Bad Pyrmont is a city in the
district of Hamelin-Pyrmont
, in Lower
Saxony
(Niedersachsen), Germany
, with a
population of 22,000 (2003). It is located on the River
Emmer, about 10 km west of the
Weser, and a popular
spa resort that gained its reputation as a
fashionable place for princely vacations in the 17th and 18th
centuries. Its large park is among the most spectacular in Germany,
with a renowned outdoor
palm garden. The
baroque castle (1706-1710), part of an
impressive complex of fortifications from the 16th century, today
houses the museum. Unique in Europe is the
vapor cave,
where therapeutic
carbon dioxide
vapors emerge from the earth. The town is also the center of the
Religious Society of
Friends (Quakers) in Germany. Bad Pyrmonter mineralwasser,
popular throughout northern Germany, is bottled in Bad
Pyrmont.
Country Clubs
Bad Pyrmont is a town with many country clubs and clinics. It has
lots of spare time activities for older people, and local people
commonly describe Bad Pyrmont as "one big old peoples' home".
Hospitals
Bad Pyrmont is well known for its
Bathildis Hospital -
The Bathildis Clinic. The clinic is specialised for diseases
related to the backbone and nerves, people from all over Germany
come to get treatments within the relatively small clinic because
of the success of its doctors, and because of the historic bath
town infrastructure and comforts, especially for old people.
History

Bad Pyrmont in 1900.
Formerly called
Pyrmont, it was the seat of a
small county during much of the Middle Ages.
In 1625 the county
became part of the much larger county of Waldeck
through
inheritance. In January 1712 the count of Waldeck and
Pyrmont was elevated to hereditary prince by Emperor
Charles VI. For a brief
period, from 1805 to 1812, Pyrmont was again a separate
principality as a result of inheritance and partition after the
death of the previous prince, but the two parts were united again
in 1812.
The principality of Waldeck-Pyrmont retained
its status after the Congress of
Vienna of 1815 and became a member of the German
Confederation
. From 1868 onward, it was administered by
Prussia, but retained its nominal
sovereignty.
In 1871 it became a constituent state of the
new German
Empire
. At the end of World
War I, the prince abdicated and Waldeck-Pyrmont became a
free state within the
Weimar
Republic
.
On 30
November 1921, following a local plebiscite, the city and district
of Pyrmont were detached and incorporated into the Prussian
Province of
Hanover
.
Famous citizens
Max Born,
Physicist,
Nobel Prize
Winner and grandfather of
Olivia
Newton-John
Famous visitors
- Adalbert von Chamisso,
poet
- Adolph Freiherr Knigge,
author
- Albert Lortzing, composer
- August Friedrich von
Kotzebue, dramatist
- August and Ernst Horneffer, philosophers
- Benjamin Franklin, statesman
and polymath
- Charles II, Grand
Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and his brother
Ernst
- Charles
Augustus, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, friend of
Herder and Goethe
- Charles
Frederick, Grand Duke of Baden
- Christian Graf von
Haugwitz, Prussian Secretary of State
- Christian Wilhelm von
Dohm, Statesman and Minister
- Christian and
Friedrich
Stolberg, poet-brothers
- Christoph Friedrich
Nicolai, author
- Christoph Friedrich
Wedekind, poet
- Christoph Wilhelm
Hufeland, physician
- Eugen Diederichs,
publisher
- Felix von Luckner, lieutenant
commander
- Ferdinand Duke of
Braunschweig (Brunswick)
- Prince
Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, Prince-Bishop of
Osnabrück
- Frederick II of Prussia,
also known as Frederick the Great
- Friedrich Bogislav
von Tauentzien, Prussian General of the wars of liberation
(Napoleon)
- Friedrich Gottlieb
Klopstock, poet
- Friedrich Graf
Kleist von Nollendorf, Prussian General Field Marshal
- Friedrich Heinrich
Himmel, composer
- Frederick III, German
Emperor
- Friedrich Justin
Bertuch, author
- Friedrich Wilhelm II, King
of Prussia
- Friedrich von
Matthisson, lyrical poet
- Fritz Muliar, actor
- Gebhard Leberecht
von Blücher, Prince of Wahlstadt, General Field Marshal
- Gottfried August
Bürger, lyric poet and poet of ballads
- Gotthold Ephraim
Lessing, poet
- Gustav IV Adolf of
Sweden
- Gustav
Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann, theater-director
- Gustav Stresemann, Chancellor
of the Reich
- Heinrich Friedrich, Margrave of
Brandenburg-Schwedt
- Heinrich
Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein, Prussian statesman
- Heinrich Lachmann,
physician
- Heinrich von Stephan,
General-Postmaster
- Jens Baggesen, Danish and German
poet
- Joachim Heinrich Campe,
educationalist, author, publisher
- Johann Gottfried Herder,
poet
- Johann Heinrich
Tischbein, painter at the court of Cassel
- Johann Heinrich Voß,
poet, translator of Homer
- Johann Heinrich
Wilhelm Tischbein, painter ("Goethe in the Campagna")
- Johann Rudolf von
Bischoffswerder, Prussian Secretary
- Johann Stephan
Pütter
- Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe
- Charles
Augustus, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Goethes'
patron
- Karl August von
Hardenberg, Prussian statesman and Prime Minister
- Karl August Tittmann
- Karl Christian
Friedrich Krause, philosopher
- Karl Devrient, famous actor of the
18th century, nephew of Ludwig
Devrient
- Karl Philipp Moritz, author,
poet
- Leopold II, Prince of Lippe

- Louis Spohr, composer
- Ludwig Keller, author
- Matthias Claudius, poet
- Otumfou Nana Opoku Ware II, King of Asante/Ghana
- Prince Paul of
Württemberg
- Samuel Hahnemann, founder of
homoeopathy
- Thomas Dehler, Federal Minister,
Vice-president of the Federal Assembly
- William I, German
Emperor
- William IV of the
United Kingdom and Hannover
See also
External links
Multimedia