History
In Roman times, a castle was built at Bad Ems as part of the Upper Germanic Limes, but today not much of the structure remains. In the woods around the town, however, there are distinct traces of the former Roman border.
The town was first mentioned in official documents in 880 and received its town charter in 1324. The Counts of Nassau and the Counts of Katzenelnbogen rebuilt the bath. The high noble Counts loved to use it inviting friends. Days in the bath were often days with musicians and all kinds of food even swimming in the pool. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was considered one of Germany's most famous bathing resorts. It reached its heyday in the 19th century when it welcomed visitors from all over the world and became the summer residence of various European monarchs and artists, including Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, Tsars Nicholas I and Alexander II of Russia, Richard Wagner, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vasili Vasilyevich Vereshchagin, etc.
In 1870 the town, then part of Prussian Hesse-Nassau, became famous as the place where the Ems Dispatch originated, instigating the Franco-Prussian War. In 1876, in the Haus Vier Türme (Four Tower House), the Ems Edict was signed by Alexander II of Russia, banning the use of the Ukrainian language. Today, a monument at the spot commemorates this historical event.
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—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“There is no history of how bad became better.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)