Breitenthal, Rhineland-Palatinate
Encyclopedia
Breitenthal (Hunsrückisch
: Bränel) is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality
belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde
, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld
district
in Rhineland-Palatinate
, Germany
. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein
, whose seat is in the like-named municipality
.
into the Nahe valley south of the Idar Forest
in an area facing east inside a bend in the river Hosenbach. In the southwest, the land slopes off steeply near the municipal limits into the Fischbach valley. Breitenthal’s range of elevations is 187 m, from its lowest point of 330 m above sea level
at the foot of the Schielenbach (49°47′28"N 7°19′34"W), to its highest of 517 m above sea level in the Sangwald/Jungenwald (forest; 49°48′21"N 7°18′30"W).
, Wickenrodt
, Niederhosenbach
, Herrstein
, Mörschied
and Weiden
. The nearest major town is Idar-Oberstein
on the Deutsche Edelsteinstraße (“German Gem Road”).
, the Breitenthal area is characterized by slate
(stratigraphy
: Hunsrück slate; petrography
: claystone
and siltstone
with traces of sandstone
). This arose from clayey/sandy depositions from great rivers on the Old Red Continent
that were submerged in a deep sea, sinking to the sea floor in the Upper Devonian
and the Lower Carboniferous
. These deposits were later folded
and, as part of the Variscan orogeny
, once more lifted up
. The tectonic forces along a southeast-northwest axis during this folding were what gave rise to the almost upright-standing slate areas, which were also thereby given the fissility
that allowed them to be split into thin sheets that would be so important much later on to the local economy.
The fossil
s in Breitenthal slate are either encrusted with a thin layer of pyrite
or formed of fine crystal
s (<20 µm).
The municipal area’s northwesternmost corner in the Rhaunen State Forest (Sangwald and Jungenwald) is part of a Taunus
quartzite
block, whose continuation can also be seen in the higher elevations to the west, namely the Sandkopf, the Wildenburger Kopf and the Mörschieder Burr (stratigraphy: Taunus quartzite; petrography: quartz sandstone and quartzitic sandstone with traces of claystone and siltstone).
Geological risks arise from abandoned mines in the Schielenbach. Not only are their shafts in the ground formerly affording access to underground slatemines, but also the dangers inherent in old slate heaps at the mines.
with a prevailing wind direction from southwest to northwest. The topographically favourable location of the municipality’s main centre in a hollow sloping gently towards the east confers a somewhat more favourable climate than that which prevails in nearby places. Very seldom is there hot and humid
weather here.
Because Breitenthal lies alee
of the Wildenburg mountain ridge to the west and the Idar Forest to the north, showers and storms, as well as mean and absolute wind speed, are significantly less intense than would be expected given the synoptic
structure.
In the odd case when Breitenthal finds itself on the windward side of the Idar Forest, there can be prolonged rainfall and low cloud ceilings
ahead of warm front
s as long as the wind is out of the south (between 150° and 210°) and the dew point
spread is only slight.
The village is practically fog
-free; only radiation fog is seen now and then, as well as the odd advection fog inflow from the Hosenbach valley within the framework of a local atmospheric circulation that forms with low-gradient anticyclonic
weather systems.
When there is a slight westerly wind, it can sometimes bring about an advection-induced hill fog on the saddle south of the village (in the training ground area) if moist air flowing from the Schielenbach condenses once it is lifted up. The village itself is not usually affected by this.
Extreme weather in the form of summertime hot-weather thunderstorm
s arising in the Nahe valley can in times of overlying southeasterly upper air flows be swept over the Hosenbach valley to Breitenthal. These storms are made all the more intense by lifting processes with orographically induced increased strength, leading to unusually great amounts of precipitation
within a short time. It was on the occasion of one such event that the lower-lying sections of the village’s new development area experienced flooded basements, prompting improvements in surface-water removal systems through changes to the drainage ditches.
The village, which had its first documentary mention in 1282 as Breydendale, sprang from an estate established to supply the lordly family, and together with the neighbouring village of Oberhosenbach
formed a Rhinegravial and Waldgravial
high court
in the Rhinegravial-Waldgravial Amt of Wildenburg. Once the French
had auction
ed off the lordly holdings to private owners as national property (bien national), Breitenthal could develop itself as a free village.
