Rothenburg originally flourished as a stopping place on the silk road. It was the thirty years war, and later the plague, that decimated its population and brought financial ruin. They were so skint that they could not afford to renovate their knackered, medieval architecture and were stuck in their ancient, timber framed houses. The Rothenburgians thought their town was a worthless dump. In the late 19th century, after a couple of hundred, miserable years, the ‘Romantic’ movement (led by Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran) re-discovered Rothenburg and decided the place was jolly nice and, effectively, a preservation order was slapped on it. In the 1930’s, the Nazis too were smitten by the town and idealised it as the perfect Aryan home; it ticked their propaganda boxes. Modern urban development was set to bypass this enclave. It
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