1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Detmold

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search

DETMOLD, a town of Germany, capital of the principality of Lippe-Detmold, beautifully situated on the east slope of the Teutoburger Wald, 25 m. S. of Minden, on the Herford-Altenbeken line of the Prussian state railways. Pop. (1905) 13,164. The residential château of the princes of Lippe-Detmold (1550), in the Renaissance style, is an imposing building, lying with its pretty gardens nearly in the centre of the town; whilst at the entrance to the large park on the south is the New Palace (1708–1718), enlarged in 1850, used as the dower-house. Detmold possesses a natural history museum, theatre, high school, library, the house in which the poet Ferdinand Freiligrath (1810–1876) was born, and that in which the dramatist Christian Dietrich Grabbe (1801–1836), also a native, died. The leading industries are linen-weaving, tanning, brewing, horse-dealing and the quarrying of marble and gypsum. About 3 m. to the south-west of the town is the Grotenburg, with Ernst von Bandel’s colossal statue of Hermann or Arminius, the leader of the Cherusci. Detmold (Thiatmelli) was in 783 the scene of a conflict between the Saxons and the troops of Charlemagne.