Neckargemünd ( pfl, Neggergmin) is a town in Germany, in the district of

Rhein-Neckar-Kreis The Rhein-Neckar-Kreis is a district in the northwest of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The administrative headquarters are based in the city Heidelberg, which is a district-free city. As of 2019, the district is the most populous in Baden-Württe ...

, state of

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

. It lies on the

Neckar The Neckar () is a river in Germany, mainly flowing through the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, with a short section through Hesse. The Neckar is a major right tributary of the Rhine. Rising in the Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis near Schwenn ...

, 10 km upriver from

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

at the confluence with the river Elsenz. This confluence of the two rivers is the origin of the name, as Neckargemünd means ''confluence of the Neckar''. As of 2006, there were 14,122 inhabitants.

History

The region has been occupied by people for a half a million years as shown by the find of

Homo heidelbergensis ''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of ''H. erectus'' in ...

in nearby

Mauer Mauer is the German word for ''wall''. It may also refer to: Places *Mauer, Vienna, a former village of Lower Austria that has been part of Vienna since 1938 * Mauer bei Amstetten, a village in the municipality of Amstetten, in Lower Austria * M ...

in 1907. Stone shards and stone axes have been found from the

Early Stone Age The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3 million years ago when the first evidence for stone tool production and use by hominins appears in t ...

. During Roman times the area was settled by

Celts The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancien ...

and

Suebi The Suebi (or Suebians, also spelled Suevi, Suavi) were a large group of Germanic peoples originally from the Elbe river region in what is now Germany and the Czech Republic. In the early Roman era they included many peoples with their own names ...

. Grave stones from the 2nd and 3rd century in Kleingemünd show Celtic names. From the end of the 5th century the

Franks The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...

held sway over the region. An iron spear tip and two iron arrow heads were left behind in Neckargemünd. Neckargemünd was founded in the 10th century, most likely as a fishing village. Neckargemünd was first mentioned by name in documents in 988.

Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor Otto III (June/July 980 – 23 January 1002) was Holy Roman Emperor from 996 until his death in 1002. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto III was the only son of the Emperor Otto II and his wife Theophanu. Otto III was crowned as King of Ge ...

enfeoffed Hildebald,

Bishop of Worms The Prince-Bishopric of Worms, was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire. Located on both banks of the Rhine around Worms just north of the union of that river with the Neckar, it was largely surrounded by the Electorate of the ...

, with the royal forests around Wimpfen and Neckarbischofsheim. Neckargemünd was named as the northwest corner of this area: ''a loco Gemundi ubi Elisinzia fluvius influit Neccaro fluvio''. The counts of Lauffen also played a role in the region after making

Dilsberg Dilsberg Castle (german: Bergfeste Dilsberg) is a ruined castle located in Neckargemünd, Germany. It was built by the counts of Lauffen in the 12th century, but in the 14th century became part of the Electorate of the Palatinate. The castle bec ...

the seat of their domain. Neckargemünd became a free town in 1286. In 1395 it passed to the elector palatine and, together with the surrounding district, became part of Baden in 1814.

Population development

Neckargemünd with Kleingemünd Neckargemünd with current boroughs

Boroughs

Neckargemünd includes a number of boroughs (''Ortsteile'') not part of the core settlement Neckargemünd. * Kleingemünd (1 January 1907) – independent from 1860-1906 *

(1 January 1973) - a small historic village with a medieval castle ruin, the village includes Neuhof, Dilsbergerhof and Rainbach * Waldhilsbach (1 January 1974) * Mückenloch (1 January 1975)

Mayors

* 1855–1861: Georg Reibold * 1862–1867: Julius Friedrich Menzer * 1867–1873: Carl Heckmann * 1873–1899: Carl Thilo * 1899–1902: Carl Wittmann * 1903–1909: Franz Heeg * 1909–1910: Wilhelm Steinbrunn * 1910–1917: Georg Schneider * 1917–1919: Carl Kirchmayer * 1919–1928: Dr. Emil Leist * 1928–1939: Georg Müßig * 1939–1942: Wilhelm Cloos * 1942–1945: Gottfried Kramer (first vice mayor, then mayor) * 1945–1948: Georg Lampertsdörfer * 1948–1966: Heinrich Held (1948–1951 temporary) * 1966–1984: Kurt Schieck * 1984–2000: Oskar Schuster * 2000-2016: Horst Althoff (CDU) * 2016–: Frank Volk

Twin towns – sister cities

Neckargemünd is twinned with: * Evian-les-Bains, France (1970) *

Missoula Missoula ( ; fla, label=Salish language, Séliš, Nłʔay, lit=Place of the Small Bull Trout, script=Latn; kut, Tuhuⱡnana, script=Latn) is a city in the U.S. state of Montana; it is the county seat of Missoula County, Montana, Missoula Cou ...

, United States (1993) *

Jindřichův Hradec Jindřichův Hradec (; german: Neuhaus) is a town in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 21,000 inhabitants. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)#Monument rese ...

, Czech Republic (1996) *

Romeno Romeno (''Romén'' in local dialect) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in Trentino in the northern Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about north of Trento. Geography As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 1,315 and an ar ...

, Italy (1996) Neckargemünd also has friendly relations with Valeč in the Czech Republic.

Notable people

Rainer Ohlhauser Rainer Ohlhauser (born 6 January 1941 in Dilsberg, Rhein-Neckar-Kreis) is a German former footballer who played as a striker during the 1960s and 1970s. Ohlhauser began his career with SV Sandhausen in 1958 before moving to FC Bayern Munich in 1 ...

(born 1941), footballer

References

External links

Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neckargemund Towns in Baden-Württemberg Rhein-Neckar-Kreis Populated places on the Neckar basin Populated riverside places in Germany