Kreuzlingen

Saint Conrad, Bishop of Constance from 935 to 976, made three pilgrimages to Jerusalem during his lifetime. He brought back a fragment of the True Cross and presented it to a hospital he had founded in the suburb of Stadelhofen, just outside the walls of Konstanz. The hospital became known as 'Crucelin,' derived from the Latin Crucis Lignum ('Wood of the Cross'), which later evolved into Crucelingen and finally Kreuzlingen. The city's name thus literally means 'little cross.' In 1093, the hospital was burned down during hostilities. Bishop Ulrich I restored it around 1125 by founding a house of Augustinian Canons -- the Kreuzlingen Abbey.

Kreuzlingen (Switzerland) and Konstanz (Germany) function as one city divided by a national border. In mid-March 2020, German authorities erected a metal fence across the shared lakeside green as part of COVID-19 border closures. Swiss officials added a second fence after residents were seen passing beers, playing cards, and kissing through the chain links. The double barrier followed the exact route of barbed wire that had separated the two countries during World War II. Josephine from Arbon and Josef from Singen, a couple for 33 years, could only meet three times a week at the fence. On 15 May 2020 the fence was dismantled; full border reopening followed on 15 June 2020.

During WWII, while German cities enforced blackouts, Konstanz made the extraordinary decision to keep its lights on at night. The idea came from neighbouring Kreuzlingen, which as part of neutral Switzerland kept its lights burning normally. From the air, Allied bombers could not distinguish Konstanz from Kreuzlingen: the two cities appeared as one continuous settlement on Swiss territory. Konstanz was therefore never bombed, despite manufacturing radar parts for German submarines and housing a flying torpedo development facility. Konstanz is one of the few German cities to retain its original medieval architecture -- ironically preserved by its proximity to Switzerland.

The Seemuseum (Lake Museum) in Kreuzlingen is housed in a former granary of the Augustinian monastery, built around 1680-1717. Its star exhibit features artefacts from the steamship Jura, a wooden paddle steamer that sank on 12 February 1864 after a collision with the Stadt Zuerich off Muensterlingen in dense fog. The ship went down in just four minutes. The wreck lay forgotten until 1953, when diver Ludwig Hain, searching for a crashed WWII aircraft, stumbled upon it at a depth of 39 metres. It is now called the 'best-known freshwater wreck in Europe.' The museum covers 1,500 square metres across four floors.

Schloss Girsberg (Girsberg Castle) in Kreuzlingen was the childhood home of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838-1917), the inventor of the rigid airship. Zeppelin was born in Konstanz in 1838; his mother was the daughter of a wealthy Swiss merchant who gave the family the Girsberg manor across the border in Kreuzlingen. Young Ferdinand grew up at Girsberg with his siblings, educated by private tutors. On 2 July 1900, Zeppelin made the first flight of his rigid airship LZ 1 directly over Lake Constance, the lake of his childhood. Today the castle houses the Puppenmuseum (Doll Museum) with Zeppelin memorabilia including the original study furniture.

The Oelbergkapelle (Chapel of the Mount of Olives), constructed around 1720-1730 as part of the Kreuzlingen Abbey complex, contains approximately 250 hand-carved statuettes of Swiss stone pine wood (Arvenholz), each about 30 cm tall. They depict scenes from Christ's Passion in extraordinary detail -- a masterpiece of Baroque religious art. The abbey church, built by architect Michael Beer of Vorarlberg and consecrated on 25 October 1653, was later elevated to a Basilica minor. The relic of the True Cross brought by Bishop Conrad in the 10th century is still preserved in the high altar.

In 2006, city leaders symbolically cut through the old border fence at Klein Venedig between Kreuzlingen and Konstanz. In 2007, artist Johannes Doerflinger installed the Kunstgrenze (Art Border): 22 stainless-steel sculptures, each 8 metres tall, painted in hummingbird red, running 300 metres across the Klein Venedig lakefront. They represent tarot trump cards such as 'Magician,' 'Love,' 'Wheel of Fortune,' and 'Death and Rebirth.' In 2008, Switzerland joined the Schengen Area, and the border faded further into irrelevance. Together, the twin cities form the largest conurbation on Lake Constance with a combined population of nearly 120,000.

Vineyards on the Swiss shores of Lake Constance were first documented in 850 AD. For nearly half a millennium, an almost continuous belt of vineyards stretched from Bottighofen through Kurzrickenbach and Egelshofen to Emmishofen around Kreuzlingen. Around 1850, the vineyard area reached its greatest extent. By the late 19th century, viticulture collapsed due to vine diseases and pests including phylloxera. Today, only street and house names recall the era: Weinstrasse, Weinberg, Torggel (dialect for wine press). Recently, two new small vineyards have been planted in Kreuzlingen, reviving the ancient tradition.