Early history The first traces of settlement date back to the
Celts period, evidenced by a series of
burial mounds and a square enclosure. Fort Sulz, a
Roman military camp, was built around the year 74 AD on a hill south of the present-day town centre. Today, the Sulz-Kastell district with an industrial area is located there. The first documented mention dates back to the year 790 as "villa publica Sulza". The town owes its name to its
salt springs, which have shaped the town's history for centuries. The first owners of the
saltworks were the Counts of Sulz in the 11th century. Probably from 1250 onwards, the
Lords of Geroldseck ruled over the town and the salt works, while the Counts of Sulz were pushed back to marginal possessions; the process has not yet been fully explained. The domain of the counts of Sulz also included
Loßburg and the valleys behind
Schenkenzell. The Lords of Geroldseck were also the builders of the Burg Albeck southwest of the city. In 1284 King
Rudolf of
Habsburg gave Sulz
town privileges. Between 1301 and 1473 the town was the seat of the line of the Geroldseckers, who resided here, but despite some inheritances they experienced a steady economic decline in the 15th century and finally had to sell it to
Württemberg under massive pressure in 1473. The
Lordship of the Geroldseckers after the expulsion of Duke
Ulrich of Württemberg by the
Swabian League in 1519 was only an interlude which ended in 1534 with the return of the duke. All that remained for the Geroldseckers was the title "von Geroldseck und Sulz". The city burned down almost completely within the city walls twice (1581 and 1794). It took two years to rebuild it; in the meantime it was plundered again and again by French soldiers. The district Mühlheim was already mentioned in 772 as
Muliheim in the
Lorsch Codex.
19th and 20th century For a long time, Sulz in Württemberg was the only salt works in the state. When in 1803 the much more productive salt works on the
Kocher became Württemberg, the town lost its economic status as a salt town, but remained the seat of the Oberamts Sulz, which in the early years of the
Kingdom of Württemberg gained considerably in size in the course of the new administrative division of Württemberg. In 1867, the expansion of the
Stuttgart–Horb railway line on the Horb to Talhausen section connected it to the network of the
Royal Württemberg State Railways. In 1938, during the administrative reform during the NS in Württemberg, the district of Sulz, which had emerged from the upper office of Sulz in 1934, was dissolved and became part of the district of Horb. Towards the end of the Second World War, a
subcamp of the
Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp was established in Sulz am Neckar. In 1944, Gestapo men interrogated and tortured Polish forced labourers suspected of being associated with a resistance organisation in the former district court prison. At least seven of the detainees died in the process. After the Second World War the city fell into the
French occupation zone and thus in 1947 came to the newly founded state
Württemberg-Hohenzollern, which was absorbed into the state of Baden-Württemberg in 1952. During the district reform Sulz became part of the district of Rottweil. With the dissolution of the district Südwürttemberg-Hohenzollern, which took place at the same time, Sulz became part of the
region of Freiburg. From 1963 to 1993 there was a Bundeswehr depot in Sulz. In remembrance of the former importance of salt extraction from
brine, the swimming pool has been filled with brine since the construction of the new open-air pool and is thus the only brine open-air pool in the area. == Incorporations ==