The subject of this book is the fortification of the city Schwäbisch Hall in the state Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The author describes the elements of Hall's fortification, viz. the city walls, gates and towers, and gives a detailed account of both the architectural findings and the historical sources pertaining to them.

He begins with the most ancient part of the city history, the so-called Haalinsel – a former island in the river Kocher originally protected by a wooden palisade wall, nucleus of the original population of the place due to the prized brine source giving rise to the saline. Then he examines the development of the city: Oldest City, medieval extensions of the "Gelbinger Vorstadt" and the "Weiler Vorstadt" (suburbs to the side of today's Gelbingen resp. on the West bank of the river Kocher), whose construction / enwalling obliged to new fortificatory works. This gives the author the occasion to examine the general design of the essential city wall segments.

Thereafter he treats one tower and gate after the other, all in all 57 of them. Some of them still exist today, others were destroyed, for the most part in the 19th century; the existence of a small part of them is even only conjectured by historical sources without present-day architectural or archeological evidence.

The book is in paperback, has 142 pages, the cover shows a detail of an old painting of the city around the so-called Neubau, the Modern Age arsenal of the town. It has no ISBN. It contains many maps, floor plans, drawings of the architectural objects treated, old gravings of the town and some photos, all of them in black and white.

paperback