Map - Gaggenau

Gaggenau is a town in the district of Rastatt, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located some 8 km northeast of Baden-Baden.

Gaggenau was first mentioned in local records in 1243 under the name "Gaggenaw". The present district of Bad Rotenfels is even older, having been mentioned in a royal donation letter in 1041. Gaggenau remained a small village until the 19th century: Originally part of the Ufgau, it came under the jurisdiction of the marquisate of Baden in the 13th century, and was included in the territory claimed by the Margrave of Baden-Baden in 1535, which held it until 1689. At that time, it was placed under the jurisdiction of the Kuppenheim district of the Bishopric of Speyer. It was eventually assigned to the jurisdiction of the Rastatt Office of the State of Baden, which later became the District of Rastatt.

In 1691, the area was at the heart of the Palatinate War of Succession and was almost completely destroyed by the French forces. In 1772, Anton Rindeschwender established a successful glassworks factory below the village, and along with it a number of new residences and supporting businesses in the area.

The real industrial boom began in 1873 with the establishment of the Michael Flürscheims Ironworks, which resurrected an iron smelter originally established by the Margrave of Baden in the late 18th century. In 1895 the factory built the 5-hp automobile Orient Express and entered the new industry of automobile manufacture. In 1905 they renamed themselves the Gaggenau South German Automobile Factory GmbH. In 1907 the company was taken over by the company Benz & Cie of Mannheim until the merger of Daimler-Benz AG in 1926.

Thus, the settlement grew, and Gaggenau was eventually raised to the status of a town on 15 September 1922 because of its economic prosperity.

In September 1944, the Nazis built a detention camp in the Bad Rotenfels district. Six barracks were built to house about 1,600 men and women, mostly French prisoners, who were used as forced labour in the Daimler-Benz plants. About 500 of them were killed. A memorial plaque has been raised in the meadow where the barracks were located. Another memorial was raised in the Bad Rotenfels cemetery commemorating the murder of 27 of those prisoners by their Nazi captors.

In World War II, about 70% of the town was destroyed. On 10 September 1944, 140 B-17 bombers from the 8th battalion of the US Air Force bombed the automobile factory complex. Another battalion of 139 B-24 bombers bombed the area a second time on 3 October. The town and surrounding area was rebuilt after the war, and was completed with the construction of Gaggenau's town hall in 1958.

In 1969, in response to an effort to aggregate and consolidate municipal governments into districts of 20,000 or more, the state government of Baden-Württemberg approved a petition by the town of Gaggenau to annex six of its surrounding communities, thereby doubling Gaggenau's population and increasing its area fivefold. Among the areas annexed was the former municipality of Rotenfels and the large swath of forest that ran along the Murg River between the two municipalities. The annexations were performed over a period of six years.