Upper Swabia
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(not north-oriented map - North is right)
The landscape that roughly forms a triangle between the southern edge of the Swabian Alb (upper Danube valley), Lake Constance and the Lech is known as Upper Swabia or Swabian Oberland . Today, the Iller, with the state border between Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, is seen as the eastern border . The historic Upper Swabia in the Middle Ages an integral part of the established 911 and the East Frankish kingdom belonging to the Duchy of Swabia . After its political disintegration at the end of the Staufer period in 1283, large areas of Upper Swabia belonged to Upper Austria until their final legal disintegration at the beginning of the 19th century . That is why this part of Upper Austria was called Swabian Austria . Swabian Austria was not governed by Ensisheim , which was formerly an Alsatian in front of Austria , but was directly subordinate to the government in Innsbruck .
geography
Upper Swabia is located in the south-east of Baden-Württemberg and in south-west Bavaria . It is a hill country that is mainly used for agriculture; In the Schussen basin there are hop gardens and fruit growing , in the other areas dairy farming and grain growing predominate.
Oberschwaben is located on the so-called Danube-Iller-Lech-Platte , which is also called the Upper Swabian Plateau , and also on the adjacent large natural regions . The Lech is the eastern border of Upper Swabia and the Swabian Alb in the north .
Sub-areas of Upper Swabia
In the literature, Upper Swabia is usually divided into four different areas.
West Swabia
West Swabia is usually the area west of the Iller, north of the Allgäu and south of the Swabian Alb . Today this part of the population is seen as Upper Swabia.
Central Swabia
In the east, Central Swabia borders the perennials , the southern part of the Augsburg-Westliche Wälder nature park - the Mindel forms the border. In the north, Central Swabia borders on the Donauried and in the west the Iller forms the border with West Swabia . In the south, Central Swabia borders the Allgäu, the terminal moraines of the Würme Ice Age form the natural border. According to the landscape profiles of the BfN, Central Swabia comprises the following partial landscapes of the greater natural region of Danube-Iller-Lech-Platte : Lower and Upper Iller-Lech-Schotterplatte as well as the Bavarian part of the Lower Fields of the Lower Illertal ;
- South-North: Bad Grönenbach - Memmingen - Illertissen - Neu-Ulm
- West-East: Area between Aitrach - Memmingen - Mindelheim - Bad Wörishofen
If one takes into account the landscape limitation described above and the geographical limitation from north to south and from west to east, one could simply say that Central Swabia comprises the area of the districts of Unterallgäu , Neu-Ulm and Günzburg as well as part of the district of Augsburg and the independent city of Memmingen includes. The term Mittelschwaben was invented in the 19th century to distinguish the Upper Swabian areas that were added to the Kingdom of Württemberg from those that fell to the Kingdom of Bavaria. Many parishes are assigned to one or the other region . The demarcation between Allgäu and Central Swabia is particularly controversial. The Allgäu area in particular is currently being pushed further and further north, which historically can be classified as incorrect (e.g. Memmingen, Babenhausen , Mindelheim , Bad Wörishofen etc.). This usually happens through the positive association with the term Allgäu. Few parishes belong to both regions due to their history.
East Swabia
In the literature, the area of today's Bavarian Swabian part is usually referred to as East Swabia . However, this overlaps with Central Swabia. In some literature Central Swabia is equated with East Swabia.
Allgäu
The Allgäu is the region of Upper Swabia, which forms the southern part south of the Danube-Iller-Lech plate of the Alpine foothills . There is an increasing opinion among the population that the Allgäu is not a sub-region of Upper Swabia, which is also a frequent topic of discussion.
Cities
Upper Swabia is a region of the former Free Imperial Cities and Princely Cities . Most of the city foundations took place in the Guelph Period up to the end of the 12th century. A similarly high number of start-ups was only achieved again in the period of industrialization , when many markets were elevated to cities.
- Former free imperial cities in Upper Swabia
Augsburg , Bad Buchau , Biberach an der Riss , Donauwörth , Buchhorn (now part of Friedrichshafen) , Konstanz , Isny , Kaufbeuren , Kempten , Leutkirch , Lindau , Pfullendorf , Memmingen , Ravensburg , Überlingen , Ulm , Wangen .
