DEUTSCHLAND	GERMANY
Bundesland: Freistaat Bayern	Bavaria
Regierungsbezirk: Oberpfalz
Landkreis: Amberg-Sulzbach

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Sulzbach-Rosenberg is situated at an elevation of 433 m at the eastern edge of the Oberpfälzer Alb region, about 50 km east of Nuremberg. The municipality was formed in 1934 by merging the former independent communities of Sulzbach and Rosenberg. Sulzbach-Rosenberg has a population of about 19,600 (2011).

The earliest settlements at this location can be tracted back to the 9th century. Counts of Sulzbach are documented since about 1024. The family became one of the most important of the period. Count Berengar II of Sulzbach founded the monasteries of Berchtesgaden and of Baumburg. His daughter Gertrud married Konrad of Swabia in 1131/32 (Konrad was one of the two competing German kings at that time and was also King of Italy since 1128; in 1138 he was finally elected German King). Another daughter of Berengar, Bertha, was married to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I in 1146 (Empress Irene). In 1188 Sulzbach fell to the Counts of Hirschberg, and in 1305 it came in possession of the Wittelsbach Electors of the Palatinate. Since that time the region became known as the Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz).

In 1349 Anna, daughter of Elector Rudolf II, married Karl IV, Emperor and King of Bohemia. This initiated an important period for Sulzbach. Karl IV received the region as a pawn in 1355 and Sulzbach became the capital of the region, now called 'New Bohemia'. In 1373, however, Karl IV exhcanged the region with the Mark (margraviate) Brandenburg which at that time had belonged to the Wittelsbach dynasty. In 1582 Ottheinrich from the Palatinate line of the Wittelsbach family became the first Count Palatine of Pfalz-Sulzbach. Under his reign and that of his successor, Duke August of Pfalz-Sulzbach (1582–1632), Sulzbach became a splendid residence. One of the reasons was also the opposition between the Palatinate lines of Pfalz-Sulzbach and Pfalz-Neuburg. Pfalz-Sulzbach inherited Pfalz-Neuburg in 1742, and after the extinction of the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbach dynasty in 1777 all the Wittelsbach countries were united under Elector Karl Theodor. Since Karl Theodor moved to the Bavarian residence, Munich, Sulzbach lost its status as a residence town in 1791 and became part of the Bavarian province Obere Pfalz.

The iron works Maximilianshütte in Rosenberg were founded in 1853 and were an important industrial factor in the Oberpfalz until its closure in 1987. The opening of the railroad from Nuremberg via Sulzbach to Regensburg also furthered the industrialisation of the area. In 1934 Sulzbach and Rosenberg were joined to form the new municipality of Sulzbach-Rosenberg, which was extended one year later by the incorporation of the municipality Großalbersdorf. Between 1937 and 1945 the northeastern parts of Bavaria, which today more or less comprise the administrative regions Oberfranken, Oberpfalz and Niederbayern, formed the Reichsgau Bayerische Ostmark (see map of the Third Reich; glass no. 1495, left, therefore dates from that period). In 1972 the seat of the administration of the district Sulzbach was moved to Amberg and the district was renamed Amberg-Sulzbach (although the city of Amberg itself is independent from the district).

Sulzbach castle [top right] was founded during the early 8th century, probably by the late-Merovingian/early-Carolingian kingdom. The castle was the residence of the powerful counts of the Nordgau (9th–10th century), the important counts of Sulzbach (ca.1003–1188), the counts of Hirschberg (1188–1305), the counts of Wittelsbach (1305–1354, 1373–1504), Emperor Karl IV (1354–1373), the palatine-dukes of Neuburg and of the dukes of Palatinate-Sulzbach (17th–18th century).

Rosenberg also was the former German name of Rožmberk nad Vltavou in southern Bohemia, Czech Republic.

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulzbach-Rosenberg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulzbach-Rosenberg]