Archaeological
finds from the Bronze Age
have led to the assumption that there was human settlement then within what are now the municipality’s limits. In the cadastral area known as Hirtenbösch and in the Hardtwald (forest), traces of settlement and gravesites from early Hallstatt times
and La Tène times
have been unearthed. Furthermore, in the area of the now vanished village of Battenhofen, clear signs of a Roman
presence have been found in several spots right near the Roman road.
The estate of Breitenthal (Breidendale) was mentioned in a 1282 document with which Konrad von Schmidtburg
transferred the estate to his brother Gottfried von Kyrburg. In 1318, the Dinghof (lordly estate with lower jurisdiction) of Breidindeil was transferred by the Waldgrave
Friedrich zu Kyrburg to Archbishop of Trier Baldwin, who at once enfeoffed the Waldgrave with his own former holding as an Electoral-Trier fief. Beginning in 1409, Breitenthal belonged to the Amt of Wildenburg with which it passed in 1515 to the Rhinegrave and Waldgrave of Kyrburg. After the Old Kyrburg line had died out, it passed to the Old Dhaun line of the Rhinegraves and Waldgraves. After this line split, a three-fourths share of the ownership went to the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves of Grumbach, while each of the Salm-Salms and the Salm-Kyrburgs
got a one-eighth share.
The Waldgraviate and Rhinegraviate of Salm-Kyrburg – as of 1743 the Principality of Salm-Kyrburg – stood as an Imperially immediate territory from 1499 until the Treaty of Lunéville
in 1801. The capital was Kirn
. After the Principality of Salm-Kyrburg was conquered in 1794 and 1795 by French Revolutionary
troops and annexed
by France
in 1798, the Holy Roman Empire
ceded
the country to France in the Treaty of Lunéville. The Princes lived mainly in Paris
, where Prince Friedrich III of Salm-Kyburg was put to death by guillotine
in the Reign of Terror
in 1794.
In the Thirty Years' War
, the region was occupied by Spanish
troops after the Catholic League
’s victory over the Protestant Union
at the Battles of Wimpfen
and Höchst
in 1620, whereafter it bore a heavy burden as Spain’s unwilling host. No documents about Breitenthal from this time are known, but according to oral history, a number of people from both Breitenthal and Niederhosenbach who had tried to flee were surrounded by Spanish (Brabantish
) soldiers in the area of the Jammereiche (“Moaning Oak”) on the boundary between these two municipalities and horribly killed.
After the Thirty Years’ War came Lorrainian invasions and French king Louis XIV’s
War of the Reunions
with the Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession). In the face of the Lorrainian troops, the local lords (the Rhinegraves, the Duke of Palatinate-Zweibrücken and the Lords of Oberstein) joined forces in 1651 and, for their small population, fielded quite a large army of 1,700 infantry
men and 300 cavalry
men, who were stationed at the Wildenburg (castle
) and in Herrstein, and who were under Rhinegrave Johann Ludwig’s overall command. Already in December 1651, and again in 1652, there were two battles between Herrstein and the Wildenburg, which was destroyed as a result of the encounters. The Lorrainians were, however, defeated in both battles, and driven away. A focal point in the struggle was the ridge between the Fischbach and Oberwörresbach
, which is visible across the Schielenbach from Breitenthal. Only in 1713, though, with the Treaty of Utrecht
, did the area get a chance to regenerate after 93 years of fighting.
With its splintered territory, the Rhinegravial-Waldgravial domain was rather backward, even for its time. Until the French Revolutionary occupation in 1795, the people were unfree serfs
who were subject to their lord’s ill codified justice system.
The Hunsrück robber and outlaw Johannes Bückler, known as Schinderhannes
, was suspected of having committed an offence in Breitenthal. During an interrogation that included 565 questions, he was asked in Question 297 whether he “also [knew] nothing about the theft of beehives that happened to Philipp Dörr of Breitenthal, in the month of Vendémiaire
last in the garden abutting his house.” Schinderhannes denied any knowledge.
