Winnenden

Winnenden is a small town in the Rems-Murr district of the Stuttgart Region in Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany. It lies in a wine-growing area approx. 20km northeast of Stuttgart and has a population of fewer than 28,000. The town is home to the Kärcher Company, makers of cleaning equipment namely pressure washers.HistoryThe earliest record of Winnenden is found in a document of 1181 where Gottfried of Schauenburg-Winnenden is mentioned as a witness testifying that Emperor Friedrich I held the castle in the town. Around 1200 the castle, which was then called Windin, came into the possession of Heinrich of Neuffen. In 1277 it was transferred to Konrad von Weinsberg. On 10 October 1325 the castle and town were sold to Württemberg.In the German Peasants' War Winnenden was first under the control of the Armer Konrad or the peasants' army, but by 1519 it was under the control of the Swabian League. In 1616 an epidemic took the lives of approximately half of the population of Winnenden. During the Thirty Years' War the city was pillaged twice, in 1638 and 1643, and Imperial, French, and Swedish troops occasionally occupied Winnenden during this conflict. Around the same time the town's castle became the seat of the Württemberg-Winnental line of the House of Württemberg.