Wadern

Geschichte

Wadern is a municipality in the federal state Saarland which is situated in the southwest of Germany. It's part of the district Merzig-Wadern. Wadern consists of 14 villages with approximately 16.000 inhabitants. With 143 inhabitants per km2 it is sparsely populated, but, with an area of 111 km2, Wadern is the third largest municipality in Saarland after Saarbrücken and St. Wendel. The town is divided into 14 urban districts and altogether 24 villages belong to the commune. The town is part of the Moselle Franconian language area.GeographyWadern is located at the foot of the Schwarzwälder HochwaldHistoryStone tools and different grave-mounds in the so-called "Hochwald" region are evidence for the city's existence in a time where there were no written sources ever found . In connection with the conquest by the Romans first written reports were discovered. Gaius Julius Caesar, the Roman general, created a detailed and written description of the people who were living in this area of Germany at this time with a comment about their rites and customs.This part of Germany's economy and culture benefitted from the improvements of the traffic infrastructure, which was constructed by the Romans; because of this extension and progress the Celtic population increased.The first decades after Christ were struck by increased collapsing Germanic tribes, what eventually lead to the dissolution of the Roman Empire as well as to this region being integrated into France.Agricultural and housing development in the Hochwald were able to extend since there was unused land available to spread out on. In the Middle Ages a lot of clearance was done, which resulted in the most common name endings: -bach, -feld and -rod of the towns around this area. What is now the city of Wadern used to belong to various territories, for example to the Erzstift Trier, Dukedom Lothringen or to the governance of Dagstuhl. Especially the governance of Dagstuhl took the main role in the development of downtown Wadern. In 1680 this south-western part of Germany was governed by the counts of Oettingen - Baldern, count Joseph Anton of Oettingen - Baldern and Soetern took over the governance of Dagstuhl in the 18th century.