Aichtal (; Swabian: Oechtal) is a town in the district of Esslingen in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is located 18 km south of Stuttgart. It belongs to the Stuttgart Region (until 1992 Region Mittlerer Neckar) and the European Metropolitan Region Stuttgart. The municipality, which was created in 1975 as part of the municipal reform and consists of the three districts Grötzingen, Aich and Neuenhaus, has a population of around 10,000.
Geography Geographical location Aichtal is situated at the southern edge of the Filder plain in the valley of the Aich, a left tributary of the Neckar. It is separated from the Neckar valley by the ridges of Galgenberg, Kleinbergle and Schaichberg. The district Neuenhaus, situated in the angle of the valley fork formed by Aich and Schaich, belongs mostly to the Naturpark Schönbuch. The tuberous marl slopes of the Aich valley are covered with meadows and fruit orchards. The town area extends from 295 meters above sea level at the Grötzingen sewage plant to 498 meters above sea level on the Betzenberg in the Schönbuch.
Expansion of the city area The city covers an area of 23.64 square kilometres, of which 3.48 square kilometres are inhabited. With 10.49 square kilometres, forest areas cover almost half of the district, including the 8.12 square kilometres of the Schönbuch. The extension of the city area is 11.0 kilometres from west to east along the river Aich and 3.4 kilometres in a north–south direction.
Neighbouring communities Neighbouring communities are Filderstadt in the north, Wolfschlugen in the northeast, Nürtingen in the east, Neckartailfingen and Schlaitdorf in the south, Walddorfhäslach in the southwest and Waldenbuch (District of Böblingen) in the west.
City division Aichtal consists of the three districts Grötzingen (about 4300 inhabitants; 7,68 square kilometres), Aich (about 3100 inhabitants; 6,11 square kilometres) and Neuenhaus (about 2200 inhabitants; 9,85 square kilometres). The spatially separated settlement Rudolfshöhe belongs to Aich, the residential area Bergwirtshaus is attached to the district Grötzingen.Das Land Baden-Württemberg. Amtliche Beschreibung nach Kreisen und Gemeinden. Band III: Regierungsbezirk Stuttgart, Regionalverband Mittlerer Neckar. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1978, , S. 183–186.
Area coverage
History On 1 January 1975, during the administrative reform, the new town of Grötzingen was founded from the town of Grötzingen and the independent communities of Aich and Neuenhaus. After protests from Aich and Neuenhaus, where parts of the population felt downgraded by this name, the town was renamed Aichtal on August 1, 1978.
Administrative affiliation With the implementation of the administrative subdivision of Württemberg in the Kingdom of Württemberg, the town Grötzingen and the two villages Aich and Neuenhaus were assigned to the Oberamt Nürtingen in 1806. During the district reform during the NS period in Württemberg they came to the Landkreis of the same name in 1938. In 1945, the towns became part of the American occupation zone and thus belonged to the newly founded state Württemberg-Baden, which was absorbed into the present state of Baden-Württemberg in 1952. In 1973 the District Reform in Baden-Wuerttemberg took place, in which the towns became part of the district of Esslingen.
Grötzingen
People have lived in this area since the Neolithic Age. From this time there are finds of stone tools and pottery shards.
In a document of the king Heinrich IV in 1075 Gretzingan was mentioned for the first time. This document was about the vineyards in Grötzingen, which belonged to the monastery Hirsau. The Alemannic settlement arose at the latest in the 7th century and was located in today's Altgrötzinger valley. The name probably goes back to a clan leader called Gretz.
Probably in the first half of the 13th century, one of the Grötzinger lords built a moated castle with a farm in the southern part of the village marker on the little river Aich. The foundation of the town of Grötzingen took place around 1275 by knight Diepold von Bernhausen, who supported king Rudolf von Habsburg and built the town as a fortification against the Württemberg Nürtingen, which was gaining influence. In 1304 Grötzingen was first documented as a town, the inhabitants of the original village moved into its walls, the former village fell into disrepair. In 1337 Diepolds son sold the town Grötzingen to Württemberg.
From the 14th to the 16th century Grötzingen was the seat of a Oberamt, to which Aich, Neckartailfingen, Neckartenzlingen, Neuenhaus and Wolfschlugen belonged. Afterwards Grötzingen came to the office Nürtingen.
In the Schmalkaldic War the inhabitants of Grötzingen had sold their cannons in 1546 due to lack of money. When plundering soldiers approached, they dug out wooden well pipes and pushed them into the embrasures of the city wall. Since the approaching soldiers mistook them for cannons, they moved on without attacking the town.
In the years 1634/1635 243 Grötzinger and 194 Neckartailfinger citizens, who sought refuge here after the destruction of their town, fell victim to the plague. After the Thirty Years' War the town counted only one third of the population - Grötzingen went from the second richest to the poorest place of the Nürtingen office. The need forced many poor inhabitants to emigrate already in the middle of the 18th century, mainly to North America.
In 1845 a big fire destroyed 13 buildings in the town centre, including the town hall and the schoolhouse.
Aich
Aich was first mentioned in 1103 in a deed of donation by the brothers Wernher and Wolfram von Eichacha. In 1312 a property of the lords of Bernhausen in Aich can be proven, but sold it in 1319 to the women's benefice of the parish church. The "Vogte von Aich" appear as local nobility. They were knightly servants of the Counts Palatine of Tübingen (Herrenberg line). The reeves of Aich also had estates in Neuenhaus and Schlaitdorf. In 1369 the village was acquired by the Reutlingen Sperwern for 550 pounds heller. They then sold this to Württemberg in 1382 with the Herrenberg dominion. Württemberg was given to the Grötzingen Amt, later, after its dissolution at the beginning of the 16th century, to the Amt of Nürtingen. In 1383 the village counted twelve "Hüblin" (small farms). The oldest document in the district archive of Esslingen testifies 1404 the enfeoffment of Heinz Stoll of Bernhausen with the Bombachmühle, a Mill for the Aich population; this mill can be traced back to 1369.
