Baden-Baden is a city in the Baden region, in the state of
Baden-Wuerttemberg. The city is known as "Germany's Monaco". It
houses the world famous casino. 55,000 inhabitants live on an area
of 140 km².
Baden-Baden became famous for its thermal
baths. You can visit the modern Caracalla thermal baths on the one
hand, and the Roman-Irish Friedrichsbad on the other.
Baden-Baden is particularly popular with older people. 60% of all
residents are over 40, a quarter over 65 years. You will not find
innovative pulsating nightlife, but the visitor can enjoy numerous
cultural assets, the wonderful nature and the relaxing atmosphere
and, last but not least, a wide selection of above all high quality
shopping opportunities.
In the course of the community reform
after 1970, a number of formerly independent communities became
districts of Baden-Baden. These include the Rebland communities
Neuweier, Steinbach (with the district Umweg) and Varnhalt. Like
Baden-Baden itself, they belong to the Baden Wine Route.
The
following neighboring communities are in the Rhine valley:
Bühlertal, Bühl (direct train connection), Sinzheim (direct train
connection), Hügelsheim (bus route 285), Iffezheim (bus route 218),
Rastatt (direct train connection). In the northern Black Forest
these are: Kuppenheim (bus line 243), Gaggenau, Gernsbach,
Weisenbach, Forbach (Baden).
By plane
The nearest airport is Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport
(IATA: FKB) . German destinations are currently Berlin, Stuttgart and
Hamburg, in addition to London many destinations in the Mediterranean
region are served. There are regular buses from the airport to
Baden-Baden train station, but they do not run very often and are not
coordinated with the flight times. Inform beforehand!
Frankfurt
Airport (IATA: FRA) is also easily accessible with the ICE.
By
train
Baden-Baden train station (formerly Baden-Oos) is on the Rhine
Valley Railway and is a long-distance stop for ICE and IC trains.
Regional express trains also stop next to them. The train station is
about 5km west of the city center/spa district. A bus runs from there.
An S-Class is sometimes waiting as a taxi.
By bus
Baden-Baden
is served by numerous long-distance bus lines. The long-distance bus
stop is at the train station.
In the street
Exit Baden-Baden
on the A5 (33 km south of the Karlsruhe interchange). There, a feeder
road leads directly into the city. A tourist information is located at
the feeder. If you are new, you should stock up on information here.
Since the city center is closed to traffic, you should find out
beforehand which route leads to your desired destination. It is possible
to drive via the Schlosstangente in the direction of the bathing
district, through the Micheals tunnel to Lichtental or straight ahead to
the pedestrian zone and the Kurhaus.
By bicycle
Baden Wine
Cycle Path
Black Forest Central/North Nature Park Cycle Path
Most destinations in Baden-Baden can be reached on foot, but there
are buses for longer distances. Public transport is affiliated with the
Karlsruher Verkehrsverbund. Day tickets (also for groups) are suitable
for trips to the surrounding area or to "the height" (in the Black
Forest).
If you want to take the Merkur cable car, you should buy
a combination ticket. It includes a return trip by bus and a return trip
on the Merkur cable car. The combined ticket is available for adults
(EUR 5.70) and children under 16 (EUR 3.10). The combined ticket can be
bought from the bus driver of the bus line that goes to the valley
station of the Merkur cable car.
The Merkur mountain railway runs
without a machinist and conductor, it is operated by the passengers like
an elevator. It operates daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
The Theater Baden-Baden is a theater with a permanent ensemble. In
addition, the mirror foyer in the theater is used for smaller
productions. The TIK (Theater in the scenery house) next to the theater
serves as a stage for children's and youth plays.
The
Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, created by the complete conversion of the
former city train station, is the second largest concert hall in Europe
with operas, musicals and concerts.
Concerts, balls and dance,
children's and comedy/cabaret events take place regularly in the Kurhaus
Baden-Baden. The Kongresshaus on Augustaplatz accommodates trade fairs,
conferences and events such as the presentation of the German Media
Prize.
Baden-Baden City Museum
Baden-Baden State Art Gallery
Museum
Frieder Burda, built by Richard Meier
Museum for art and technology
of the 19th century in the Lichtentaler Allee
Roman bath ruins
Baden-Baden
Faberge Museum
Brahms residence at Maximilianstraße 85
Art Museum Gehrke-Remund with a photo exhibition on Frida Kahlo (no
original paintings), Güterbahnhofstraße 9
The Baden-Baden Philharmonic is the permanent orchestra of the city
of Baden-Baden. It is one of the most traditional orchestras in Germany.
The founding of the court orchestra dates back to 1460. From 1582 there
is a detailed list of the instruments used by the orchestra conducted at
that time by Francesco Guami (trombone master of the Munich court
orchestra conducted by Orlando di Lasso). From the beginning of the 19th
century there was a summer orchestra made up mainly of Bohemian
musicians, and after 1854 there was a year-round orchestra.[53] The
orchestra has probably played around 60,000 concerts since then. Hector
Berlioz directed the city's summer festival at the time for many years.
The Baden-Baden Theater opened with its opera Béatrice and Bénédict.
Many of the most famous soloists and conductors have worked with the
orchestra. Johann Strauss, Johannes Brahms, Luise Adolpha Le Beau,
Richard Strauss, Pietro Mascagni, Arthur Nikisch, Wilhelm Furtwängler,
Bruno Walter, George Szell, Otto Klemperer and many others set
highlights in the history of the Philharmoniker. From Franz Liszt to
Pablo Casals to Plácido Domingo, the musical world elite met on the
historic stages of Baden-Baden.
Concerts now take the
Philharmonie far beyond the borders of Baden-Baden. Not only the big
German concert halls - such as the "Alte Oper" in Frankfurt and the
Baden-Baden Festspielhaus - but also China, Dubai, France, Belgium,
Switzerland and the Ukraine were on the ensemble's schedule. With the
Carl Flesch Academy, the orchestra offers one of the most
internationally renowned master classes for string instruments every
summer.