Between 15 and 17 December 1795, there were clashes between French and Austrian troops on a line from Hennweiler
through Wickenrodt
to Asbach
, and therefore in the Breitenthal area, too. The Austrians were overwhelmed and retreated. The neighbouring, Sponheim
village, Niederhosenbach
, was sternly punished by the French for supporting the Austrians. On 30 December 1795, a ceasefire
went into effect, after which Breitenthal, along with the rest of the region, came into French hands.
Under Napoleon
ic administration after the conquest of the lands on the Rhine’s left bank in 1795, Breitenthal was a commune
in the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Hottenbach in the canton
of Herrstein in the arrondissement
of Birkenfeld in the Department of Sarre, established in 1798 as part of the French First Republic
, becoming in 1804 the First French Empire
. This, at least, spelt the end of serfdom for the local inhabitants; the Rhinegraves and Waldgraves lost their privileges over the peasants, who could now fish and hunt more or less unhindered. Tithes were abolished, and equality before the law
and the freedom to settle were enacted. The local inhabitants became free French citizens, with all attendant rights and obligations, after the Treaty of Lunéville of 9 February 1801. The Code civil
was introduced. Disadvantageous, though, were the taxes, which were quite high, and the compulsory military service.
The French era ended in January 1814 with the occupation by Blücher’s
Russia
n troops. The region first found itself under the Generalgouvernement Mittelrhein, a provisory body run by the Prussia
ns, but by 16 June 1814, it had been put under the joint Imperial and Royal Austrian
and Royal Bavarian
Landesadministrationskommission. As of 2 June 1815, the area around Herrstein was awarded to Prussia, and administered as the Oberstein district, on the basis of the 25th article of the concluding act of the Congress of Vienna
. In the course of the implementation of the Concert of Europe
after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, though, Prussia had to indemnify several lesser rulers with pieces of territory on the Rhine’s left bank under Article 49 of the concluding act of the Congress of Vienna. Thus, in 1817, Breitenthal, along with the whole Birkenfeld region from Kirnsulzbach
in the east to Selbach (nowadays an outlying centre of Nohfelden
in the Saarland
) in the west, was ceded to the Oldenburg-ruled Principality of Birkenfeld (as of 1919, this became the Birkenfeld section of Oldenburg).
During this time, the village belonged to the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Herrstein. As a result of this rather arbitrary border (the criterion for forming a territorial unit was a population figure of 20,000), Breitenthal wound up a border town
. While Oberhosenbach
, Wickenrodt
and Weiden
were likewise Oldenburg territory, the neighbouring municipalities of Sulzbach
and Hottenbach
were Prussian territory. This border persisted as a district boundary between the Birkenfeld and Bernkastel districts even after German Unification
and indeed as late as 1969, the time of administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate
. It is still the boundary between the Verbandsgemeinden of Herrstein and Rhaunen
.
In 1883, there was an anthrax
outbreak in Breitenthal that claimed three lives. The epidemic began with the consumption of an infected animal. News of the outbreak appeared in newspapers all over Germany.
Seventeen men from Breitenthal either fell or went missing
in the First World War, all in fighting on the Western Front
in Flanders
, Picardy
, Champagne
, on the Meuse
around Verdun
and in the Vosges
.
After the First World War, the region once again found itself under French administration. On 30 June 1930, the last French troops left the Rhineland
, ending the occupation.
Under §8(1) of the Greater Hamburg Act enacted by the Nazis during the Third Reich
on 1 April 1937, the Birkenfeld section of Oldenburg was ceded to Prussia – which was still a distinct entity within Germany even then – becoming a district within the Rhine Province
. Thus, on 26 October 1937, Breitenthal became Prussian.
Eight men from Breitenthal fell and six went missing in the Second World War. There were other victims, too: five forced labourers from Ukraine
, France
and Belgium
were used in Breitenthal during the war. Air raid
victims, too, from Cologne
and Koblenz
, were temporarily housed in Breitenthal, particularly at the end of the war.
There was little in the way of fighting in Breitenthal. In the winter of 1944-1945, a fighter-bomber
attack on a Breitenthal farmer’s horse-drawn vehicle killed a horse. In sporadic skirmishes with advancing US
forces, two German soldiers were killed near the village.
