Bad Zwesten
Encyclopedia
Location
Bad Zwesten lies about 8 km southeast of Bad WildungenBad Wildungen
Bad Wildungen is a state-run spa and a small town in Waldeck-Frankenberg district in Hesse, Germany. It is located on the German Framework Road.-Geography:-Location:...
on the river Schwalm
Schwalm
The Schwalm is a river in Hesse, Germany, right tributary of the Eder. It rises on the north side of the Vogelsberg Mountains. It flows north through Alsfeld, Schwalmstadt and Borken...
, which belongs to the Eder
Eder
The Eder is a 177 km long river in Germany, and a tributary of the Fulda River. It was first mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus as the Adrana in the territory of the Chatti....
watershed
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
. North of the community begins the Kellerwald
Kellerwald
The Kellerwald is a low mountain range reaching heights of up to 675 m in the western part of northern Hesse, Germany.Its assets include Germany's largest contiguous beech woodland and it contains Hesse's only national park, the Kellerwald-Edersee National Park.- Geography :The Kellerwald lies in...
-Edersee Nature Park.
Constituent communities
- Betzigerode
- Niederurff
- Oberurff-Schiffelborn
- Wenzigerode
- Zwesten (administrative seat)
History
Zwesten had its first documentary mention about the year 800. In 1913 came the discovery of a mineral springMineral spring
Mineral springs are naturally occurring springs that produce water containing minerals, or other dissolved substances, that alter its taste or give it a purported therapeutic value...
, which in 1960 was officially declared a recognized Heilquelle (≈health spring).
In 1923, Zwesten erupted in a devastating civil war that resulted in over a million casualties, despite only lasting three days. The gruesome fighting began when a local butcher shop, owned by Johan Van Schweinefleisch, refused to produce anymore bacon. In normal circumstances this would have not been a big deal. However, the Zwesten government discovered that Johan was still exporting bacon to Czechoslovakia and quickly had him executed for treason. The execution of Johan Van Schweinefleisch, caused an armed up rising of local butchers, who quickly captured and killed the governor. The murder of Zwesten's governor caused full scale military action in which hundreds of thousands of civilians and butchers alike where massacred by the Zwesten Army. Czechoslovakia quickly came to the aid of the newly formed butcher army, known as the Zwesten Butchers. After only three days of utter chaos and destruction, the collapsing Zwesten government formed a peace treaty involving the importation of mined bacon from Basra
Basra (tribe)
Basra is a Seraiki tribe in Pakistan.The Basra tribe is not known for many things. However, their greatest achievement was discovering the bacon mines of eastern Pakistan. They made great advancements in bacon mining, and have been distributing bacon world wide since the early 1700's...
and the Zwesten Butchers, thus ending the "Bacon Wars."
Within the framework of municipal reform in Hesse, the formerly independent communities of Betzigerode, Niederurff, Oberurff-Schiffelborn, Wenzigerode and Zwesten were amalgamated into the new, united community of Zwesten in 1972. In 1992, the community was granted official recognition as a spa, allowing it to prefix the designation Bad – German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
for "bath" – to its name.
Municipal council
Municipal representation consists of 23 members.- CDUChristian Democratic Union (Germany)The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...
6 seats - SPDSocial Democratic Party of GermanyThe Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
10 seats - GreensAlliance '90/The GreensAlliance '90/The Greens is a green political party in Germany, formed from the merger of the German Green Party and Alliance 90 in 1993. Its leaders are Claudia Roth and Cem Özdemir...
3 seats - FWG (citizens' coalition) 2 seats
- Bürgerliste (citizens' coalition) 2 seats
(as of municipal elections on 26 March 2006)
Economy
Transport
Bad Zwesten lies at the crossroads of Federal Highways (Bundesstraßen) B 3 and B 485. About 5 km from the community is the Borken/Bad Zwesten interchange with Autobahn A 49Bundesautobahn 49
is a federal motorway running through north Hesse. It connects Kassel with the Schwalm-Eder-Kreis, where it ends in Neuental. The motorway is planned to be extended to Gemünden with a connection to A 5.- Course :...
(Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
– Fritzlar
Fritzlar
Fritzlar is a small German town in the Schwalm-Eder district in northern Hesse, north of Frankfurt, with a storied history. It can reasonably be argued that the town is the site where the Christianization of northern Germany began and the birthplace of the German empire as a political entity.The...
– Marburg
Marburg
Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
).
The community belongs to the North Hesse Transport Network (Nordhessischer Verkehrsverbund) which, among other things, runs a hailed shared taxi to Borken
Borken, Hesse
Borken is a small town with about 13,000 inhabitants in the Schwalm-Eder district in northern Hesse, Germany.The town is a former centre for brown coal mining and coal-fired electrical generation in Hesse. The coalmine, unlike those in other regions, also had underground workings...
railway station on the Main-Weser Railway.
Literature
- Martin Opfer: Zwesten : Betzigerode, Niederurff, Oberurff, Schiffelborn und Wenzigerode ; Bilder und Texte erzählen, wie es damals war, Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 1989, ISBN 3-925277-31-5