From 1946 to 1996, Baden-Baden was the seat of the
Southwest Radio Symphony Orchestra, initially under the name
Philharmonic Orchestra and Great Orchestra of Southwest Radio. After the
construction of the Freiburg Concert Hall in 1996 until the merger with
the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra of the SWR in 2016, Baden-Baden
was the second seat of the orchestra. It was one of the leading radio
symphony orchestras in Germany and performed several times a year in the
Festspielhaus. The orchestra's chamber music series has been taking
place in the Frieder Burda Museum since 2006. SWR organizes the SWR3 New
Pop Festival every September.
In June 2007, the Baden-Baden Youth
Orchestra, founded by Norbert Nohe in 1957, celebrated its 50th
anniversary. In 2001 they made music with a world star of the violin,
Hilary Hahn.
The Herbert von Karajan Whitsun Festival has been
held in Baden-Baden every year since 1997, and the Herbert von Karajan
Music Prize has been awarded since 2003.
The Baden-Baden
Philharmonic Choir was founded in 1998 and takes part in
choral-symphonic concerts and events in changing casts.
Baden-Baden did not suffer any major damage during World War II and
is one of the best-preserved health resorts in Germany. The cityscape is
characterized by outstanding examples of spa architecture from the 19th
and early 20th centuries. The Kurhaus with the famous casino is the
architectural and social center and landmark of the city.
The old
town of Baden-Baden has numerous shops and cafés. In the spa district
there is the modern Caracalla Therme, the Friedrichsbad from the 19th
century and Roman bath ruins. The first luxury hotel was the Hotel
Badischer Hof; Another well-known hotel is Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa.
Other sights include the neoclassical Villa Hamilton, like the
Kurhaus designed by Friedrich Weinbrenner, the Paradies water art
system, Lichtenthal Abbey, Hohenbaden Castle, the New Castle and the
Brahms House.
Two buildings by Weinbrenner's successor, Heinrich
Hübsch, a leading representative of German Romanticism, are also worth
mentioning: the Baden-Baden pump room (pillared hall directly by the
Kurhaus) and the former steam bath (below the New Palace).
Churches worth mentioning are: Collegiate Church, Evangelical City
Church, Hospital Church, St. Bernhard, St. John and the Russian Church,
the Stourdza Chapel and the Autobahn Church of St. Christopher. In the
vineyards near the Lichtentaler Eckhöfe there is a Marienkapelle.
The Ooswinkel settlement is a garden city designed by Paul
Schmitthenner.
The Merkur mountain railway takes you to the 669 m
high Baden-Baden's local mountain, the Merkur, with its viewing and
transmission tower. The Fremersberg tower is located on the Fremersberg,
a directional radio tower with a viewing platform. At the highest point
in the district of Baden-Baden on the Badener Höhe (1002.2 m above sea
level) is a 30-metre-high observation tower, the Friedrichsturm.
The best-known park in Baden-Baden is the Lichtentaler Allee, which runs from the Lichtenthal monastery to the Theater an der Oos, with the rose garden in the Gönneranlage. The inner-city landscape park continues to the left of the Oos at the Kurhaus and the pump room, along the Kaiserallee and on the Michaelsberg around the Stourdza Chapel. Hundreds of exotic trees are planted in the grounds and benefit from the mild climate influenced by the Upper Rhine Plain, including some of the thickest redwoods in Germany. The park design of the valleys and hills to the east and north of the New Palace was created for the 1981 State Garden Show. The rose novelty competition takes place annually in the rose novelty garden in Beutig.
Baden-Baden maintains more than 20 circular hiking trails in its heavily wooded, mountainous surroundings, which are largely under landscape protection. The almost 45 km long panorama trail leads around the city on five designated stages. It was redesigned in 1997 and in 2004 it was named the "most beautiful hiking trail" by the German Tourist Association. Like the 9.4 km long Ebersteinburg circular trail, it is certified as a premium hiking trail. The wilderness trail and the lynx trail are two themed trails in the Black Forest National Park. The Westweg long-distance hiking trail of the Black Forest Association leads over the Badener Höhe, the highest point in Baden-Baden. The long-distance hiking trail "Ortenauer Weinpfad" runs from Gernsbach through Baden-Baden into Rebland and on through the Baden wine-growing regions on the edge of the Black Forest. The Murgleiter and Gernsbacher Runde hiking trails also lead in the Merkur and Ebersteinburg areas through Baden-Baden's districts.
The chess club OSG Baden-Baden plays in the first national chess
league and is a multiple German champion. The chess center in
Baden-Baden is responsible for the federal base.
SC Baden-Baden
is the most successful of the Baden-Baden football clubs. He played in
the top German amateur leagues in the 1970s. The venue is the Aumatt
Stadium in Weststadt, which can hold around 6,000 spectators.
SR
Yburg Steinbach played in 1951 for the German championship in field
handball.
The tennis club "Rot-Weiss" Baden-Baden is the oldest
tennis club in Germany. It was founded in 1881 as the Baden-Baden Lawn
Tennis Club, initially for English spa guests. They also introduced golf
here. The Golf Club Baden-Baden, founded in 1901, is one of the oldest
golf clubs in Germany. The Baden-Baden golf course is located south of
the Fremersberg at the upper end of the Michelbach valley.
The
Battert rocks in the Battert nature reserve, which are up to 60 meters
high, are the most important climbing area in the northern Black Forest.
The German Alpine Club section Baden-Baden/Murgtal has maintained a
climbing hall in Baden-Oos since 2011.
The paragliding club Baden
e.V. “Die Schwarzwaldgeier” (“The Black Forest Geiers”) maintains two
paragliding areas on the Merkur, one in a westerly direction directly at
the mountain station of the Merkur mountain railway, the other in a
north-easterly direction. Landing sites are meadows below the valley
station of the cable car in Baden-Baden and above Gernsbach-Staufenberg
at the Neuhaus bus stop.
In 2021, the city applied to host a
four-day program for an international delegation to the Special Olympics
World Summer Games 2023 in Berlin. In 2022, she was selected to host
Special Olympics Guatemala. This made it part of the largest municipal
inclusion project in the history of the Federal Republic with more than
200 host towns.
