Protestant Margraviate of Baden-Durlach, which would become the reunited Margraviate of Baden. During the French Revolutionary Wars, Ettlingen was the site of a battle between elements of the French Army of the Rhine and Moselle and the Habsburg Army of the Upper Rhine on 9 July 1796. In the period of Napoleon's activities in Germany, Margrave Karl Friedrich of Baden was made Elector in 1806 and Grand Duke in 1806. Ettlingen remained an independent town until 1937, when it was incorporated into the administrative unit that would become the district of Karlsruhe in 1939. Ettlingen and its surrounding villages and land continue to be part of this district. In 1966, Ettlingen passed the 20,000 population mark and raised to the status of Große Kreisstadt by the state government of Baden-Württemberg. During the communal reforms of the early 1970s, several smaller communities were incorporated into Ettlingen, raising the population to over 30,000. Ettlingen's renowned open-air theater series, the Schlossfestspiele first took the stage in the Baroque inner courtyard of Ettlingen Palace in 1979. Religions Ettlingen was originally a part of the ancient Diocese of Speyer and was under the pastoral care of the Archdeacon of St. German and Moritz in Speyer. The town originally belonged to the deanery of Durlach but was itself made archdeaconate in the 16th century. The Protestant Reformation made gains in Ettlingen as early as 1520, but the town remained mostly Catholic, and the town's Catholic majority was supported by the Catholic line of Baden-Baden; later, starting in 1624, the Jesuits played an active role in converting many of the town's inhabitants back to the Catholic faith. By the beginning of the 19th century, Protestants were a small minority. During the period of secularization following the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, Ettlingen was part of the ordinariate of Bruchsal. In 1821, it became part of the newly founded Archdiocese of Freiburg, and the town was made the seat of a deanery, which included not only the parishes within Ettlingen proper, but also those in surrounding villages and neighboring municipalities. Today, Ettlingen belongs to the deanery of Karlsruhe, with the various parishes organized into pastoral units (Seelsorgeeinheiten). These include Ettlingen Stadt, with the parishes Herz Jesu (Sacred Heart), Liebfrauen (Our Lady), and St. Martin's, the town's oldest church; Ettlingen South, with St. Dionysius' in Ettlingenweier, St. Wendelin's in Oberweier, and St. Joseph's in Bruchhausen; and Ettlingen Heights,