Hersbruck () is a small town in

Middle Franconia Middle Franconia (german: Mittelfranken, ) is one of the three administrative regions of Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is located in the west of Bavaria and borders the state of Baden-Württemberg. The administrative seat is Ansbach; however, ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, belonging to the district

Nürnberger Land Nürnberger Land is a ''Landkreis'' (district) in Bavaria, Germany. It is bounded by (from the north and clockwise) the districts of Forchheim, Bayreuth, Amberg-Sulzbach, Neumarkt, Roth and Erlangen-Höchstadt, and by the city of Nuremberg. Hi ...

. It is best known for the late-gothic artwork of the Hersbruck altar, the "Hirtenmuseum" and the landscape of Hersbruck Switzerland.

History

Hersbruck was founded in 976 when a castle was built there near a bridge. The name probably comes from ''Haderihesprucga'', the bridge of Haderich. In the Middle Ages the town was situated on the Golden Route from

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

, which brought prosperity to Hersbruck. In 1297 Hersbruck was given municipal rights, after 1504 the town belonged to the area of the free imperial town Nuremberg and in 1806 became Bavarian. Hersbruck was the birthplace, in 1673, of Jacob Paul von Gundling, the famous and unfortunate historian at the court of Brandenburg-Prussia. During the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

regime, Hersbruck contained a subsidiary camp of

Flossenbürg concentration camp Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Unlike other concentration camps, it was located in a remote area, in the Fichtel Mountains of Bavaria, adjacent to the town of F ...

. The camp had about 10,000 prisoners, about 4,000 of them died in Hersbruck. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, that camp, on the outskirts of town, was converted for housing Latvian Displaced Persons and renamed as Camp Kathann. It was first operated by United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and later by International Refugee Organization. Today, the whole area where the camp used to be has been completely redeveloped. In 2007 the monument ''Ohne Namen'' (Without names) by

Vittore Bocchetta Vittore Bocchetta (15 November 1918 – 18 February 2021) was a Sardinia-born Italian sculptor, painter, and academic. Bocchetta was a member of the anti-fascist Italian resistance movement during World War II. Biography Vittore Bocchetta was ...

has been erected in the ''Rosengarten'' close to the camp site. The artist, one of the Italian political deportees, had managed to escape in April 1945 during one of the

death marches A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinguished in this way from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Conven ...

from Hersbruck to Dachau, when the camp was evacuated by the Nazis with the approach of U.S. forces.

Suburbs

* Altensittenbach * Kühnhofen * Ellenbach * Weiher * Leutenbach * Großviehberg

Partner community

Lossiemouth Lossiemouth ( gd, Inbhir Losaidh) is a town in Moray, Scotland. Originally the port belonging to Elgin, it became an important fishing town. Although there has been over 1,000 years of settlement in the area, the present day town was formed over ...

(

Moray Moray () gd, Moireibh or ') is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with a coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland. Between 1975 ...

, UK), since 1972. *

Pavia Pavia (, , , ; la, Ticinum; Medieval Latin: ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy in northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was the capit ...

, (

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

), since 2005. * San Daniele, Italy, since 2008

Culture

In Hersbruck the Deutsches Hirtenmuseum, the only museum in Germany which shows the working and living conditions of herdsmen.

Recreation

In 2004 the Frankenalb-Therme (http://www.frankenalbtherme.de) was opened. It offers apart from a

thermal A thermal column (or thermal) is a rising mass of buoyant air, a convective current in the atmosphere, that transfers heat energy vertically. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of Earth's surface from solar radiation, and are an example ...

and a fun bath area with a slide (length 82 m) also a large

sauna A sauna (, ), or sudatory, is a small room or building designed as a place to experience dry or wet heat sessions, or an establishment with one or more of these facilities. The steam and high heat make the bathers perspire. A thermometer in a ...

area including several outdoor saunas.

Notable people

Nikolaus Selnecker Nikolaus Selnecker (or Selneccer) (December 5, 1530 – May 24, 1592) was a German musician, theologian and Protestant reformer. He is now known mainly as a hymn writer. He is also known as one of the principal authors of the ''Formula of Conco ...

(1530−1592), German musician and theologian *

Günther Beckstein Günther Beckstein () (born 23 November 1943) is a German CSU politician from Bavaria and was the 17th Minister President of Bavaria from 9 October 2007 to 27 October 2008. He is well known for his outspoken views on law and order. Biography ...

(born 1943), German politician *

Melanie Skotnik Melanie Skotnik (formerly Melfort; born 8 November 1982 in Hersbruck, West Germany) is a French-German high jumper. She holds both German and French citizenship through her parentage and represented Germany until 2004. She retired in June 2016 ...

(born 1982), French-German high jumper

References

External links

* http://www.hersbruck.de/ – official homepage of the City of Hersbruck * http://www.frankenalbtherme.de/ – fun- and thermal bath Frankenalb-Therme Hersbruck * http://www.kz-hersbruck-info.de/ – webpage of the documentation site concentration camp Hersbruck e. V {{Authority control 976 establishments Nürnberger Land 10th-century establishments in Germany