Heppenheim (Bergstraße) () is the seat of Bergstraße district in Hesse, Germany, lying on the Bergstraße on the edge of the Odenwald. It is best known for being the birthplace of Sebastian Vettel, a four-time Formula One World Champion and the place of founding of the Free Democratic Party (Germany).
Geography
Location The town is set on the vineyards below the mediaeval Starkenburg (castle). Defining for the townscape, besides the castle, is St. Peter, the “Cathedral of the Bergstraße” as the big Catholic church is known locally; it was consecrated on 1 August 1904, and is not a bishop's seat. Heppenheim lies centrally on Bundesstraßen 3 and 460, and Autobahn A 5/A 67, almost halfway between Heidelberg and Darmstadt, in southern Hesse on the boundary with Baden-Württemberg, and is Hesse's southernmost district seat.
The town's official designation is “Heppenheim an der Bergstraße”. In the local Hessian German dialect, the town is also called Hepprum.
Heppenheim´s biggest lake is the Bruchsee. Multiple streams such as the Hambach, Stadtbach, Erbach und Brombach flow from the east and down the valleys of the Odenwald into the Weschnitz, the town's western border.
“Bergstraße” is not only the name given the road running from Darmstadt to Heidelberg on the western edge of the Odenwald and eastern edge of the Rhine rift (now Bundesstraße 3), but also one given the landscape along the road. It stands out with its unusually mild and sunny climate in which trees blossom especially early.
In the area around the outlying centre of Ober-Laudenbach is a boundary oddity unique in Hesse: just there within the town's municipal area are two enclaves belonging to Baden-Württemberg, within one of which is a further enclave belonging to Hesse.
Neighbouring communities Heppenheim borders in the north on the town of Bensheim, in the northeast on the community of Lautertal and the town of Lindenfels, in the east on the communities of Fürth, Rimbach, Mörlenbach and Birkenau, in the south on the community of Laudenbach (Rhein-Neckar-Kreis, Baden-Württemberg), in the southwest on the towns of Viernheim and Lampertheim and in the west on the town of Lorsch.
Constituent communities Besides the main town, Heppenheim has the outlying centres of Unter-Hambach, Ober-Hambach, Kirschhausen (with Igelsbach), Erbach, Sonderbach, Wald-Erlenbach, Mittershausen-Scheuerberg, and Ober-Laudenbach, which were in the course of municipal reform in Hesse amalgamated with Heppenheim with effect from 1 January 1972.
History In 755, Heppenheim had its first documentary mention. At that time, the town was the hub of a Frankish domain. In 773, this area became one of Charlemagne’s donations to the Lorsch Abbey, and to protect it, the castle (Starkenburg) was built above it in 1065; in 1066 it successfully resisted a siege by Prince-Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen. The Imperial Abbey held the rank of principality, and Heppenheim developed over time into the territory's administrative and economic hub, although it lost its importance with the Abbey's downfall in the 11th and 12th centuries. In 1229, Emperor Friedrich II put the Starkenburg under the administration of the Archbishops of Electoral Mainz, doing likewise with the Lorsch Abbey along with Heppenheim in 1232. But for an interruption from 1461 to 1623 when the fief was pledged to the Electorate of the Palatinate, Heppenheim remained an Electoral Mainz holding right up until the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss in 1803. Then it became Hessian, first part of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt, and since 1948 it has been part of the Bundesland of Hesse.
Heppenheim has had town rights since at least 1318, and market rights, it is believed, already by the early 9th century. From 1265 (possibly earlier) until 1803, Heppenheim was the seat of the Electoral Mainz Amt (Oberamt) of Starkenburg. Once it passed to Hesse-Darmstadt, the Amt was abolished. Heppenheim was thereafter first the seat of a (much smaller) Amt, and then, as of 1821 the seat of the Heppenheim Administrative Region (Landratsbezirk). As of 1832 it was the seat of the Heppenheim district. Since then, it was between 1848 and 1852 the seat of the Regierungsbezirk of Heppenheim, and has been since 1938 the seat of the Bergstraße district, to which were assigned not only the old Heppenheim district, but also great parts of the likewise abolished Bensheim district, with the parts of the Worms district on the Rhine’s right bank being added after the Second World War.
In both 1369 and 1693 (in the latter case owing to the devastation wrought by the French in the Nine Years' War), Heppenheim was almost utterly destroyed in town fires. The town came through both world wars unscathed, aside from slight damage when the Americans marched in March 1945.
Heppenheim suffered severely in the Thirty Years' War (1618–48); the Starkenburg was overwhelmed by Spanish troops in 1621, and by the Swedes in 1630. The Plague killed about 80% of the population in 1635 (almost 100% in the outlying countryside), and the town was sacked by the Poles in 1636 and again in 1645 by the French.
The Heppenheim Conference (Heppenheimer Tagung), a meeting of leading liberals on 10 October 1847 in the Halber Mond (“Half Moon”) Hotel, was a prelude to the German Revolution in 1848 and 1849. Given this historical connection, the Free Democratic Party (FDP, Freie Demokratische Partei) was founded on 11 December 1948 in Heppenheim.
There were Jews living in Heppenheim by the Middle Ages. The town was part of the Archbishopric of Mainz from 1232 to 1803 and there were repeated ecclesiastical measures undertaken to persecute Jews. Jewish life in the town was wiped out during the persecution that accompanied the Plague in 1348 and 1349. The modern community was founded in the 17th century. About 1900, there were some 40 Jewish families, with 200 to 300 people living in town. That figure fell to 113 people by 1933, a result of migration and emigration.
