Freudental

Freudental has been majority Protestant since the Reformation. Even today there is still a Protestant congregation in the town. There is also still a small community of the New Apostolic Church. The Catholics of the Roman Catholic community practice their religion in Besigheim.

From the first half of the 18th century there was a significant Jewish community in Freudental and by the mid-19th century more than 40 percent of the inhabitants were Jewish. In 1832 seat of Bezirksrabbinats Freudental. The town experienced - like many other Jewish rural communities - a decline in numbers towards the end of the 19th century. It was eventually eradicated by the persecution of the Jews during the Nazi regime. From the once significant community can still be seen the former synagogue built in 1770 in Freudental and the neighboring Jewish Schlössle, in which the first six Jewish families in the area from 1723 had apartments, and the Jewish cemetery (on Bönnigheimer Mountain). In memory of the persecuted and murdered Jewish citizens a memorial plaque is on the wall of the castle, more plaques have been placed since 1988 at the beginning and end of Strombergstrasse in remembrance of the centuries-old Jewish settlement in what was known locally as the "Jewish street".

During World War II many of the empty buildings which had once housed Jewish families were used to house refugee civilians from cities whose homes had been destroyed in allied bombing raids. After the war some of these refugees assisted the occupation forces in collecting reparations from the local farmers and landowners who had profited from the property 'vacated' by the Jewish population.

• Official website
• Former Synagogue