Bad Wildungen's first documentary mention came about 800 from the Hersfeld Monastery's goods directory under the name "villa Wildungun". This place lay in the Wilde Valley, east of today's main town. About 1200, a castle was built by the Thuringian Landgraves, around which Alt-Wildungen ("High/Up Wildungen" from lat. altus) developed. In 1242, Nieder-Wildungen ("Lower Wildungen"), which had been founded on the hill facing the castle, was granted town rights. From 1263, the castle and the two Wildungen towns were owned by the Counts – later Princes – of Waldeck, who only abdicated after the First World War (see Principality of Waldeck). In 1358, the two Wildungen towns were mentioned.
In 1906, the town of Nieder-Wildungen was given the new name Bad Wildungen. In 1940, Bad Wildungen was given the title of "Preußisches Staatsbad" ("Prussian State Bath")
Above Bad Wildungen stands a Baroque stately home, Schloss Friedrichstein, which was planned by Count Josias II in 1660 and completed between 1707 and 1714 by Prince Friedrich Anton Ulrich zu Waldeck. In the centre stands a late Gothic Evangelical town church from the 14th century. Inside is a winged altar by Konrad von Soest (with Germany's oldest depiction of eyeglasses).
In the late 1990s, the Bad Wildungen spa park was connected by a "green bridge" – not natural but made to seem so – to the Reinhardshausen spa park, making one large park now regarded, at 50 ha, as Europe's biggest spa park.
Loading contexts...
