Southern Germany takes in the two most populous states in the country — Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. While the region has no single official boundary, it is broadly defined by the areas where Upper German dialects are spoken. Within that stretch of land sits an extraordinary concentration of medieval towns, Baroque palaces, Alpine peaks, river valleys, and centuries-old castles. In 1960, a U.S. Army soldier named Roger W traveled through this region with a camera and a sharp eye, capturing it all in vivid color at a time when color photography was still far from common.
One of the most photographed stops on Roger’s journey was Bad Wimpfen, a hilltop town on the Neckar River with roots stretching back to the Roman era. The town’s skyline is defined by its medieval towers, most of them surviving remnants of the Kaiserpfalz — the imperial palace built by the Hohenstaufen Emperors in the 12th century. The Blauer Turm, or Blue Tower, and the Roter Turm, or Red Tower, both date to around 1200 and still rise above the town’s half-timbered streets.
Moving through the countryside, Roger photographed the working rural landscape as well as its grand landmarks. A traditional Bavarian farmhouse speaks to the agricultural life that still defined much of the region in 1960. Nearby, the Cistercian monastery at Bebenhausen — converted into a palace after secularization — stood quietly among the trees. At Comburg Abbey outside Schwäbisch Hall, a Benedictine complex founded in the 11th century dominated a hilltop with its Romanesque church and fortified walls.
The small Neckar River city of Gundelsheim, about 20 kilometers north of Heilbronn, made several appearances in Roger’s collection. From the Neckar River lock and from Bundesstrasse 37 near the train station, the skyline is anchored by Schloss Horneck, a castle that towers over the river below. Heilbronn itself, a larger industrial city, offered a different kind of scene — a V 60 diesel locomotive moving freight cars through the station yard, the Badenerhof Kaserne barracks, and the historic Harmonie building near the city center.
Heidelberg provided some of the most dramatic images in the series. From the castle terrace, the view stretches over the old town’s rooftops down to the Neckar River winding through the valley. The castle itself is one of the most famous Renaissance ruins in Germany. Its Ottheinrichsbau wing, commissioned by Prince-Elector Otto Heinrich in the 1550s, is a masterpiece of German Renaissance architecture, its facade richly decorated despite centuries of partial ruin.
Not far away, a scattering of castles and fortified sites dotted the hillsides along the Neckar. Burg Hornberg, overlooking the town of Hornberg, is one of the oldest castles in the region, most famous as the longtime residence of the knight Götz von Berlichingen. Schloss Zwingenberg and Burg Stettenfels at Untergruppenbach added to the parade of hilltop strongholds that Roger documented. Further east, Burg Guttenberg offered a sweeping view toward the village of Hornberg in the valley below.
Karlsruhe presented a different kind of history — the scars of World War II still visible in 1960. The two wings of the Karlsruhe Palace, once the seat of the Grand Dukes of Baden, had not yet been rebuilt following wartime bombing. The central section stood, repurposed as a civic building, but the missing wings were a clear reminder of how recent the destruction had been. Reconstruction of the full palace would not be completed until years later.
Ludwigsburg, home to one of the largest Baroque palaces in Germany, was captured at its most spectacular — during the “Blühendes Barock,” or Blooming Baroque, season, when the palace gardens burst into color. Around 500,000 tulips filled the South Garden. Nearby, Schloss Favorite, a smaller hunting lodge built by Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Württemberg for his mistress, added another layer to the area’s royal history.
The market towns along Roger’s route were equally rich in character. Mosbach’s Marktplatz is lined with some of the finest half-timbered buildings in Baden-Württemberg, with its Renaissance Rathaus and fountain forming the heart of the square. Beilstein, a tiny wine village on the Moselle, offered its own Rathaus. Langenburg, east of Heilbronn, featured a city gate topped by a half-timbered house — a quirky and distinctly medieval piece of architecture. In Öhringen, Roger photographed both the Altstadt and the nearby Limes, the ancient Roman frontier fortification that once marked the edge of the Roman Empire.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber, one of the best-preserved medieval walled cities in Germany, was a natural stop. Roger photographed the famous Rathaus, whose main building dates to the 1570s, as well as a performance of the “Meistertrunk” — the legendary story of a mayor who saved the town during the Thirty Years’ War by drinking a massive tankard of wine in one go. From the Tauber River valley below, Rothenburg’s famous double bridge, built around 1330, anchored the skyline.
Schwäbisch Hall, a salt-trading town on the Kocher River, gave Roger a wealth of photogenic material. Half-timbered houses crowded the riverbanks, their reflections shimmering in the Kocher below. The town’s tight medieval streetscape remained largely intact. Waldenburg, a hilltop town nearby, appeared in two quiet shots — a small house decorated with spring flowers, and the town’s Evangelical Lutheran church rising above the rooftops. Schloss Lichtenstein, perched dramatically on a cliff above the Swabian Alb, rounded out the castles Roger visited in the region.
The final stretch of Roger’s journey took him into Bavaria, heading toward the Alps. The Ammer River, seen from a highway bridge on the road to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, wound through a green valley with the mountains beginning to rise in the distance. At Linderhof, King Ludwig II’s smallest but most frequently visited palace sat in a narrow Alpine valley, its formal gardens and gilded interiors a sharp contrast to the wild peaks surrounding it. The ruined castle of Weibertreu above Weinsberg — famous for a medieval legend in which the women of the town carried their husbands out on their backs when the town surrendered — appeared in stark silhouette against the sky.
The journey ended at Germany’s highest point. The Zugspitze rises 2,962 meters — 9,715 feet — above sea level, and Roger photographed it from multiple angles. From the Eibsee, the glassy alpine lake at its base, the mountain’s mass fills the frame. The Zugspitzbahn rack railway, photographed at the Eibsee station, carried passengers up toward the summit. At the top, the Münchnerhaus alpine shelter stood surrounded by the jagged peaks of the Alps stretching in every direction.
