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Messkirch - is a town in the district of Sigmaringen in
Baden-Wurttemberg in Germany. The town was the residence
of the counts of Zimmern, widely known through Count
Froben Christoph's Zimmern Chronicle (1559–1566).
Messkirch is the birthplace of the preacher Abraham a
Sancta Clara (born in nearby Kreenheinstetten), the
composer Conradin Kreutzer, archbishop Conrad Gröber,
writer and Georg Büchner Prize winner Arnold Stadler
and, most famously, the philosopher Martin Heidegger.
Also included are the well-known brewers Johann Nepomuk
Schalk and his sons Herrmann and Oscar who began the
Schalk Brewery in Newark, New Jersey, the first to bring
lager beer to New Jersey. Master of Messkirch: Adoration
of the Magi, c. 1538The town's name is also connected
with a Renaissance painter whose provisional name is
Master of Messkirch. His Adoration of the Magi can be
seen in the church of St. Martin.
Baden-Wurttemberg - is one of the 16 states of Germany.
Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the
country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third
largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen
states, with an area of 35,742 square kilometres (13,800
sq mi) and 10.7 million inhabitants. The state capital
is Stuttgart. The sobriquet Ländle (dialect form for
"small land") is sometimes used as a synonym for the
Swabian part of Baden-Württemberg. The area used to be
covered by the historical states of Baden, including the
former Prussian Hohenzollern, and Württemberg, part of
the region of Swabia.
Wurttemberg was occupied by the Romans in the first
century AD who defended their position there by
constructing a (limes) rampart. Early on in the third
century, the Alemanni drove the Romans beyond the Rhine
and the Danube, but in their turn they succumbed to the
Franks under Clovis I, the decisive battle taking place
in 496. It later became part of the Holy Roman Empire.
After World War II, Allied forces established three
federal states: Württemberg-Hohenzollern, Baden (both
occupied by France), and Württemberg-Baden
(US-occupied). In 1949, these three states became
founding members of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Article 118 of the new German constitution, however, had
already prepared a procedure for those states to merge.
After a referendum held on 16 December 1951,
Württemberg-Baden, Württemberg-Hohenzollern and Baden
voted in favour of a merger. Baden-Württemberg
officially became a state on 25 April 1952. |
