Rastatt


Rastatt is a town in the district of Rastatt, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located in the Upper Rhine Plain, on the Murg River, above its junction with the Rhine. It has a Baroque core and a population of around 51,000. Rastatt was an important place during the War of the Spanish Succession and the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states.
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History

Until the end of the 17th century, Rastatt held little influence, but after its destruction by the French in 1689, it was rebuilt on a larger scale by Louis William, Margrave of Baden, the Imperial General in the Great Turkish War who was known popularly as Türkenlouis.
It then remained the residence of the Margraves of Baden-Baden until 1771. It was the location of the First and Second Congress of Rastatt, the former giving rise to the Treaty of Rastatt while the second ended in failure in 1799. In the 1840s, Rastatt was surrounded by fortifications to form the Fortress of Rastatt. For about 20 years previous to 1866, it was occupied by the troops of the German Confederation.
The Baden Revolution of 1849 began with a mutiny of soldiers at Rastatt in May 1849 under Ludwik Mieroslawski and Gustav Struve and ended there a few weeks later with the capture of the town by Prussia. For some years, Rastatt was one of the strongest fortresses of the German Empire, but its fortifications were dismantled in 1890.
In the same year, the town's railway station was relocated closer to the centre of Rastatt from a location that was outside the town walls but is now an industrial area.
Between 1946 and 1954, about 20 major criminal proceedings for crimes against foreign workers and prisoners in smaller camps of the National Socialist camp system in south-western Germany took place in front of the French Military Administration's Tribunal Général on the basis of Control Council Law No. 10, along with more than 2000 defendants.
In 1992, a new Mercedes-Benz car factory started production in Rastatt.

Local attractions

Rastatt and its surrounding area are home to a variety of historical buildings, includes palaces and castles such as Schloss Rastatt and Schloss Favorite, and lie in the vicinity of the Black Forest and the French border.

Twin towns – sister cities

Rastatt is twinned with:

Transport

Air

Rastatt is served by Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport, which is located to the south west of the town. Other nearby airports are Strasbourg Airport, located to the south-west, and Frankfurt Airport, located to the north.

Rail

Rastatt station provides train services to other parts of Baden-Württemberg. It is an important station for the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn and is served by four of its lines, which are operated by the Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft. In addition, it is served by regional and long-distance trains operated by Deutsche Bahn. The station is located at chainage 96.5 km on the Rhine Valley Railway and at chainage 82.9 on the Rhine Railway. The station is also the beginning of the Murg Valley Railway.

Notable people

Sport

In literature

The plot of the historical novel The Lenz Papers by Stefan Heym, published in London in 1964, is set in Rastatt in 1849, during the failed revolutions in Germany in 1848.