Offenburg

Offenburg stands at the entrance to the Kinzig valley, where a route through the Black Forest meets the road along the Rhine plain. The settlement was recorded in the twelfth century, and around 1240 Emperor Frederick II raised it to the status of an imperial city. Its walls defended a town whose position connected Strasbourg and the Rhine with the lands beyond the forest. In 1575 it joined Gengenbach and Zell am Harmersbach in a league to defend their imperial status.

During the Thirty Years' War Swedish troops occupied Offenburg from 1632 to 1635, followed by imperial forces. The writer Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen served in the region and married in the town in 1649. A generation later the War of the Palatine Succession brought disaster: in September 1689 the army of Louis XIV destroyed almost all of Offenburg. The town was rebuilt, acquiring a Baroque appearance, but lost its imperial independence in 1803 when it passed to Baden.