The town of Levinberch was founded by
Ulrich I, Count of Württemberg, in 1248, where Leonberg still stands today. The position on the brow of the hill was chosen as a defence from enemies to the west, the towns of
Markgröningen,
Weil der Stadt, and the counts in
Tübingen and
Calw. At the time, the town was surrounded by stone fortifications with the count's castle in the southwest. A moat stood to the east, leading to two gates complete with towers and a swing bridge. The gates and almost all of the walls were demolished in and after 1814/1815, leaving only the coat of arms still on display in the
Altes Rathaus (old town hall)). The moat was filled in 1786. The only surviving building from the old town fortifications was the "Stonehouse" near the uppermost tower, probably because it was the only one used for housing and was not destroyed by the great fire of 1498. Today, it has become the Schwarzer Adler guesthouse and is a defining feature of the old town. According to an analysis in 1999, the wooden-timber gabled roof on top of the Schwarzer Adler was built in the 15th century. Three stories high, it is one of southern Germany's largest and oldest original timber-gable roofs. A great fire swept through the town in 1498, destroying 46 houses and making around 200 people homeless. Most of the homeless left the town. During the
Holy Roman Empire, Leonberg fell under the jurisdiction of
Esslingen before finally becoming part of
Württemberg in 1383, when it first gained administrative rights. The population of Leonberg was halved during the
Thirty Years' War as a result of the
bubonic plague. On 16 November 1457, the first Württemberg parliament (Württemberg-Urach) convened in Leonberg to administer the custodianship of the underaged
Eberhardt V. Although no documentary evidence confirms the fact, many locals claim this parliament met in the "Stonehouse". During the era of
witch hunts, the Leonberg governor Lutherus Einhorn sent 15 women to trial under suspicion of witchcraft. Eight women were condemned to death with the full assent of the Leonberg judiciary and the local community. One of the most famous Württemberg
witch trials in Leonberg took place in 1615 and involved
Katharina Kepler, mother of the royal astronomer
Johannes Kepler. Kepler's mother was nearly tortured to death in the cellars of the "Stonehouse" before being transferred to Güglingen, where she was subsequently released in October 1620. In 1846, the
Leonberger dog breed was first successfully registered and named after the town. After the rise of the
Nazis in 1933, several bloody street battles were fought between stormtrooper (
Sturmabteilung) followers, mostly backed by residents from Leonberg, who attacked supporters of the
German communist party, mainly residents in Eltingen. In 1938, Eltingen – a staunchly
proletarian community of small landowners - was finally merged with the more
bourgeois Leonberg. Later the same year, the
Engelberg Tunnel - Germany's first motorway tunnel - was completed. During the
Second World War, the tunnel was used regularly for producing and storing
aeroplane parts made by prisoners held in Leonberg concentration camp, an outlying camp belonging to
Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in
Alsace. The old tunnel was replaced by a new tunnel in the 1990s. Above the tunnel now stands a memorial to the people who died in the Leonberg concentration camp. By 1961, the population of Leonberg passed 20,000. Boundary reforms in 1973 resulted in the rural districts of Leonberg being merged with the rural districts of Böblingen in the south and
Enzkreis/
Ludwigsburg in the north. Leonberg has existed in its current form since 1975. In 2004, Leonberg became one of the first communities in Germany to switch its office systems to
Linux and start using
freeware.
Population development The population figures are estimates, census results (¹) or official updates of the respective statistical offices (only primary residences). ¹ Census results ==Main sights==