February: Presentation of the German Media Prize
March: Mr. M's
Jazz Club and presentation of the Joachim-Ernst-Berendt-Prize of Honor
of the City of Baden-Baden
March/April: Easter Festival in the
Festspielhaus
April/May: Russian Culture Days in the Kurhaus
May:
European Dance Award in the Kurhaus Baden-Baden
May: Brahms Days
(every two years)
May: Spring meeting at the Iffezheim racecourse
May: Whitsun Festival in the Festspielhaus
June: Medieval
winegrowers’ days in the Steinbach district – “summer gala”
July:
International Rose Novelty Tests
July: Baden-Baden International
Classic Car Meeting
July: Philharmonic palace concerts in Neuweier
Palace
August: Big week at the racecourse in Iffezheim
September:
Grand Prix Ball (gala event in the Bénazet Hall of the Kurhaus)
September: SWR3 New Pop Festival
October: Sales & Racing at the
Iffezheim racecourse
October/November: World Dance Gala
November:
Baden-Baden TV Film Festival
December: Sportsman of the year awards
ceremony in the Kurhaus
December: Christmas market
December:
Badenia Advent Music Festival
Culinary specialties
Saddle of
venison Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden roulette balls (chocolates)
Cineplex Baden-Baden, Ortenaustrasse 14 (near Cité). Phone: +49
(0)7221 922-9000. 8 halls.
Moviac cinema in the Kaiserhof,
Sophienstraße (city center). Phone: +49 (0)7221 920-3-920.
Public
city tours are offered by the city every Sunday at 2:00 p.m.
Badenia
Advent Music Festival, Kaiserallee 1, Baden-Baden. International Choir
and Orchestra Festival in December.
Kongresshaus, Augustapl. 10,
76530 Baden-Baden. Phone: +49 (0)7221 277290. Augustapl. 10, 76530
Baden-Baden.
In the city center, Lichtentaler Straße, Sophienstraße, Luisenstraße
and their side streets as well as in the pedestrian zone around the town
hall, there is a wide range of boutiques, men's outfitters, jewellers,
antique shops, furniture stores and groceries aimed at a wealthy
international public. The well-known international luxury brands are
also represented in large numbers. Notices point out the multilingualism
in many shops.
There are also numerous shopping opportunities in
the district centers such as Bertholdplatz or Brahmsplatz (Lichtenthal).
The Shopping Cité shopping center (outside the roundabout,
signposted) is located on the B500 arterial road in the direction of the
motorway.
Baden-Baden primarily attracts well-to-do guests of old age, and the
range of offers is accordingly.
Casino 4 in the Kurhaus,
Kaiserallee 1. Tel.: +49 7221 30 24-0 . with its rococo style is the
oldest surviving in Germany; originally built in the early 19th century
and a must-see even for non-players because of the facilities. Open:
daily 2:00 p.m.–2:00 a.m., longer on weekends. Price: €5, ID required,
minimum age 21; “reasonable wardrobe. Gentlemen need a shirt and jacket,
a tie is desirable").
Cheap
Werner-Dietz youth hostel, Hardbergstraße 34. Tel.: +49 7221
52223, fax: +49 7221 60012, e-mail: info@jugendherberge-baden-baden.de.
Check in: 15:00 - 22:30. Price: €22-27.
Middle
Hotel am Markt,
Marktplatz 18 (up the hill behind Friedrichsbad). Phone: +49 7221 27040,
fax: +49 7221 270444, email: hotel.am.markt.bad@t-online.de. In the
heart of the old town, quiet, family-run, inexpensive. Loud church
bells! Price: double room €60-80.
1 Historic Hotel Rathausglöckel,
Steinstr. 7-9 Phone: +49 7221 90610, fax: +49 7221 906161, email:
info@rathausgloeckel.de. Feature: ★★★★.
Holiday Inn Express, Lange
Strasse 93. Tel: +49 7221 97350. Good quality rooms and the breakfast
buffet is better than usual at a HI Express. The hotel is a bit out of
the city center but good for accessing other places in the area.
2
Haus Rebland, Umweger Str. 133. Tel.: +49 7223 9511880, fax: +49 7223
95118888, e-mail: frage@haus-rebland.de. Feature: ★★★S.
3 Hotel
Merkur, Merkurstrasse 8-10, 76530 Baden-Baden. Phone: +49 (0)72213030.
Near the congress house. Restaurant Sterntaler. Feature: ★★★.
Upscale
4 Dorint Maison Messmer, Werderstrasse 1, 76530 Baden-Baden.
Tel.: +49 7221 3012-0, fax: +49 7221 3012-100, e-mail:
info.maison-messmer@dorint.com. The former Messmer residence served as
the summer residence of the German Emperor Wilhelm I. The house offers
136 double rooms, five single rooms, ten suites and a penthouse. The
Theaterkeller offers Baden-Alsatian specialties. Worth seeing is the
painter's hall from the Belle Epoque period with a ceiling height of
over seven meters, which has been extensively restored. Feature: ★★★★★.
Price: from €219 per room/night.
Brenner's Park Hotel and Spa,
Schillerstrasse 4-6. Tel.: +49 72 219000, fax: +49 72 2138772, e-mail:
information@brenners.com
Museums and institutions grant holders of the spa card (guest card)
discounts on admission prices, for example (see spa card).
Since
Baden-Baden is a traditional spa town, the Baden-Baden Kur & Tourismus
GmbH offers plenty of information for guests: at the motorway feeder and
in the drinking hall next to the Kurhaus.
Telephone area codes:
07221, 07223
The first traces of settlement in the Eastern Valley can be found from the Mesolithic around 8000 to 4000 BC., grave finds in the Rhine plain and in the transition to the Black Forest are also documented for the subsequent epochs of the Stone and Bronze Ages. On the battert there are still remains of a presumably Celtic ring wall.
Baden-Baden became
particularly important with the Romans, who valued the thermal
springs with a temperature of up to 68 degrees Celsius. After the
occupation of the areas on the right bank of the Rhine under Emperor
Vespasian, they founded a military camp south of today's old town
near the secondary school on the "Rettig" plateau in the mid-1970s.
After the settlement and bathing facilities in the area of the old
town were created from there, the camp gave way to a representative
building, which served the administration. The place was named Aquae
(Latin for water / bath). It developed into a military spa and
included several baths. The Kaisertherme was located in the area of
today's collegiate church. According to a stone inscription,
Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Caracalla) had it luxuriously
expanded in 213. The plan of the building was marked in the pavement
of today's market square. The soldiers baths were in the area of
today's Friedrichsbad and the ruins are open to the public.
