Waiblingen (; Swabian: Woiblinge) is a city in southwestern Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg. It lies in the eastern part of the Stuttgart metropolitan region on the river Rems, and is the seat and largest city of the Rems-Murr district. , Waiblingen had 57,313 inhabitants in its central town and five outlying districts.
The settlement is of Alemannic origin and was a Carolingian royal estate, first documented in 885 during a stay by Emperor Charles the Fat. It later belonged to the Salian and then the Hohenstaufen dynasties; by tradition, the Hohenstaufen battle cry "Hie Waibling!" gave rise to the Italian term Ghibelline (Ghibellini), one of the two factions in the conflict between Guelphs and Ghibellines that divided medieval Europe. From the 13th century Waiblingen grew into a town under the Counts of Württemberg, to whose territory it would belong for the following centuries. It was almost entirely destroyed by imperial troops in 1634 during the Thirty Years' War, and its present old town with its colourful timber-framed houses largely dates from the following Baroque reconstruction.
The arrival of the railway in the late 19th century turned Waiblingen into an industrial centre, and its population grew steadily through the 20th century. It was raised to a major district town (Große Kreisstadt) in 1962 and became the administrative seat of the newly created Rems-Murr district in 1973. Waiblingen is the seat of Stihl, the world's largest manufacturer of chainsaws and the town's biggest employer.
Etymology Waiblingen is of Alemannic origin, designating a place (as indicated by the suffix -ingen) ruled by, or settled by the descendents of, someone probably named Wabilo or Wahilo. The name may also be related to Weibel, an archaic term for a ceremonial official (known as a huissier in other parts of Europe). In Old High German, the name was rendered as Uueibelingen, Uveibelingen, and Waipilinga.
Geography Waiblingen is bisected by the river Rems, which enters the district from the southeast near Beinstein, and then flows through the city center, including the eastern part of the old town. It subsequently cuts deep into the area's Muschelkalk limestone, and runs northwest in several meandering bends between the outlying districts of Neustadt, Hohenacker, and Hegnach, on its way to its confluence with the Neckar in Remseck.
The city of Waiblingen consists of the inner city of Waiblingen proper, and the outlying districts of Beinstein, Bittenfeld, Hegnach, Hohenacker, and Neustadt, which were incorporated during municipal reforms in 1971 and 1975. Each of these five districts has its own local council as defined by the Baden-Württemberg municipal code.Hauptsatzung der Stadt Waiblingen in vom 25. Januar 2007, zuletzt geändert am 13. März 2016
Due to urban expansion, modern Waiblingen is almost contiguous with its neighbouring towns of Fellbach in the west, Kernen in the south, and Korb in the east.
History
Pre-history to early Middle Ages The earliest archaeological finds in the area date from the Neolithic, as early as 5,000 BCE. In Hegnach, excavations found a Celtic burial site from the Hallstatt culture, dated between 650–450 BCE (Hallstatt C). Between 155 and 260, Waiblingen lay just inside the borders of the Roman Empire in the province of Germania Superior; the nearest border defenses of the Limes in Welzheim were only about 25 kilometers away. Near Beinstein, the remains of a Roman artisan's village were found, producing earthenware and ceramics which were traded in a range of up to 100 kilometers.
Little evidence exists for Waiblingen's history during and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, a time known as the Migration Period. Writing in 1666, local chronicler Wolfgang Zacher relates that older sources spoke of the town being destroyed in around 450 by Huns which were part of Attila's forces. The town was part of the tribal confederation of the Alemanni between the 5th and 8th century, who were gradually christianized and subjugated by the Franks, until Carloman summarily executed all Alemannic nobility at the blood court at Cannstatt in 746. Waiblingen's mother church dates from this period; the fact that it was dedicated to the archangel Michael – one of the main holy figures venerated by the Franks – is taken by some scholars to be an indication of the town's importance at the time. Remains of the original church were found underneath the 15th-century Michael's Church (Michaelskirche), which occupies its place today.
High and late Middle Ages
By the 9th century, Waiblingen had become an important religious, economic, and administrative center in the region. This is evidenced by the erection of a Kaiserpfalz ("imperial palace") in the town by Carolingian rulers. While no archaeological evidence for this palace has been found, it is theorized to have been located in the area of the Rathausplatz (city hall square). Chronicler Wolfgang Zacher asserts that emperor Charlemagne visited Waiblingen in 801, although there is no contemporary evidence for such a visit. The first documentary evidence both for Waiblingen's existence, and its Kaiserpfalz, comes from the reign of Charlemagne's great-grandson Charles the Fat. In 885, Charles and his itinerant court stayed in Waiblingen for several days: on 23 August 885, the emperor signed a royal charter as "Actum ad Uueibelingan curta imperiali" – "Done at Waiblingen, imperial estate". The last East Frankish ruler of the Carolingian dynasty, Louis the Child, also signed an act in Waiblingen in December 908, after which there is no further documentary evidence for roughly 140 years.
