In 1905, the pastor at Schwaigern wrote some notes on the history of the parish. Someone typed them up, and Earl and Leona Willhoite brought a copy of the notes back to the US, where Fred Westcott translated it. With the permission of these people, a short note ran in Volume 2, Number 3 issue of Beyond Germanna . I paraphrase from that article now.
The oldest document known is from 765 in which the parish is donated to the Monastery Lorsch. Through the ages, these are some of the spellings that have been used: Sueigera, Sueigeren, Suegern, Swaigern, until it arrived at the present form of Schwaigern.There is a long gap in the history until 1496, when the report of the Diocese of Worms lists Schwaigern as one of the seats of the Deans. Other seats listed with Schwaigern were Heimsheim, Mühlbach, Wimpfen am Berg, Wimpfen in Tal, Biberbach, Obereisesheim, Neckargartach, Frankenbach, Grossgartach, Massenbach, Hausen, and Neipperg. Several of the names, perhaps all, are recognizable as neighbors of Schwaigern. The introduction of the Reformation in Schwaigern perhaps took place about 1530 based on the evidence that the Counselor of Heilbronn requested a trained preacher from Wolf von Neipperg in 1531. B. Wurtzelmann was the first evangelical (i.e., Protestant) pastor. He later became the pastor of Dinkelsbühl.
During The Thirty Years’ War, there were 222 deaths in the year 1625. Georg Friedrich of Baden Durlach started from Schwaigern with more than 15,000 men to follow Tilly. Almost immediately, he was beaten at Obereisesheim by Tilly. The year 1635 was another bad year when 691 people died. This included 186 "foreigners". Five hundred of these deaths occurred between May and August. The death register is empty for September and part of October, so it is assumed that everyone, included the pastor, left the town. Still, many deaths occurred even later when more than a thousand people died in the three years of 1634 to 1637. The marriage register shows many marriages after 1635 in the form of widows marrying widowers.
In the seventeenth century, probably after the war, there were many immigrants to Schwaigern. Some came from as far east as Salzburg in Austria and from France. Those from Austria were probably exiles who chose to emigrate rather than convert to Catholicism. Those from France may have been Anabaptists and Huguenots. With the French invasions, there was more war.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.