Weinheim

Weinheim, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Baden, pleasantly situated on the Bergstrasse at the foot of the Odenwald, 11 m. N. of Heidelberg by the railway to Frankfort-on-Main. Pop. (1905) 12,560. It is still in part surrounded by the ruins of its ancient walls. The Gothic town hall; the ruins of the castle of Windeck and the modern castle of the counts of Berckheim; the house of the Teutonic Order; and three churches are the principal buildings. The town has various manufactures, notably leather, machinery and soap, and cultivates fruit and wine. It is a favourite climatic health resort and a great tourist centre for excursions in the Odenwald range. Weinheim is mentioned in chronicles as early as the 8th century, when it was a fief of the abbey of Lorsch, and it was fortified in the 14th century. In the Thirty Years' War it was several times taken and plundered, and its fortifications dismantled.

See Hegewald, Der Luftkurort Weinheim an der Bergstrasse (Weinheim, 1895); Ackermann, Fiihrer durch Weinheim and Umgebung  (Weinheim, 1895); and Zinkgraf, Bilder aus der Geschichte der Stadt Weinheim (Weinheim, 1904).