Fritzlar is a small German town (pop. 15,000) in the Schwalm-Eder district in northern Hesse, 160 km (100 miles) north of Frankfurt, with a storied history. It can reasonably be argued that the town is the site where the Christianization of northern Germany (north and east of the Roman Limes) began and the birthplace of the German empire as a political entity. The town has a medieval center ringed by a wall with numerous watch towers. Thirty-eight meters (125 ft) high, the Grauer Turm ("Grey Tower") is the highest remaining urban defense tower in Germany. The city hall, first documented in 1109, with a stone relief of St. Martin, the town's patron saint, is the oldest in Germany still in use for its original purpose. The Gothic church of the old Franciscan monastery is today the Protestant parish church, and the monastery's other buildings have been converted into a modern hospital. Many houses in the town center, notably around the market square, date from the 15th to 17th centuries and have been carefully maintained or restored. The town is dominated by the imposing Romanesque-Gothic cathedral from the 12th-14th centuries. Located at the crossroads of several important trade routes and site of an imperial residence since Charlemagne, Fritzlar was a frequent site of royal visits and of assemblies and synods of the German princes and church leaders during the early Middle Ages. Undoubtedly the most important of these was the Reichstag of 919 when Henry I ("Henry the Fowler"), duke of Saxony, was elected King of the Germans to succeed Charlemagne's Frankish successors on the throne of what had become known as the East Frankish Empire. This event marked the end of bitter rivalry between the two large German tribes of the Franks and the Saxons and the beginning of the German Empire that lasted until the Napoleonic wars. King Conrad I of Germany, duke of Franconia, had died in December 918 without a son and urged his brother, margrave Eberhard, who was to succeed him as Duke of Franconia, to nominate Henry as king, although they had been at odds with each other from 912 to 915 over the title to lands in Thuringia. Conrad's choice was respected by the Reichstag of 919, where Henry was proclaimed king by the leaders of the Franks and Saxons. Burchard I, Duke of Swabia quickly swore allegiance as well, but Duke Arnulf of Bavaria did not submit to Henry until the latter advanced with an army into Bavaria in 921. Conrad himself had risen to the position of duke of Franconia only after defeating the rival Babenberg counts in a battle near Fritzlar in 906, in which his father,Conrad, Duke of Thuringia the Elder, was killed. n 1079 Fritzlar ceased to be a crown possession when it was gifted to the archbishop of Mainz by Emperor Henry IV in the aftermath of his submission to the Pope at Canossa. It thus became a pivotal pillar in the long-lasting feuds between Mainz and the landgraves of Thuringia and Hesse for territorial supremacy in northern Hesse. Located in the border area between Frankish and Saxon territories and, following Martin Luther's Reformation, a Roman Catholic enclave owned by the Archbishop of Mainz in the midst of Protestant Hesse, the town was frequently embattled, by Saxons and Franks, by Protestant and Catholic princes, and repeatedly sacked and rebuilt. The first major devastation occurred in 774, during Charlemagne's Saxon Wars. While the king was in Italy, the Saxons invaded Hesse and besieged Buraburg, where the population of Fritzlar had sought refuge. Failing to take the fortress, the Saxons destroyed Fritzlar, but not St. Wigbert's stone basilica. This gave rise to the legend that two angels had appeared to chase away the invaders and protect the church. The next happened in 1079. Emperor Henry IV, who frequently resided in Fritzlar, was faced with an insurrection led by the pretender king Rudolf of Swabia (Rudolf of Rheinfelden), who had been supported by the Pope. Having submitted to the Pope at Canossa in 1077, Henry had gone to Fritzlar. A papal legate was not able to arrange an end to the dispute, and in early 1079 an army of Saxons, partisans of Rudolf, attacked Henry in Fritzlar. He fled, and town and church were sacked and destroyed. Between about 1085 and 1118, a new and larger basilica was built at the site of St. Wigbert's church. It was the site of the imperial synod of 1118 at which the papal interdict of Henry V, who again had opposed the pope on the matter of investiture of bishops, was announced and ratified and where Saint Norbert of Xanten, founder of the order of the Premonstratensians (Norbertines) and later archbishop of Magdeburg, successfully defended himself against charges of heresy. At the same synod, prince-bishop Otto of Bamberg was suspended for having remained loyal to Henry V during his quarrels with the papacy. This second basilica was radically reconstructed between 1180 and 1200, essentially in the form in which it is still found

