Wissembourg

Wissembourg is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department of Grand Est in northeastern France, on the little river Lauter close to the German border, about 60 km north of Strasbourg and 35 km west of Karlsruhe. Until 2015 it was a sub-prefecture of the department. The name is a French form of the German Weißenburg, meaning white castle, and the town grew up around the Benedictine abbey founded in the 7th century, where in the late 9th century the monk Otfried composed a gospel harmony that is the first substantial work of verse in German. In 1354 it became one of the ten towns of the Décapole. The town changed hands several times, being annexed by France after 1648, incorporated into Germany in 1871, returned to France in 1919, taken back by Germany in 1940 and French again after 1944. The first battle of the Franco-Prussian War was fought near it on 4 August 1870. The abbey church of Saints Peter and Paul is the largest parish church in Alsace after Strasbourg Cathedral, and the town keeps timber-frame houses, the Maison du Sel of 1448 and stretches of its walls.