Alzenau

Alzenau (; until 31 December 2006 officially Alzenau i. UFr.) is a town in the north of the Aschaffenburg district in the Regierungsbezirk of Lower Franconia (Unterfranken) in Bavaria, Germany. Until 1 July 1972, Alzenau was the district seat of the now abolished district of the same name and has a population of around 19,000.

Alzenau is one of the eastern outliers of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region and is crossed by the river Kahl. Most of its constituent communities nestle on or between the slopes of the western outliers of the Spessart with its Hahnenkamm (436 m above Normalhöhennull). Alzenau is only a short drive on the A 45 or trainride on the Kahlgrundbahn from Aschaffenburg, Hanau or Frankfurt am Main.

Alzenau borders in the north on the communities of Rodenbach and Freigericht, in the east and southeast on the communities of Mömbris and Johannesberg, in the southwest on the community of Karlstein and in the west on the community of Kahl am Main.

Alzenau's quarters are Albstadt, Hörstein, Kälberau, Michelbach and Wasserlos. On 1 January 1972, Kälberau was amalgamated into Alzenau. Albstadt and Wasserlos followed on 1 July that same year, as did Hörstein and Michelbach three years later, on 1 July 1975.

The former epithet “in Unterfranken” (“in Lower Franconia”) distinguished it from another Alzenau (now Olszanka, Opole Voivodeship, Silesia), which since the Potsdam Agreement has been in Poland. Until the 15th century, Alzenau was known as Wilmundsheim. When the Archbishop of Mainz built a castle on the other side of the Kahl, the name was changed to Alzenau, likely because the place lay allzu nahe (“all too near”) the castle.

The area was settled quite early on. There are traces of settlement and graves from Hallstatt times (Iron Age), graves from the Beaker culture (2600 BC) and crematory graves from the Old Urnfield times (about 1000 BC). In 950 the community of Wilmundsheim on the Kahl's left bank had its first documentary mention. In the 12th century, the Freigericht (“Free Court”) was established by Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa comprising the settlements of Wildmundsheim, Hörstein, Mömbris and Somborn and it was excused taxes and obligatory service. The twigs in the town's coat of arms symbolize this heritage. The Märker, as the townsmen sometimes called themselves, had to defend their autonomy against local noble families’ ambitions; these included the Rannenbergs and the Rienecks, and further pressures came from the Archbishops of Mainz. These last built Alzenau Castle (Burg Alzenau) on the Kahl's right bank, across from Wilmundsheim, between 1395 and 1399 to protect their local holdings. In 1401, the settlement below this castle was granted town and market rights by King Ruprecht of the Palatinate, although these could not be realized. A few years later, the old centre of Wilmundsheim was destroyed and it was melded with the settlement across the Kahl, whereupon it also took the castle's name. In the course of striving for Imperial reform, Emperor Maximilian I enfeoffed both the Archbishopric of Mainz and the Counts of Hanau in 1500 with the joint lordship over the free court, for which the two fiefholders were together to appoint the Amtmann ("bailiff" or "governor"). Conflicts arose from the inhabitants’ insistence on their ancestral freedoms and the denominational antagonism between the Calvinist Counts of Hanau on the one side and the Catholic population and the Archbishop on the other. In 1401, King Ruprecht raised Alzenau to town, but the town never exercised its rights (until 1951) and remained a market community. From 1309 comes the first documentary record. The contents of this document deal with the Freigericht (“Free Court”) with four court regions, the so called Hohe Mark. Since the first half of the 13th century the royal hunting forest had been owned by the Archbishopric of Mainz. In 1395, the whole market community passed to the Archbishopric. This part of Alzenau's history is recalled by the six spoked wheel – the so called Wheel of Mainz – which was a charge borne by the Archbishops in their arms. The two twigs refer to the court officials who were chosen from among the townsmen to be on the court. The arms have been borne since 1926.