According to current knowledge, the core of the urban-like
settlement was along the Rotenbach. According to the ceramic finds,
Aquae is likely to have been built along a curved road between Lange
Straße 16 and Gernsbacher Straße 42. This structure was probably
already in place when it was founded around 75 AD and later only a
few houses were added to the south of it. Furthermore, the
excavations point to the existence of a consecration district
southeast of the baths (Römerplatz) and a rubble place east of the
place in the Rotenbachtal. There is also evidence of a food stall in
what is now Gernsbacher Strasse and a canal which, coming from
Rotenbach, ran south along Gernsbacher Strasse and was used to
discharge sewage. North-west of the settlement on the Oos near
today's Hindenburgplatz was a Roman burial ground with several grave
monuments of both military and civilians.
The vicus was the
capital of a self-governing local authority. This is first mentioned
on an inscription from 197 AD as respublica Aquensis. From 213/217
the name Civitas Aquensis appears, which was later given the
nickname Aurelia. The extent of this civitas is unknown; it is
believed to be in the middle Upper Rhine Valley and in the northern
Black Forest.
The Alamanni conquered the area around AD 260.
Around or soon after 500
the area came under Frankish rule and became a border town to the
Alemannic tribal area that began south of the Oos. The first written
mention of Baden-Baden is controversial. According to a document
that is often referred to as a forgery of the High Middle Ages and
the original is not preserved, Merovingian king Dagobert III. in
712, according to another interpretation, Dagobert II. in 675, which
Mark and its hot springs donated to the Weißenburg monastery. The
place is called "balneas [...] in pago Auciacensi sitas" ("baths
located in the Oosgau") and "balneis, quas dicunt Aquas calidas"
("baths they call Aquas calidas [hot springs]"). A document from the
year 856 refers to the same donation and is also controversial. The
first reliable post-ancient document is a deed of gift from Otto
III. from the year 987, which names the place "Badon" and mentions a
church for the first time. In 1046 the market rights of the place
are mentioned for the first time.
Hohenbaden Castle was built
around 1100. Count Hermann II from the Zähringer family acquired the
area around Baden-Baden at the beginning of the 12th century and
called himself Margrave of Baden or Lord of the Margraviate of Baden
for the first time in 1112. The Lichtenthal Monastery was founded in
1245 and was the burial place of the Margraves of Baden until 1372.
At around the same time (around 1250), Baden received city rights.
Baden is expressly mentioned as such for the first time in 1288.
With the permission of Margrave Friedrich II, the thermal
springs were used for baths from 1306. At the end of the 14th
century a castle was built on the Schlossberg, it forms the core of
today's New Palace. In 1417 King Sigmund visited the city of Baden.
In 1453 the parish church was converted into a collegiate church and
the burial place of the margraves.
In 1473, Emperor Friedrich
III traveled. for a spa treatment and for Prince's Day in Baden.
Under Margrave Christoph I, the residence was moved from Hohenbaden
Castle to the New Palace in 1479.
The city of Baden-Baden in
modern times
The first visitor's tax was levied in 1507, and a spa director
took care of the up-and-coming spa business. From 1500 the city was
part of the Swabian Empire. After the division of the margraviate of
Baden in 1535, today's Baden-Baden remained the capital of the
Bernhardin line of the ruling house and capital of the margravate
Baden-Baden.
The city was hit by witch hunts from 1570 to
1631. 134 people in the city and its present-day districts got into
a witch trial, at least 102 were killed. The last execution took
place in 1631: Margaretha, wife of the locksmith Jakob Dioniss.
During the War of the Palatinate Succession, Baden-Baden was
burned down by French troops on August 24, 1689, and as a result the
spa operations also came to a standstill. In 1705 Ludwig Wilhelm von
Baden-Baden moved the residence to Rastatt; Baden-Baden remained an
official city.
With the Rastatt Congress, Baden-Baden was
rediscovered at the end of the 18th century and subsequently
expanded by the Baden state into a fashionable health resort. Many
stately guests made the place the summer capital of Europe. Paris
was the winter capital. Luxury hotels were built, the Kurhaus
(1821-1824) and the casino (1810-1811), which were closed again in
1872 and reopened from 1933 to 1943. International horse races have
taken place on the Iffezheim racing course since 1858. Initially,
these were organized by the early tourism entrepreneur and patron
Edouard Bénazet and financed with income from the Baden-Baden
casino, of which he was the leaseholder. In 1872 the International
Club Baden-Baden, founded in the same year, took over the
organization of the horse races.
In 1844 the Badische
Hauptbahn connected the suburb of Oos to the railway network. With
the branch line to the city station in 1845, the health resort
itself received its rail connection. From 1910 the Baden-Baden tram
ran within the city, which was replaced by trolleybuses from 1949 to
1971.
The Baden-Baden music pavilion, built in 1858, was used
for spa concerts until 1912. Today the turmeric shell stands in its
place.
In 1863 the district of Baden was established, to
which the districts of Achern, Baden-Baden, Bühl, Rastatt and
Gernsbach belonged.
In 1924 the Baden office was dissolved,
but in 1939 Baden-Baden was declared an urban district.
During the so-called "Reichskristallnacht" the synagogue was
destroyed and numerous shops and apartments of Jewish citizens were
devastated and looted in front of the police. The Jewish residents
were deported to the Dachau concentration camp in order to force
them to emigrate and to "Aryanize" their assets.
During the
Second World War 4,365 people were interned as Nazi forced laborers
in the camps in Baden-Baden, Steinbach, Malschbach and Sandweier. At
the Lichtental cemetery there is a memorial stone for the 235 Soviet
dead from Malschbach.
Baden-Baden was not one of the main
targets of the strategic air war. On March 11, 1943, however, the
Lichtenthal district was hit by bombs, with the St. Bonifatius
Church being badly damaged and burned out completely an air raid on
the district of Oos destroyed around 300 houses (ie around a third
of Oos) or - such as For example, the Oos Church - badly damaged,
and on January 2, 1945, another air raid on Oos train station and
the barracks on Schwarzwaldstraße caused extensive damage. A total
of 3.1% of the city was destroyed by air strikes. A total of 125
people were killed. Of the 9,615 apartments in existence in 1939,
296 (3.07%) were completely destroyed and 557 (5.77%) were badly
damaged, and at the end of the war, 79,000 m³ of rubble had to be
removed.
