  • The Wartberg

Regular Events

  • Fastnacht : the annual 'Faschenacht' festivities in Buchen have attracted thousands of visitors to the area every year for as long as anyone can remember. During the annual 'Fasching' pageant it is compulsory to at least kiss the backside of the symbolic figure, whose origins date back to the Middle Ages, the Buchen Blecker.
  • Goldener Mai – Live jazz music combos perform at various pubs, restaurants and locales throughout Buchen. On the first Saturday in May of each year
  • The Vorsommerfest – Brass bands in the courtyard of the museum on a weekend in the middle of June – including the Cellerbar on Saturday. Organized by the City Band and the Catholic Church Choir
  • The Schützenmarkt, a traditional regional fair held annually during the first week of September, with market stalls for shopping and amusement rides and food stands
  • The Buchen Cult-Night has been "combined" with Golden May on the same weekend in recent years
  • OW-ART, the Odenwald art fair, initiated by the artist Patris Semma and held at the Stadthalle Buchen

Notable people