In 1998 there were 62 people contributors to the social welfare funds employed in agriculture and forestry. In 1999 there were 82 agricultural businesses with a cultivated area of 1 429 ha, of which 1 096 ha was cropland and 257 ha was meadowland. In the outlying centres of Michelbach, Wasserlos and Hörstein, Frankenwein (Franconian wine) is grown. In Albstadt, too, there was winegrowing until the late 19th century, as witnessed by the Gemarkung (traditional rural cadastral area) of Wingertsberg. Winegrowing was brought to Alzenau by the monks from the monastery in Seligenstadt. All in all, though, agriculture and forestry have lost importance for the community.

Alzenau currently has three interchanges on the A 45 (Dortmund–Aschaffenburg), the newest being the Alzenau Mitte interchange opened on 23 November 2007, after many years in planning, joining the linking road between Alzenau and Kahl to the Autobahn, thereby providing a better link to the industrial areas in Alzenau and Kahl. where there are direct connections with the S Bahn to Frankfurt am Main and long distance trains. The individual centres in the town are served by the City Bus lines. One route runs hourly from Alzenau by way of Wasserlos and Hörstein as a regional bus on to Karlstein and to Dettingen railway station, where travellers can transfer to regional trains to Aschaffenburg and Würzburg. Frankfurt Airport can be reached by car within 30 to 40 minutes.

In each constituent community are found halls and sporting grounds for the many sport clubs. Available in each constituent community are playgrounds, and in some also football pitches, basketball hoops and skating facilities. In summer, the Waldschwimmbad (“Forest Swimming Pool”) and the Meerhofsee (lake) are open. Furthermore, the pool at the Edith Stein Realschule is open to the public a few evenings each week. The bodies of water that arose from the former brown coal works on the Kahler Seenplatte (“Kahl Lake Plateau”) lie nearby, from 5 to 10 km away. The football club, FC Bayern Alzenau, is based in Alzenau.

An important part of the landscape in Alzenau is the large amount of area given over to Streuobstwiesen (meadow orchards), which with their tall, unclustered trees furnish an important habitat for species that have become rare, such as the red backed shrike or the little owl. Planting tall trunked fruit trees is financially promoted by the town. Also ecologically very important are the Sandmagerrasenflächen in the Alzenauer Sande conservation area, on which a few threatened and endangered wasteland species find their habitat.

At Alzenau Castle the Burgfestspiele (“Castle Festival Games”) and the AlzenauClassics are held in summer, and in autumn the Fränkische Musiktage (“Franconian Music Days”) within the framework of Bayerischer Rundfunk’s Musikzauber Franken (“Franconia Music Magic”). To the tradition of the Baroque Saint Justin's Parish Church (Pfarrkirche St. Justinus) the Alzenauers have built a bridge to the year 834. At that time, Archbishop Odgar of Mainz brought Saint Justin's bones with him from Rome. They found their way to Saint Justin's Church in Höchst and thence in 1298 into St. Alban's Abbey in Mainz; part of the relics, however, ended up in the monastery at the Einhard Basilika in Seligenstadt. Since the Benedictines there were fellow caretakers of the old parish church of Wilmundsheim, which stood on what is today the graveyard lands, a link was made, and Saint Justin was venerated in Alzenau. Of the Wilmundsheim church, which was torn down long ago, all that is left is a single capital. The current Baroque church building comes from 1758. Saint Justin's bones have never been in Alzenau. The Town Hall, built in 1860 62, was planned as a school, but then became the Royal Bavarian Regional Office. A new wing built in 1974 in Buntsandstein brings contemporary architecture together with Classicist building. The town's oldest inn was first named as a Wirtshaus (“public house”) from the Seligenstadt Monastery's ownership in a document in which it was sold to an Alzenau innkeeper. The current owner, who acquired the building clad in Parthenocissus vines in 1995, set up in 2004 a hotel with a small brewery, where according to advertising, beer is made in accordance with the Reinheitsgebot of 1516. The Villa Meßmer houses an inn today in a park with historical tree population. The Solarparcours illustrates the usages of photovoltaics with the help of 20 examples within the inner town area (3.5 km long tour) and without (whole tour 12 km). What is seen along this learning path is a coöperative project by the town of Alzenau and the resident business Schott Solar (formerly ASE), which manufactures the solar modules in Alzenau.