In the town of Calw, in the middle of Baden-Württemberg in the south of Germany

 “No permanence is ours; we are a wave

that flows to fit whatever form it finds”
― Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game
====================================================================

(in the town of Calw which is a good base from which to explore Germany's northern Black Forest.) It has an attractive, historic town center. (The town is the administrative center of the Calw district.) Located near the northeastern corner of the Black Forest part of Baden-Württemberg, Calw is part of a tourist route linking historic towns known for their half-timbered houses.

+ Like many towns and villages in the Black Forest, Calw began as a trading center for the Nagold valley The origins of the settlement can be traced back to the monastery at Hirsau, a few kilometers to the north, which was once one of the most important in Germany. It grew rapidly due to its commercial succes as part of the domain of the Counts of Württemberg. It suffered during the wars of the Middle Ages, but by the 17th century it was still half the size of Stuttgart. The textile industry, which had been so successful over the centuries, came to an end during the Napoleonic wars at the end of the 18th century. The town survived the conflicts of the 20th century relatively undamaged.

+ Herman Hesse was born in Calw in 1877. The author of such works as Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game spent much of his childhood and youth in the family home, which still stands on the market square.(The building where Herman Hesse was born is on the extreme left) Although Hesse moved away and eventually lived on Lake Constance or in Switzerland, he retained an affection for the town of his birth and it appears in his works as the fictional "Gerbersau.". He wrote: "The more age catches me in its net, the more unlikely it becomes that I will see the home of my childhood and the years of my youth again, but the images I carry with me of Calw and Swabia retain their validity and freshness."

The Special Operations Forces of the German Army has been stationed since 1996 in the Graf Zeppelin barracks (Graf-Zeppelin-Kaserne) near Heumaden.
Calw also has a small historic center that was largely untouched by the last war. Many guests visit the town's marketplace and the Nikolausbrücke (a historic bridge). Calw has begun catering to the tourist trade, with many shops, bistros, restaurants, and ice-cream parlors.

+ A shopping center built around 2000 borders the historic center to the north. One of the cultural high points of the calendar in Calw is the Calw Hermann Hesse Prize. Every year in the Benedictine ruins of the Monastery of St. Peter und Paul the Calw Monastery Summer in Hirsau takes place. (This replaced the Monastery Plays of Hirsau, which were rich in tradition.) Hermann Hesse's Gerbersau stories provide the material for the yearly Gerbersau Reading Summer. A cultural strength of the "Hesse Town" are the Aurelius Boys' Choir. Other musical features include concert series in the Evangelical Lutheran Town Church, and in the St. Aurelius Church.