he granted him for Reichenberg, as well as the Rhine upstream toll at Sankt Goar that Count Wilhelm and his forefathers have held in fief from the Empire. Whoever undertakes anything against it shall pay with 100 Marks of gold, half of which shall fall to the Chamber of the Empire and half to the Count. In 1355, Wilhelm II took wedding vows with Elisabeth of Hanau. This involved providing for her in her widowhood with, among other things, a widow's seat for her in Darmstadt. In 1401, the town's name was catalogued as Twinginburg. In 1403, Count Johann IV Katzenelnbogen an Henne Weißkreis von Lindenfels pledged the castle and town of Zwingenberg with the villages of Eschollbrücken – which the Count owned – Pfungstadt and Nieder-Ramstadt with all rights and appurtenances for 6,000 Gulden, which the Count later redeemed. In 1454, Count Philipp I of Katzenlenbogen agreed that Hans IV of Wallbrunn (whose seat was Wallbrunn) should provide a widowhood estate for his wife Lucie von Reifenberg consisting of, among other things, the house and a number of gardens at Zwingenberg, which Hans held from the Count as a fief, although without the military service obligation. Until 1479, Zwingenberg belonged to the County of Katzenelnbogen, thereafter to the Landgraviate of Hessen, and as of 1567 to the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt, which in 1806 was raised to the Grand Duchy of Hessen. Owing to the abandonments during the Thirty Years' War and shortly thereafter the Plague, the town was for decades almost uninhabited, and eventually, a fire set by French troops in 1693 destroyed most of the houses. Only after the French Revolution did the town recover. In 1832, Zwingenberg was grouped into the Bensheim district, and as of 1938 it belonged to Bergstraße district. In the time of National Socialism, Jews and the Nazis’ political foes were driven out and deported. By chance, the synagogue was not destroyed. It is nowadays used as a house. There is a club that has made it its business to revive the synagogue. In 1941, a prisoner-of-war camp was set up at the youth hostel. On 31 December 1971, Rodau was amalgamated with Zwingenberg. Politics Town council The composition of the town council after the four latest municipal elections: Mayors From 2001 to 2007, Dieter Kullak (independent) held office. At the election on 25 March 2007, in which Kullak was not a candidate,