After the Second World War, Baden-Baden became the
seat of the French zone government and the headquarters of the
French armed forces in Germany. The casino resumed operations in
1950. The Südwestfunk was established in Baden-Baden, whose
successor Südwestrundfunk still produces an important part of its
program here today. In 1977 the branch line in the city center was
shut down, and the Oos train station was named Bahnhof Baden-Baden.
In 1981 Baden-Baden hosted the second state horticultural show in
Baden-Württemberg.
In 1963 an IOC session was held in Baden-Baden and the 11th
Olympic Congress in 1981. In both conferences, enormous problems
were on the agenda, which were solved in Baden-Baden and ultimately
ensured the continued existence of the Olympic Games. In addition,
in 1981 the two cities of Calgary (Canada) and Seoul (South Korea)
were nominated as host cities for the 1988 Olympic Games. In 1996,
the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded Baden-Baden the
title “Olympic City” for its services to the Olympic movement.
Baden-Baden is the ninth city in the world to be awarded this title.
Its external symbol is the "Olympic Cup" created by Pierre de
Coubertin, which IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch personally
presented in 1997 in Baden-Baden.
On September 18, 1973 at
7:01 a.m., a severe gas explosion occurred in the cold store section
of a slaughterhouse in the Oos district, in which 13 people died and
another 10 were seriously injured. The entire cold store was
destroyed. There were no gas pipes in the cold store itself.
Investigations determined that the cause was a defective valve in an
underground gas pipe running about 5 m deeper. From there, natural
gas could get into the cooling hall above and be ignited by an
electric switching spark.
The German Media Prize has been
awarded in Baden-Baden since 1992. With the withdrawal of the French
armed forces, which was completed by 1999, large areas of land and
buildings were made available for civilian use in the western urban
areas. The new Cité district has been under construction there since
then.
On April 3rd and 4th, 2009, Baden-Baden was one of the
host locations of the summit for the 60th anniversary of NATO. A
working lunch for the heads of state and government of the member
states took place in the Kurhaus.
Baden-Baden has been
applying for the title of UNESCO World Heritage Site as Great Spas
of Europe together with other major health resorts since 2010 and
has been on the tentative list since 2014.
The Roman settlement, like many cities with medicinal springs,
was called Aquae, the Latin word for spring or bath. While no
epithet is known for the place itself, the administrative district
surrounding it bore the honorary title Civitas Aurelia Aquensis in
the 3rd century. Many authors associated this with Emperor Caracalla
('Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus'), who had the baths expanded.
According to a more recent theory, Emperor Elagabal ('Marcus
Aurelius Antoninus') was the namesake.
The city has been
simply called Baden since the Middle Ages. The place name was also
transferred to Hohenbaden Castle, built around 1100, the new seat of
Hermann II, originally Margrave of Verona. In the course of the 12th
century, Baden became part of its title; the margraviate of Baden
was created, which was divided into two from the 16th to the 18th
century and rose to become the Grand Duchy in the 19th century. The
name of the state of Baden and thus also that of today's
Baden-Württemberg has an origin in the name of the city of Baden
(-Baden).
To distinguish between cities of the same name -
Baden in Switzerland and Baden near Vienna, Badenweiler in the Old
Baden Oberland was originally only called Baden - an addition was
often necessary. This is how the city was also called Niederbaden,
Margrave Baden and later Baden in Baden. The name Baden-Baden
initially stood for the Catholic margraviate, which was separated
from the Protestant counterpart Baden-Durlach from 1535 (meaning,
for example, "Margraviate Baden, Baden Residence"). After the
Catholic margraves moved their seat to Rastatt in the 18th century,
Baden bei Rastatt became a common name for the city of Baden. When
the Catholic line died out in 1771 and the Margraviate of Baden -
now with Karlsruhe as a residence - reunited, Rastatt took a back
seat. The name Baden-Baden passed from the former territory to the
city of Baden, whose importance had grown again in the 19th century.
The double name caught on long before it became official on
September 1, 1931.
The urban district of Baden-Baden is surrounded by the district of Rastatt. Baden-Baden is located on the western edge of the northern Black Forest in the valley of the Oos, a small river that flows into the Murg about 13 km further near Rastatt. The eastern parts of the city nestle into the slopes of the Black Forest. The highest point in the urban area is the Badener Höhe at 1002 m. The western districts are in the foothills zone and the Upper Rhine Plain, where the 112 m deepest point of the district is in the Geggenau in the Rastatter Ried nature reserve. Viticulture is practiced in the foothills. The Baden-Baden Rebland belongs to the Ortenau wine-growing region.
With around 54,000 inhabitants, Baden-Baden is the smallest of the nine independent cities in the state and forms a middle center with partial functions of a regional center. In addition to the city of Baden-Baden, the municipalities of Hügelsheim and Sinzheim, both of which are located in the Rastatt district, belong to the central area of Baden-Baden. There are also relations with the French north of Alsace.
The city of Baden-Baden is divided into the following
districts: Oos, Balg, Weststadt, city center, Lichtental with
Oberbeuern and Geroldsau, Ebersteinburg, Steinbach, Neuweier,
Varnhalt, Haueneberstein and Sandweier.
There are also
numerous other residential areas or residential areas with their own
names, some of which are very scattered: Gaisbach, Gallenbach
(Varnhalt), Hungerberg, Malschbach, Mührich, Müllenbach, Schmalbach,
Schneckenbach (Neuweier), Seelach, Umweg (Steinbach) and Unterer
Plättig.
The districts of Ebersteinburg, Haueneberstein and
Sandweier each have their own local administration with a local
mayor. The districts of Steinbach, Neuweier and Varnhalt have a
joint local administration (Rebland) also with a local mayor.
In the urban district of Baden-Baden there are three uninhabited
enclaves of the neighboring community of Sinzheim, including the
Fremersberg monastery.
The
following cities and municipalities border the city of Baden-Baden.
They are named clockwise, starting in the north, and all belong to
the Rastatt district: Rastatt, Kuppenheim, Gaggenau, Gernsbach,
Weisenbach, Forbach, Bühl, Bühlertal, Sinzheim, Hügelsheim and
Iffezheim.