- The other cities are
Aulendorf , Bad Saulgau , Bad Schussenried , Bad Waldsee , Bad Wurzach , Dietenheim , Ehingen (Danube) , Erbach (Danube) , Illertissen , Immenstadt , Krumbach , Laupheim , Mengen , Mindelheim , Neu-Ulm , Ochsenhausen , Riedlingen , Scheer , Senden , Sigmaringen , Tettnang , Vöhringen , Weingarten , Weißenhorn
- Judaism
Unlike Altwürttemberg where in 1498 according to the will of Count Eberhard the Bearded the exclusion was made of all the Jews, there were Jewish communities in the Oberland Bad Buchau , Kappel and Laupheim .
history
Roman Empire
The Roman general Drusus moved in 15 BC. BC with an army over the Brenner and flanking over the Reschenpass into the area north of the Alps and also conquered parts of Upper Swabia. In the same year his brother Tiberius , who later became the Roman emperor, conquered the area further west and reached Lake Constance via the Rhine valley, where the area of the Vindeliker was located. These were u. a. Subjugated in a naval battle, with one of the islands in the lake serving as a base for the Romans. In the years 16-14 BC Today's Graubünden and Vorarlberg as well as the areas of southern Bavaria and Upper Swabia between the Danube and Inn and the northern part of Tyrol were combined to form the province of Raetia .
From the 4th century, as part of the imperial reform by Emperor Diocletian, the province of Raetia was part of the diocese of Italia and divided into the two sub-provinces of Raetia prima ( Curiensis ) and Raetia secunda ( Vindelica ). The sub-provinces placed under a Dux were now administered by governors of lower rank, so-called praesides , who had their official seat in Curia ( Chur ) and Augusta Vindelicorum ( Augsburg ). Upper Swabia became part of the Raetia Secunda . With the collapse of Roman rule, the fates of the two parts of the province separated.
From the Franconian Empire to modern times
Upper Swabia and Lake Constance region including the previously Raetia Curiensis belonging Vorarlberg became part of the Kingdom of the Alemanni , first as Duchy Alamannia, later known as "regnum Sueviae" ( "Kingdom Schwaben" for younger princes). It was only shortly before it by the Frankish king Clovis the Frankish kingdom was annexed. In eastern France the area became part of the powerful Duchy of Swabia .
Many powerful aristocratic families competed for supremacy over this area, initially the Salians , later including the Staufers and the Guelphs , whose headquarters are in Upper Swabia. The Guelph ancestral lands in Upper Swabia later fell to the Staufer Friedrich Barbarossa by inheritance contract .
After the fall of the Staufer dynasty and the dissolution of the Duchy of Swabia, Upper Swabia disintegrated into a large number of small, mostly imperial territories (knights, imperial cities , counties, principalities, imperial abbeys , bailiwick of Swabia ). The largest rulers included the Habsburgs ( Upper Austria ), the Counts of Montfort and the Weingarten and Salem monasteries .
From the Middle Ages to modern times, the history of Upper Swabia is largely shaped by the nobility and the monasteries, as well as by the bourgeois and rural subjects in town and village, many of whom defended themselves very confidently and militantly against feudal oppression, and demanded freedom rights and communal autonomy. The uprising of the common man in town and country in the German Peasants' War (1524–1526) had its most important center of power in Upper Swabia, where several peasants merged to form the so-called Upper Swabian Heap . One of the most important was the Baltringer Haufen , it had its center in the Oberland. In March 1525, written in Memmingen the Twelve Articles of Memmingen , the historically first draft of human rights. With the Twelve Articles, the ubiquitous pamphlet of the entire freedom movement emerged and with the Weingarten Treaty , the long-term successful path to a non-violent settlement of the subject conflicts was shown. Throughout the early modern period, the peasant subjects took an active part in the constitutional development in the territorially small-scale Upper Swabia through their communities and landscapes, with predominantly legal, but also violent resistance if necessary.
17th to 20th century
Through the secularization in 1803 almost all monasteries were dissolved, the mediatization meant the end of the free imperial cities . After the end of the Old Reich in 1806 (see also Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803) - finally through the Congress of Vienna in 1815 - the majority of this predominantly Catholic landscape came to the Protestant Kingdom of Württemberg . Upper Swabia is a conservative but lively region in several respects, in which the mentality is sometimes compared with that of Upper Bavaria, for example . Like this one, Oberschwaben also has its rebellious side, which is also shown in the veneration of the Black Veri , a notorious robber around 1800.
In the revolution of 1848/49 , a peasant uprising brought the remaining feudal structures to collapse, a bourgeois democracy movement also raised liberal and national demands for freedom in Upper Swabia. The Hohenzollern democracy movement culminated in the revolution in Sigmaringen . The revolution of 1918/19 brought about the transition from the monarchical authoritarian state to a democratic republic in the Oberland as well, while the socialist demands heard elsewhere hardly played a role there in view of a still underdeveloped industrialization and a weak labor movement. Upper Swabia was also negatively affected by the loss of freedom under the National Socialist rule of violence and injustice from 1933 to 1945 , when political opponents were persecuted in the province and people were marginalized and cruelly murdered under racial ideological premises.
religion
Upper Swabia can be seen as a stronghold of Catholicism in southern Germany. Upper Swabia has always been shaped by monastic life and the profound piety of the mostly rural and rural people. The area of today's Upper Swabia has belonged to the dioceses of Constance and Augsburg since the sixth century . Both episcopal cities were already important in Roman times. Since the dissolution of the Diocese of Constance in 1820, the now Baden and Hohenzollern areas of Upper Swabia have been subordinate to the Archdiocese of Freiburg , and the heartland of Württemberg to the Diocese of Rottenburg , whereas the Bavarian part of Swabia continues to belong to the Diocese of Augsburg .
