page_title: Wiesloch
section_title: Bertha Benz
hierarchical_section_title: Wiesloch / History / Bertha Benz
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Codex Manesse, UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 848, fol. 299r: Von Wissenlo
context_page_description: Wiesloch, is a city in Germany, in northern Baden-Württemberg. It is situated 13 kilometres south of Heidelberg.
  After Weinheim, Sinsheim and Leimen it is the fourth largest city of the Rhein-Neckar-Kreis and is in the north-central area near Heidelberg with its neighbouring town Walldorf with which it shares Wiesloch-Walldorf station. Also in the vicinity of Wiesloch are the cities and towns of Dielheim, Malsch, Mühlhausen, Rauenberg and Sankt Leon-Rot.
  During the reformation of the area in the 1970s Wiesloch's inhabitants exceeded 20,000. Wiesloch became a "Große Kreisstadt" on 1 January 1973, when Altwiesloch, Baiertal, Frauenweiler and Schatthausen were joined with the town of Wiesloch to form the present municipality.
context_section_description: The city pharmacy in Wiesloch was the first "filling station" in the world, because Bertha Benz stopped there on 5 August 1888, on the first long distance car trip, to refill the tank of her automobile, which her husband Karl Benz had invented. She was supplied with ligroin by the apothecary Willi Ockel.
  In 2008, the Bertha Benz Memorial Route was officially designated an industrial heritage route, following Bertha Benz's route on the world's first long-distance journey by automobile. It is a 194 km signposted circuit from Mannheim via Heidelberg and Wiesloch to Pforzheim in the Black Forest, and back.
caption: The Minnesinger von Wissenlo, from the Codex Manesse
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