Vacha is a town in the

Wartburgkreis Wartburgkreis is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the west of Thuringia, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from the north clockwise) the districts Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis, Gotha, Schmalkalden-Meiningen, and the districts Fulda, Hersfeld-Rotenburg and ...

district, in

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and lar ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. It is situated on the river

Werra The Werra (), a river in central Germany, is the right-bank headwater of the Weser. "Weser" is a synonym in an old dialect of German. The Werra has its source near Eisfeld in southern Thuringia. After the Werra joins the river Fulda in the ...

, 15 km west of

Bad Salzungen Bad Salzungen () is a town in Thuringia, Germany. It is the capital of the Wartburgkreis district. Geography Location Bad Salzungen is situated on the river Werra, east of Tiefenort and south of Eisenach. Divisions In July 2018 the former ...

, and 23 km east of

Bad Hersfeld The festival and spa town of Bad Hersfeld (''Bad'' is "spa" in German; the Old High German name of the city was ''Herolfisfeld'') is the district seat of the Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in northeastern Hesse, Germany, roughly 50 km south ...

History

Within the German Empire (1871–1918), Vacha was part of the

Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (german: Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach) was a historical German state, created as a duchy in 1809 by the merger of the Ernestine duchies of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach, which had been in personal union since 1741. It was rai ...

Sons and daughters of the city

* Georg Witzel (1501–1573), theologian and opponent of Luther * Johann Gottfried Seume, (1763–1810) a German author and a

Shanghaiing Shanghaiing or crimping is the practice of kidnapping people to serve as sailors by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence. Those engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as ''crimps''. The related term '' press gang' ...

victim while traveling through, forced to become a Hessian soldier. The local high school is named for him.

References

Inner German border Wartburgkreis Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach {{Wartburgkreis-geo-stub