Bad Kreuznach

County of Sponheim-Kreuznach
*Grafschaft Sponheim-Kreuznach*
County of Sponheim-Kreuznach Grafschaft Sponheim-Kreuznach
1227–1414
Status	State of the Holy Roman Empire
Capital	Kreuznach
Government	Principality
Historical era	Middle Ages
• Gottfried III builds; Kauzenburg	; 1206–30
• Partitioned from; Sponheim	; 1227
• Comital line extinct;; partitioned in three	; 1414
Preceded by	Succeeded by
	County of Sponheim
County of Veldenz
Margraviate of Baden
Palatinate-Simmern

Bad Kreuznach
Bad Kreuznach
Town
	Coat of arms
	Location of Bad Kreuznach within Bad Kreuznach district
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Bad Kreuznach
Government
• Mayor	Andreas Ludwig (CDU)
Area
• Total	46.1 km2 (17.8 sq mi)
Highest elevation	321 m (1,053 ft)
Lowest elevation	104 m (341 ft)
Population (2022-12-31)
• Total	52,529
• Density	1,100/km2 (3,000/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	55517-55545
Dialling codes	0671, 06727
Vehicle registration	KH
Website	www.stadt-bad-kreuznach.de

Bad Kreuznach is the capital of the district of Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is located on the Nahe river, a tributary of the Rhine. The town and the surrounding areas are renowned both nationally and internationally for their wines, especially from the Riesling, Silvaner and Müller-Thurgau grape varieties.

History

Prehistory and Roman times

As early as the 5th century BC, there is evidence of a Celtic settlement in the area of the modern municipality. Around 58 BC, the region became part of the Roman Empire, with a Roman vicus named Cruciniacum — according to legend after the Celtic Cruciniac — forming a supply station between Mainz (Mogontiacum) and Trier (Augusta Treverorum).

Around 250 AD a gigantic palace (81 m × 71 m, 266 ft × 233 ft) was built here, north of the Alps, with a peristyle, and 50 rooms on the ground floor alone. As part of the fortification of the Limes against the invading Alemanni, Valentinian I had a castra built here around 370.

Middle Ages

Around the year 500, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, Kreuznach was a royal village of the newly-emerging Frankish Empire. This was followed by the construction of churches within the walls of the Roman fort, the first dedicated to Saint Martin, and a later church consecrated to Saint Kilian.^[2]

Kreuznach was first mentioned in the Royal Frankish Annals in the year 819. Between 1206 and 1230, Count Gottfried III, despite a ban from Philip of Swabia, built the Kauzenburg. This was accompanied by the construction of the Burgbau, on the northern bank of the Nahe, in the location of the modern Bad Kreuznach Neustadt.

In 1235 or 1270, the city received town, market, tax and customs rights under the rule of the counts of Sponheim, confirmed in 1290 by Rudolf of Habsburg.

In 1279, at the Battle of Sprendlingen, arose the legend of Michel Mort. The butchers of Kreuznach fought for the count of Sponheim against the troops of the Archbishopric of Mainz. One of them, Michel Mort, sacrificed himself to save the life of Count John I.

With the extinction of the comital line of the House of Sponheim in 1414, the lordship of Kreuznach was divided between the counts of Veldenz, the Margrave of Baden and the County Palatine of Simmern.

Counts of Sponheim-Kreuznach

Simon I (1223–64)
John I (1265–90)
John II (1290–1340) and Simon II (1290–1336)
Walram (1336–80)
Simon III (1380–1414)
Elizabeth (1414–17)

17th century

During the Thirty Years' War (1618–48), the city was alternately occupied by the Swedes, French and the Spanish/Imperial armies. The city was badly affected by the war, with the population declining by over half: from about 8,000 to about 3,500. In 1689, Kreuznach and Kauzenburg were largely destroyed in the course of the Nine Years' War (1688–97).

Modern times

From 1708, Kreuznach belonged entirely to the Electoral Palatinate. During the Great French War (1792–1814) Kreuznach was annexed by France, with the southern part of the region becoming part of the département of Mont-Tonnerre and northern areas joining Rhin-et-Moselle. When liberated from the French, the region's joint Bavarian and Austrian administration was based in Kreuznach. The Congress of Vienna assigned the area to the Prussian Rhine Province, making Kreuznach a border town, with the Grand Duchy of Hesse to the east and the Bavarian Rhenish Palatinate to the south.

In 1817, Johann Erhard Prieger opened the first bathhouse with brine water, forming the basis for a rapidly-expanding spa treatment. In 1843, Karl Marx married Jenny von Westphalen in the church of St Paul in Kreuznach. The construction of the Nahetalbahn ("Nahe Valley Railway") between Bingerbrück and Saarbrücken in 1860 formed the basis for the industrialization of the city. This led, together with the continuing growth in popularity of spa therapy, to a revival of the town after years of stagnation and military disasters.

