City Partners & Partnerships

Since 1968, Hünfeld has had a very lively partnership with the Breton town of Landerneau near the Atlantic coast. This partnership was awarded the highest honour of the Council of Europe in 2011, the Europe Prize. Every year, school classes, clubs, but also many friendly families meet.

A similarly successful partnership with Proskau in Upper Silesia in present-day Poland has developed since 1997, so that Hünfeld in the middle of Europe has become a bridge between East and West. There is now also a regular school exchange with Proskau, friendly clubs visit each other and cultivate sociability and cultural exchange.

The German-German partnership with Steinberg in the Erzgebirge is also of special importance. In Rothenkirchen, today the core community of Steinberg, stood the cradle of the later global company Wella, which was founded again in Hünfeld after the Second World War. From these contacts developed a special partnership, which today is sustained by many personal contacts of the citizens of Hünfeld and Steinberg, associations and cultural institutions. The German-German partnership with the neighbouring town of Geisa in Thuringia, which was established after the German-German reunification, has quickly developed into a friendly relationship between neighbouring towns.

For many years Hünfeld was also the patron city for the 58th Engineer Company of the 11th Cavalry Regiment of the US Army, which was active on the inner German border for peace-keeping. From this sponsorship arose many friendships that survived the withdrawal of the American armed forces in the early 1990s. In 1986, Hünfeld was awarded the European Partnership Award by the headquarters of the American Armed Forces in Europe.

Since 1955, Hünfeld has also been the patron city of the former inhabitants of the city of Neustadt an der Tafelfichte, who had to leave their homes due to the expulsion in 1946. To this day, the federal meetings of the Neustadt residents as well as meetings of the home district of Friedland take place in Hünfeld.

The town of Hünfeld has a special friendship with the former French prisoners of war in the Hünfeld camp, which has caused a lot of attention, especially in France. Today, this friendship is carried on by the descendants of these former French prisoners of war, who still meet annually in other places in France and on special occasions in Hünfeld.

A special contact has developed since a meeting of the former Jewish residents of Hünfeld, who had survived the horrors of Nazi violence, in 1988. This was followed by numerous visits, the publication of a book on the life history of the Strauss families, and in 2010 the establishment of a section in the Konrad-Zuse-Museum with the history of the town and the district, as well as the project "Stolpersteine", which commemorates the victims of the Nazi dictatorship.