In the South German town war of 1449 the village was largely burned down by the Reutlingeners. In 1586 Aich was again almost completely destroyed by fire and was rebuilt under the direction of the ducal master builder Heinrich Schickhardt. The place was considered the geographical center of the duchy of Württemberg.
On April 20, 1945, the place was taken and looted by French soldiers, mostly Moroccans.
Neuenhaus
At Betzenberg there are several burial mounds from the Hallstatt period as well as numerous remains and a cemetery from the Roman period.
In 1312 Neuenhaus was first mentioned in documents as Neues Haus (zem Niwenhuse). It was a water castle of the County Palatine of Tübingen, next to which a manorial village was established. In 1347 Neuenhaus was already sold to Württemberg due to lack of money. Until the middle of the 15th century the Speth had the castle as a fiefdom. On the foundations of the old moated castle, the half-timbered house Schlössle was built around 1600.
The field name Brustelberg on the slope of the Betzenberg refers to the fact that there was a medieval castle here, which was inhabited until 1670 and then fell into decay. After the death of the last owner, the childless Junker Phillip Grempp von Freudenstein, the castle became the property of Württemberg in 1641, Friedrich von Ragowitz received it as a Kunkel loan. His widow was the last inhabitant of the castle, when she died in 1670 the castle was already in a state of great decay.
From the 14th to the middle of the 20th century the pottery trade was practised in Neuenhaus. The pottery clay came from the nearby Betzenberg. Duke Ulrich recruited master pottery makers from Lower Franconia, to whom he promised free wood from the Schönbuch. In the year 1848 there were 78 Hafnermeister in the place, i.e. almost two thirds of the employed persons practiced this occupation. This is how the popular Swabian place name Häfner-Nuihausa,Lutz Reichardt: Ortsnamenbuch des Kreises Esslingen. S. 75 which already appeared in official records in 1720, in contrast to the Katholisch-NuihausaLutz Reichardt: Ortsnamenbuch des Kreis Esslingen. p. 77 (Neuhausen auf den Fildern). In the neighbouring villages the inhabitants of Neuenhaus are usually simply called Häfner.
Another source of income were crabs which were caught in the Schaich and regularly sold as far as Stuttgart and Tübingen. In addition, wine was cultivated on the Uhlberg until 1832.
Urban and population development
In Grötzingen and Aich, new residential areas on southern slopes above the town centres were developed from the post-war years until the 1980s. In Grötzingen these are the Schönblick settlement (1948) and the Blumensiedlung (1971), in Aich the Sulzäcker (1956) and the Rudolfshöhe (1957) situated northeast of the village as well as the Steinenäcker and the Gemeindeberg (1973). Neuenhaus expanded from 1965 to the 1980s with new buildings along the connecting road from Waldenbuch to Nürtingen, in Grörach and in the Sandäckern and on the slope of the Betzenberg. From 1969 onwards, the Aichholz industrial estate was created north of Aich. In 1976 the company Aldi settled in the neighbouring Riedwiesen.
At the end of the 1990s, the Schönblicksiedlung was extended by the Froschegert development area, as was the flower settlement around the Hoher Rain. On the north-eastern outskirts of Neuenhaus, new building areas have also been created in recent years. Currently, the Weckholder residential area between Grötzingen and Rudolfshöhe is being developed as a further residential area.
In 2004, 4310 households were counted in Aichtal, which corresponds to an average household size of 2.3 persons. The average age of the population was 39.9 years.
+ The population development in Aichtal since 1572 and 1834 1572 1654 1703 1745 1803 1810 1824 1834 1843 1852 1861 1871 1885 1895 1900 1905 1910 1919 Grötzingen 450 258 448 593 870 893 945 958 967 977 900 933 882 804 784 845 856 870 Aich 728 778 800 791 725 737 694 626 634 629 624 647 Neuenhaus 565 624 668 776 674 772 838 748 724 718 716 793 total 2.238 2.360 2.435 2.544 2.299 2.442 2.414 2.178 2.142 2.189 2.196 2.310
1925 1933 1939 1946 1950 1956 1961 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Grötzingen 869 831 848 1.239 1.283 1.862 2.453 Aich 635 662 660 909 971 1.600 2.224 Neuenhaus 806 867 864 1.089 1.141 1.413 1.767 total 2.310 2.360 2.372 3.237 3.395 3.905 4.875 6.009 6.444 7.336 8.195 8.517 8.709 9.178 9.531 9.771 9.716 10.124
Religions
Aichtal has been predominantly Protestant since the Reformation. However, since 1954 there has been a Catholic congregation in Grötzingen and a New Apostolic congregation in Neuenhaus. In addition, there is a congregation of the Protestant Regional Church Fellowship Württembergischer Brüderbund in Neuenhaus. The Protestant congregations of Grötzingen, Aich, and Neuenhaus belong to the Kirchenbezirk Nürtingen of the Evangelische Landeskirche in Württemberg, while the Catholic congregation of Grötzingen-Harthausen belongs to the Deanery of Esslingen-Nürtingen of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart.