Cham, Upper Palatinate, Bavaria, Germany

🇩🇪 Cham is the capital of the district of Cham in the Upper Palatinate in Bavaria in Germany.

Geography: Location Cham lies within the Cham-Furth lowland, which is bordered on the south by the Bavarian Forest and on the north by the Oberpfälzer Wald. The city lies on the Regen River, which joins the Danube at Regensburg.

Etymology The name "Cham" is of Celtic origin and probably means "bend" or "curvature". In fact, a few km from the city, a winding brook called the Chamb flows into the Regen; it probably gave its name to Cham, the first settlement at the bend of the larger river. Alternatively, the name may have derived from Kamm (comb). The city's coat of arms contains a comb. A partner city, also called "Cham" in Switzerland, is actually pronounced with an initial "ch" sound (Ach-Laut), whereas Bavarian Cham is pronounced with a k.

History Monks from Regensburg founded the Marienmünster, the first and oldest church in the Bavarian forest, at Chammünster in the 8th century. The first reference to Cham as a city appears in 976. An imperial castle stood on the Galgenberg ("gallows hill"), providing protection for the trade route into Bohemia. Cham was granted its own currency around 1000, the so-called Cham Denar. The 12th century saw the town's location shifted to its current place. The Hussite Wars of the 15th century inflicted great hardships on the townspeople. In 1742, the Pandur troops of Franz Freiherr von der Trenck overran and destroyed the city.

Cham's first railway connection came in 1861. On April 18, 1945, a British air raid on the western part of Cham caused 63 deaths. The arrival of numerous German war refugees from Silesia and the Sudetenland swelled Cham's population from 5,860 to over 10,000.

Cham is referred to in relation to the death of the father of the French resistance fighter Jeannette Guyot, Jean-Marie Guyot. He was also a member of the resistance, arrested early 1944 and transported to Cham, where he died.