Waldgirmes Forum

Lahnau is a community in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis in Hesse, Germany, and lies about midway – about 6 km each way – between the towns of Wetzlar and Gießen.

Leica Camera AG () is a German company that manufactures cameras, optical lenses, photographic lenses, binoculars, and rifle scopes. The company was founded by Ernst Leitz in 1869 (Ernst Leitz Wetzlar), in Wetzlar, Germany. The name Leica is derived from the first three letters of the founder's surname (Leitz) and the first two of the word camera: lei-ca (LEItz CAmera). In 1986, the Leitz company changed its name to Leica and moved its factory from Wetzlar to the nearby town of Solms. Leica Camera AG is 55% owned by Austrian investment firm ACM Projektentwicklung GmbH and 45% owned by The Blackstone Group which licenses the Leica brand name from the Danaher Corporation-owned Leica Microsystems GmbH.

The Buderus Arena Wetzlar is a multipurpose indoor event facility located in Wetzlar, Germany. It hosts sports matches, concerts and exhibitions and is the home venue of the HSG Wetzlar handball team. The Arena is located beside Wetzlar railway station and the Forum Wetzlar shopping centre. The three establishments share a multistorey car park.

Biebertal is a municipality in the district of Gießen, in Hesse, Germany. It is situated 7 km northwest of Gießen. It is Denbigh's twin town

Wetzlar station is a through railway station in the city of Wetzlar in the German state of Hesse. The station, which serves Deutsche Bahn's Dill and Lahntal lines, constitutes (together with the adjacent bus station) Wetzlar's most important public transport node.

Wetzlar (German pronunciation: [ˈvɛt͡slaːʁ] ) is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany. It is the twelfth largest city in Hesse with currently 55,371 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019 (including second homes). As an important cultural, industrial and commercial center, the university town is one of the ten regional centers in the state of Hesse. A former free imperial city, it gained much of its fame as the seat of the Imperial Supreme Court (Reichskammergericht) of the Holy Roman Empire. Located 51 kilometers north of Frankfurt, at 8° 30′ E, 50° 34′ N, Wetzlar straddles the river Lahn and is on the German Timber-Frame Road, which passes mile upon mile of half-timbered houses. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Lahn-Dill-Kreis on the north edge of the Taunus. Tourists know the city for its ancient town and its medieval Catholic/Protestant shared cathedral of St. Mary. Notable architectural features include the Eisenmarkt and the steep gradients and tightly packed street layout of a medieval town. The building of the sandstone cathedral commenced in the 12th century in Romanesque style. In the later Middle Ages the construction continued under a master plan in Gothic style. The church was never finished—one steeple still remains uncompleted. The cathedral suffered heavy damage in the Second World War from aerial bombing, but restoration took place in the 1950s. On the outskirts of town along the river stand the ruins of several stone towers. The town hosted the Hessentag state festival twice (the 15th and the 52nd in 1975 and 2012 respectively).

The Battle of Wetzlar (15 June 1796) saw a Habsburg Austrian army led by Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen launch an attack on a Republican French army under Jean-Baptiste Jourdan in its defenses on the Lahn River. The War of the First Coalition action ended in an Austrian victory when most of the French army began retreating to the west bank of the Rhine River. On the 19th the combat of Uckerath was fought as the Austrians pursued the French left wing. Wetzlar is located in the state of Hesse in Germany a distance of 66 kilometres (41 mi) north of Frankfurt. In the Rhine Campaign of 1796, Jourdan's Army of Sambre-et-Meuse won a foothold on the east bank of the Rhine after defeating its opponents at Altenkirchen on 4 June. This was part of a plan to lure Archduke Charles to the north so that the Army of Rhin-et-Moselle under Jean Victor Marie Moreau could breach the Rhine defenses in the south. The strategy worked as designed. When Charles came north with heavy forces to drive back Jourdan, Moreau successfully mounted an assault crossing of the Rhine at Kehl near Strasbourg.

The Giessen nappe (German: Gießener Decke) is a tectonic nappe in the southeastern part of the Rhenish Massif in western Germany. The nappe is an "alien" (allochthonous) unit in the Rhenohercynian zone of the Hercynian orogeny, it was thrust over the usual slightly metamorphosed Devonian and Carboniferous sedimentary rocks in this zone.The Giessen nappe is often correlated with the Harz nappe in the Harz and similar units in the Bohemian Massif in the Czech Republic. These units form the rare erosional leftovers of small microcontinents that were during the Hercynian orogeny squeezed between the paleocontinents Gondwana to the south and Laurussia to the north.