The Second World War ended in Breitenthal on the afternoon of 18 March 1945 when the village was surrendered without a fight to US troops of either the 41st Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron or the 492nd Armored Field Artillery Battalion of Combat Command B of the 11th Armored Division “Thunderbolt”. The latter had taken up a position near Oberhosenbach to lend the former some supporting fire, if needed. The fire was instead aimed at German infantry, columns of vehicles and anti-aircraft
emplacements. Five German vehicles were destroyed, 15 prisoners
were taken and one German soldier was killed.
After the war, Breitenthal at first kept its rural, agricultural
structure. With the growth of industrialization, though, farming came to be done only as a sideline; by the turn of the 21st century, there were only two fulltime operations left. Although the village has expanded, the population figures have not changed much, despite the doubling of the number of residential buildings, including three designed for several families.
:
at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.
The municipality’s arms
might in English heraldic
language be described thus: Per bend azure a base argent issuant from which two piles transposed of the same, the dexter standing no higher than the fess point and the sinister no higher than the nombril point, and Or a lion rampant gules armed and langued of the first.
The charge
s on the escutcheon’s dexter (armsbearer’s right, viewer’s left) side are canting
for the municipality’s name, Breitenthal, which comes from the German
words breiten Tal (with the archaic spelling of the latter word, with an H). The base form of this expression, without an article, would be breites Tal in the nominative case
since the noun Tal takes the neuter gender
. The phrase is therefore presumably in the dative case
, in which an adjective
takes the —en ending in the neuter when there is an article. The grammatical niceties aside, the words together mean “broad dale” (and are even cognate
with their English
counterparts). The two “piles transposed” (upward-pointing wedgelike charges) with a flat line between them are meant to illustrate a broad dale between two hills, and thereby recall the municipality’s name. The lion on the sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side is a reference to the village’s former allegiance to the Rhinegraves and Waldgraves.
The arms have been borne since 18 May 1962.
, Günzburg district
, Bavaria
A custom is the Meie in which the village women meet once each month to exchange village news over drinks and snacks. The meeting place each time is a different participant’s house.
is a variant of what is otherwise known as the Moselländisch dialect, also known as Hunsrückisch
. In this dialect, the municipality’s name becomes Bränel. In a map entry by French geographers in 1737, the village is named as Breneldal.
. The coppice that once stood next to the grove was felled quite recently, leaving the grove standing alone as a prominent landmark.
was the first of Rhineland-Palatinate’s now three independent women’s football clubs. DSG Breitenthal’s Team 1 plays in the Verbandsliga Südwest and its Team 1b plays in the Bezirksliga Nahe.
The gymnastic and sport club TuS Breitenthal / Oberhosenbach is a sport club with a broad offering of activities. The football department’s first team currently plays in the Kreisliga West I.
The Singgemeinschaft Breitenthal is a mixed choir
integrated into the Nahe-Hunsrück-Chor (choir). The choir is a successor to the Männergesangverein Breitenthal, a men’s choir established in 1892. This became a mixed choir after 1919. When the Second World War ended, so did singing in Breitenthal choirs, at least for a few years. The first new choir to arise in the village was a women’s choir that sang mainly at burials. Only in late 1955 did the new choir, now known as the Singgemeinschaft (“Singing Association”), come into being.
The Förderverein der Freiwilligen Feuerwehr Breitenthal (“Breitenthal Fire Brigade Promotional Association”) set itself up after restructuring of the firefighting establishment within the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein. In 2000, a new concept in firefighting came into force, one that took into account the demographic development and changes to commercial structures in the municipalities. The local fire brigades were gathered together in “launching” areas in such a way that each local brigade remained a standalone brigade. This was meant to ensure, especially during the daytime, that enough firefighting personnel were available to keep to the 8-minute response time set forth by law. The Promotional Association supports the Breitenthal local fire brigade with both personnel and materiel.
The Schalke-Fanclub Bräneler Knappen was founded on 1 March 2008 and offers local fans of FC Schalke 04
a home base.
’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:
Predominating among these houses – even among the newer ones that were built in the 1950s in rustic style – is the typical Hunsrück Quereinhaus (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street) with the eaves facing the street. The noteworthy – and also interesting from a cultural history perspective – more lavish buildings in the village are built as scattered homesteads, expressing something of the size of the owner’s estate and his social standing. The new building developments are structured and laid out in contemporary fashion.
