Emmendingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

🇩🇪 Emmendingen is a town in Baden-Württemberg, capital of the district Emmendingen of Germany. It is located at the Elz River, 14 km north of Freiburg im Breisgau. The town is the largest in the Emmendingen district.

Neighbour cities Emmendingen is bordered by several cities and municipalities; clockwise from the north: Malterdingen, Kenzingen, Freiamt (Black Forest), Sexau, Denzlingen, Reute (Breisgau), Windenreute, Maleck and Teningen.

History The first mention of this town in a document dates back to 1091, however it is much older. It was the seat of the counts of Hochberg, a cadet branch of the Margraviate of Baden. In 1418 it received market rights from the emperor Manuel II Palaiologos, and in 1590 was raised to the status of a town, and walled, by Margrave Jacob III.

The author Johann Georg Schlosser (1739–1799), a brother-in-law of Goethe, was Oberamtmann (bailiff) for a few years.

There was also a neighboring town called Nieder-Emmendingen. The towns merged in 1883.

Administration Together with the municipalities of Freiamt, Teningen, Teningen, and Sexau, the city of Emmendingen forms the association of administrations which began on 1 January 1975 for the purpose of the establishment of the land use plan for the districts of the participating municipalities.

Coat of arms The Coat of arms of the city of Emmendingen depicts a red bend in a gold escutcheon (which is the old coat of arms for Baden), an armoured knight on a blue background with a silver rod in his right hand and his left hand on a silver sword hanging around his waist. The city flag is blue, yellow, and red. The coat of arms was adopted during the elevation of the city to a district capital. It depicts the symbol of the coat of arms of the local lord (the bend) and the knight which symbolises the ability to put up a fight. Previously, instead of the knight, a ploughshare was printed in the seals. Initially the knight stood on a trimount. The current depiction was adopted in 1960.

Geography The town lies in Breisgau, between the foothills of the Black Forest and the Kaiserstuhl which rises out of the Rhine plain to the north of Freiburg. The land is between 189 and 368 metres (620 and 1,207 ft) high. On the western edge of Emmendingen flows the Elz river, which divides shortly after its confluence with the Dreisam and Glotter near Riegel, into the Old Elz and the Leopoldskanal, which both flow into the Rhine. The Leopoldskanal was built in the middle 19th century.

Transport Emmendingen does not have a direct connection to the motorway. The nearest slip road is in Teningen to Federal Motorway 5 which runs to Karlsruhe and to Basel. The Bundesstraße 3 (Offenburg-Freiburg im Breisgau) runs through the city. Emmendingen lies on the Baden Main Line between Mannheim and Basel. Regional-Express trains to Basel and Offenburg run every hour. In addition to the station, there are bus stops in districts of Kollmarsreute and Mundingen (part of Teningen-Mundingen). Within the city there are six bus lines (1 to Bürkle-Bleiche, 2 to Bürkle-Bleiche, 3 to the lower city, 5 to Windenreute and Maleck, 6 to Mundingen and 9 to the industrial estate Über der Elz) and two dial-a-taxi lines (4 to the district hospital and 10 to Kastelburg). A Teningen city bus line (8) connects Teningen (as well as Nimburg and Bottingen in Teningen depending on the time of day) to the central station in Emmendingen. The city belongs to the Regio-Verkehrsverbund Freiburg. From the Zentralen Omnibusbahnhof (ZOB, Central Bus Station) at the train station, regional buses go to Freiburg, Herbolzheim, Kenzingen, Heimbach, Waldkirch, Denzlingen, Vörstetten, Reute, Bahlingen, Riegel, Sasbach and Freiamt.

The nearest Airports are Lahr, Freiburg, and Basel.

Agencies and Courts As the administrative district capital city, Emmendingen is the seat for the Administrative District of the same name. Additionally, there is a Tax Office and an Employment Agency as well as a Magistrates' Court, which belongs to the Judicial District Freiburg im Breisgau and the Oberlandsgericht district.

The city is also the seat of the Emmendingen Church District for the Protestant Church in Baden. The Catholic Endingen-Waldkirch Deanery of also has its seat in Emmendingen.

