Lottehaus

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.

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.

The Reichskammergericht (German for 'Imperial Chamber Court'; German: [ˈʁaɪçs.kamɐɡəˌʁɪçt] ; Latin: Iudicium imperii) was one of the two highest judicial institutions in the Holy Roman Empire, the other one being the Aulic Council in Vienna. It was founded in 1495 by the Imperial Diet in Worms. All legal proceedings in the Holy Roman Empire could be brought to the Imperial Chamber Court, except if the ruler of the territory had a so-called privilegium de non appellando, in which case the highest judicial institution was found by the ruler of that territory. Another exception was criminal law in which the Imperial Chamber Court could intervene only if basic procedural rules had been violated. The Imperial Chamber Court was infamous for the long time that it took to reach a verdict. Some proceedings, especially in lawsuits between different states of the Empire, took several hundred years. Some of the lawsuits had not been brought to an end when it was dissolved in 1806 following the downfall of the Holy Roman Empire. However, it has lately been discovered that it could often be attributed to a loss of interest on the part of the parties involved, and that the court was sometimes much more efficient than previously thought. Sometimes, the court even ordered injunctions within a few days. Recent research has also brought to light that especially in the 18th century, the rulings of the court anticipated in many ways the constitutional establishment of civil liberties in Germany. For instance, the inviolability of one's housing or freedom of trade was legally introduced in the Empire by rulings of the court. In the late 18th century, some contemporaries even compared the Imperial Chamber Court to the National Assembly in Revolutionary France.

The Jerusalemhaus is a house museum at Schillerplatz 5 in Wetzlar, Germany. On October 30, 1772, the Braunschweig legation secretary Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem shot himself here in a two-room apartment on the second floor. Goethe, who knew him personally due to an internship they completed together at the Reichskammergericht in Wetzlar, immortalized Jerusalem as the suicidal "Werther" in The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). The apartment is today a memorial equipped with historical furniture and documents.The Jerusalemhaus houses the Goethe-Werther-Sammlung ("Goethe-Werther Collection"). The special library strives for maximum completeness in the documentation of Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther and not only keeps precious contemporary German editions of the novel, but also collects new editions in every conceivable language. Another museum in Wetzlar, the former home of Charlotte Buff, known as the Lottehaus, also has several editions on display. The building is a cultural monument under the Hessian Monument Protection Act.

Leica Microsystems GmbH is a German microscope manufacturing company. It is a manufacturer of optical microscopes, equipment for the preparation of microscopic specimens and related products. There are ten plants in eight countries with distribution partners in over 100 countries. Leica Microsystems emerged in 1997 out of a 1990 merger between Wild-Leitz, headquartered in Heerbrugg Switzerland, and Cambridge Instruments of Cambridge England. The merger of those two umbrella companies created an alliance of the following 8 individual manufacturers of scientific instruments. American Optical Scientific Products, Carl Reichert Optische Werke AG, R.Jung, Bausch and Lomb Optical Scientific Products Division, Cambridge Instruments, E.Leitz Wetzlar, Kern & Co., and Wild Heerbrugg AG, bringing much-needed modernization and a broader degree of expertise to the newly created entity called Leica Holding B.V. group. In 1997 the name was changed to Leica Microsystems and is a wholly-owned entity of Danaher Corporation since July 2005. Danaher is a US venture capital company.

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.

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.

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 Dill is a 55 km (34 mi) long river, flowing through central Hesse in Germany. It is a tributary to the Lahn, joining it on the right bank at the town of Wetzlar.

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 Stoppelberg is an extinct volcano near the town of Wetzlar in Germany.