Heilbronn, Wuerttemburg, Germany. It's about 60 km north of Stuttgart on the Neckar River. Not a town one has heard very much of as an American, but it has a very interesting history. I went to visit because great-grandmother moved there when she was 13, I surmise. At that time, in 1883, it was already an old town. It was one of those walled cities, like I had maps of on my wall as an undergrad. It was built up in the 1400's and the Evangelische Kirche that Great-Grandma Hagner would have attended was very impressive, with the first Rennaisance tower north of the Alps, and a carved altar by a guy named Speyer that was VERY impressive. I went to a 15 minute mid-day prayer service in that church just so I could enjoy that altar.
After the prayer service, I went to the museum, and when they figured out I was asking about Heilbronn history, they sent me to the City Archives. They were in a temporary home while their building was renovated. An enthusiastic guide with poor English showed me an English language film about Heilbronn, then took me around to see the displays with pictures of the city. There were a lot of photographs of Heilbronn at the turn of the 20th century, then a section about the bombing by the Allies on December 4, 1944, when the whole city center was totally destroyed. All she could say was 'Alles Kaput', as we went around and saw those sobering pictures. The church, the Rathaus with its exceptional clocks and everything else was basically rubble. They have spent a lot of time and money reconstructing the earlier buildings, including the church. It's amazing that it looks so authentic.
One other fact about Heilbronn, it's the only town square I have seen with a statue to a physicist, Robert Mayer, a native son of Heilbronn who around 1815 came up with the conservation of energy.
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