Red Tower (Weinheim)

Mighty tower.
Formerly part of the city fortifications.

The Red Tower stood for the most part in front of the city wall integrated into the tower wall in the Zwingergraben between the Upper Gate, which still exists today, and the Lower Gate, which was demolished in 1787. The connection points of the city wall can still be seen on the north and south sides of the tower. In the 1504 drawing book, the tower was referred to as the "New Tower" in contrast to the "Old Tower", today's Blue Hat. The name "Red Tower" only appears in the council minutes in 1633. In 1708, the roof, which can be seen in the engraving by Merian (around 1610), was completely removed after one half had already collapsed. It can be assumed that from then on the tower had its current shape and only received a new entrance on the south side of the tower from the raised Zwingergraben in 1812. This condition is shown in the oldest known picture of the tower, a watercolor by Carl Philipp Fohr from 1813.
Dimensions: Wall thickness at the current tower entrance about 2.20 m, inner diameter of the basement and the tower rooms about 3 m. Height from the current entrance to the walkway 20 m (= 89 steps) and to the top of the tower 29 m.
Source: weinheim.de/site/WeinheimRoot/get/documents_E156963075/weinheim/Dateien/PDF-Datei/63/63_Infoblatt_Rote_Turmstrasse_3_Roter_Turm.pdf

The tower is part of the city fortifications from the 15th century and also served as a prison until the 19th century.