Bad Rotenfels

About

Bad Rotenfels is a district in the city of Gaggenau, Rastatt district, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, some 8 km northeast of Baden-Baden.

The township of Rotenfels was first mentioned in a royal transfer letter in 1041. In 1041, Count Heinrich von Calw, aka Emperor Henry III, ceded the Rotenfels estate along with other holdings to the Ufgau as free property as part of a larger transfer of property being made on the behalf of the marriage of his daughter Judit of Backnang-Sulichgau, Countess of Eberstein-Calw, to Hermann I, the Margrave of Verona.

In 1102, disputes arose over land owned by the Knights of Michelbach. Emperor Henry IV authorized the return of lost property, including the Rotenfels area, to the Cathedral Chapter of Speyer in a deed dated 15 February 1102. Hermann II and Graf von Eberstein, who dominated the Ufgau at the time, then enforced the deed in the region. Gaggenau and Rotenfels remained part of the Ufgau under the Diocese of Speyer for the next century and a half.

In 1112 Hermann II, son of Hermann I (d. 1074) began referring to himself as the Margrave of Baden, and from this time the separate history of Baden dates. Hermann appears to have called himself “Margrave” rather than “Count”, because of the family connection to the Margrave of Verona. Hermann II's descendants, Hermann III, Hermann IV, and Herman V, added to their territories. Hermann III also served in the Second Crusade, Hermann IV served in the Third Crusade, and Hermann V served in the Fifth Crusade.

When Hermann IV died, Baden was divided, establishing the lines of Baden-Baden and Baden-Hachberg. About a century later, the Baden-Hachberg line was further divided into the Baden-Hachberg and Baden-Sausenberg lines.

The family of Baden-Baden was very successful in increasing the area of its holdings. Hermann VI served as Margrave from 1243 until his death in 1250; and through his marriage to the heiress Gertrude of Babenberg which had ruled Austria, laid some claim to the Duchy of Austria. His son and heir Frederick I was a year old at his father's death and so Baden passed into a regency by Hermann VI's brother Rudolf I. When Frederick I was executed at age 19 by Charles of Anjou in 1268, Rudolf I became the Margrave of Baden until his death in 1288. In 1283, Rudolf I succeeded in adding the area around Rotenfels and Gaggenau to his family's holdings.

When Rudolf I died, the rule of Baden was shared among his four sons: Hesso, Rudolf II, Hermann VII, and Rudolf III. By 1297, all except Rudolf III had died, but Hesso’s son and heir, Rudolf Hesso, co-ruled with Rudolf III until Rudolf III’s death in 1310. In 1320, Rudolf Hesso died, and the margraviate passed to Rudolf IV, who ruled until his death in 1348. His son Frederick III then took over until his death in 1353. Under Frederick’s son, Rudolf VI, who ruled until 1372, all other family lines except the Sausenberg line had died out and reverted to him.

Rudolf's sons, Bernard I and Rudolf VII, concluded an inheritance contract in 1380 which again split Baden: Rudolf VII received the southern areas from Ettlingen to Baden-Baden, and Bernard received the northern areas around Dulach and Pforzheim. When Rudolf VII died in 1391, his lands reverted to Bernard. Bernard I's son Jacob became Margrave in 1431 until his death in 1453, at which time Baden passed into the hands of his sons Charles I and Bernard II. Bernard II later abdicated his ruling claims to serve in a monastery, and was later beatified by the Church; Charles I remained Margrave until his death in 1475.

During the 15th century, a war initiated and lost by Charles I with the Count Palatine of the Rhine cost him a substantial part of his territories, but these losses were later recovered and exceeded by his son and successor, Christopher I. In 1503 the Baden-Sausenberg line became extinct, and the whole of Baden was once again united under Christopher. At his death in 1527, it was divided once again among his three sons. One of these died childless in 1533, and in 1535 his remaining sons, Bernard and Ernest, having shared their brother's territories, made a fresh division and founded the lines of Baden-Baden and Baden-Pforzheim, called after 1565 Baden- Durlach. This division was enhanced by the Protestant Reformation, under which the Baden-Baden territory remained staunchly Catholic while the Baden-Durlach line became Evangelical (Lutheran).