In Breitenthal, little in the way of old building is still preserved. Of cultural-historical importance is the property at Oldenburger Straße 9, which has a freestanding house surrounded by a hook-shaped commercial wing marked “1856”; as such it is one of the most northerly examples of this building form, which is also rare in this region. Particularly noteworthy are the weightbearing sandstone
columns on the commercial wing where it faces the street.
The village’s oldest building is a scattered estate at Oldenburger Straße 10 (see above), marked “1832” above the door, which is, however, essentially from the 17th century. The succession of owners is known back to 1660. The Classicist
front door with a leaded window
, curved panes and old lock
s, was removed during renovation work in the 1990s. The old schoolhouse from 1840, on whose upper floor the classrooms were found, is in a very bad state and currently stands empty.
New building developments were opened up on the village’s northern outskirts in the 1950s and on its northwestern outskirts in the 1970s. As planned, the newer development was expanded a few years ago with the addition of the building plots west of Waldstraße and along the street “Im Forstgarten”.
Very recently, there has been a greater amount of work aiming to fill in gaps in the streetscape in the old village to avoid “urban decay
” in the municipality’s original centre. Unlike many places in the region, Breitenthal has very few buildings that stand empty or are unfit for use.
– locally Fastnacht – ball with presentations and lively contributions. Over the years, certain groups have managed to come out as the ball programme’s headers. The gymnastic and sport club does the staging while the volunteer fire brigade does the men’s ballet. Then there are the “well informed witches”.
The Sportfest staged by the Breitenthal/Oberhosenbach gymnastic and sport club is held over four days each year in late May and early June. As one of the region’s first great village festivals each year. Saturday evening, with its popular music bands filling the programme, is an especially strong draw.
At irregular intervals, the Leckschmier-Kirb (“Lekvar
Fair”) is held, at which great kettles of homemade Leckschmier, as it is locally known (Latwerge in standard High German
), are cooked over open fires and marketed along with homemade sourdough
bread.
The Quetsche-Kirb was an event staged by the Braun Inn (Gasthaus Braun), at which freshly baked Zwetschge (a plum
variety) cakes could be eaten in great numbers, mostly with Kirner beer, or singly with coffee
.
The Singing Association’s theatre group produces a folk play at irregular intervals, usually at Easter
, whose contents and language are often adapted to traditional Breitenthal norms. This is presented at the hall with a stage at the Braun Inn.
quarrystones were used as a building material. Given the low level of processing that this stone required, it was mined in pits on the surface rather than underground, despite the problematic geological structure of Hunsrück slate. In 1824, when the Oldenburg government issued a ban on thatches
, there was suddenly a great demand for a roofing material that did not burn. The thin sheets of slate used for this could only be mined underground because of the difficulty of processing the stone.
Until the early 1960s, high-quality slate was still being mined and processed in the Schielenbach to the village’s southwest. The mining rights were leased mostly to Breitenthal citizens by the municipality. Many Breitenthalers earned extra income – often as a secondary job – doing this, even though by today’s standards the working conditions were very unfavourable. Local geological peculiarities meant that the slate could only be mined underground, not quarried at the surface: since the slate in the Breitenthal area stood steeply upright, and because only a small part of it was technically exploitable, mining had to proceed right into the mountain. (Around the Schielenbach, many old borehole
s can still be found; they all belong to the same mining complex.) Any meaningful processing of the material thus mined could then only be done as long as it was moist from groundwater
. This in turn meant that the processing had to be done on site, and this is still witnessed today by the great waste heaps in the Schielenbach former mining area.
Today, the municipality’s main economic function is as a residential community housing commuters
and Kreisstraße 26 from Niederhosenbach
within the municipality.
The southern stretch of the planned Hunsrückspange (“Hunsrück link”) is to come from the Fischbach valley and through the Schielenbach by way of the Breitenthal municipal area, thereby negotiating a change in elevation of 120 m over a distance of one kilometre. To keep the gradient to no more than 8%, extensive alignment measures will need to be undertaken. The municipality’s residential and transport areas, at 11.2% of Breitenthal’s municipal area, currently exceed the average for Rhineland-Palatinate Ortsgemeinden in the same size class (9.0%) by 27%. The project’s implementation will further worsen this situation, which is why this highway’s planned alignment is the subject of much controversy.
