NIEDERBRONN  , a

town of Germany, in the imperial province Alsace-Lorraine, on the Falkensteiner Bach, situated under the eastern slope of the Vosges, 12 M . N.W. from Hagenau by rail . Pop . (1905) 3120 . It contains an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, a convent of the Sisters of the Divine Redeemer, and a high-grade and other schools . Niederbronn is one of the best-known watering-places in the Vosges . Its brine springs, with a hydropathic establishment attached, are specific in cases of gout, obesity and liver disorders . Here, on the 26th of July 187o, the first engagement between the Germans and the French in the Franco-German war took place . There are several ruined castles in the neighbourhood, the most noteworthy of which is one on the Wesenburg (1415 It. high) erected in the 14th century . Various Celtic and Roman antiquities have been found around Niederbronn . See Kuhn, Les Faux de Niederbronn (3rd ed., Strassburg, 186o) ; Mathis, Aus Niederbronn alten Zeiten (Strassburg, 1901); and Kirstein, Das Wasgaubad Niederbronn (Strassburg, 1902) .