Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Partenkirchen began as the Roman settlement of Partanum on the trade route from Venice to Augsburg, first mentioned in AD 15, and its main street, Ludwigstraße, still follows the Roman road. Garmisch appears some 800 years later as Germareskauue. In the late thirteenth century the valley became part of the County of Werdenfels, ruled by the prince-bishops of Freising through a warden at Werdenfels Castle until it passed to Bavaria in 1802–03. When Atlantic shipping took trade away from the overland routes after 1500, the valley sank into a long depression of swampy fields, wolves and bears, plague and crop failure. Between 1589 and 1596, 63 people — more than a tenth of the population — were executed as witches after trials at Werdenfels Castle, which was later abandoned and torn down; its stones built Garmisch's Baroque New Church, completed in 1752.

The two market towns stayed separate until 1 January 1935, when Hitler forced their mayors to merge them ahead of the 1936 Winter Olympics, the first to include alpine skiing. The town was also chosen for the 1940 Games, cancelled by the war. During the Second World War it was a major military hospital centre, and on 29 April 1945 it was handed over to the US Army undamaged and without a fight.

After the war the town became one of Germany's leading winter resorts. It hosted the World Alpine Ski Championships in 1978 and 2011 and was a partner in Munich's unsuccessful bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics. Since 1993 it has also been home to the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, a largely US-staffed conference and teaching centre.

The merger of 1935 never fully took. Garmisch, in the west, feels more modern; Partenkirchen, in the east, keeps cobbled streets and painted houses, and its residents dislike hearing the whole town called "Garmisch". Both share the Catholic, Upper Bavarian traditions of the valley — traditional dress at festivals, church holidays and the cattle being driven through town to and from the mountain pastures.

Music and literature have local ties. The Richard Strauss Institute has been based in the Partenkirchen park since 1999, and the Richard-Strauss-Festival, the summer concerts of Musik im Park and a cultural summer programme fill the season. The Garmisch spa park was renamed in 2009 after the author Michael Ende, born here, and in 2025 the Partenkirchen park was renamed after the biathlete Laura Dahlmeier, also a native. The town has the Werdenfels Museum, the Museum Aschenbrenner and a district school for woodwork and design founded in 1869.

Winter sport defines the calendar. The New Year's ski jump of the Four Hills Tournament draws large crowds to the Olympic stadium, World Cup races run on the Kandahar course, vintage bobsleighs race at the Riessersee, and the ice hockey club SC Riessersee, ten times German champion, plays at the Olympic ice stadium.

About 27,200 people lived in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 2021, up by about 6.5 per cent in ten years; at the 2011 census the two halves were almost evenly balanced. The town is the seat of its district and the centre of the Werdenfelser Land.

Tourism is the backbone of the economy — skiing in winter and hiking, climbing and mountain railways in summer — with the municipal works owning the majority of the Zugspitze railway company. The Marshall Center and a recreation centre for US and NATO forces bring a resident American community, and the German Centre for Pediatric and Adolescent Rheumatology, one of Europe's largest centres for children with rheumatic diseases, has worked here since 1952.

Daily life follows the weather and the seasons. Early mornings and late afternoons in good weather can see traffic stopped while dairy cows are driven along the roads, weekends bring heavy traffic from Munich, and in winter the ski jump, the ice stadium and the slopes set the rhythm.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen eats the food of Old Bavaria. Schweinsbraten, roast pork, and Schweinshaxe, roast knuckle, come with bread or potato dumplings and red cabbage or sauerkraut. Leberkäse, a smooth baked meatloaf eaten in thick slices in a roll, and the white veal-and-pork Weisswurst, traditionally eaten before noon with sweet mustard and a pretzel, are the classic snacks, and Obatzda, a spread of ripe soft cheese, butter, onion and paprika, accompanies a beer.

Sweet dishes are meals in themselves. Kaiserschmarrn, a lightly sweetened shredded pancake named after the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I, is served as a dessert or a light lunch, and Dampfnudeln are another favourite. In the mountains, huts and alpine pastures on the walking trails serve drinks and simple Bavarian dishes to walkers coming down from the heights.

Beer is the everyday drink — pale Helles, Weissbier brewed with wheat, dark Dunkel and, in spring, strong Bock — and the traditional beer garden, with its long tables under the trees, is as much a part of life here as anywhere in Bavaria.