Staufen im Breisgau (

High Alemannic High Alemannic is a branch of Alemannic German spoken in the westernmost Austrian state of Vorarlberg and in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Intelligibility of these dialects to non-Alemannic speakers tends to be limited. Language area The High ...

: ''Staufe im Brisgau'') is a German town in the

Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald () is a (district) in the southwest of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Fifty towns and municipalities with 133 settlements lie within the district. The district itself belongs to the region of Freiburg with the region of Sou ...

district of

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, 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 i ...

. It had a population of approximately 8,300 in 2019.

General

The city of Staufen im Breisgau lies in the district of

in the German

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

. Staufen has approximately 7,700 inhabitants and forms, together with the community of

Münstertal, Black Forest The Münstertal (Münster valley) is a municipality in the southern Black Forest, which belongs to the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is 3 miles east from Staufen, Germany, Staufen. Geography ...

, a community administrative unit. It is noted in history and culture for its association with

Faust Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...

who, according to one source, died in or near Staufen around 1540.

Geography

Staufen lies at the foot of the

Black Forest The Black Forest ( ) is a large forested mountain range in the States of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is th ...

at the exit from the Münstertal. The Black Forest valley of Neumagen goes here directly over into the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

plain. The piedmont of the Black Forest is less distinct. North of the valley exit, the steeply rising old castle ruins dominates; to the southwest begins the hilly landscape of the

Markgräflerland Markgräflerland () is a region in the southwest of Germany, in the south of the States of Germany, German federal state of Baden-Württemberg, located between the Breisgau in the north and the Black Forest in the east; adjacent to west with Franc ...

. Staufen lies on the border between two natural and economic areas: the Rhine plain up to the piedmont with its cultivation of grain, vineyards and vegetables; and the Black Forest, with its cattle and wood, and, until the 19th century, silver mines.

Geothermal drilling controversy

Since 2008, the centre of the city has reported to have risen some , after initially sinking a few millimeters. This has caused considerable damage to buildings in the city centre, including the historical town hall. The cause for this geological change has been identified as a drilling operation conducted in the summer and autumn of 2007 to provide geothermal heating to the city hall. The drilling perforated an anhydrite layer and caused high-pressure

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...

to come into contact with the anhydrite, which then began to expand. By 2010, some sections of town had risen by . In July 2013, no end to the rising process was in sight. Data from the

TerraSAR-X TerraSAR-X is an imaging radar Earth observation satellite, a joint venture being carried out under a public-private-partnership between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Astrium, EADS Astrium. The exclusive commercial exploitation rights ar ...

radar satellite before and after the changes have confirmed the localised nature of the situation. "A geochemical process called anhydrite swelling has been confirmed as the cause of these uplifts. This is a transformation of the mineral anhydrite (anhydrous calcium sulphate) into

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...

(hydrous calcium sulphate). A pre-condition for this transformation is that the anhydrite is in contact with water, which is then stored in its crystalline structure".

Infrastructure

Staufen is located next to the Münstertal railway which runs from Bad Krozingen to

. The railway was electrified in 2013 and is operated by the Südwestdeutsche Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft (SWEG). Leisure and sports facilities The changing rooms of the Alemannenbad The Alemannenbad is a solar-heated outdoor pool with a large sunbathing area. After the Lorettobad in Freiburg, it is the oldest outdoor swimming pool in Baden-Württemberg. The buildings in the entrance area and the changing rooms are under monument protection. The Alemannenbad Staufen eV association was founded in 2003 to provide support. The history of the bathroom is extensively presented in an online publication.

Notable people

Michael Sattler Michael Sattler (1490 – 20 May 1527) was a monk who left the Roman Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation to become one of the early leaders of the Anabaptist movement. He was particularly influential for his role in developing t ...

(1490–1527), a monk who left the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

during the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

and became a leader of the

Anabaptist Anabaptism (from Neo-Latin , from the Greek language, Greek : 're-' and 'baptism'; , earlier also )Since the middle of the 20th century, the German-speaking world no longer uses the term (translation: "Re-baptizers"), considering it biased. ...

movement. * Baron Ignaz von Gleichenstein (1778–1828), aristocrat and amateur cellist, friend of

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...

* Wolfgang Schäfer (born 1945), choral conductor and academic teacher. * Heidi Wiesler (born 1960), former alpine skier, competed in the

1984 Winter Olympics The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIV Olympic Winter Games (Serbo-Croatian language, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene language, Slovene: ; Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, Serbian Cyrillic: ; ) and commonly known as Sarajevo '84 (Serbian Cy ...

References

External links

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Staufen:images
{{Authority control Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald