50 Fun Facts About Stuttgart

Stuttgart takes its name from which kind of establishment, founded around 950 by Duke Liudolf of Swabia?

A stud farm for warhorses gave Stuttgart its name: the Old High German 'Stuotgarten' was set up during the Hungarian invasions to supply the duke's cavalry.

Which carmaker, based in Stuttgart's Zuffenhausen district, places the city's coat of arms at the centre of its logo?

Porsche built its crest around Stuttgart's arms and framed them with the arms of the former Free People's State of Württemberg, whose capital the city was.

A museum in Stuttgart's former slaughterhouse shows more than 50,000 exhibits devoted to which animal?

Pigs are the whole theme of the Schweinemuseum, which began as a private collection of lucky-pig charms and now fills 27 themed rooms.

Stuttgart's television tower, opened in 1956 and copied worldwide, was the first such tower built from which material?

Reinforced concrete let the tower rise as a slim needle with a 'basket' on top, the shape that broadcasting towers around the world went on to follow.

Which meat-filled Swabian dumplings, a Stuttgart staple, were by one legend invented by monks hiding meat during Lent?

Maultaschen carry EU protected status, so the genuine article is made only in Swabia; the legend credits the Cistercian monks of Maulbronn Abbey.

Stuttgart's Cannstatter Volksfest, now a giant beer festival, was founded in 1818 to mark the end of what?

A famine had followed the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, whose volcanic winter ruined harvests; the first festival honoured farming with a column of fruit and grain.

Which Stuttgart zoo and botanical garden grew out of a Moorish-style royal bathhouse inspired by the Alhambra?

Wilhelma was planned from 1837 for King William I of Württemberg, and its historic buildings now stand inside a combined zoological and botanical garden.

Which philosopher, famous for his dialectic, was born in 1770 in a Stuttgart house that is now a museum?

Georg Hegel left Stuttgart at eighteen for the Tübingen seminary, where his roommates were the poet Hölderlin and the future philosopher Schelling.

Which river flows through Stuttgart on its way to join the Rhine at Mannheim?

The Neckar rises near Schwenningen on the edge of the Black Forest and also passes the university towns of Tübingen and Heidelberg.

Stuttgart's more than 400 'Stäffele', a legacy of its hillside vineyards, are what kind of feature?

Stairways once linked the terraced vines, and when houses replaced them the steps stayed on as footpaths between the new neighbourhoods: about 20 km in all.

Which engineer opened a workshop for precision mechanics in Stuttgart in 1886 that grew into a giant car-parts supplier?

Robert Bosch made his name with ignition systems for engines and was one of the first German industrialists to give his workers an eight-hour day.

Which engineer built the first petrol-engined motorcycle in 1885 in a garden workshop in Cannstatt, now in Stuttgart?

Gottlieb Daimler and his partner Wilhelm Maybach worked so secretively that neighbours reported them as suspected counterfeiters; police raided the summer house and found only engines.

Which militant group's leaders, including Andreas Baader, died in Stuttgart's Stammheim Prison in 1977?

The Red Army Faction's leaders were held in a high-security wing, and three of them died within hours of each other in October 1977, just after the hostages on a hijacked Lufthansa jet were rescued.

Whose reordering of the German states in 1806 turned Württemberg, ruled from Stuttgart, into a kingdom?

Napoleon Bonaparte was rewarding an ally: Frederick took the title of king, joined the Confederation of the Rhine and supplied troops for the French campaigns.

Which striker, who trained as a baker in his family's Stuttgart shop, won the 1990 World Cup with West Germany?

Jürgen Klinsmann finished his baker's apprenticeship in 1982, having turned professional with Stuttgarter Kickers, and went on to star for VfB Stuttgart.

Which Stuttgart-born director made the Hollywood blockbusters Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow?

Roland Emmerich grew up in nearby Sindelfingen, and his Independence Day became the first film to gross $100 million in less than a week.

