Landsberg, Germany

Landsberg am Lech sits on the Lech River in Upper Bavaria, Germany, with roughly 30,000 residents. A medieval town wall built around 1260 still preserves four gates, nine towers, and about 580 meters of masonry, while the 1300 Bayertor ranks among the finest medieval gatehouses in southern Germany. The 1450 Lechwehr weir and the 1570 Lechkanal drove the mills that shaped the Old Town's economy. In 1924 Adolf Hitler was imprisoned in the fortress here and wrote Mein Kampf, and the 1944 Kaufering subcamps held some 30,000 Jewish forced labourers before the town became the site of Bavaria's surrender to American forces in 1945.