Wetzlar Travel Guide

The Wetzlarer Dom (Wetzlar Cathedral) is one of Wetzlar's landmark buildings. Building work began on the cathedral in 1230 and is still not finished. It is the successor to a former "Church of the Saviour" consecrated in 897. The monastery and parish church was called Cathedral as of the late 17th century. This designation was accomplished during the time that the Reichskammergericht was active in Wetzlar (1693 – 1806), when the Elector-Archbishop of Trier was Monastery Provost, making the church a "Bishop's Church". The Wetzlar cathedral bears the hallmark of every style of ecclesiastical architecture from the late Romanesque to the Baroque period – a potted architectural history spanning four centuries! The Reformation brought the Lutheran faith to Wetzlar and from then on the church was shared. To this day, two parishes – Catholic and Protestant – use the same altar and the same organ, donated, incidentally, by the industrialist family, Leitz.

The tightly woven ensemble of historic buildings and houses in Wetzlar's Old Town (Altstadt) with its half-timbered houses and stone buildings from Romanesque (Wetzlar Cathedral) to Gothic to Renaissance and Baroque is to a great extent as it was in the late 18th century, preserved and extensively restored. You can see the great squares of Buttermarkt/Domplatz (Butter Market/Cathedral Square), Fischmarkt (Fish Market), Eisenmarkt (Iron Market), Kornmarkt (Grain Market), and the former Franziskanerhof (Franciscan Yard), now called Schillerplatz. From the roughly 50 noteworthy historical buildings, a few are listed here:

• A straight-walled half-timbered house from 1356
• The Old Coin (Alte Münze) at the Iron Market
• The Roman Emperor (Römische Kaiser) from the 15th century, a former theatre and ballroom
• The former Teutonic Knights' Court (Deutschordenshof), today a town museum
• The Lottehaus, Charlotte Buff's house
• The Jerusalemhaus in which Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem shot himself, thus attaining sad fame as Werther
• The princely Palais Papius in which is nowadays found the collection of historical furniture gathered by Dr Irmgard Freiin von Lemmers-Danforth. Also in the old outlying towns of Langgasse and Neustadt (New Town), connected to the Old Town by the Old Lahn Bridge (Alte Lahnbrücke), a number of historic buildings are preserved and are worth seeing. The New Town, however, has lost its mediaeval feel owing to its 20th-century four-lane streets.
• The stone Alte Lahnbrücke was first mentioned in 1288. A building meant to serve as the town hall, built in the mid 14th century, it was used by the Reichskammergericht as their seat and offices from 1689 to 1806, after many remodellings.
• Considerable remains of the town's 13th- and 14th-century fortifications are still preserved, for instance a fortress tower known as the Schneiderturm (Tailor's Tower) or Säuturm (Sow's Tower)
• The Kalsmuntpforte (Kalsmunt Gate) which was the town gate for the earlier suburb of Silhofen, as well as great parts of the town wall.

The Phantastische Bibliothek Wetzlar (Fantastic Library of Wetzlar) was founded in 1989 and has become one of the largest public libraries specialized in Fantasy literature worldwide. The largest of its kind in Europe, it is generally a reference library which is open to the public and scientists. The aim of the library is to collect everything in print associated with science fiction, fantasy, literature, classical fantasy, horror, utopian novels, fantastic journey and adventure novels, fairy tales, saga, myths etc. Once a year the library organizes the Wetzlarer Tage der Phantastik(Wetzlar Fantastic Conference), a literary symposium for authors, journalists, publishers and the public.

The library currently holds over 150,000 titles. This collection includes hardcovers and paperbacks, dissertations, magazines and fanzines. There are also some rare materials, e.g. the documenta 1984 science-fiction-collection.