Harburg, Bavaria

See also: , who used it as a residence under Count Wolfgang I (1455-1522) and his son Karl Wolfgang (1484-1549).

Main sights

Harburg Castle

Cultural Foundation. It offers daily guided tours through the castle from mid-March to the end of October. By foot you can reach the castle from the old town via various signposted paths around the castle hill.

Old town

The village itself is quaint with his medieval old town, which blends picturesquely between the Wörnitz River and the castle hill.

The historic stone bridge from the 18th century is also worth seeing. The arched structure was built in 1729 after a devastating flood, consisting of stone blocks with seven bays and covered pillars. Suevit was also used as building material. In order to finance the maintenance of the bridge, the municipality has always had the right in the past to levy a bridge and pavement toll. At the end of World War II in 1945, two arches of the bridge were destroyed by explosions. The damage was completely repaired after the end of the war by a slight widening at this position.

Reached from the stony bridge you get to the old town and the market square with a bronze fountain, which tells a lot about the history of Harburg:

• The lower basin symbolizes with the guild signs of blacksmith, flaxbreaker, barrel-binder, fishermen and shoemaker the crafts that were formerly common in Harburg.
• The central basin shows different chapters from the city's history. There are also various figures from the mythical world of Harburg.
• The upper basin shows the silhouette of the castle and important historical data. The fountain closes with the “blood bell”, which is in the original on the roof of the town hall. By ringing the bell, the pronounced death sentence was announced in the past.

A further main sight would be the information point of the Geopark Ries, which is located since 2020 in the Donauwörher Street. This provides information about the formation of the giant

, the geology that resulted from it, and an overview of the town's history and points of interestes.

• 
  Harburg Castle
• 
  Harburg Castle entrance
• 
  Harburg (view from Harburg Castle)
• 
  old stone bridge
• 
  fountain

Incorporated villages

Incorporated villages and districts are:^[3]

• Brünsee
• Ebermergen
• Großsorheim
• Harburg (with Birkenhof, Bühlhof, Harthof, Kratzhof, Listhof, Salchhof, and Stadelhof)
• Heroldingen (with Brennhof and Tiefenmühle),
• Hoppingen
• Mauren (with Obere Reismühle and Spielberg)
• Mündling (with Mündling Bahnhof and Olachmühle)
• Ronheim (with Katzenstein and Sonderhof)
• Schrattenhofen

Mayors

List of Harburg mayors since 1972

Name	Party	Term of office
Adolf Härtl	SPD	1972–1976
Hans Schneider	CSU	1976–1984
Anton Fischer	SPD	1984–2002
Wolfgang Kilian	CSU	2002–2020
Christoph Schmidt	independent	since 2020

Twin towns – sister cities

Harburg is twinned since 1998 with:^[4]

• Gouville sur Mer, France

Economy

Important companies in Harburg are:

• Märker Group – cement fabric
• HPC AG – engineering company

Harburg has a station on the Augsburg–Nördlingen railway, which is served hourly on weekdays.

References

• Wilhelm Volkert: Handbuch der bayerischen Ämter, Gemeinden und Gerichte 1799–1980. C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, München 1983,
  ISBN 3-406-09669-7

External links

• Tourist information with a lot of pictures
• The Harburg project
• Tourist information Archived 2008-05-15 at the Wayback Machine