The Lottehaus is a museum in Wetzlar, Germany. It was the birthplace of Charlotte Buff, who lived there for the first 20 years of her life until she got married. The Lottehaus was originally an establishment of the Teutonic Order, which founded it in 1285 under the name Haus Wetzlar as its principal office in the city of Wetzlar. Over the years the establishment was extended by several buildings and the actual Lottehaus was constructed in 1653 to house the local curator of the order. Heinrich Adam Buff moved into the Lottehaus in 1740, when he started his work as curator for the order. His daughter Charlotte, after who the house is named today, was born in it on 11 January 1753 and to lived there for the first 20 years of her until she got married in 1773. After Charlotte had become famous for being the inspiration for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther the citizens of Wetzlar decided in 1863 to use the house as a memorial for her.Today the Lottehaus is a part of the museums of the city of Wetzlar and contains a permanent exhibition. On display are furniture and various items illustrating life in the 18th century, some of which originally belonged to the Buff family. There are also three rooms devoted to the work of Goethe and in particular to the contemporary reception of his novel The Sorrows of Young Werther.Another museum in Wetzlar containing material related to Goethe and Werther as well is the Jerusalemhaus.

Lahn was a district-free city in the state of Hesse, which was created on January 1, 1977 during the Hessian administrative reform when the two cities of Gießen and Wetzlar were merged. It was named after the river Lahn to make the merger one of equals. However, as the merger was very unpopular as well as inefficient—it had been imposed on the cities against the will of almost all inhabitants—it was rescinded on July 31, 1979; so the city Lahn only existed for two and a half years. The creation of the city was supported by the Minister-President of Hesse Albert Osswald, who had been the Lord Mayor of Gießen from 1957 to 1963 and saw the new city as "work of the century" (Jahrhundertwerk), believing that it would strengthen central Hesse against the two major population center of Kassel in the north and Frankfurt in the south of the state. The new city was created out of the then district-free city of Gießen, the municipality of Heuchelheim from the Giessen district, and fourteen municipalities from the Wetzlar district - Wetzlar, Atzbach, Dutenhofen, Garbenheim, Hermannstein, Krofdorf-Gleiberg, Launsbach, Lützellinden, Münchholzhausen, Nauborn, Naunheim, Steindorf, Waldgirmes and Wißmar. At the time of creation (January 1, 1977), the city had an estimated population of 156,000 on an area of 225.57 km2 (73,600 in Lahn-Gießen, 49,600 in Lahn-Wetzlar, 10,400 in Lahn-Wettenberg, 7,800 in Lahn-Lahntal, 8,100 in Lahn-Dutenhofen and 7,100 in Lahn-Heuchelheim). The city was assigned the license plate area code L. Originally, L was planned for Leipzig, then in the East Germany, but at the time, chances for reunification seemed slim. Some critics saw it as provocation by the federal level social-liberal coalition, some even as a de facto recognition as the division of Germany. However, the merger quickly proved to be unpopular, especially in the part of Wetzlar. According to the 27 May 1970 census, Gießen had a population of 75,555, about twice Wetzlar's 36,922, enough for Wetzlar residents to consider the merger to be subordination to Gießen. In addition to that, the merger was done rather awkwardly, as the new city had no clear central functional orientation, but two city cores which co-existed and competed with each other, with completely different characters: Lahn-Gießen was an administrative, university and shopping district, while Lahn-Wetzlar was an industrial and shopping district. The city cores were approximately 15 kilometers apart, and the territory in-between (today municipalities of Heuchelheim and Lahnau) was rather sparsely populated with village-like districts, making networking and differentation of functions very difficult. The Wetzlar residents feared their city would be structurally crushed by the larger Gießen and end up degenerating into Gießen's dormitory town. The feeling was further reinforced by the postal codes - the new city kept using Gießen's postal code of 6300. However, letters to Gießen would be addressed as "6300 Lahn 1" and to Wetzlar as "6300 Lahn 2". In addition, the areas between Gießen and Wetzlar feared that the areas would be robbed of their character by a large expansion of building areas, increasing the traffic congestion between the two cities. In addition, the name "Lahn" was not liked. Originally, it was planned to name the town Gießen-Wetzlar, but instead Lahn was chosen so that the villages could append their names. However, it was felt that the name "Lahn" lacked history. Cars soon started sporting bumper stickers "Wenn ich Lahn seh, krieg ich Zahnweh" (When I see 'Lahn', I get a toothache), even Bundeskanzler Helmut Schmidt criticized the naming as "I can't imagine anything under a Lotte in Lahn" (Unter einer Lotte in Lahn kann ich mir nichts vorstellen) (alluding to both the character Lotte in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther and Thomas Mann's novel Lotte in Weimar: The Beloved Returns based on the same story). The creation of the city led to political consequences - SPD, which had been instrumental in pushing the reform, lost the local elections in March 1977, in favor of CDU candidates, who ran as opponents to the Lahn city. CDU succeeded in winning a majority of 50.7% of the vote in Lahn and Wilhelm Runtsch was elected mayor. He died already on 20 August 1977, and was replaced by Hans Görnert, who after the city's dissolution would remain the mayor of the city of Gießen until 1985. Just 31 months after the creation, on August 1, 1979 the city was dissolved. Gießen did not regain its former district-free status and was incorporated into the eponymous district, while Wetzlar was incorporated into the newly-formed Lahn-Dill-Kreis and became its seat. In addition, the municipality of Heuchelheim was restored in Gießen district, and two new municipalities were created - Wettenberg in the Gießen district and Lahnau in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis. Also in January 1, 1981, the central Hesse (Gießen area) was separated from the Darmstadt region and assigned to its own Giessen region. Following Lahn's dissolution, the Lahn-Dill-Kreis originally retained the city's license plate code L. However, with the German reunification on November 3, 1990, L was reassigned to Leipzig and the district was issued new code LDK. Also on July 1, 2012, the city of Wetzlar received its own code WZ. Since May 2014, the residents of Lahn-Dill-Kreis (except city of Wetzlar) can also obtain plates with old distinguishing code DIL. The only way to determine if a car with a L plate was registered in Hesse or Saxony is by the identification number. In addition, some vehicle owners also used the sticker with text "L – aber nicht aus Leipzig!" ("L - but not from Leipzig!")

