Ludwigsstadt is a
town in the
district of Kronach, in the
Upper Franconian region of
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.
Geography
It is situated in the valley of the
Loquitz River, a tributary of the
Saale
The Saale (), also known as the Saxon Saale (german: Sächsische Saale) and Thuringian Saale (german: Thüringische Saale), is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Franconian Saal ...
, in the
Thuringian-Franconian Highlands of the
Thuringian Slate Mountains and the
mountain ranges. Located north of
Kronach, the Bavarian border with the state of
Thuringia runs about north of the town centre, with Thuringian
Saalfeld in a distance of c. down the Loquitz. Ludwigsstadt is the only municipality of the State of Bavaria located north of the
Rennsteig
The () is a ridge walk as well as an historical boundary path in the Thuringian Forest, Thuringian Highland and Franconian Forest in Central Germany. The long-distance trail runs for about from and the valley in the northwest to and the ...
ridge.
History
The settlement in the Landgraviate of Thuringia was first mentioned in a 1269 deed as ''Ludwichsdorf'', probably named after a local ''
Vogt'' official of the Counts of
Weimar-
Orlamünde. In 1427 the area around historic Lauenstein Castle was acquired by the
Hohenzollern Elector
Frederick I of Brandenburg
Frederick (Middle High German: ''Friderich','' Standard German: ''Friedrich''; 21 September 1371 – 20 September 1440) was the last Burgrave of Nuremberg from 1397 to 1427 (as Frederick VI), Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach from 1398, Mar ...
, who added it as a northern exclave to his Franconian
Principality of Kulmbach. Ludwigsstadt received
town privileges
Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the traditio ...
in 1490, which it again lost in 1525, as the citizens joined a rebellion against the landlords during the
German Peasants' War.
In 1622 Margrave
Christian of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
Christian, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (30 January 1581 in Cölln – 30 May 1655 in Bayreuth) was a member of the House of Hohenzollern and Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (later renamed ''Brandenburg-Bayreuth'').
He was the eldest o ...
, colonel of the Imperial
Franconian Circle
The Franconian Circle (german: Fränkischer Reichskreis) was an Imperial Circle established in 1500 in the centre of the Holy Roman Empire. It comprised the eastern part of the former Franconian stem duchy—roughly corresponding with the pre ...
, finally purchased Ludwigsstadt. When his descendant Margrave
Charles Alexander resigned in 1791, he sold his possessions to his Hohenzollern relatives in the
Kingdom of Prussia. In the course of the
German Mediatisation in 1803, Ludwigsstadt fell to the
Electorate of Bavaria
The Electorate of Bavaria (german: Kurfürstentum Bayern) was an independent hereditary electorate of the Holy Roman Empire from 1623 to 1806, when it was succeeded by the Kingdom of Bavaria.
The Wittelsbach dynasty which ruled the Duchy of B ...
.
Transport
In 1885 Ludwigsstadt achieved access to the
Franconian Forest Railway
Franconian may refer to:
*anything related to Franconia (German ''Franken''), a historic region in Germany, now part of Bavaria, Thuringia and Baden-Württemberg
*East Franconian German, a dialect spoken in Franconia
*Franconian languages
* Francon ...
line, connecting the Bavarian
Ludwig South-North Railway The Ludwig South-North railway (''Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn''), built between 1843 and 1854, was the first railway line to be constructed by Royal Bavarian State Railways. It was named after the king, Ludwig I, whose infrastructure priorities had ea ...
near
Lichtenfels with the Thuringian
Saal Railway at
Saalfeld. It soon evolved to one of the most important north–south railway connections in Germany, linking the Prussian capital
Berlin with
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 ...
and
Munich.
Between 1945 and 1990 Ludwigsstadt station served as West German checkpoint for
crossing the inner German border
Crossing the inner German border remained possible throughout the Cold War; it was never entirely sealed in the fashion of the border between the two Koreas, though there were severe restrictions on the movement of East German citizens.Buchholz, ...
by rail with its counterpart at
Probstzella station
Probstzella station is the station of the Thuringian town of Probstzella in the district of Saalfeld-Rudolstadt. It is located at the southeastern edge of Probstzella and since 1 October 1885 it has been a through station on the Franconian Forest ...
. The border crossing was open for trains travelling from
West to
East Germany or
West Berlin. The traffic was subject to the
interzonal traffic {{Unreferenced, date=April 2020
Inter-zonal traffic was the cross-border traffic between the four designated garrison zones in Germany between 1945 and 1973 that were created in 1945 by the victors of the Second World War.
History
Following the ...
regulations, that regarding trains between West Germany and West Berlin followed the special regulations of the
Transit Agreement (1972)
The Transit Agreement ( German: ''Transitabkommen''), signed 17 December 1971, arranged access to and from West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the ...
.
After
German Reunification, the railway was restored and since 2000 is part of the
Intercity Express
The Intercity Express (commonly known as ICE ()) is a system of high-speed trains predominantly running in Germany. It also serves some destinations in Austria, Denmark (ceased in 2017 but planned to resume in 2022), France, Belgium, Switzerla ...
(ICE) network with hourly trains linking Berlin and Munich. As the winding line however does not allow fast travelling, it is to be replaced by the
Nuremberg–Erfurt high-speed railway.
References
{{Authority control
Kronach (district)
Inner German border