With 85.26 km² or 60.8 percent of the urban area
(state average for Baden-Württemberg: 37.8%), an above-average
proportion of the area is covered with forest. Approx. 75 km² of
this is in municipal ownership, making the Baden-Baden city forest
one of the largest in Germany.
In the area between Badener Höhe and the Black Forest High Road, Baden-Baden is part of the Black Forest National Park. Seven nature reserves are wholly or partly within the boundaries of the city. More than 60 percent of the community area is under landscape protection. The six extensive natural monuments in Baden-Baden include the Geroldsauer waterfall and the Wolfsschlucht. Dozens of individual trees in the gardens, parks and forests are protected as natural monuments.
As of December 2021, of the 56,337 residents, 35.9% (20,221) were Catholic, 15.3% (8,596) Protestant, while 48.8% were either of other denominations or denominations, or non-denominational. At the end of 2015, of the 55,863 residents, 42.1% were Catholic, 17.8% were Protestant, while 40.1% either belonged to other denominations or denominations or were non-denominational. The number of Protestants and Catholics has therefore fallen in the period under review, while the proportion of others has increased.
Baden-Baden initially belonged to the diocese of Speyer and to the ecclesiastical province of Mainz. Soon after the Diet of Worms, Margrave Philip II allowed evangelical preachers into the city, and as early as 1538 the entire city is said to have been Protestant. The Reformation was not officially introduced until 1556. After his death, however, his children had to become Catholic again under pressure from their guardian, Duke Albrecht V, and Protestant services were forbidden from 1571. In 1610 a Protestant court chaplain was appointed again; However, Margrave Wilhelm brought the Jesuits into the city, who carried out the re-Catholicization. Those who wanted to remain Protestant had to leave the city, so that from 1650 there were no more Protestants in Baden-Baden. From 1771, under Margrave Karl Friedrich, only Catholic services were permitted. The faithful initially belonged to the Bishopric of Speyer, after its dissolution to the General Vicariate of Bruchsal, and in 1821/1827 the community became part of the newly founded Archdiocese of Freiburg. Baden-Baden became the seat of a deanery. The parishes assigned to the deanery were reorganized in 1976. The deanery boundaries were adjusted to the new urban district of Baden-Baden.
In the urban area of Baden-Baden there are the following Catholic churches and parishes: Stiftskirche (old town), St. Bernhard (Weststadt), St. Josef (town centre), St. Bonifatius (Lichtental), St. Dionysius (Oos), St .Eucharius (Bellow), Holy Spirit (Geroldsau), St. Antonius (Ebersteinburg), St. Bartholomäus (Haueneberstein), St. Jakobus (Steinbach), St. Katharina (Sandweier), St. Michael (Neuweier), Herz- Jesus (Varnhalt) and the motorway church of St. Christophorus at the Baden-Baden service area. With the Lichtenthal monastery, there is a Cistercian abbey in the city.
The few Protestants in Baden-Baden at the beginning of the 19th century were able to found their first congregation in 1832. Like all other present-day parishes, this belongs to the Evangelical Church in Baden (district of southern Baden). In 1855 the community was able to build its own church, today's Evangelical City Church on Augustaplatz. In 1960/1964 the parish was divided into the St. Luke's parish and the St. Mark's parish. Other Protestant congregations in the city area are the Luther congregation in Lichtental (parish established in 1936), the Paul congregation in Weststadt (parish established in 1946), the peace congregation in Baden-Oos (parish established in 1949) and the Matthäus congregation in Steinbach-Sinzheim. All of Baden-Baden's Protestant parishes now belong to the church district of Baden-Baden and Rastatt.
In addition to the two major churches, there are free churches and
congregations in Baden-Baden, including a Lutheran congregation
(established in 1912) belonging to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Baden and a Seventh-day Adventist congregation. The Gospelhouse
Baden-Baden is also represented as an evangelical Pentecostal church.
There is a Romanian Orthodox Church (Stourdza Chapel) and a Russian
Orthodox Church. There is also an Old Catholic community whose services
are celebrated in the hospital church. The Anglican Episcopalian Church
also has a congregation in the city and caters primarily to American
believers.
The New Apostolic Church is also represented in
Baden-Baden, as is a congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses.
The Jewish religious community had a synagogue on
Stephanienstrasse. In the first census after Hitler's "seizure of
power", 260 people were recorded as "religious Jews".
During
the November pogroms of 10 November 1938, many of the Jews living in
Baden-Baden were taken away by the police in the early hours of the
morning and taken to the yard of the old police headquarters (next
to today's Caracalla Therme). Around noon they were escorted to the
synagogue as a guarded column. Eyewitnesses report humiliations by
the SS and brutal attacks by Baden-Baden citizens. A number of Jews
were stoned, beaten, whipped, knocked unconscious, humiliated and
sometimes physically abused. Inside the building, SS men from the
Baden-Baden area were busy setting fire to the women's gallery. The
synagogue in Baden-Baden (Stephanienstraße 5), built in 1899, was
desecrated by the mob. With the exception of about 60 people, all
the Jews who had been herded together were finally taken to the
train station by bus. From there, the Baden-Baden Jews were deported
to the Dachau concentration camp in a special train along with other
Jews from the Black Forest. The synagogue in Baden-Baden burned down
completely. A printing company later acquired the property. On the
site of the former synagogue there is a memorial stone with the
inscription: "Here stood the Baden-Baden synagogue, destroyed by
arson on November 10, 1938."
On October 22, 1940, 106 Jews
from Baden-Baden were deported to Camp de Gurs as part of the
Wagner-Bürckel Action. At least 14 of them died in Auschwitz, one in
Lublin-Majdanek and 22 in various other camps. In 1941 there were
still 44 Jews in the city district. They were deported to Lublin and
Theresienstadt. Only two returned to their hometowns, all others
perished.
The Jewish cemetery in Baden-Baden (Lichtental) was
not closed or sold due to a decree by the Baden Minister of the
Interior dated September 12, 1941, as happened to many other Jewish
cemeteries. On November 25, 1976, a memorial stone for the Jewish
victims of National Socialist tyranny was inaugurated; the memorial
stone contains a floor slab of the Baden-Baden synagogue with the
following inscription: "For day and night I weep for the slain of my
people" (inscription - Jeremiah 8:23).
