page_title: Wimmis
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Wimmis / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Wimmis, Schloss und Kirche St. Martin (eine der 14 Thunerseekirchen) liegen unmittelbar hintereinander. Ansicht der drei Apsiden
context_page_description: Wimmis is a municipality in the Frutigen-Niedersimmental administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
context_section_description: Wimmis is first mentioned in 994 as Windemis.
  The oldest traces of a settlement in Wimmis include the Mesolithic and Bronze Age settlements on the Chienberg and the Bronze Age and High Middle Ages settlements on the Pintel.  Roman era artifacts were found at Engfeld and bronze statue of Emperor Gordian III was found at Tägerstein.  The area remained inhabited during the Middle Ages and in 994 King Otto III granted his estates in Wimmis to Selz Abbey.
  By the 12th or 13th century the Lords of Wimmis or Strättligen built Wimmis Castle above the village.  The exact relationship between the two families is unclear, but the Wimmis line became extinct in the mid-13th century and by 1260 the Freiherr von Strättligen owned Wimmis Castle and the surrounding lands.  A few years later the castle and lands were incorporated into the extensive holdings of the Freiherr von Weissenburg.  Over the following years, the town at the foot of the castle was attacked and burned twice by Bernese troops, in 1298 and 1334 and the castle was attacked and taken in 1334.  After the war, Freiherr Johann the Elder von Weissenburg was forced to sign a treaty with Bern.  The castle and surrounding bailiwick were inherited by the Freiherr von Brandis in 1368. However, in 1398 he sold a half share of the estates to the von Scharnachtal family and in 1437 sold the remaining half to them.  The von Scharnachtals held the castle and bailiwick until Bern bought it back in 1449.
  The castle church of St. Martin was first mentioned in 1228 as one of the twelve churches surrounding Lake Thun in the Strättliger Chronicle.  The castle church was built in the 10th century on the site of an earlier 7th or 8th century church.  It was expanded in the 14th century and again in the 15th.  The murals are from the 15th century expansion.  In 1527 it, along with the entire Niedersimmental converted to the new faith of the Protestant Reformation.
  Under Bernese rule the castle became the center of the Niedersimmental district.  During the 17th and 18th centuries the castle was expanded in several stages into its current appearance.  In 1708 a fire broke out in the castle town, destroying the entire settlement around the castle.  The castle town was abandoned and the current castle gardens were planted on the site.  After the 1803 Act of Mediation, the castle became the center of new Niedersimmental district.  In 1967 the district administration moved into a modern office building but the district court remained in the castle.  In 2010 the administrative structure of the Canton of Bern changed.  The court moved from Wimmis to Thun and the castle was given to the municipality.
  Wimmis' location at the entrance to the Simmental made it into an important local trading center.  In 1815 the construction of the Simmental road allowed more traffic to travel through Wimmis.  A village school opened in 1859.  In the 1870s it was envisioned as a railroad hub, before the hub was moved to Spiez.  Between 1897 and 1902 the Spiez-Zweisimmen railway passed through the village and built stations at Wimmis and Eifeld.  The railroad helped factories move into Wimmis.  In 1919 the Swiss military established the Federal Gunpowder factory at Wimmis.  In the 1990s it became Nitrochemie Wimmis, which in addition to producing smokeless powder, explosives and industrial chemicals is the world's largest paper deacidification facility.
  During the Cold War, the Swiss military maintained a store of uranium in Wimmis, which was a part of its nuclear weapons programme.
caption: Wimmis church and castle
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON", "Image Model": "COOLPIX P7000", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "31623/125", "Image YResolution": "31623/125", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:09:25 17:23:31", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "230", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "852", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6889", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/2000", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:09:25 10:49:20", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:09:25 10:49:20", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2959", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1949", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "720", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "28", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}