FKK Panorama Villingen-Schwenningen (D)

Villingen-Schwenningen

Name origin Villingen

ad Filingas (lat., = with the people of Filo, Vilmar)

Name origin Schwenningen

Suaninga (Germanic, = with the people of Swano, Swanagèr) --> Swenlingen

First documented mention

817 AD

Population

86,000

Area

165.53 km²

Federal state

Baden-Württemberg

Administrative region

Freiburg

District

Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis

Vehicle registration

VS

River

Brigach (Villingen), Neckar (Schwenningen)

The club FKK Panorama is located in Villingen.

The sentence "Villingen-Schwenningen is a backwater in the Black Forest where you wouldn't even want to hang dead over a garden fence" is wrong, and for the following reasons: First, Villingen-Schwenningen is a twin city, made up of the Baden town of Villingen and the Württemberg town of Schwenningen. Second, Villingen-Schwenningen isn't located in the forest at all, but on a high plateau at 758 m above sea level between the Black Forest and the Swabian Jura, right along the European watershed. Third, these are two towns that can look back on a long history, reflected in each having a lovely central pedestrian promenade and even their own train station. Fourth, at the home of the Baden-Württemberg Police Academy, you shouldn't be hanging around garden fences, dead or alive. And fifth, four different sauna clubs plus two Eros centers currently keep pleasure-seekers in Villingen-Schwenningen thoroughly entertained.

Anyone who sets off for Villingen from Baden-Baden or Offenburg on the Schwarzwaldbahn will, after an almost adventurous ride through numerous tunnels and gorges, be quite astonished to discover that the town sits on a wide high plateau, the so-called Hochmulde der Baar. Villingen-Schwenningen lies at 758 m above sea level, making it the highest-situated German city with a population over 50,000. The town centers of Villingen and Schwenningen are about eight kilometers apart and are connected by a country road. Local transport between the two towns is mainly by local buses, though there is also a direct rail connection via the southern loop of the regional tracks. While Villingen sits right at the eastern edge of the Black Forest massif, from Schwenningen, further east, you're already looking out at the ridges of the Swabian Jura. Nearby, in Donaueschingen, lies the source of the Danube, and near Schwenningen, in the Schwenninger Moos, lies the source of the Neckar. The town's recreational value is obvious, as both localities have two magnificent natural landscapes right on their doorstep, and about forty kilometers further south lies yet another natural paradise, namely Lake Constance. One small downside: Villingen-Schwenningen is considered the municipality with the highest hail risk in Germany.

The two towns merged into a twin city in 1972 and have quite different histories. Both are mentioned for the first time in 817 in a document of Louis the Pious, but while Villingen was assigned to the House of Fürstenberg in 1283 and belonged to Austria from 1326 to 1805, Schwenningen was assigned to the Oberamt Tuttlingen in 1444, from which it was transferred to the Oberamt Rottweil in 1842. Villingen still has a largely intact medieval town center with several sights such as the early Gothic Minster, the late Gothic town hall, and remnants of the town fortifications like the Bickentor, the Riettor, or the Pulvertürmle. Schwenningen was attacked by Villingen during the Peasants' War in 1525 and almost completely burned down, while Villingen itself had already been completely destroyed by a great fire in 1271.

Today, companies based in Villingen include Kienzle Apparate GmbH, now part of Continental AG, as well as the music label HGBS. Villingen was also once home to the popular radio manufacturer SABA. In Schwenningen, a clock factory was founded by Johannes Bürk in 1858, and the town subsequently developed into a leading center of clock manufacturing. Today the town is home to the clock and time-recording companies Bürk, Eugen Trost, Kienzle, Mauthe and ISGUS. As a center of Black Forest clock production, the town lies along the route of the German Clock Road.

The singer Michelle, the ski jumper Martin Schmitt, and the two football players Florian and Sebastian Rudy all come from Villingen-Schwenningen.