Since the Reformation, which could only gain a foothold in a few former imperial cities, there have also been Protestants in Upper Swabia. Above all, the former imperial cities of Memmingen and Ulm , which fully joined the Reformation, as well as the equal imperial cities such as Biberach an der Riss , Ravensburg or Lindau (Lake Constance) , in which Catholics and Protestants have lived and worked together since early modern times, should be mentioned .
With the beginning of industrialization in the 19th century, the denominational boundaries gradually shifted so that Protestant workers immigrated to the previously Catholic areas and former Protestant cities like Memmingen and Ulm received a Catholic population again centuries later. To this day, the Catholics make up the majority of the population in large parts of the Oberland. The Catholic faith is still an integral part of cultural life in the form of festivals and holidays as well as pilgrimages. The pilgrimage on the buses and the annual blood rides in Weingarten and Bad Wurzach deserve special mention . The former takes place on the Friday after Ascension Day and is widely regarded as the high festival of Upper Swabia. It is the largest equestrian procession in Europe.
tourism
Tourism and themed roads
In addition to the historic old towns of Ravensburg, Biberach, Ulm and Memmingen, the tourist routes through Upper Swabia are important for tourism. From this lead through Upper Swabia:
- The Upper Swabian Baroque Route leads over several routes to Lake Constance and back. During the Counter Reformation (17th century), many splendid baroque churches were built in Upper Swabia .
- The Schwäbische Bäderstraße connects the health resorts with thermal baths.
- The eastern part of the German Half-timbered Road leads from Bad Urach to Lake Constance , to the places Blaubeuren , Riedlingen , Biberach an der Riss , Pfullendorf and Meersburg .
- The Mühlenstraße Oberschwaben is the youngest tourist route installed in 2005 and leads to over a hundred mills in the region.
Mild tourism
Upper Swabia also has special offers in terms of gentle tourism . In Upper Swabia there are popular bike trails , hiking trails and pilgrimage routes:
- The Iller cycle path as a tourist offer for cyclists hardly leaves the river and at the same time touches important places in Upper Swabia.
- The Danube-Bodensee cycle path leads cyclists more to the western part of Upper Swabia.
- The Upper Swabian Way of St. James and the Upper Swabian Pilgrimage Route are the offer for hikers and pilgrims to get a comprehensive picture of Upper Swabia on carefully signposted paths.
- The Swabian Albverein has with its Main-Danube Bodensee-way , called HW 4, and the Black Forest Swabian Alb Allgäu-way , marked as HW 5, the Upper Swabian landscape for hikers also well developed, mapped and provided with signs .
Conclusion
Overall, the development of tourism in Upper Swabia has been slow over the past decades. The neighboring destinations Allgäu, Swabian Alb, Black Forest and Lake Constance prospered much more strongly. Last but not least, politics pointed out in the 1990s that Upper Swabia was more an industrial location (but only in a few centers) than a tourist destination. For some years now, Upper Swabia has had a distinct tourist offer. Politicians have also recognized this and are now promoting tourism sustainably.
- Viewpoints
| Surname | height | description |
|---|---|---|
| Fines | 767 m | The Holy Mountain of Upper Swabia is popular as a panoramic mountain and place of pilgrimage. |
| Gehrenberg | 754 m | The mountain near Markdorf offers a wonderful view of Lake Constance and the Alps from a 30 m high observation tower when the weather is nice. |
| Highest | 838 m | It is a popular vantage point about 17 km north of Lake Constance in western Upper Swabia. |
| Graben height | 754 m | It is located between Bad Waldsee and Bad Wurzach . From here there is a lovely view of the Alps and the Wurzacher Ried , which is the largest raised bog in Central Europe. |
| Forest castle | 772 m | It is located on a conical hill east of Ravensburg. |
| Black ridge | 1118 m | Highest mountain in the Württemberg part of the Allgäu and Upper Swabia. |
Railways
Upper Swabia is accessed by various railway lines. The Württemberg Southern Railway from Ulm to Friedrichshafen is of particular importance . The narrow-gauge Öchsle , now a museum railway, begins in Warthausen . Other important routes are the railway Herbertingen-Isny , the railway Stahringen-Friedrichshafen , the railway line Friedrichshafen-Lindau and the railway line Ulm-Sigmaringen . The Kempten (Allgäu) –Neu-Ulm railway opens up the area between Ulm and Memmingen.
economy
Since Upper Swabia is comparatively sparsely populated, large parts of it still seem more agricultural. However, the share of those employed in agriculture in the workforce in the Bodensee-Oberschwaben region, which includes the districts of Sigmaringen, Ravensburg and the Bodenseekreis, is only 3.5%, while around 33.4% in the manufacturing industry and around 63% operate in the service sector. There are a total of 321,800 people in employment in the region.
