Originally Posted by Malvolio

You got to look for Westphalia, it's in the west, near Holland and Belgium.

The history of Dortmund goes back as far as 880 AD, when the city was first mentioned in official documents as Throtmanni. It was a small village at that time. In 1152 the emperor Barbarossa came to Dortmund and rebuilt the town, which had been destroyed in a fire shortly before. For two years Dortmund was the residence of Barbarossa - a short time, but afterwards it grew to become one of the most powerful towns of the empire. In the 13th century Dortmund joined the Hanseatic League. It attained the status of an Imperial Free City, i.e. it was directly subordinated to the emperor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dortmund