The Israelite
community in Baden-Baden, which had long since been destroyed, was
formally deleted from the register of associations on February 23,
1951 and re-established in 1956. The service is still held today in
a prayer room at Werderstraße 2, in the building complex of the
Kurhaus.
In the district of Steinbach there is a mosque under the supervision of the Turkish DİTİB.
In 2016, the city of Baden-Baden had a gross domestic product (GDP)
of 2.833 billion euros. In the same year, GDP per capita was EUR 52,234
(Baden-Württemberg: EUR 43,632, Germany EUR 38,180) and thus above the
regional and national average. In 2016, the city's economic output
recorded nominal growth of 1.7 percent. There were around 41,400
employed people in the city in 2016. The unemployment rate was 4.6
percent in December 2018 and is thus above the average of 3.0 percent in
Baden-Württemberg.
In the so-called Future Atlas 2016, the urban
district of Baden-Baden ranked 93rd out of 402 districts, municipal
associations and urban districts in Germany and is therefore one of the
places with "future prospects". In the 2019 edition, it was ranked 67th
out of 401, making it one of the places with "high future prospects".
Baden-Baden is on the Autobahn 5 (Karlsruhe–Basel) and can be reached
via the Baden-Baden and Bühl junctions. Another driveway is located in
the Sandweier district at the motorway church. In Baden-Baden begins the
panoramic and tourist road Schwarzwaldhochstraße - Bundesstraße 500 -
which ends in Freudenstadt. Partly over 1000 meters high, it offers
drivers insights into the northern Black Forest and views of the Rhine
plain, the Vosges, the Swabian Alb or the Alps.
In order to
relieve the inner city of the through traffic that was previously
concentrated in the narrow valley floor, the Schlossbergtangente was
built to the north and the Michaels Tunnel to the west of the city
center. Federal highway 500 has been running through this, the second
longest road tunnel in Baden-Württemberg at 2544 meters, since 1989. The
central Leopoldsplatz has been closed to through traffic since then.
The B3 federal highway passes the districts of Steinbach, Oos,
Sandweier and Haueneberstein (B3 new federal highway).
Baden-Baden train station (formerly: Baden-Oos) is an Intercity
Express stop on the Rhine Valley Railway from Mannheim to Basel. The
Black Forest Railway, which commutes between Karlsruhe and Constance,
stops every hour at Baden-Baden station. The regional express Karlsruhe
– Basel also stops hourly in Baden-Baden during peak hours. The light
rail lines S 7 and S 71 of the Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft offer direct
connections to Bühl, Rastatt, Ettlingen and Karlsruhe. In 2010, the
Pro-Rail Alliance voted Baden-Baden station “Bahnhof des Jahres” in the
small-town station category.
Further local public transport
(ÖPNV) is provided by the transport companies, which serve the entire
district and some of the neighboring towns with several bus lines. The
main line is bus line 201, which runs every twelve minutes during the
day from the train station in the Oos district, through the western part
of the city, via the city center to Lichtental and Oberbeuern.
The municipal tram was opened on January 24, 1910 and closed on February
28, 1951. It had meter-gauge routes of around 15 km in length and was
replaced by the Baden-Baden trolleybus, which was in operation on a
parallel route from June 26, 1949 to July 31, 1971.
Baden-Baden
used to have two railway stations, because from 1845 to 1977 a branch
line connected the Baden-Oos station (today: Baden-Baden) on the Rhine
Valley Railway with the terminal station in Baden-Baden. Its entrance
building, known as the "Alter Bahnhof" after it was closed, has served
as the entrance area of the Festspielhaus since 1998. On September 24,
1977, the last passenger train ran on the branch line. The railway
facilities from Baden-Baden to Baden-Baden-Oos were converted into the
so-called "green entrance" as part of the state garden show in
Baden-Baden. The Festspielhaus, the entrance to the Michaels Tunnel, an
underground car park and a green area with a pond are located on the
site of the former terminal station.
In addition, the two
present-day districts of Haueneberstein and Steinbach had stations on
the Rhine Valley Railway, which were abandoned in the 1970s. They were
reactivated as part of the extension of the Stadtbahn line from
Karlsruhe to Achern. The stop in Steinbach was renamed Baden-Baden
Rebland.
Since 1913, a funicular has led to the summit of the
Merkur. The Merkurbergbahn overcomes 370 meters in altitude over a
distance of 1192 meters.
The city of Baden-Baden has a stake in Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport,
which is the second largest commercial airport in Baden-Württemberg with
around one million passengers a year. It is located in Baden-Airpark, a
former Canadian air force base, about 10 kilometers west of Baden-Baden
city center in Rheinmünster-Söllingen. Among other things, it serves as
a base for the low-cost airline Ryanair. Mainly city and holiday
destinations in Europe and around the Mediterranean are served.
On August 22, 1910, an airship hangar was inaugurated at the Baden-Oos
airfield west of the station. It was the first German Zeppelin landing
pad outside of Friedrichshafen. After the Second World War, it developed
into a heavily frequented airfield. From 1997, general aviation
operations were relocated to Baden-Airpark. The Oos airfield continues
to serve as a special landing field - on a part of the former area - as
the home of the Aero-Club Baden-Baden e. V. and the Fliegergruppe
Gaggenau e. V. of sports and leisure aviation.
Alongside Stuttgart and Mainz, Baden-Baden is one of the three main
locations of Südwestrundfunk (SWR). The two program departments
"Information" and "Culture" as well as the "Technology and Production"
department are based in the broadcasting center complex on Fremersberg.
SWR radio produces the national programs SWR2, SWR3, Dasding and SWR
Aktuell in Baden-Baden. In the television studios, among other things,
the weekday program ARD-Buffet as well as interior shots for the series
Die Fallers and Tatort are produced. SWR talk shows have been broadcast
from the old E-Werk since 2000, first people of the week with Frank
Elstner and since 2015 night café with moderator Michael Steinbrecher.
ARTE Deutschland TV GmbH is also based in the city. Every year, the
German Academy of Performing Arts and the broadcaster 3sat organize
their television film festival in Baden-Baden.
Three daily
newspapers are published in Baden-Baden: the Badisches Tagblatt (BT), a
local edition of the Badische Latest News (BNN) and the online daily
newspaper goodnews4.de.