The post was first established in 1745 as a Posthalterei. In 1811, this was converted to a Postexpedition and since 1876 there has been a third class Postamt.

There is also a police headquarters in Emmendingen with a criminal investigation department and the Emmendingen police station. Finally, Emmendingen is also the seat of the Emmendingen Settlement Centre and since 2 April 2012, it is also the seat of the first central Registry of Deeds in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

Media The local newspaper Badische Zeitung from Freiburg im Breisgau and the free weekly newspaper "Emmendinger Tor" cover the local events and have been delivered to all households since 1974.

Educational Institutions Two years after the start of the Reformation (1556) the first primary school was set up in Emmendingen. In addition to the Goethe Gymnasium School, which was converted from a Latin School in 1667, there are the Margrave Realschule, the Fritz Boehle Hauptschule and Werkrealschule, the Margrave Grund- and Hauptschule and Workrealschule as well as the C.F. Meerwein School and the Fritz Boehle Grundschule, which provide basic education in the city centre. Additionally, primary schools can be found in Kollmarsreute, Mundigen, Wasser, and Windenreute. The city also contains the Karl-Friedrich special-needs school.

The Emmendingen Administrative District supports the Commercial and Home Management Schools and the Carl Helbing Mercantile School as well as the Eduard Spranger School for the Developmentally Challenged and Kindergarten School for developmentally Challenged Children in Wasser where the State School and Home for the Physically Challenged (Funding: State of Baden-Württemberg). Further out there is also the Hochburg State School of Agriculture in Windenreute.

The North Breisgau Community College, which includes the Emmendingen Integrative Waldorf school (common teaching of students with and without disabilities), the North Breisgau music school and the School of Health and Nursing in the Emmendingen administrative district rounds off the list of schools available in Emmendingen.

Since 2006 there has also been a Jewish school in Emmendingen which offers different subjects dealing with Jewish culture, e.g. Synagogue architecture, Jewish religion, Jewish philosophy, and history of the Jews e.g. in Germany. A Hebrew language course is also offered for beginners and intermediate learners. The Jewish school is a cooperation of the Emmendingen Jewish congregation and the registered Emmendingen Association for Jewish History and Culture.

Hospitals The Emmendingen administrative district contains the Emmendingen district hospital. Additionally, there is also the Emmendingen Centre for Psychiatry as an Institution under Public Law. Both facilities are academic teaching hospitals within the School of Medicine at the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg.

Recreational and Athletic Facilities Emmendingen has an open-air pool and a skate park with a (concrete) fun box, several sport and event halls (Goethe Halle, Hermann Günth Hall, Steinhalle und Fritz Boehle Hall, Karl-Faller-Halle, Elzhalle), Gymnastic Association sports grounds, and several football pitches (including the grass and indoor grounds of the Emmendingen Centre for Psychiatry and the Goethe Recreational Ground).

Around Emmendingen there are six football clubs (FC Emmendingen, FV Windenreute, SV Wasser, SV Kollmarsreute, SV Mundingen, ÜTSE Emmendingen). Windenreute, Wasser, and Kollmarsreute combined have also founded a youth league as well as men's league. These teams each have a football pitch with the exception of ÜTSE Emmendingen. FC Emmendingen play in the Elz Stadium. Additionally, the amateur pilots club C.F. Meerwein is also located in Emmendingen.

Culture Emmendingen is a small town, but that does not mean that it lacks in interesting details. Listed are just a few of Emmendingen's claims to fame.

Cornelia Schlosser Cornelia Schlosser (maiden name: Cornelia Friederica Christiana Goethe) was the only sibling of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and lived with her husband Johann Georg Schlosser in a house on the main square in Emmendingen. Today their house is the municipal library.

Old Town Hall The old Emmendingen town hall is on the main square of town, though a new town hall was built recently. Today the building is still utilized, but it is now home to the only archive of diaries in Germany.

Points of interest • Jewish Museum on Castle Square • Collection Geyer zu Lauf • German Dairy Archive.