Which writer finished his first play, The Robbers, while studying medicine at a military academy in Stuttgart?

Friedrich Schiller served briefly as a regimental doctor before leaving Stuttgart, and since 1839 a statue of him has stood on the square now called Schillerplatz.

Stuttgart Airport is named after a long-serving mayor who was the son of which Second World War field marshal?

Erwin Rommel's only son Manfred ran Stuttgart from 1974 to 1996 and befriended the sons of his father's battlefield adversaries, Patton and Montgomery.

Stuttgart's mineral water deposits are the second largest in Europe after those of which capital city?

Budapest is the only European city to outdo Stuttgart, where more than 250 springs rise inside the urban area.

Stuttgart 21, the project that drew mass street protests in 2010, puts which piece of city infrastructure underground?

The main station's 16-track terminus gives way to an eight-track through station below ground, so that long-distance trains can run straight through the city.

Stuttgart's Mercedes-Benz Museum fits its exhibition onto a small plot with an interior laid out in which shape?

A double helix packs 16,500 square metres of displays onto a small plot, and visitors can swap between the two tours at any point.

Two houses on Stuttgart's 1927 Weissenhof Estate became World Heritage Sites in 2016 as works of which architect?

Le Corbusier was handed the two prime plots, facing the city, and by far the largest budget of the seventeen architects who built on the estate.

Patch Barracks in Stuttgart houses the European Command headquarters of which country's armed forces?

The United States named the base after General Alexander Patch; during the Second World War the same barracks had housed a German tank regiment.

Which US state has a town named after Stuttgart that calls itself the Rice and Duck Capital of the World?

Arkansas owes the name to the Reverend Adam Bürkle, a Württemberg-born minister who founded the settlement in 1880.

Stuttgart's Birkenkopf hill grew about 40 metres taller in the 1950s when it was piled with what?

Wartime rubble from the bombed city, 1.5 million cubic metres of it, was hauled up between 1953 and 1957, and locals nicknamed the result Monte Scherbelino.

A hilltop mausoleum above Stuttgart was built by King William I for Queen Catherine, a grand duchess of which country?

Russia's Catherine Pavlovna, a sister of Tsar Alexander I, died in Stuttgart in January 1819, and her chapel replaced the ruined ancestral castle of the Württemberg dynasty.

Gaisburger Marsch, a Swabian favourite named after a district of Stuttgart, is what kind of dish?

A beef stew served with potatoes and Spätzle, it is said to owe its name to officer cadets who marched all the way to Gaisburg to eat it.

Under the Swabian custom of 'Kehrwoche', familiar to anyone renting in Stuttgart, neighbours take turns at which chore?

Cleaning shared areas such as hallways and paths was a legal duty every Saturday until 1988, and the custom reaches back to the end of the 15th century.

Which hip hop group from Stuttgart scored the genre's first German chart hit with the 1992 single 'Die da!?!'?

Die Fantastischen Vier, Fanta 4 for short, took the single to number two in Germany and number one in Austria and Switzerland.

Which airship pioneer was rescued by public donations after his LZ 4 burned at Echterdingen, near Stuttgart, in 1908?

Count Zeppelin received more than six million marks from the German public, which put his airship building on a sound financial footing for the first time.

Which chocolate brand, famous for its square bars, began in 1912 in a factory in Stuttgart's Bad Cannstatt district?

Ritter Sport moved out to Waldenbuch in 1930 when it needed a bigger factory, and each 100-gram bar is scored into 16 small squares.

Which officer, who tried to kill Hitler with a bomb in July 1944, is remembered by a museum in Stuttgart's Old Castle?

Claus von Stauffenberg, a former resident of Stuttgart, slid a briefcase bomb under the conference table at the Wolf's Lair, as close to Hitler as he could.

Stuttgart's seasonal wine taverns, where growers pour their own vintage, show they are open by hanging out what?

A broom of twigs, often tied with coloured ribbons, gives the 'Besenwirtschaft' its name, and a genuine one may open for no more than four months a year.