The Phantastische Bibliothek Wetzlar (Fantastic Library of Wetzlar) was founded in 1989 and has become one of the largest public libraries specialised in Fantasy literature worldwide, it is the largest in Europe. It is generally a reference library, open for the public and researchers. The aim of the library is to collect everything in print which belongs to: science fiction, fantasy, literature, classical fantasy, horror, utopian novels, fantastic journey and adventure novels, fairy tales, saga, myths, etc. At the moment the library is in possession of over 300,000 titles. This collection includes hardcovers and paperbacks, dissertations, magazines and fanzines. There are also some rare materials, e.g. the documenta 1984 science-fiction-collection.

Wetzlar Cathedral is a large church in the town of Wetzlar, located on the Lahn river some 50 km north of Frankfurt (Hesse, Germany). Construction began in 1230 and is still unfinished, since the western front is still missing its northern belfry. Because of its long period of construction, the church combines romanesque, gothic and baroque architecture. The church has never been a bishop's seat, and therefore is not a cathedral in the English sense. The German term for "cathedral", Dom, often includes churches that lack a cathedra (a bishop's throne) and instead refers to any large medieval church. In Wetzlar, the main church has been called a Dom since the 17th century. In 897, Rudolf I, Bishop of Würzburg consecrated a Salvator Church replacing an older church on the same location. In the early 10th century it became a Collegiate church devoted to St. Mary. Around 1170 the church was rebuilt into a romanesque basilica with two western spires. Parts of the western portal are still visible in the contemporary building. After 1230, the cathedral was rebuilt and extended again. Construction lasted until 1490 and remained unfinished. The church became a Hall church with two towers. Construction of the northern spire was started but abandoned long before completion (see image). The southern tower's steep pinnacle was made of wood and was destroyed by a fire in 1561. It was replaced by the baroque tower roof still extant today. In World War II the cathedral was damaged by bombs. Most of the damage was repairable, but the precious stained glass windows and the organ were lost and had to be replaced by modern equipment. Since the 16th century, Wetzlar Cathedral has been used as a simultaneum by both Roman Catholics (whose congregations form part of today's Roman Catholic Diocese of Limburg) and Protestants, respectively. Today, the church is the main tourist attraction inside the historical city center of Wetzlar.