Meßkirch

Meßkirch (German: [ˈmɛsˌkɪʁç] ^ⓘ; Swabian: Mässkirch) is a town in the district of Sigmaringen in Baden-Württemberg in Germany.

The town was the residence of the counts of Zimmern, widely known through Count Froben Christoph's Zimmern Chronicle (1559–1566).

The municipality is composed of following villages and hamlets:

♯The Ringgenbach river flows through Dietershofen, then Ringgenbach, before its confluence into the Ablach east of Leitishofen

†Heudorf is a location on the Upper Swabian Baroque Route

‡Menningen-Leitishofen was formerly a stop on the extant Radolfzell–Mengen railway

Meßkirch is the birthplace of composer Conradin Kreutzer, archbishop Conrad Gröber, writer and Georg Büchner Prize winner Arnold Stadler and, most famously, the philosopher Martin Heidegger. Also included are the well-known brewers Johann Nepomuk Schalk and his sons Herrmann and Oscar who began the Schalk Brewery in Newark, New Jersey, the first to bring lager beer to New Jersey. The town's name is also connected with a Renaissance painter whose provisional name is Master of Meßkirch. His Adoration of the Magi can be seen in the church of St. Martin. Katharina von Zimmern (1478-1547), the last abbess of the Fraumünster Abbey in Zürich, was born in Meßkirch.

The Bodenseesender radio transmitter in the nearby village of Rohrdorf was turned off in February 2012.