Lauenau

Lauenau is a small town in Lower Saxony, Germany, with about 4,400 residents. It is situated in the east of the district of Schaumburg just off the A2 Autobahn at the foot of the Deister ridge in the Deister-Süntel valley. As well as Lauenau itself, the parish includes the village of Feggendorf, a former coal mining community on the slopes of the Deister which now has a mining museum.

==History== Lauenau is documented in 1059 for the first time. In about 1200 Lauenau Castle was built by Duke Henry the Lion, of the Guelphs as a stronghold against the counts of Schaumburg. In 1536 Lauenau was granted three annual markets by the Count of Schaumburg, to whom the area belonged, as well as the right to brew beer and to hold a court with jurisdiction over minor cases. After the extinction of the line of the counts of Schaumburg in 1640 in the course of the Thirty Years' War, the County of Schaumburg was split up and Lauenau became part of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, which later became part of the kingdom of Hanover and then the Prussian province of Hanover. In 1682 the town was almost totally destroyed by fire. During the Seven Years' War, the town was occupied by the French. In recent times the town was a centre of the furniture industry of Lower Saxony. Today Lauenau is an expanding community due to its proximity to the Autobahn and to Hanover with fast growing population and industries generating jobs .