Bus route 346 (Idar-Oberstein
- Herrstein - Wickenrodt) run by Omnibusverkehr Rhein-Nahe (ORN) links the municipality with the middle centre
of Idar-Oberstein. Special buses are used to ferry children to and from school or kindergarten
in Niederwörresbach
.
The nearest railway stations are at Idar-Oberstein and Kirn
, from which run hourly trains to Mainz
/Frankfurt
or Saarbrücken
on the Nahe Valley Railway.
Frankfurt-Hahn Airport
lies 19 km to Breitenthal’s north and can be reached in 20 minutes.
Local, regional and long-distance cycle and hiking
paths, such as the Sirona-Weg and the Saar-Hunsrück-Steig (Traumschleife Mittelalterpfad) lead either through or right by the village.
operations. One specializes in hog
raising and fattening. Six other businesses are located in Breitenthal.
In the way of health services, there are two general practitioner
s and one dentist
in neighbouring Herrstein. The nearest hospital
is in Idar-Oberstein.
Breitenthal’s Internet
access comes by way of a DSL
service provider
.
lumberjacks were housed there for a while), which is mainly used as a youth centre and a meeting room for TuS Breitenthal (gymnastic and sport club), and shower and changing rooms. In the attic are both a gymnastic and exercise room and a church room, where the Wickenrodt Evangelical
parish holds its services.
The municipal graveyard with its mortuary, built in 1966, lies on the village’s southeastern outskirts on Kreisstraße 26 on the way to Niederhosenbach
.
TuS Breitenthal/Oberhosenbach has at its disposal a grass-covered sporting ground on the way out of the village towards Oberhosenbach (and actually within Oberhosenbach’s limits). Nearby are a small playground and a football pitch. South of the village, on the way to the Jammereiche, on a meadow, lies a floodlit
drill ground, which serves the gymnastic and sport club’s football teams as a training ground. DSG Breitenthal ’95 has no sporting ground at its disposal in Breitenthal. They play and train at TuS Tiefenstein’s sport facilities in Idar-Oberstein
.
Hunsrückisch
Hunsrückisch is a German dialect spoken in the Hunsrück region of Germany . This mountainous region of Germany has long been an exporter of immigrants to the United States, Canada, Brazil, Australia and other parts of the world....
: Bränel) is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality
Municipalities of Germany
Municipalities are the lowest level of territorial division in Germany. This may be the fourth level of territorial division in Germany, apart from those states which include Regierungsbezirke , where municipalities then become the fifth level.-Overview:With more than 3,400,000 inhabitants, the...
belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde
Verbandsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde is an administrative unit in the German Bundesländer of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt.-Rhineland-Palatinate:...
, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld
Birkenfeld (district)
Birkenfeld is a district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Sankt Wendel , Trier-Saarburg, Bernkastel-Wittlich, Rhein-Hunsrück, Bad Kreuznach and Kusel.- History :...
district
Districts of Germany
The districts of Germany are known as , except in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein where they are known simply as ....
in Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein
Herrstein (Verbandsgemeinde)
Herrstein is a Verbandsgemeinde in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The seat of the Verbandsgemeinde is in Herrstein....
, whose seat is in the like-named municipality
Herrstein
Herrstein is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
.
Location
The municipality lies on the slope down from the HunsrückHunsrück
The Hunsrück is a low mountain range in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the river valleys of the Moselle , the Nahe , and the Rhine . The Hunsrück is continued by the Taunus mountains on the eastern side of the Rhine. In the north behind the Moselle it is continued by the Eifel...
into the Nahe valley south of the Idar Forest
Idar Forest
The Idar Forest is part of the Hunsrück low mountain range in the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.- Geography :...
in an area facing east inside a bend in the river Hosenbach. In the southwest, the land slopes off steeply near the municipal limits into the Fischbach valley. Breitenthal’s range of elevations is 187 m, from its lowest point of 330 m above sea level
Sea level
Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...
at the foot of the Schielenbach (49°47′28"N 7°19′34"W), to its highest of 517 m above sea level in the Sangwald/Jungenwald (forest; 49°48′21"N 7°18′30"W).
