Sulzbach am Main (officially Sulzbach a.Main) is a market municipality in the Miltenberg district in the Regierungsbezirk of Lower Franconia (Unterfranken) in Bavaria, Germany.
Geography
Location
Sulzbach lies on the rivers Main and Sulzbach, roughly 7 km south of Aschaffenburg on the western edge of the Spessart (range). The hill Pfaffenberg with its radio transmitter is partially located within the municipal territory.
Subdivisions
Sulzbach's Ortsteile are Sulzbach, (formerly also called Bad Sodenthal) and .
Neighbouring communities
Sulzbach is bordered by (from the north, clockwise): Aschaffenburg, Bessenbach, Hohe Wart (gemeindefreies Gebiet), Leidersbach, Kleinwallstadt, Großwallstadt and Niedernberg.
History
Findings from the Neolithic show that the Sulzbach valley was settled as early as 3500 BC. A circular rampart (Altenburg) on the Schlossberg (hill) between Sulzbach-Soden and Ebersbach (part of neighbouring Leidersbach) was in use in the late Hallstatt period (see Attractions).
During Roman times, the Main and the Limes Germanicus formed Germania's border with the then Roman-occupied Odenwald area across the river. In the centuries that followed, several tribes lived in the Sulzbach valley: the Chatti, the Alamanni, the Burgundians and the Franks. It was likely in Charles Martel's time (714–741) that the municipality of Ruchelnheim, which lay within what are now Sulzbach's municipal borders and which was abandoned in the Thirty Years' War, was founded. As far back as Carolingian times, settlements on the streams Sulzbach and Leidersbach, like Sulzbach, Ebersbach, Leidersbach and Roßbach came into being. It is also likely that Soden's founding occurred in late Carolingian times.
Sulzbach and Soden were assigned to the parish of Ruchelnheim, itself subordinate to the (collegiate church) in Aschaffenburg. Sulzbach had its first documentary mention in a document from Pope Lucius III, in which a curtem in Sulzibah (estate in Sulzbach) was listed among the Aschaffenburg Stiftskirche's holdings.
This dates to 1184. From the mid-13th century, Sulzbach belonged to the Centena Ascaffinburg – the tithing area of Aschaffenburg – whose place was taken in the 15th century by the Cent vorm Spessart. Until the 1803 Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, Sulzbach was under Electoral Mainz's lordship. Thereafter, it was part of Prince Primate von Dalberg's newly formed Principality of Aschaffenburg, with which it passed in 1814 (by this time it had become a part of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt), to the Kingdom of Bavaria. It has remained Bavarian ever since.
As in all other areas in the Spessart, farmland was splintered by Mainz inheritance law in the 18th and 19th centuries pulling Sulzbach, too, into an economic downswing with its attendant consequences for living conditions. Only with the onset of industrialization in Aschaffenburg and the opening of the Aschaffenburg-Miltenberg railway line in 1876 did conditions improve.
The formerly self-administering municipalities of Dornau and Soden were amalgamated with Sulzbach on 1 July 1971 and 1972, respectively. The status of the municipality was changed to Markt ("Market") on 15 May 1973.
Economy
Industries associated with Sulzbach are textile and lighter manufacturing.
Lighter industry
Sulzbach became well known above all for its lighter industry: Ibelo, Europe's biggest lighter producer, had its production facility in Sulzbach and employed more than 300 workers. Today the firm's building is nothing more than a ruin. The firm was refounded after the war by Hermann Zahn, after the original owners, who were Jewish, had emigrated to England, where they founded another lighter firm. The firm was expanded to several times its former size, with the number of employees also steadily rising. Owing to cheaper lighters from Japan, the company became insolvent in 1985 and was sold to another owner, who cut back production bit by bit until in the end, in 2000, he let the remaining workers go because the outside marketing company likewise ended up going bankrupt. Today, remaindered stock is being sold worldwide through a North German company.
Textile industry
A great number of Sulzbach's inhabitants worked in the local textile industry. Given this industry's general situation, only a few of these companies have survived.
Other industries
The drink manufacturer Sodenthaler was founded in 1950. Since 1996 the business has belonged to the Coca-Cola Group and is still in operation today in Sulzbach's outlying centre of Soden.