In June 1897 Stuttgart became the first place where a petrol-engined car went into service as which working vehicle?

A taxi fitted with a taximeter, the Victoria cab took to Stuttgart's streets weeks before a fleet of electric cabs appeared in London that August.

The Stuttgart workshop of Wilhelm Emil Fein invented the hand-held electric version of which tool in 1895?

The drill was Fein's second portable first, ten years after a portable telephone; he and his brother had opened their mechanical workshop in Stuttgart in 1867.

Stuttgart's 'Zacke' line, climbing from Marienplatz to Degerloch since 1884, is which unusual kind of public transport?

A rack railway is rare in a city: this is the only one in Germany used mainly as everyday public transport, and cyclists can load their bikes for the climb.

Which red wine grape, probably from South Tyrol, is now grown almost only in Württemberg, much of it around Stuttgart?

Trollinger is the grape that northern Italy calls Schiava or Vernatsch, and Württemberg's records of it reach back to the 14th century.

Who was West Germany's first president, who died in Stuttgart in 1963 and whose last home there is a museum?

Theodor Heuss, born in the wine town of Brackenheim, had published one of the first full analyses of the Nazi Party as early as 1932.

Stuttgart staged the third-place match of the 2006 World Cup, in which hosts Germany beat which team 3–1?

Portugal lost to a World Cup host nation for the third time, having fallen to England in 1966 and to South Korea in 2002.

Which Stuttgart-born midfielder won the 2007 Bundesliga with VfB before lifting the World Cup with Germany in 2014?

Sami Khedira, the son of a Tunisian father and a German mother, began his career at his home-town club and later won the Champions League in Spain.

Which American city on the Mississippi has been twinned with Stuttgart since 1960?

St. Louis shares the honour with Cardiff, Strasbourg, Mumbai and Cairo, all of them on Stuttgart's list of sister cities.

Which club won its fourth straight European Cup by beating Reims 2–0 in the 1959 final in Stuttgart?

Real Madrid scored through Enrique Mateos and Alfredo Di Stéfano in a repeat of the competition's very first final, played in 1956.

Stuttgart's city library, a plain cube with nine storeys above ground, was designed by an architect from which country?

South Korea's Eun Young Yi, who studied in his home country and then at Aachen, won the architectural competition for the building.

Which British athlete ran a 110 metres hurdles world record of 12.91 seconds at Stuttgart's 1993 World Championships?

Colin Jackson's time stood as the world record for nearly 13 years, and the Stuttgart gold was his first at a World Championships.

Which rococo hunting palace above Stuttgart, built for Duke Charles Eugene, gave its name to a nearby racing circuit?

Solitude lent its name to an 11.4 km circuit on public roads, which staged motorcycle and car races until 1965.

Which South African-born choreographer took over the Stuttgart Ballet in 1961 and made its name with his Onegin?

John Cranko came from London's Royal Ballet and also created Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew for the Stuttgart company.

VfB Stuttgart's 1990s attacking trio of Krassimir Balakov, Giovane Élber and Fredi Bobic was known by which nickname?

The Magic Triangle era brought VfB the 1997 German Cup under a young coach called Joachim Löw, who later managed Germany to a World Cup title.

Which British architect designed Stuttgart's Neue Staatsgalerie, the 1984 museum with bright pink and blue handrails?

James Stirling and his partner Michael Wilford won the competition in 1977 with a design that nods to Berlin's Altes Museum and Rome's Pantheon.

Which Stuttgart-born photographer, the partner of Robert Capa, died covering the Spanish Civil War in 1937?

Gerda Taro is regarded as the first female photojournalist to die covering a front line, and 'Robert Capa' began as an alias the couple shared.

Which US Secretary of State's 1946 'Speech of Hope' in Stuttgart signalled a turn towards rebuilding Germany's economy?

James F. Byrnes repudiated the harsh economic policies of the Morgenthau Plan, and his promise of reconstruction gave Germans hope for the future.