Heilbronn

Heilbronn grew beside the Neckar, where roads crossed the river and a harbour served the surrounding country. First mentioned in 741, it had a market by the eleventh century and a port by the twelfth. In 1333 an imperial privilege allowed the town to dam and divert the Neckar, directing trade through its harbour and supplying power to its mills. Vineyards on the surrounding slopes contributed to its prosperity.

In 1371 Heilbronn became an imperial city. It embraced the Reformation early: the preacher Johann Lachmann composed a Protestant catechism in 1528, and its mayor joined the Protestation at Speyer the following year. During the Thirty Years' War, the Swedish chancellor Oxenstierna brought Protestant estates together here in the League of Heilbronn in 1633. Occupations and the demands of armies followed, and the city remained a fortified assembly point after the peace. Heilbronn lost its imperial independence to Württemberg in 1802. The Wilhelmskanal, built between 1819 and 1821, helped restore navigation past the river's mills and weirs. Its paper mills adopted large machines around 1820, and by 1832 Heilbronn had more factories than any other town in the kingdom. Its river, once the source of a medieval trading privilege, also powered its early industrial growth.