DEUTSCHLAND	GERMANY
Bundesland: Nordrhein-Westfalen	North Rhine-Westphalia
Regierungsbezirk: Köln
Kreis: Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis

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Odenthal is situated at an elevation of 149 m about 5 km north of Bergisch-Gladbach and about 15 km northeast of Cologne. The municipality has a population of 15,100 (2017).

The first settlers arrived in the area in the first half of the 10th century. The earliest known written document mentioning Udindar dates from 1150. Odenthal is the cradle of the Bergisches Land. The castle Berge was located on a rock above the river Dhünn in today's town district Altenberg. When the Counts of Berg had moved their residence to castle Burg (then called Neuenberge today part of Solingen) the old castle (then known under the name Altenberge) was donated in 1133 to the Cistertian order. The monks, however, also abandoned the old abbey Altenberge shortla thereafter and moved the convent several hundred metres into the valley. The civil municipality was formed during the times of the French administration (1803–1813) when Altenberg became part of the mairie odenthal in the canton Bensberg of the département du Rhin. In 1816 odenthal became part of the Prussian district Mülheim am Rhein

Altenberg Abbey was founded in 1133 as a daughter house of Morimond Abbey and settled initially in the old castle of the Counts of Berg, Burg Berge, which the counts had left for Schloss Burg, but moved to the new purpose-built monastery in the valley of the Dhünn in 1153. It flourished sufficiently to undertake the settlement of a number of daughter houses of its own: Mariental Abbey and Wągrowiec Abbey, both in 1143; Ląd Abbey in 1146; Zinna Abbey in 1171; Haina Abbey in 1188; Jüterbog Abbey in 1282; and Derneburg Abbey in 1443. In 1803 it was dissolved during the secularisation of Germany and fell into ruin. Starting in 1847 a thorough restoration was carried out. The restored church is known as Altenberger Dom ('Altenberg cathedral', which is technically inaccurate because the church never was the seat of a bishop).

The Altenberger Dom [left, no. 3607: background] is the former abbey church of Altenberg Abbey which was built from 1259 in Gothic style by Cistercians in place of an older, Romanesque, church that had been consecrated in 1160. The choir of the new church, in Gothic style, was consecrated in 1276; the final consecration took place in 1379, the church is dedicated to the Ascension of Our Lady. The large window in the western façade was created in about 1400. Until 1511, the church was the burial site of counts and dukes of Berg and the dukes of Jülich-Berg. During the secularisation of Germany, the monastery was dissolved in 1803. The buildings were used for a chemical plant. In 1815, a fire destroyed much of the buildings. Count Franz-Egon of Fürstenberg-Stammheim bought the ruins in 1833 and turned them over to the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who was fond of medieval history. The king supported the rebuilding of the Altenberger Dom, and also the completion of the Cologne cathedral. He suggested already in the 1830s that the Altenberger Dom should be used by both Catholics and Protestants as a simultaneum, and finalized the idea in a royal decree of 1856.

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odenthal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odenthal; https://www.odenthal.de/rathaus/gemeindeportrait/geschichte/; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altenberg_(Bergisches_Land); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altenberg_Abbey; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altenberger_Dom, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altenberger_Dom]