In 1891, three brothers of the Franciscan Brothers of the Holy Cross settled in Kreuznach. Two years later, they took over the Kiskys-Wörth hospital, renaming it St Marienwörth (for Mary, mother of Jesus) in 1905. In 1906, Karl Aschoff carried out radon therapy there. Since 1948, the Brothers have run this hospital, with the Sisters of the Congregation of Mary of the Immaculate Conception, as a standard care hospital.

During World War I, both the Kreuznacher spa and other hotels and villas were requisitioned from 2 January 1917 as the seat of the Imperial headquarters. Kaiser Wilhelm II took up residence in the sanatorium and the Oranienhof was used by the general staff. On 19 December 1917, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk met with Wilhelm II, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff at the Kurhaus. Extreme wintry floods in mid-January 1918 led to the relocation of the Supreme Command to the Belgian town of Spa. After the war, Kreuznach was part of the occupied Rhineland, with French troops stationed in the city until 1930; many hotels were demolished at the time. In 1924, Kreuznach was renamed Bad Kreuznach.

At the beginning of the Nazi regime, Hugo Salzmann organized trades unionists and others in resistance against the new rulers. Despite incarceration, Salzmann survived the Nazi era and, in 1945, sat on the city council for the Communist Party. The Jews of Landkreis Kreuznach were taken in 1942 to the "Kolping House", seat of the district administration, and thence, on 27 July, deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in the annexed Sudetenland.

The remaining hotels and spas of Bad Kreuznach again became the seat of an Army Command from 1939 to 1940, important to the course of the war because of the Wehrmacht barracks in the Bosenheimer Strasse, the Alzeyer Strasse and the Franziska-Puricelli-Strasse, and the strategically-important Berlin–Paris railway line passing through the city, always a target for Allied bombing raids. The last city commander, Lieutenant Colonel John Kaup, preserved Bad Kreuznach from even greater destruction, as he offered no further resistance to the advancing American units, and the city was captured by the Allies on 16 March 1945, largely without a fight. However, shortly before the Allies took over the city, retreating German troops blew up a part of the old bridge over the Nahe (Nahebrücke) and destroyed the bridgeheads near local houses.

Since 1945

Although Bad Kreuznach was captured by the Americans, the town belonged to the French occupation zone. The Rheinwiesenlager near Bad Kreuznach gained notoriety for German prisoners of war and internees. In the late 1940s, units of the U.S. army were again stationed in the city; until mid-2001, the American forces had four barracks, a missile store,^{[citation needed]} a shooting range, a small airfield and a small military training unit. The last unit was stationed in Bad Kreuznach was the "Old Ironsides", the 1st Armored Division.

In 1958, in Bad Kreuznach, the French President Charles de Gaulle and the West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer agreed on the restoration of Franco-German relations, codified on 22 January 1963 at the Élysée Palace.

Administrative reform in the Rhineland-Palatinate, on 7 June 1969, amalgamated the previously-independent municipalities of Bosenheim, Planig, Ippesheim and Winzenheim into the town of Bad Kreuznach. It was planned that Rüdesheim an der Nahe should also be incorporated, but the municipality challenged the plans in court and retained its independence.

Tourist attractions

The town of Bad Kreuznach is the home of the following tourist attractions:

The Bridge Houses (see picture) that are built on the bridge that crosses the Nahe River in central Bad Kreuznach along the Walkplatz.
The Pauluskirche (St. Paul's Church), where Karl Marx was married to Jenny von Westphalen in 1843.
The Kurhaus (built 1913) is a hotel and bath house. The baths which give the town its name contain the noble gas radon, with supposedly curative properties.
The Dr-Faust-Haus (built 1507) was the home of Johann Georg Faust, the alchemist on whom the Faust tale is said to be based.
Two mosaics dating from a Roman villa (ca 250 AD) are displayed in an on-site museum, the Römerhalle. The tombstone of Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera is also on view here.
Kreuznach's wine is well known.
For 50 years Kreuznach was home to a United States Army base, Rose Barracks, including headquarters of the U.S. 8th Infantry Division and later the U.S. 1st Armored Division, which closed down in May 2001

The villas of rich citizens built during the German Empire (1871–1918) are very typical of the town.

Notable people associated with the city

Born in Bad Kreuznach

Eberhard Anheuser (1805–80), brewing magnate
Hans Driesch (1867–1941), biologist and philosopher
Herbert Eimert (1897–1972), composer
Konrad Frey (1909–74), gymnast
Manuel Friedrich (born 1979), football (soccer) player
Maler Müller (1749–1825), painter
Thomas Schmidt (born 1976), canoeist
Günter Verheugen (born 1944), politician

Residents

Anna Dogonadze (born 1973 in Georgia), gymnast; has lived there for many years

Miscellaneous

Marcel Proust visited the town with his mother in 1895.
Bad Kreuznach is known among photographers as the home of Schneider Optische Werke, a famous photographic lens maker.