Map - Freudenstadt

Freudenstadt (Swabian: Fraidestadt) is a town in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is capital of the district Freudenstadt. The closest population centres are Offenburg to the west (approx. 36 km away) and Tübingen to the east (approx. 47 km away).

The city lies on a high plateau at the east edge of the north Black Forest, and is well known for its fresh air. Its city centre is famous as the largest market place in Germany. After Horb, it is the second largest city of the Freudenstadt district. The city has an administration partnership with the communities Bad Rippoldsau-Schapbach and Seewald.

Freudenstadt is a climatic health resort of international renown. In the 19th and 20th centuries, visitors of note included George V of the United Kingdom, the Queen of Sweden, John D. Rockefeller, and even the American writer Mark Twain. With its many hotels and guest houses, and its high-class cuisine, Freudenstadt remains a popular vacation spot for Germans from every part of the country. Among the many Germans of note who considered Freudenstadt a second home was the justice inspector Friedrich Kellner whose WWII diary is the subject of a Canadian documentary.

Since 1535 a monastery church existed in Kniebis. The building of Freudenstadt was ordered by duke Frederick of Württemberg in 1599 with the initial population largely being made up of many of the 11,000 Protestants who left the Inner Austrian provinces by force or through self-exile beginning in 1598. The designer was architect Heinrich Schickhardt. In 1799 the monastery in Kniebis was burned down by the French. Because of the Württemberg foundation Freudenstadt was almost entirely Protestant for a long time. The young church belonged to the dean's office respectively church district Herrenberg within the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg.