Qualla: Herborn, Hesse

Herborn, Hesse: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Uwe Seibert on geo.hlipp.de, CC BY-SA 2.0. Before the First World War, Germans gave Herborn an unusual compliment. They called it Nassauisches Rothenburg, the Rothenburg of Nassau, putting this small Hessian town in the same breath as the famous medieval jewel of Bavaria. Walk the cobbles around the Marktplatz today and the comparison still holds. Six or seven centuries of half-timbered houses lean toward each other across narrow lanes, the oldest dated to 1445. Beneath the painted beams is a town whose mascot is a bear and whose history is improbably layered for a place of just over 20,000 people.

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Image: Uwe Seibert on geo.hlipp.de | CC BY-SA 2.0

Herborn, Hesse: A Town Named in 1048

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lankyrider, CC BY-SA 4.0. Herborn appears in the written record in 1048, then receives its city privileges from the Counts of Nassau in 1251. The Stone Gate at the edge of the old town still marks that founding moment. The original town wall survives in fragments, with the Witch Tower, the Dill Tower, the...

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Image: Lankyrider | CC BY-SA 4.0

Herborn, Hesse: Lazarettstadt

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Uwe Seibert on geo.hlipp.de, CC BY-SA 2.0. Near the end of the Thirty Years War, the townsfolk took in fifty wounded Swedish soldiers. The Swedish army returned the favor by extending protection over Herborn. From that moment on the town carried an informal title, Lazarettstadt, the field-hospital town, which held until t...

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Image: Uwe Seibert on geo.hlipp.de | CC BY-SA 2.0

Herborn, Hesse: The Memory of 1942

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dirk Schmidt ( celsius), CC BY-SA 3.0. Herborn was mostly spared by Allied bombers in the Second World War. The town was not spared what came from within. In 1942 its Jewish community was obliterated, deported and murdered in the death camps of the east. Many patients of the local psychiatric clinic were also taken aw...

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Image: Dirk Schmidt ( celsius) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Herborn, Hesse: The Night of 7 July 1987

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rolf Dietrich Brecher from Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0. Herborn returned to national news on the evening of 7 July 1987 in a way no town would choose. A tanker truck carrying about 34,000 liters of fuel lost its brakes on the descent into town, ran through the old streets, and crashed into a building that housed an ice cream parlor an...

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Image: Rolf Dietrich Brecher from Germany | CC BY-SA 2.0

Herborn, Hesse: Bears, Fountains, and Strawberry Sunday

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Birgite at wts wikivoyage, Public domain. The bear on Herborn's seal turns up everywhere once you start looking. It crowns the market fountain from 1730. It glares from the frieze around the town hall, which was first built in the 16th century and then rebuilt after another fire in the 17th. The frieze is the building's ...

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Image: User: (WT-shared) Birgite at wts wikivoyage | Public domain