Baden

Baden is a former state in the extreme southwest of Germany. It is now part of Baden-Wurttemberg, one of the states of Germany. It retained this status following German reunification in 1990. The region's physical relief is dominated by the Rhine River valley in the west and the Black Forest to the south. Baden's historic capital is Karlsruhe. Baden became a political entity in 1112 when a member of the Zahringen family, Hermann, grandson of Bertold, duke of Carinthia, took the title of margrave of Baden. For the next 600 years, however, the area was a confusing jigsaw puzzle of petty margraviates and ecclesiastical states (the bishoprics of Mainz, Speyer, Strasbourg, and Konstanz). The Breisgau belonged to the Hapsburgs, the Mannheim-Heidelberg area to the Rhenish Palatinate. It suffered particularly from religious rivalries following the Reformation. In 1771 Baden was reunited under the house of Zahringen (combining the margraviates of Baden-Baden and Baden-Durlach). Charles Frederick of Baden allied (1796) himself with Napoleon I. In 1806, Baden, with expanded territory, became a duchy in Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine. In 1815, Baden became a member of the German Confederation, and in 1836 it joined the Zollverine. Despite the liberal constitution of 1818 the grand duchy was severely shaken by the Revolution of 1848, which was suppressed with the help of Prussian troops. Baden sided with Austria in the Austro-Prussian War (1866), but joined the German Empire in 1871 as a grand duchy. The last grand duke was deposed in 1918, and Baden joined the Weimar Republic. Baden was made an administrative district of Germany in 1933. In 1952 it was incorporated into the West German state of Baden-Wurttenberg.

Karlsruhe

Karl III Wilhelm Zahringen is well-known as the founder of the city of Karlsruhe in 1715. In order to make life pleasanter, he decided to attract inhabitants to his town. The people who took up residence near his palace were granted many privileges: they were given land and wood for nothing; serfdom and statute labour were abolished; taxes were waived for 20 years; and they were guaranteed religious freedom. He made Karlsruhe his official residence in order to persuade the new citizens to move there. The first inhabitants were Prussians, Poles, Saxons, Bavarians, Suabians and people from Alsace, not forgetting of course people from the surrounding area. This population mixture gave rise to a new dialect -- "Brigandendeutsch". In 1717 the civil servants moved from Durlach to the ever growing town of Karlsruhe. The fanshaped layout of the town which would make it fomous was born very quickly. The symbolism of this layout is easy to see: the streets radiate like rays of sunshine from Karl Wilhelms palace; follwing the example of Louis XIV, who was glorified as the Sun King, the margrave idealized his residence and therefore himself as the centre of his town and his state.

Karlsruhe Palace

The Karlsruhe Palace was built in 1715 as the residence of Margrave Karl Wilhelm of Baden-Durlach. The architect of the partly wooden building was the engineer and lieutenant Jakob Friedrich von Batzendorf. The castle like the town had to be completely renovated in 1746, and the opportunity was taken to rebuild it entirely out of stone. It served for 200 years as the seat of government of the Baden dynasty. In the third quarter of the 18th Century it was fundamentally rebuilt and the interior was repeatedly changed and refurnished. In 1849 Grand Duke Leopold was thrown out of the palace by Baden revolutionaires. It finally left the monarchy in November 1918. In 1921 the archaelogical an ethnological collections and the holdings of the Applied Arts Museum were united as the Baden State Museum in the former residence. Karlsruhe Palace was completely destroyed by air raids, during September 1944. As a result of the rebuilding, the latest styles and technologies of museum design could be used.

Zahringen Margraves and Grand Dukes of Baden