Industrial centers have formed around the cities of Friedrichshafen , Ravensburg , Biberach and Memmingen . Globally active companies such as ZF Friedrichshafen , MTU Friedrichshafen , Liebherr , Boehringer Ingelheim , Hymer , Ravensburger , Vetter Pharma , Waldner , Handtmann , Weishaupt , Berger Holding or Magnet-Schultz are located there, but also in smaller towns .
Tourism is an important industry in the Lake Constance area in particular .
In 2010, Upper Swabia was a flourishing economic area overall. What appeared provincial from the perspective of the bureaucratic state and an industrial capitalist economy in the 19th century is now proving to be happy backwardness .
See also
- Lake Constance-Upper Swabia region
- Neuwuerttemberg
- Organ landscape Upper Swabia
- German Red Cross Rescue Service Bodensee-Oberschwaben
Publications
literature
- Hans-Georg Wehling (Ed.): Oberschwaben (= writings on political regional studies of Baden-Württemberg . Volume 24 ). State Center for Political Education, Stuttgart 1995, DNB 946380716 .
- Peter Blickle : Upper Swabia. Politics as the culture of a German historical landscape . Bibliotheca Academica Verlag, Tübingen 1996, ISBN 3-928471-14-7 .
- Peter Blickle (Ed.): Political culture in Oberschwaben. Bibliotheca Academica Verlag, Tübingen 1993, ISBN 3-928471-08-2 .
- Bruno Effinger (Red.): The former five Danube cities. City of Saulgau, Saulgau 1983.
- Peter Eitel : History of Upper Swabia in the 19th and 20th centuries . Volume 1: The Road to the Kingdom of Württemberg (1800–1870) . Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2010, ISBN 978-3-7995-0852-0 ; Volume 2: Upper Swabia in the Empire (1870–1918) . Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2015, ISBN 978-3-7995-1002-8 .
- Elmar L. Kuhn , Peter Renz (ed.): Stories from Upper Swabia. Klöpfer & Meyer, Tübingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-940086-40-2 .
- Joseph Laub: History of the former five Danube cities in Swabia. With a clear description of the political situation in front of Austria, especially Swabian Austria. Gruber in commission, Mengen 1894 (new edition. Mayor's office (printed by Julius Goelz), Mengen 1972).
- Franz Quarthal : The best, most loyal and most affectionate subjects. On the history of the Swabian-Austrian estates. In: Contributions to regional studies. No. 1, 1979, ISSN 0408-8492 , pp. 1-33. ( online; PDF; 4.72 MB) .
- Franz Quarthal: When Swabia was ruled from Austria. On the history of the Habsburg possessions in southwest Germany. In: Beautiful Swabia. 10/11, No. 6, 1996, ISSN 0931-2323 , pp. 34-39.
- Paul Rothmund: The five Danube cities in Swabian Austria and their transition to Württemberg with special consideration of the administrative and constitutional reforms since Maria-Theresa. Dissertation. Tuebingen 1955.
Movies
- Treasury of Bavaria, castles and palaces in Upper Swabia , a film documentary by Bernhard Graf , Germany 2006
Web links
- Upper Swabia portal
- Tourism Association of Upper Swabia
- Experience Upper Swabia
- Upper Swabian Baroque Street
- Swabian Baths Road
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brockhaus Encyclopedia. 19th edition. Volume 16, 1991, p. 72.
- ^ Franz Quarthal: When Swabia was ruled from Austria. On the history of the Habsburg possessions in southwest Germany. In: Beautiful Swabia. 10/11, No. 6, 1996, pp. 34-39.
- ↑ Landscape profiles of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation ( information )
- ^ Günther Bradler: The landscape names Allgäu and Upper Swabia in a geographical and historical perspective. (= Göppingen Academic Contributions. No. 77). Verlag Alfred Kummerle, Göppingen 1973, ISBN 3-87452-203-2 .
- ↑ As of 2010, Source: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from July 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Society Oberschwaben for History and Culture : Society Oberschwaben for History and Culture
- ↑ The film description on prisma-online. Retrieved January 18, 2009 .
