Wetzlar

Wetzlar stands on the Lahn, where an old commercial road crossed the river. Ironworking, weaving and tanning helped sustain the town beneath the imperial castle of Kalsmunt. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa placed its citizens on the same footing as those of Frankfurt in 1180, and Wetzlar became a free imperial city. Its church grew from an earlier foundation into a great Gothic building, though its planned towers were never completed.

Long feuds with the counts of Solms threatened Wetzlar's trade, and debt brought the city under administration in 1387. War and decline reduced its population further. In 1689 the Imperial Chamber Court moved here from Speyer after the latter was devastated by French forces. The court made Wetzlar a centre of imperial justice until the Empire's dissolution in 1806. Goethe trained at the court in 1772, and his experiences here helped inspire The Sorrows of Young Werther. Wetzlar lost its imperial freedom in 1803 and came under Karl Theodor von Dalberg. After the Congress of Vienna, the town passed to Prussia in 1815.