Worpswede is a municipality in the district of Osterholz, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Teufelsmoor (dead moor), northeast of Bremen. The small town itself is located near the Weyerberg. It has been the home to a lively artistic community since the end of the 19th century, with over 130 artists and craftsmen working there. ts origin goes back to the Bronze Age. The first time it was mentioned however was in 1218. Then it belonged to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. In 1630, it was occupied by Sweden for a short period of time. In 1648 the Prince-Archbishopric was transformed into the Duchy of Bremen, which was first ruled in personal union by the Swedish and from 1715 on by the Hanoverian Crown. However, it took another 120 years (1750) until the colonization of the Teufelsmoor was started by Jurgen Christian Findorff by drainage of the bog. In 1823 the Duchy was abolished and its territory became part of the Stade Region. Worpsweder Kaseglocke, created by the architect Bruno Taut in 1921 and built in 1926 by the writer Edwin Koenemann. This small structure was given its name because of its resemblance to a cheese cover. Since 2001 the kaseglocke has been used as a museum. Culture Worpswede is famous nationwide for its long tradition as an artists' colony. Nowadays, about 130 artists and craftsmen and women live there permanently; though one should really include most of the inhabitants of Worpswede, since many are artists or have at least to do with any kind of arts. As an example, the owner of the small "Cafe Vernissage" also displays her paintings in the Cafe. Artistic community In 1884, Mimi Stolte, the daughter of a shopkeeper in Worpswede, met Fritz Mackensen, a young student of arts, while she was staying with her aunt in Dusseldorf. Since he was destitute, she invited him to Worpswede to spend the holidays with her family. In 1889, he settled in Worpswede, accompanied by other painters such as Hans am Ende and Otto Modersohn, and followed by others such as Fritz Overbeck, Carl Vinnen, and Paula Becker (who married Otto Modersohn). Other artists came, for example the writers and poets Gerhard Hauptmann, Thomas Mann, and Rainer Maria Rilke and the sculptor Clara Westhoff (who was married to Rilke). Fritz Mackensen remained a good friend of Mimi Stolte's family to the end of his life. A memorial tablet created by Mackensen can be seen in front of the Kaufhaus Stolte. Heinrich and Martha Vogeler Worpswede railway station, 2007 In 1895 Heinrich Vogeler joined the first artists around Fritz Mackensen. He was not only a painter but also a draftsman, designer and architect. Since the growing industrialization made it necessary to find new ways of transporting goods and all sorts of materials, the idea came up to build a railway through the Teufelsmoor-area. So Vogeler was charged with the building of railway stations along the route. In 1910 the railway station at Worpswede was opened. It is the only railway station on the Osterholz-Scharmbeck - Bremervorde route still kept in its original "shape". Nowadays it is used as a restaurant. The “Barkenhoff” in Worpswede, 2007 In 1895 Vogeler bought a cottage and planted many birch trees around it, which gave the house its new name: Barkenhoff (Low German for Birkenhof, literally translated Birch-Tree-Cottage). It became the cultural centre of the artistic scene of Worpswede. His participation in World War I, in which Hans am Ende lost his life, made Vogeler contemplate about life. As a result he became a pacifist after the war had ended and joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). It was at that time that he and his wife Martha divorced. From that point on, he wanted to work ideologically. He left his former way of painting romantic scenes and started to make proletarian content the center of his work. In 1931 he emigrated to Soviet Union and was deported in 1941 by Soviet authorities to Kazakhstan, where he died in 1942. Das Haus im Schluh in Worpswede Meanwhile, the Barkenhoff became a children's home. It was recently restored and has re-opened as a Heinrich Vogeler Museum in 2004. After their divorce, his wife Martha built up her own childhood dream with the "Haus im Schluh". It still exists and belongs to the descendants of Martha and Heinrich Vogeler. As during the time of Martha herself, it contains a museum, a boarding-house, a weaving-mill, and offers different cultural events such as exhibitions, concerts of songs, etc The “Niedersachsenstein” by Bernhard Hoetge Second generation of artists The first generation of artists was followed by a second one. The probably most important of them was Bernhard Hoetger, the creator of the Bottcher-Stra?e in Bremen. Like Vogeler he was a "Jack-of-all-trades". Many buildings in Worpswede have been built by him: examples include "Niedersachsenstein", "Kaffee Verruckt", "Grosse Kunstschau" and his own house Hin