Off the Beaten Path: Visiting Schwäbisch Hall
I was watching a Rick Steves something months ago and he mentioned how sometimes the best places aren’t in any of the travel books and I knew instantly what he was really saying. Traveling is amazing, but there is the experience of being a tourist, and then the experience of being a local and knowing the best hidden gems.
Last week I was so excited to be able to meet up with my Aunt Dixie and cousins, Julia, Jenn, and Lori just an hour and a half away while they were traveling through Germany. They had come specifically for a family reunion and were gathering with a few other distant relatives from the U.S. who had come all the way to the little town in Germany from where their ancestor, Freidrich Grow, had immigrated to North America in 1750. It’s not a tourist stop at all, but I fell in love with the history and beauty of this little town, Schwäbisch Hall.
Hall, as it’s known locally, began as early as 500 B.C. with the Celts and became well-known for it’s open-pan salt making method through heating and drying the salt water from a fountain that was discovered there. It also became the center for minting coins called Heller. Salt was the “white gold of the Middle Ages” so this little town was important and thrived. The salt fountain was divided up between different shareholders overtime and ownership was kept within those families even until today. Every person born into those families is recorded in books that are kept in the town giving such an amazing record of family history. The Baden-Württemberg state to this day pays all the living relatives — about 400 people now — their shares of the salt fountain annually which is about 20,000 Euro.
Each year on Pentecost the town celebrates it’s heritage with the open-pan salt method with traditional costumes and events to honor its past. I can’t wait to take the family next year!
We took a walking tour with a local historian and learned all sorts of fascinating things:
The dishonor put on the town hangman. This position was appointed by the town legislature and the person and their family and descendants were shunned and deemed as unclean outsiders. They could only marry within their own family too. However, the town hangman was also a skilled medical doctor in those days because he was constantly working with how people die. Townsfolk would sneak out of the city to see him for their medical needs rather than the local doctors.
Transitioning from Catholicism through the reformation to Protestantism. The priest at St. Michaels Catholic Church at the center of town met Martin Luther and was highly impressed by him. He taught Luther’s ideas of reformation to his Catholic congregation but did so as a moderate. The results was that St. Michael’s was not defaced and ransacked like so many other Catholic Churches of the time. Inside you can still see the original Catholic altar pieces and art even though it is now a protestant church.
Schwäbisch Hall rejected Nazi ideology and destroyed the two bridges leading into the city to prevent Nazi forces from coming in during WWII.
The square is packed every evening with musicals being performed on the steps of St. Michael’s from May through September. We enjoyed watching rehearsals during the day for their current production of Little Shop of Horrors (all in German of course).
This small town quiet and perfect with so much important regional history, but it’s not a tourist destination so you get to enjoy what the locals enjoy and soak up what I think is an even more perfect German town than Rothenburg ob der Tauber. The difference between these two towns that are so close to each other is that Rothenburg is for tourists and Hall is for locals. I loved it and can’t wait to go back for Pentecost.
One note about Freidrich Grow and his descendants. What an incredible family to be a part of! I am so impressed with how his descendants contribute to genealogical research, share stories, and make such an effort to come together every few years to learn about their ancestry and visit the places that are significant to them, together. I want this for my family, too.
