Pretzfeld

Pretzfeld
Municipality
Coat of arms
Location of Pretzfeld within Forchheim district
Pretzfeld Pretzfeld
Coordinates: 49°45′N 11°10′E
Country	Germany
State	Bavaria
Admin. region	Oberfranken
District	Forchheim
Subdivisions	13 Ortsteile
Government
• Mayor (2020–26)	Steffen Lipfert
Area
• Total	24.18 km2 (9.34 sq mi)
Elevation	293 m (961 ft)
Population  (2023-12-31)
• Total	2,383
• Density	99/km2 (260/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	91362
Dialling codes	09194
Vehicle registration	FO
Website	www.Pretzfeld.de

Pretzfeld is a municipality in the district of Forchheim in Bavaria in Germany.

Geography

Geographical location

The municipality is located in the south-western part of Upper Franconia, in Franconian Switzerland. The region is known for growing and processing fruit. Of the approx. 2500 ha total area, 1100 ha are forest. The town of Pretzfeld lies in the west of the municipality, near the confluence of the Trubach and the Wiesent.

Districts

The pretzfeld municipality has 13 districts:

Altreuth Eberhardstein Hagenbach Hetzelsdorf Kolmreuth Lützelsdorf Oberzaunsbach

Pfaffenloh Poppendorf Pretzfeld Unterzaunsbach Urspring Wannbach

Economy and Infrastructure

The largest closed sweet cherry growing area in Germany and one of the largest in western Europe extends around the Pretzfeld market. Due to the warm climate and nutrient-rich soils, there are over 200,000 sweet cherry trees on 1700 ha.

In the municipality there are the breweries Nikl-Bräu in Pretzfeld, Meister in Unterzaunsbach and Penning-Zeißler in Hetzelsdorf. There are also several distilleries, one of the best known is the Haas distillery with an annual production of approx. 60 - 70,000 bottles.

From the semiconductor laboratory initiated by Walter Schottky in 1946, a plant for power semiconductors emerged , which last operated as the Infineon subsidiary eupec (European Power-Semiconductor and Electronic Company) before it was closed in 2002.

Architecture

• The Rococo parish church of St. Kilian was built from 1742 to 1761 by the Bamberg architect Johann Jakob Michael Küchel.
• The Pretzfeld Castle was mentioned in 1145 (or 1182) as the seat of the "Hademar de Bretevelt" (wide field). In its present form it dates from the middle of the 18th century. From 1375 the castle belonged to those of Wiesenthau, from 1522 to those of Stiebar, in 1754 the Bavarian Minister, Count von Seinsheim, received the fief, in 1852 the Nuremberg merchant Kohn bought property, which went to the Herrmann family through marriage, the current owners.
• The Jewish cemetery , which has existed since the 17th century, mainly contains graves from the 18th and 19th centuries.