WEINHEIM  , a

town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Baden, pleasantly situated on the Bergstrasse at the foot of the Odenwald, 't m . N. of Heidelberg by the railway to Frankfort-on-Main . Pop . (1905) 12,560 . It is still in part surrounded by the ruins of its ancient walls . The Gothic town hall; the ruins of the castle of Windeck and the modern castle of the counts of Berckheim; the house of the Teutonic Order; and three churches are the principal buildings . The town has various manufactures, notably leather, machinery and soap, and cultivates fruit and wine . It is a favourite climatic health resort and a great tourist centre for excursions in the Odenwald range . Weinheim is mentioned in chronicles as early as the 8th century, when it was a fief of the abbey of Lorsch, and it was fortified in the 14th century . In the Thirty Years' War it was several times taken and plundered, and its fortifications dismantled . See Hegewald, Der Luftkurort Weinheim an der Bergstrasse (Weinheim, 1895) ; Ackermann, Fiihrer durch Weinheim and Umgebung (Weinheim, 1895);_ and Zinkgraf, Bilder aus der Geschichte der Stadt Weinheim (Weinheim, 1904) .