Martin Buber, Zionist and honorary professor of religious sciences at the University of Frankfurt am Main, is the best known Jewish inhabitant of Heppenheim where he settled in 1916. In February 1938, he left the country and emigrated with his family to Jerusalem. On 9 November 1938, Kristallnacht, Buber's house was looted and his 3,000-volume library was destroyed. In May 1939, there were still 37 Jews in Heppenheim, but in September 1942, the last few Jewish residents were deported. The former synagogue's location, now a memorial, has stone marking the perimeter of the synagogue destroyed in 1938. A plaque bears the inscription, Hier stand die 1900 erbaute und 1938 zerstörte Synagoge. (“Site of the synagogue, built in 1900 and destroyed in 1938.”). An additional plaque with the title Im Gedenken an die Ermordeten (“In memory of the murdered”) lists the names of 29 former Heppenheim Jews. The psychiatric institution in Heppenheim took part in the Nazi “euthanasia” crimes, and was also a “collection facility,” where Jewish psychiatric patients were sent on the way to the gas chamber.
Beginning on 28 May 1942, a subcamp of Dachau/Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp was located in Heppenheim. It was closed on 18 December 1942, but opened again as Heppenheim subcamp on 15 June 1943. It was permanently closed on 27 March 1945 when the town was occupied by American troops at the end of the fighting in Hesse. The prisoners in Heppenheim were put to work in the SS institution Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Ernährung und Verpflegung.Edward Victor.Alphabetical List of Camps, Subcamps and Other Camps.www.edwardvictor.com/Holocaust/List %20 of %20 camps. htm
In 1955, the town celebrated its 1,200th anniversary and opened the new open-air stage "Freilichtbühne". It is still in use today, seats around 2500 people and also proved its worth at the Hessentag 2004.
In 2004, the town hosted the 44th Hessentag state festival.
Population development
Year Inhabitants 1666 1,066 1806 3,190 1861 4,599 1900 5,779 1925 7,693 1939 9,350 1950 13,111 1971 17,411 1975 23,793 2003 25,457 2008 26,792 2013 25,013 2022 26.946
The sharp rise between 1971 and 1975 has to do with the amalgamations in the course of administrative reform in Hesse in 1972.
Politics In 1948 the Free Democratic Party was founded in Heppenheim. Furthermore, the liberal Heppenheimer Versammlung was one of the starting points of the German revolutions of 1848–1849.
Town council The municipal election held on March 15, 2026 concluded with the following results: Parties and voter communities %2026 Seats2026 %2021 Seats2021CDUChristian Democratic Union of Germany37.41438.714 GRÜNE Alliance 90/The Greens17619.87SPDSocial Democratic Party of Germany16.2616.36FDPFree Democratic Party10.749.74FWHFreie Wähler6.725.42TIERSCHUTZTierschutzpartei6.01272LINKEDie Linke/The Left Party4.321.11WG LIZLife in the Center1.712.11Total100.037100.037Voter turnout in %55.0552.05
Mayors In the runoff election on 10 April 2005, Gerhard Herbert (SPD) defeated the incumbent Ulrich Obermayr (CDU). Herbert took over the mayor's office on 1 September 2005 from Obermayr, who had held it for 18 years. In 2011 Rainer Burelbach (* 1965) (CDU) was elected mayor with 55,6 % of the votes. Burelbach was reelected in 2017 and 2023.
The following mayors have held office in Heppenheim since the municipal constitution was promulgated in 1821: Time in office Mayor 1821–1842 Gottfried Piersch 1843–1852 Georg Neff 1853–1863 Gottfried Piersch 1864–1869 Georg Hamel 1870–1874 Johann Friedrich Weis 1874–1887 Lorenz Keßler 1887–1910 Wilhelm Höhn 1910–1913 Ludwig Lorenz Kohl 1914–1924 Anton Philipp Wiegand 1925–1937 Dr. Karl Schiffers (Centre Party (Germany)/NSDAP)1 1937–1945 Dr. Walter Köhler (NSDAP)2 1945 Dr. Gustav König3 1945–1946 Jakob Fleck (SPD)3 1946–1948 Karl Hagen (CDU) 1948–1954 Otto Holzamer (FDP) 1954–1973 Wilhelm Metzendorf (independent) 1973–1987 Hans Kunz (CDU) 1987–2005 Ulrich Obermayr (CDU) 2005–2011 Gerhard Herbert (SPD)since 1 September 2011 Rainer Burelbach (CDU)
1Dr. Schiffers switched to the NSDAP to keep abreast of changes, but he soon ran into difficulties with the Party and thereby lost his office in 1937. 2Dr. Köhler was in the mayor's office only until 1941 when he was called into the Wehrmacht. His duties were performed by deputy Franz Keil during his absence. Despite party membership, Dr. Köhler is said not to have been a fanatical Nazi, but rather a respectable mayor. 3Dr. König and Jakob Fleck were each provisionally appointed mayor after the Americans marched in 1945.
Since 1924, beginning with Karl Schiffers's time in office, the office of mayor has been executed by a professional mayor.
Among all the mayors, Wilhelm Höhn, Karl Schiffers and Wilhelm Metzendorf stand out as ones who decisively promoted the town.
Coat of arms The town's arms are charged with the Lion of Hesse above the parting, striped as always horizontally in silver and red, but in these arms also holding a golden-hilted, silver-bladed sword in his right paw and wearing a golden crown. The part of the field below the parting at the fess line is itself parted per pale (vertically down the middle). On the dexter side (armsbearer's right, viewer's left) is the Lorsch Abbey's cross pattée fitchy (that is, cross with “flattened” ends to three of the arms, and a point on the bottom one) on a silver field. On the sinister side (armsbearer's left, viewer's right) is the silver six-spoked wheel of Mainz on a red field.