After the Carolingian period, Waiblingen passed by inheritance through the dukes of Swabia to Gisela of Swabia, whose marriage to Conrad II brought the estate into the Salian dynasty when Conrad was elected King of Germany in 1024; he would be crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1027. The Salian emperors of the following century – Conrad's son Henry III, grandson Henry IV, and great-grandson Henry V – were recorded by 12th-century chronicler Otto of Freising as having been called the "Henrys of Waiblingen". The town reached the height of its importance under Henry IV during the Investiture Controversy, when it served as an imperial fortress. In 1080 he donated Waiblingen, together with neighbouring Winterbach, to Speyer Cathedral, burial church of the Salian dynasty. The Hohenstaufen acquired the town through Agnes of Waiblingen, daughter of Henry IV, who married Duke Frederick I of Swabia, and they inherited the Salian lands after the male line died out with Henry V in 1125.
The rivalry between the Hohenstaufens of Waiblingen and the rival house of Welf gave its name to the conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, one of the defining political divisions of medieval Europe. According to later chroniclers, both houses' names were first used as opposing battle cries at the siege of Weinsberg in 1140, in which the Welf shouts of "Hie Welf!" were answered by Hohenstaufen troops with "Hie Waibling!", the name of their nearby fortress. While this origin is considered plausible, it rests on relatively late sources. As the conflict between the Hohenstaufen and the Welfs spread into imperial Italy, the battle cries became shorthand for both factions – reshaped in Italian as Ghibellini and Guelfi, with Ghibellino deriving from "Waiblingen". The factions reached their height during the struggle between Emperor Frederick II and the papacy in the 13th century and persisted long after the original dynastic quarrel – and its connection to the small Swabian town – had been forgotten.
Through the 13th century Waiblingen gradually developed from a village into a town under the Counts of Württemberg. The first secure evidence of a Württemberg presence dates from 1253, and grants of land in and around Waiblingen multiply through the 1260s and 1270s. By 1265 at the latest, Waiblingen had been elevated to a city, and indicators of an emerging regional center appear in the same period, including "urban" trades such as butchers and, by 1273, a community of citizens (universitas civium) headed by a Schultheiß (bailiff). Waiblingen's earliest town seal survives on a charter of 1291 and bears the three stag's antlers of the Counts of Württemberg, which survive in the city's coat of arms today.
By 1297, the Counts of Württemberg had built a castle at the eastern edge of the city, in the area of today's Rathausplatz. The castle was likely a simple fortified building with a rectangular layout and 5-meter-high walls, topped with a timber frame structure. It survived with multiple alterations until 1634. Around 1300, Waiblingen was drawn into the wars between Count Eberhard I and the Habsburg and Roman kings, who valued its position at the Rems crossing on a long-distance route between Franconia and Lake Constance. The crown established a rival settlement, Neu-Waiblingen (the modern district of Neustadt), on a nearby hilltop as a deliberate check on Württemberg ambitions, first documented in 1298.
Early modern era
Waiblingen was a favoured residence of the Counts of Württemberg through the first half of the 15th century. The family lived periodically at Waiblingen's castle: several counts were born here, among them Ludwig II (born 1439), and the future Duke Eberhard II (born 1447); Waiblingen twice served as the dower (Wittum) of a count's wife. After Count Ulrich V was captured and held for a large ransom in his war against the Electoral Palatinate, the town was pledged to the Palatinate from 1463 until 1491. The recently founded University of Tübingen took refuge in Waiblingen during an outbreak of plague in 1482/83. The town's oldest surviving buildings date from the 15th century, such as the Michaelskirche (Michael's Church, ~1445), Nikolauskirche (Saint Nicholas' Church, after 1480), and the Beinsteiner Torturm (Beinstein Gate Tower, 1491); the latter was adorned with the arms of Count Eberhard V, who was elevated to Duke of Württemberg in 1495. In 1514, Waiblingen saw unrest during a regional revolt against Duke Ulrich, known collectively as Poor Conrad. A confrontation between Imperial Knights and rebelling Waiblingen citizens is relayed by participant Götz von Berlichingen in his autobiography.
Following Duke Ulrich's return from exile in 1534, the Reformation swept into Waiblingen, carried out in the town by its Vogt (bailiff), Lienhart Schlaher. During the Schmalkaldic War, Imperial and Spanish troops under Charles V occupied much of Württemberg in 1546–47, but Waiblingen was at first left untouched. When Spanish troops at last advanced on the town from three sides on 23 March 1548, Schlaher chose not to resist and opened the gates; the resulting nine-week occupation cost the town some provisions but no lives or buildings. His decision drew accusations of treachery and ultimately cost him his office and family.