a peasant uprising that lasted from 1612 until 1614, the city was unsuccessfully besieged but devastated. Between 1633 and 1638 the Thirty Years' War reached Fricktal, where Rheinfelden played an important role. On 15 July 1633, Swedish and French troops devastated the city. On 5 February 1638, the city was besieged by Protestant troops under the command of Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. On 28 February the Battle of Rheinfelden began, as the city was attacked by numerically-superior Imperial and Bavarian troops under the command of Johann von Werth and Federico Savelli. The Protestants lost this encounter and withdrew. Bernhard brought them weapons, but in the second action, on 3 March, they were victorious, as he and his men unexpectedly re-appeared on the battlefield; both Savelli and Werth were captured. By the end of the Thirty Years' War, the Austrians had built a fortress on the island to secure the southwestern border of the Breisgau. In 1678, French troops under the command of François de Créquy fired at the city. In 1745, during the War of the Austrian Succession, the French made a fortress on the same ground and also blasted a portion of the city wall. On 17 July 1796 Rheinfelden was again occupied and looted by the French. As a result of the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797, the Fricktal became a French protectorate, forming the front line between the French Revolutionary and the Austrian troops in the War of the Second Coalition. On 20 February 1802 Rheinfelden was made a district capital of the newly created Canton of Fricktal, (Principality of Frickgau), joining the Helvetic Republic in August, the point at which the city became decisively Swiss. After the removal of the governor Sebastian Fahrländer at the end of September 1802, the seat of the cantonal government was relocated here from Laufenburg. With the beginning of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss (the German Mediatisation), Napoleon Bonaparte dissolved the canton of Fricktal. Since 19 March 1803, Rheinfelden has been the capital of a district of the same name, in the canton of Aargau. With the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, the remaining (German) parts of the city lost their independence to the Grand Duchy of Baden, becoming Rheinfelden, Germany. Mayors 1945: Eugen Walz 1945–1946: Franz Fischer 1946–1948: Alois Maier 1948–1988: Herbert King 1988–2012: Eberhard Niethammer since 2012: Klaus Eberhardt (born 1956) Coat of arms The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Barry of Six