Aichach-Friedberg is a Landkreis (district) in Bavaria , Germany . It is bounded by (from the northwest and clockwise) the districts of Augsburg , Donau-Ries , Neuburg-Schrobenhausen , Pfaffenhofen , Dachau , Fürstenfeldbruck and Landsberg , as well as by the city of Augsburg .
8-459: Aichach-Friedberg was settled by Bavarian tribes from the seventh century on. The region is sometimes called the cradle of Bavaria, since the castle of Wittelsbach was located close to the present city of Aichach . It was the ancestral castle of the Wittelsbach family, who were rulers of Bavaria for thousand years. The castle was razed to the ground in 1208, and today there is nothing else left than
16-518: A memorial stone at the place. The town of Friedberg was founded in the 13th century in order to collect a toll from people using the bridge across the Lech River. Aichach became a town about hundred years later. In 1862 the two districts of Aichach and Friedberg were founded. They were merged in 1972 and became part of the administrative region of Swabia . Anyhow, historically Aichach-Friedberg does not belong to Swabia, but to Old Bavaria . The name of
24-525: The House of Wittelsbach , the later Electors and Kings of Bavaria and Electors of the Palatinate. According to local tradition, the castle was destroyed in 1209 after Count Otto of Wittelsbach murdered King Philip of Swabia , and it was not rebuilt. An archaeological excavation undertaken from 1978 to 1980 found no evidence of a sudden destruction of the castle, however. From the archaeological evidence, it appears
32-523: The district Aichach-Friedberg are today called Wittelsbacher country . In 1838 Duke Maximilian Joseph in Bavaria , the father of Empress Elisabeth of Austria , acquired a castle in the nearby village of Unterwittelsbach (Lower Wittelsbach) , built in 1537 on the site of another, older castle dating from the Middle Ages; it remained in the possession of the junior ducal branch (named Dukes in Bavaria ) of
40-464: The castle's walls were used as a quarry after the castle itself was abandoned. In the 15th century, the Gothic church Beatae Mariae Virginis was built on the former castle site. The church, still standing today, became the nucleus of the village of Oberwittelsbach (Upper Wittelsbach) . In 1834, the Wittelsbach family erected a monument on the site of their former castle. In memory of the castle, parts of
48-510: The new district was originally Augsburg-Ost ("Augsburg East"), but it was changed to Aichach-Friedberg in 1973. The district is located to the east of the city of Augsburg and comprises a rural area with few major towns. The Lech River forms the western border of the district. Another river, the Paar (an affluent of the Danube ), enters the district in the southwest, runs through Aichach and leaves to
56-423: The northeast. The territory is also known as Wittelsbacher Land , due to the castle of Wittelsbach near Aichach. The coat of arms displays: 48°25′N 11°05′E / 48.42°N 11.08°E / 48.42; 11.08 Burg Wittelsbach Wittelsbach Castle ( German : Burg Wittelsbach ) was a castle near Aichach in today's Bavarian Swabia . The castle was first mentioned around
64-457: The year 1000. In 1119, Otto IV, Count of Scheyern moved into the castle of Wittelsbach and converted his previous seat into Scheyern Abbey . The castle's name, "Witilinesbac", is however already mentioned as the place of origin of Otto IV in a document by Henry V dating from 1115. From 1120, the Counts of Scheyern were Counts Palatine of Wittelsbach. The castle thus became the ancestral seat of
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