page_title: Rotenburg an der Fulda
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Rotenburg an der Fulda / History
context_page_description: Rotenburg an der Fulda is a town in Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in northeastern Hesse, Germany lying, as the name says, on the river Fulda.
context_section_description: In 769, the outlying centres of Braach and Lispenhausen, along with the now vanished village of  Breitingen (which lay somewhere near the Hochmahle) had their first documentary mentions in the Hersfeld Abbey’s directory of holdings. These consisted of six estates and 90 Morgen of land.
  The Gisonen were the Abbey’s Vögte (singular: Vogt). They built the first security castle in the Fulda valley once they had come to hold the Vogtei (the right to be Vogt). Around this castle arose a settlement. The Landgraves of Thuringia, who inherited the Vogtei from the Gisonen, built on the Alter Turm (mountain) Rodenberg Castle, which today lies in ruins, but is believed to be the town’s namesake.
  The settlement on the Fulda’s left bank, today’s Altstadt (“Old Town”), had its first documentary mention as a town in 1248, and after the Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession in 1264 the town belonged to the Landgraviate of Hesse. The old castle in the valley had supposedly been removed sometime after 1423. In 1470 arose the first Schloss Rotenburg. A great town fire destroyed the Old Town in 1478 along with the newly built Schloss. Between 1627 and 1834, Rotenburg was a residence town of the landgrave family of Hesse-Rotenburg, the so-called Rotenburger Quart.
  In 1615, 57 houses burnt down in Braach, and in the Thirty Years' War, in 1637, the town and the town hall burnt. The fire was set by soldiers from the Isolani Regiment. In March 1882, the volunteer fire brigade was started as a club. In 1900 it acquired an equipment shed with a drying tower near the Fulda.
  During the Second World War, the town was the location of a prisoner of war camp for officers (Oflag). Rotenburg has belonged since 1972 to Hersfeld-Rotenburg district, before which it was the old Rotenburg district's seat. In 2003, the town earned unwanted fame through Armin Meiwes.
  In 2004, the town earned a silver medal in the national contest Unsere Stadt blüht auf (“Our Town is Blossoming”), and in 2005 it earned a gold medal with a special prize for the landscaping design of the Fulda floodplain.
  In August 2007, the volunteer fire brigade staged the 20th Hessian Fire Brigade Day with an extensive programme of events on the occasion of its 125 anniversary of founding.
caption: Landgrave's palace in Rotenburg, front view of main building
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