Wetzlar, Germany

Wetzlar is a town of roughly 53,000 residents on the Lahn River in the German state of Hesse. From 1689 to 1806 it served as the seat of the Reichskammergericht, the Imperial Supreme Court of Justice. Wetzlar Cathedral, begun in 1235, was never completed, and one tower has stood unfinished since 1490. The 1772 Goethe House on the Lahn bank is where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774. The 1860 Ernst Leitz company and the 1849 Karl Kellner factory founded the optical industry that produced the first Leica cameras between 1913 and 1925.