Bad Camberg

About

Bad Camberg (German: [baːt ˈkambɛʁk] ) is, with 14,500 inhabitants, the second largest town in Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, Germany, as well as the southernmost town in the Regierungsbezirk of Gießen. It is located in the eastern Taunus in the Goldener Grund (“Golden Ground”) some 30 km north of Wiesbaden, 18 km southeast of Limburg an der Lahn, and 44 km northwest of Frankfurt, as well as on the German Timber-Frame Road. Bad Camberg is the central community of the Goldener Grund with good infrastructure, and a lower centre partly with a middle centre's function. The recognized Kneipp resort is Hesse's oldest and Germany's third oldest. In the outlying centre of Oberselters is found a mineral spring that gives forth the well known Selterswasser, often known in English as “seltzer”. The town's landmark is the Kreuzkapelle.

Panorama of Bad Camberg seen from a spot near the Autobahn interchange; in the background the peaks of the Taunus Bad Camberg lies north of the Taunus ’s main ridge, 18 km southeast of Limburg an der Lahn, making it Middle Hesse’s southernmost town. The nearest cities are (distances given here are by road) Wiesbaden (31 km south), Frankfurt am Main (48 km southeast, 59 km by Autobahn ), Wetzlar (49 km), Koblenz (72 km), and Gießen (75 km).

The town’s elevation is 209 m. The Limburg-Weilburg district’s highest elevation, the Kuhbett (“Cow’s Bed”; 526 m), lies within the limits of the outlying centre of Erbach on the boundary with the community of Weilrod in the Hochtaunuskreis. The greatest elevation in the central community – also called Bad Camberg – is the Kapellenhügel (“Chapel Hill”), which is somewhat more than 300 m high.

Bad Camberg's neighbours are, clockwise from the north, Selters (Limburg-Weilburg), Weilrod (Hochtaunuskreis), Waldems ( Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis ), Idstein (Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis), Hünstetten (Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis) and Hünfelden (Limburg-Weilburg). All but the two lying within Limburg-Weilburg lie not in the Regierungsbezirk of Gießen, but rather in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt.

St. George's parish church in Schwickershausen

St. Ferrutius's parish church in Würges, side view

Panorama of Bad Camberg seen from a spot near the Autobahn interchange; in the background the peaks of the Taunus Bad Camberg lies north of the Taunus ’s main ridge, 18 km southeast of Limburg an der Lahn, making it Middle Hesse’s southernmost town. The nearest cities are (distances given here are by road) Wiesbaden (31 km south), Frankfurt am Main (48 km southeast, 59 km by Autobahn ), Wetzlar (49 km), Koblenz (72 km), and Gießen (75 km).

The town’s elevation is 209 m. The Limburg-Weilburg district’s highest elevation, the Kuhbett (“Cow’s Bed”; 526 m), lies within the limits of the outlying centre of Erbach on the boundary with the community of Weilrod in the Hochtaunuskreis. The greatest elevation in the central community – also called Bad Camberg – is the Kapellenhügel (“Chapel Hill”), which is somewhat more than 300 m high.

Bad Camberg's neighbours are, clockwise from the north, Selters (Limburg-Weilburg), Weilrod (Hochtaunuskreis), Waldems ( Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis ), Idstein (Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis), Hünstetten (Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis) and Hünfelden (Limburg-Weilburg). All but the two lying within Limburg-Weilburg lie not in the Regierungsbezirk of Gießen, but rather in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt.

St. George's parish church in Schwickershausen

St. Ferrutius's parish church in Würges, side view

To the Linear Pottery culture from the New Stone Age (5000-3000 BC), which draws its name from the ceramics that it produced, belong the oldest archaeological finds in the Camberg area. While most groups at that time were hunter-gatherers, the Linear Pottery people were already producing their own food by raising crops (among others emmer and einkorn wheats ) and livestock, the latter being mainly sheep, swine, goats and above all cattle ; this covered up to 90% of the people's meat requirements.

It is known how these cultures built houses. The houses were mostly 20 to 25 m long and 5 to 7 m wide, consisting of five rows of posts, the three inner ones bearing the roof's weight, and the two outer ones the wattle-and-daub walls’. These houses served to house people, supplies and animals, and they were always oriented in a certain direction (northwest-southeast or north–south). Within the settlements, irregular pits are encountered that, when houses were being built, were used as the houses’ excavations. They were then filled more and more with rubbish such as charcoal, animal bones, ashes, stones and potsherds. In a few built-up areas in the town's main centre, the streets have cut across several garbage pits. When opening up new cropfields, the farmers preferred loess.

The second wave of settlers has been determined to have come between 600 and 500 BC. The barrow fields on both sides of the road to Tenne (a hamlet ) are from this time.

On 6 February 1000, Emperor Otto III donated the Cagenberg estate to the Burtscheid Monastery. Cagenberg means Cargo's Mountain, Cargo being a short form of the name Garganhardt. From the name Cagenberg developed Cainburg, Camburg, Kamberg and Camberg, and by other sources Cagenberc (1018), Kamberch (1156), Kahberg (1194) Kamberc (1197) and later Kaynburg. In 1281, King Rudolph I granted town rights on the model of the Imperial city of Frankfurt am Main ; these were renewed in 1300, 1336 and 1365.

Legend has it that after Epiphany in 1357, all the Camberg townsfolk were drunk and asleep when robber knights from Walsdorf came to try to rob the town. The town wall had not yet been finished and the knights therefore only needed to cross a hedge. However, there lived some magpies, who noticed the attempted robbery and gave out an alarm call, waking the townsfolk up, who then fended the attack off, putting the Walsdorf knights to flight. To this day, the magpie is still regarded as the town's “unofficial heraldic bird”.

From 1535 to 1794, the Amt of Camberg was in force, to which all current constituent communities belonged under the common administration of the House of Nassau and by the Electorate of Trier. After a short French occupation, the town was, as of 1806, part of the Duchy of Nassau. In 1866 it passed to Prussia. Since 1945, the town has been part of the German Federal state of Hesse.

In 1630 and again in 1659, great witch trials took place. Thirteen women and one man were found guilty and five women were put to death; one also died in custody. The others were released, often after having been tortured.

In 1810, Baron Hugo von Schütz zu Holzhausen, himself born deaf, was first teaching deaf students in rooms at the Amthof, making him a pioneer in this field in Germany. In the years that followed, a scholastic institution grew out of these classes and in 1820 the “Ducal Nassau Deaf-Mute Institute”. Until 1875 it was housed in a side building of the Guttenberger Hof in the Old Town. As of 1894, however, the school had its own building which was built on a plot of land on Frankfurter Straße donated by the town of Camberg. Under the name Freiherr-von-Schütz-Schule, it is still found there today.

In 1861, Moritz Lieber founded a hospital, the Lieber'sches Hospital, on Gisbert-Lieber-Straße. It was dissolved in 1959. Today, the Freiherr-von-Schütz-Schule uses the building.