Dornstetten
Encyclopedia
Dornstetten is a town in the district of Freudenstadt
Freudenstadt (district)
Freudenstadt is a district in the middle of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Neighboring districts are Rastatt, Calw, Tübingen, Zollernalbkreis, Rottweil and the Ortenaukreis.-History:...

 in Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...

 in southern Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It is situated in the Black Forest
Black Forest
The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....

, 7 km east of Freudenstadt
Freudenstadt
Freudenstadt is a town in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is capital of the district Freudenstadt. The closest population centres are Offenburg to the west and Tübingen to the east ....

. It was founded in the early Middle Ages and is well-known for its half-timbered houses (Fachwerkhaeuser in German).

Geography

Dornstetten is located in the northern Black Forest
Black Forest
The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....

. The Glatt
Glatt (Neckar)
Glatt is a river of Baden-Württemberg, Germany.-See also:*List of rivers of Baden-Württemberg...

 arises in outlying village of Aach, at the confluence of he streams Ettenbach, Stockerbach, and Kübelbach.

Constituent Communities

The current municipality of Dornstetten was created in 1975 as part of a major reorganization of communities in Baden-Württemberg. It consists of the original town of Dornstetten (which included Dornstetten and the farmstead Lattenberg), the former municipality of Aach (included the village of Aach and the farmstead Benzinger Hof), and the former municipality of Hallwangen (simply the village of Hallwangen).

The area around Dornstetten also included the former settlements of Brennenweiler, Bühlerhof, and Diffenthal or Niedertall, which no longer exist.

History

Dornstetten is first documented in the year 767 in the Lorsch Codex
Lorsch codex
The Lorsch Codex is an important historical document created between about 1175 to 1195 AD in the Monastery of Saint Nazarius in Lorsch, Germany. It consists of 460 pages in large format containing more than 3800 entries...

, as part of the Waldgeding of the Upper Glatt Valley, a loose confederation of settlements roughly corresponding to the modern municipal area. The town received city rights sometime between 1267 and 1276. At that time, Dornstetten belonged to the Counts of Urach-Fürstenberg. After passing through the hands of the Counts of Hohenberg
Counts of Hohenberg (Swabia)
The Counts of Hohenberg were an ancient swabian dynasty in the southwest of the present-day Germany, in the State of Baden-Württemberg. In the 13th century the dynasty of Hohenberg was one of the most prominent lineages in Southwestern Germany. In 1381 however, Rudolf III...

, it was acquired by Württemberg
Württemberg
Württemberg , formerly known as Wirtemberg or Wurtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....

 in 1320. A school is fist mentioned in the town in 1461. In 1755, Dornstetten was made seat of the Oberamt of Dornstetten, an administrative district that was nevertheless dissolved in 1807 and incorporated in the Oberamt of Freudenstadt.

On January 1, 1975, Dornstetten was merged with Aach and Hallwangen to make up the municipality of Dornstetten, as part of Baden-Württemberg's major communal reforms in the early 1970s.

Religions

Since the time of the Reformation
Reformation
- Movements :* Protestant Reformation, an attempt by Martin Luther to reform the Roman Catholic Church that resulted in a schism, and grew into a wider movement...

, Dornstetten has been heavily Protestant. There is a Roman Catholic church in the town, but Catholics in Dornstetten technically belong to the parochial community of Freudenstadt. A New Apostolic church as well as a Methodist community can also be found in Dornstetten.

Coat of Arms

The arms of Dornstetten consist of a black five-pointed antler (representing Württemberg) above a black thornbush (canting arms
Canting arms
Canting arms are heraldic bearings that represent the bearer's name in a visual pun or rebus. The term cant came into the English language from Anglo-Norman cant, meaning song or singing, from Latin cantāre, and English cognates include canticle, chant, accent, incantation and recant.Canting arms –...

 based on the town's name, as Dorn means "thorn" in German)

Sister Cities

Dornstetten enjoys a partnership with Scey-sur-Saône-et-Saint-Albin
Scey-sur-Saône-et-Saint-Albin
Scey-sur-Saône-et-Saint-Albin is a commune in the Haute-Saône department in the region of Franche-Comté in eastern France.-References:*...

 in department of Haute Saône in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, where students from Dornstetten Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 participate yearly in a student exachange program.

Transportation

The city maintains a bus line
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...

 and belongs to the Transport Association of the District of Freudenstadt, the VGF (Verkehrs-Gemeinschaft Landkreis Freudenstadt). Dornstetten also has a stop along the Eutingen-Freudenstadt railroad line (the Gäubahn). Every two hours, one can catch a direct train to Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

 or Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

.

Education

Dornstetten has a Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

, a Realschule
Realschule
The Realschule is a type of secondary school in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia , Denmark , Sweden , Hungary and in the Russian Empire .-History:The Realschule was an outgrowth of the rationalism and empiricism of the seventeenth and...

 and a Hauptschule
Hauptschule
A Hauptschule is a secondary school in Germany and Austria, starting after 4 years of elementary schooling, which offers Lower Secondary Education according to the International Standard Classification of Education...

 in one building, three elementary schools (one each in Dornstetten, Aach, and Hallwangen), and seven Kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...

s. The Neckar-Alb Region School for the Physically Disabled operates a branch in Dornstetten, and there is also a special school for the mentally disabled, the Wilhelm-Hofman-Schule.

Museums

Like most towns in the area, Dornstetten has a Heimatmuseum which documents the history of the local area. The Doll and Toy Museum is housed in the Hegel Department Store building ("Kaufhaus Hegel").

Visitors can also check out "Himmlisch Heer", an historic copper/silver/barite mine open to the public in Hallwangen.

Buildings

The historic Altstadt
Altstadt
Altstadt is the German language word for "old town", meaning "historical city centre within the city wall", in contrast to a Neustadt built outside later....

, with its half-timbered Fachwerkhäuser, is
well-known throughout the area, and a popular destination for day-trippers. Dornstetten lies along the southern part of the German Half-Timbered House Road (Deutsche Fachwerkstraße), which runs from Mosbach
Mosbach
Mosbach is the capital of the Neckar-Odenwald district in the north of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about 58 km east of Heidelberg. Its geographical position is 49.21'N 9.9'E....

 to Haslach im Kinzigtal and includes several historic attractions.

Leisure Facilities

Another local attraction is the barefoot park in Hallwangen, which offers a 2.4 km (1.5 mi) path and several stations along the way to learn about nature, play, or experience walking barefoot
Barefoot
Barefoot is the state of not wearing any footwear. Being barefoot is regarded as a human's natural state, though for functional, fashion and social reasons footwear is worn, at least on some occasions...

 for its medicinal value.

Famous Residents

  • Jacob Beurlin (* c. 1520; † October 28, 1561 in Paris), Protestant theologian and Reformer
  • Wolfram Graf (*1965), composer, pianist, and organist
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