Further divisions followed. The family strains eventually culminated in open warfare, and from 1584 to 1622 Baden-Baden was in the possession of one of the princes of Baden-Durlach.

The Catholic Baden-Baden line led by Bernhard controlled much of the area around the town of Baden-Baden and points south, and the Protestant Baden-Durlach line led by brother Ernest controlled much of the area around Karlruhe and Durlach and points north. Rotenfels and Gaggenau, as part of the Rastatt / Baden region, remained in the Catholic Baden-Baden territory during this family split.

The house remained divided through the period of continental slaughter between Catholics and Protestants known as the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). Being located between most all of the warring factions, from Catholic France and Spain and Bavaria to Lutheran Prussia and Denmark and Calvinist Netherlands and Switzerland, Baden suffered severely during this struggle, and both branches of the family were exiled in turn.

A report to the Bishop of Speyer listed the population of Rotenfels and the nearby hamlet of Winkel in 1683 as “60 people and five Catholic families”. During the reign of French King Louis XIV, the villages of Rotenfels and Gaggenau were almost completely destroyed by the French in a 'scorched-earth' campaign in 1691 during the Nine Years' War, aka the War of the Grand Alliance (1688–1697). One of the noted heroes of that war was Baden-Baden Margrave Ludwig "Turk Louis" Wilhelm, who played a part in routing Louis XIV's forces from the Rhineland and bringing the war to a close.

In 1701, the Rotenfels church records indicated that the population of Rotenfels, along with the nearby hamlet of Winkel, numbered 415 inhabitants, despite the ravages brought to the area by the French in the previous decade.

In 1707, Baden-Baden Margrave Ludwig “Turk Louis” Wilhelm died. His son, the crown prince Ludwig Georg Simpert von Baden (who eventually came to be known as “Hunter Louis”, both for his love of hunting as well as a play off of his father's nickname), was only 5 at the time, so Baden-Baden was placed under the regency of his mother, Franziska Sibylla Augusta von Sachsen-Lauenburg until the young prince turned 25 in 1727. During this period, the regency was prosperous.

About 1725, the crown prince or his mother set up a small smelter and a steel mill in the Murg commons of the Rotenfels area. This experiment proceeded for about 20 years as the smelter and mill failed and changed hands a number of times until Rastatt glassmaker Franz Anton Dürr came and took over the facilities in 1753.

The smelter and steel mill suffered primarily for two reasons: 1) A lack of an adequate supply of timber-fuel (the smelter required some 4,000 cords of wood each year to sustain its efforts, a demand which deforested the forest area around Rotenfels over the first two decades) and, perhaps more importantly, 2) A lack of a local supply of iron ore. Dürr solved both for the time being by importing fuel and ore from outside the Rotenfels area, and made a successful go at the business for about ten years. But ultimately, even the more remote sources began to peter out, and by the time that Ludwig George Simpert's successor, brother August Georg Simpert died in 1771 ("Hunter Louis" had died without a male heir in 1761), the business was again deeply in arrears with little hope of turnaround and was taken to foreclosure by its creditors. Dürr sold the business to other investors, who tried to make a go of it for another ten years without success. The ironworks were put up for sale again in 1779, but there were no buyers. Efforts continued to refinance the closed factory for another ten years.

With Georg August’ death in 1771, the territories of Baden-Baden and Baden-Durlach were reunited under Baden-Durlach Margrave Karl Friedrich. In 1789, Karl Friedrich agreed to absorb all of the debts of the previous Baden-Baden margraviate. As part of that, he agreed to purchase the defaulted ironworks property from the previous owners, after which he had the entire plant with buildings and equipment demolished. In 1790, he turned over the property, which he called the "Rotenfels Smelter Estate," to his 2nd wife, Luise Karoline.

In 1772, Gaggenau became the home of the Rindeschwendersche glassworks and with it a number of operating homes and workshops. But while there were similar and multiple efforts to establish industries in Rotenfels during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, all of them eventually failed.

When the French Revolution threatened to be exported throughout Europe in 1792, Baden joined forces against France, and Rotenfels and its local hills were center-stage in many of the campaigns. With French successes in the first few years, the Margrave of Baden was compelled to pay an indemnity and to cede his territories on the left bank of the Rhine to France.