Waldshut

Waldshut stands on the northern bank of the Rhine, where the river skirts the southern Black Forest. Founded in the thirteenth century under Habsburg influence, the town possessed a river harbour and a bridge across to the lands to the south. Its seal showed a forest guardian, an image alluding to its name. As one of the Habsburg forest towns on the Upper Rhine, Waldshut occupied a frontier facing the Swiss Confederacy.

In 1468 Confederate forces besieged and bombarded the town for six weeks. A different struggle followed the Reformation: under the preacher Balthasar Hubmaier, an Anabaptist movement gained ground in 1525, but Austrian authority was restored and its adherents were expelled. Waldshut endured further occupations during the Thirty Years' War and briefly housed the government of Further Austria after the French took Freiburg. It passed to Baden in 1805.