The German Media Prize is awarded
annually in Baden-Baden by the Baden-Baden company Media Control.
Since 2009, the Baden-Baden Event and Media Award has been presented
annually by the European Media and Event Academy and the Karlsruhe
Chamber of Industry and Commerce to outstanding trainees in the stage
and media sectors.
Baden-Baden is the seat of a regional court and a district court,
which belong to the higher regional court district of Karlsruhe.
There is also a tax office and a customs office. The city is also the
seat of the deanery of the church district of Baden-Baden and Rastatt of
the Evangelical Church in Baden.
The Baden-Baden fire brigade is
divided into an operational department for the professional fire brigade
and ten operational departments for the volunteer fire brigade.
Baden-Baden has numerous educational institutions. First and foremost
is the European Media and Event Academy. There are also a number of
primary and secondary schools in Baden-Baden.
First, there are
the general education schools: The primary schools are the Vincenti
elementary school, the Baden-Oos elementary school with a bilingual
course and one elementary school each in the districts of Balg,
Ebersteinburg, Lichtental, Neuweier and Varnhalt. The primary and
secondary schools include the Theodor-Heuss School (primary and
secondary school with a secondary school) and corresponding facilities
in the districts of Steinbach, Haueneberstein, Sandweier and Lichtental.
The secondary schools include the Hauptschule Lichtental, the
Realschule Baden-Baden (public Realschule) and the Theodor-Heuss-Schule
(public special education and counseling center with a focus on
learning). There are also several public and private grammar schools in
Baden-Baden, namely the Richard-Wagner-Gymnasium (public grammar
school), the Markgraf-Ludwig-Gymnasium (public grammar school), the
Hohenbaden grammar school (public grammar school) and the Klosterschule
vom Heiligen Grab ( private high school). The Heinz-von-Förster School
in Oosscheuern is a special education and counseling center with a focus
on social and emotional development. The Stulz-von-Ortenberg-School for
educational support combines elementary school, secondary school,
secondary school and special school (school for educational support)
under one roof.
Baden-Baden also offers schools with a vocational
focus, such as the Robert Schuman School (commercial and home economics
schools; from the Hauptschule certificate to the Abitur) and the Louis
Lepoix School trade school.
The largest private educational
institution is the Pedagogium Baden-Baden (Realschule, Gymnasium,
Wirtschaftsgymnasium; with boarding school). Finally, there are the two
vocational schools BBS Baden-Badener Sprachschule GmbH and
Wirtschaftsinstitut Baden-Baden in the Merkur Academy International.
The IB Medical Academy with schools for speech therapy,
physiotherapy and podiatry as well as the Bernd Blindow Schools with
physiotherapy and PTA have established a school location in Baden-Baden
as further private educational institutions.
Nationally known
resident companies
The nationally known companies based in
Baden-Baden include companies with a focus on health and wellness, such
as the Acura Kliniken, Biologische Heilmittel Heel, Brenners Park-Hotel
& Spa, Sans Soucis Cosmétique GmbH and the Carasana Bäderbetriebe GmbH
(among others Caracalla Therme, Friedrichsbad). Some industrial
companies are also located in Baden-Baden, such as ARKU Maschinenbau
GmbH, Arvato Infoscore or Schöck Teile GmbH, as well as the financial
service provider Grenke AG. Baden-Baden is also an important location
for the media industry, with Media Control, Nomos Verlag and
Südwestrundfunk, for example.
Personalities who were born in Baden-Baden and have become particularly well known include the Reich Chancellor Max von Baden, the writer Reinhold Schneider, the National Socialist Rudolf Höß, the journalist Erich Kuby and the pop singer Tony Marshall. Well-known residents include the writers Werner Bergengruen, Otto Flake, the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, the pianist and composer Clara Schumann and Frank Elstner. Among the honorary citizens are u. a. Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, Otto von Bismarck, Albert Gönner, Konrad Adenauer, the art collector Frieder Burda and the composer and conductor Pierre Boulez.
"It is strange that no writer has yet used Baden's heyday (1845-1869)
for a novel," wrote Otto Flake in the foreword to his novel Hortense or
the Return to Baden-Baden, which was published in 1933. This novel
reflects the flair of the health resort's heyday in the 19th century.
Flake may not have been aware of Ivan Turgenev's 1867 novel Rauch, which
criticizes and caricatures the life of Russian nobles in the fashion
spa.
Mark Twain described Baden-Baden in his satirical travelogue
A Tramp Abroad.
Baden-Baden also influenced other works as the
scene of events: notes of an idler in Baden-Baden can be found in
Reinhold Schneider's Der Balkon from 1957.
In the second and
third part of his novel Ein Sommer in Baden-Baden (1982), Leonid Zypkin
portrayed Fyodor Dostoyevsky's gambling addiction at the roulette table
in Baden-Baden during his trip to Germany with his second wife Anna in
1867, using motifs from his 1866 novel The Gambler .
Since 2005,
the author Rita Hampp has published several thrillers and novels set in
Baden-Baden.
Südwestrundfunk, based here, and its affiliated production companies
often use the city as a backdrop for film and television recordings. The
series Der Forellenhof and Bloch as well as various TV films played in
Baden-Baden. Ernst Jacobi, Heinz Schimmelpfennig and Karin Anselm
investigated as crime scene inspectors in Baden-Baden.
From 2002
to 2013 Dieter Pfaff was seen as psychotherapist Maximilian Bloch in the
television series Bloch.
Between 1968 and 1972, the fictional
Mommsen-Gymnasium in Baden-Baden served as the setting for the short
series Die Lümmel von der Erste Bank, which, however, was mainly filmed
in Munich. The film The Romantic Englishwoman with Michael Caine and
Glenda Jackson takes place largely in Baden-Baden, an episode in Claude
Miller's film The Eye with Isabelle Adjani in Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa.
The Baden-Baden casino has also been used as a film set on several
occasions, for example in The Last Pedestrian with Heinz Erhardt from
1960 and in Otto's Eleven with Otto Waalkes in the leading role from
2010.
The TV shows that were broadcast from the Kurhaus included
the election for Sportsman of the Year, the German Schlager Festival and
the Baden-Baden Roulette, a gala evening with musical guests.