Heimbach

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Heimbach is a town and a municipality in the district of Düren in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the river Rur, in the Eifel hills, approx. 20 km south of Düren.

Coordinates: 50°38′N 6°29′E

Heimbach is the town where Hengebach Castle is located. Once very important as the seat of the Dukes of Julich, you could say that Heimbach was the capital at one time of the Duchy of Julich. But the importance of the Duchy of Julich, even to its ducal line, became relative to their growing territory, for the Dukes of Julich acquired additional territories and Julich became combined with Cleves. Cleves and the princely or ducal line of Julich is most famous for Anne of Cleves, one of the six wives of King Henry VIII of England. Wilhelm of Hengebach became by inheritance succession in the High Middle Ages "Earl William III of Julich", in German this title "Earl" would have its equivalent translation of Count as "Graf". There was at one time an inheritance-quarrel with the archbishop of Cologne (in German Koln) but after that the castle and the town of Heimbach belonged to the Counts (Earls) of Julich again. Hengebach Castle in the town of Heimbach is not far from Cologne (Koln) and Aix-la-Chapelle (in German Aachen). Actually Hengebach Castle is located in a village of Heimbach called "Schmidt" originally about four miles from the town centre;however, like many German cities and towns, the town consists of villages that, in expanding, grew into each other. A good example of this is the nearby sister city of Heimbach, called Baumholder. Part of Baumholder is Ruschberg, originally a village of Baumholder and now part of that city. (Not to be confused with other cities in Germany with similar sounding names.) The "Earldom" or County of Julich, of which Heimbach was the capital, was raised to a Duchy in the late Middle Ages as its royal family intermarried with other royal families and the territory of Julich was combined with Cleves and Berg. In fact, it had become the Duchy of Julich-Cleves-Berg by 1609, when the last Duke died. At that time its territory was absorbed or annexed by the state of Palatinate-Neuberg but a War of Succession ensued over the former Duchy of Julich and the castle did not have a resident duke during its last 78 years, for it burned in 1687 along with the town of Heimbach. After the fire of 1687 the city of Heimbach was rebuilt because it was necessary to house the town's population;however, as there was no longer a ducal or princely family, the castle of Hengebach was left a ruin until 1904 when restoration work began. Now restored, the castle is owned and operated as a tourist attraction by the city of Heimbach. An interesting note about the city arms of Heimbach is their similarity to the city arms of Hof, 322 miles away. Hof's coat-of-arms is a red shield with a white tower against which leans a black shield with a gold lion;whereas, Heimbach's arms are almost the reverse: a black shield with a red roof on a white tower against which leans a gold shield with a black lion. But the associations are deeper than that. Hengebach castle is located in the village of Schmidt where a branch of the baronial dynasty of Schmidt von Altenstadt lived before emigrating in 1749. The seat of the von Altenstadts was very near Hof, in a part of Gattendorf known as Kirchgattendorf where the ruins of the von Altenstadt castles may be seen today. But the coincidences do not stop there: the municipal coat-of-arms of Gattendorf is a swan and the arms of the barons at Kirchgattendorf were also a swan.