Land use
Breitenthal’s total area measures 368 ha (3.68 km²), which breaks down thus:- Woodlands – 44.9%
- Farmland – 43.3%
- Residential and transport – 11.1%
- Open water – 0.3%
- Other – 0.4%
Neighbouring municipalities
Breitenthal borders on OberhosenbachOberhosenbach
Oberhosenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
, Wickenrodt
Wickenrodt
Wickenrodt is a municipality in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....
, Niederhosenbach
Niederhosenbach
Niederhosenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.-Location:The...
, Herrstein
Herrstein
Herrstein is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
, Mörschied
Mörschied
Mörschied is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.-Location:The municipality...
and Weiden
Weiden, Rhineland-Palatinate
Weiden is a municipality near the city of Idar-Oberstein in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....
. The nearest major town is Idar-Oberstein
Idar-Oberstein
Idar-Oberstein is a town in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. As a Große kreisangehörige Stadt , it assumes some of the responsibilities that for smaller municipalities in the district are assumed by the district administration...
on the Deutsche Edelsteinstraße (“German Gem Road”).
Geology
GeologicallyGeology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
, the Breitenthal area is characterized by slate
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...
(stratigraphy
Stratigraphy
Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, studies rock layers and layering . It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks....
: Hunsrück slate; petrography
Petrography
Petrography is a branch of petrology that focuses on detailed descriptions of rocks. Someone who studies petrography is called a petrographer. The mineral content and the textural relationships within the rock are described in detail. Petrographic descriptions start with the field notes at the...
: claystone
Claystone
Claystone is a geological term used to describe a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed primarily of clay-sized particles ....
and siltstone
Siltstone
Siltstone is a sedimentary rock which has a grain size in the silt range, finer than sandstone and coarser than claystones.- Description :As its name implies, it is primarily composed of silt sized particles, defined as grains 1/16 - 1/256 mm or 4 to 8 on the Krumbein phi scale...
with traces of sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
). This arose from clayey/sandy depositions from great rivers on the Old Red Continent
Euramerica
Euramerica was a minor supercontinent created in the Devonian as the result of a collision between the Laurentian, Baltica, and Avalonia cratons .300 million years ago in the Late Carboniferous tropical rainforests lay over the equator of Euramerica...
that were submerged in a deep sea, sinking to the sea floor in the Upper Devonian
Devonian
The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...
and the Lower Carboniferous
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...
. These deposits were later folded
Fold (geology)
The term fold is used in geology when one or a stack of originally flat and planar surfaces, such as sedimentary strata, are bent or curved as a result of permanent deformation. Synsedimentary folds are those due to slumping of sedimentary material before it is lithified. Folds in rocks vary in...
and, as part of the Variscan orogeny
Variscan orogeny
The Variscan orogeny is a geologic mountain-building event caused by Late Paleozoic continental collision between Euramerica and Gondwana to form the supercontinent of Pangaea.-Naming:...
, once more lifted up
Tectonic uplift
Tectonic uplift is a geological process most often caused by plate tectonics which increases elevation. The opposite of uplift is subsidence, which results in a decrease in elevation. Uplift may be orogenic or isostatic.-Orogenic uplift:...
. The tectonic forces along a southeast-northwest axis during this folding were what gave rise to the almost upright-standing slate areas, which were also thereby given the fissility
Fissility (geology)
Fissility refers to the property of rocks to split along planes of weakness into thin sheets. This is commonly observed in shales, which are sedimentary rocks, and in slates and phyllites, which are foliated metamorphic rocks. The fissility in these rocks is caused by the preferred alignment of...
that allowed them to be split into thin sheets that would be so important much later on to the local economy.
The fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s in Breitenthal slate are either encrusted with a thin layer of pyrite
Pyrite
The mineral pyrite, or iron pyrite, is an iron sulfide with the formula FeS2. This mineral's metallic luster and pale-to-normal, brass-yellow hue have earned it the nickname fool's gold because of its resemblance to gold...
or formed of fine crystal
Crystal
A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. The scientific study of crystals and crystal formation is known as crystallography...
s (<20 µm).
The municipal area’s northwesternmost corner in the Rhaunen State Forest (Sangwald and Jungenwald) is part of a Taunus
Taunus
The Taunus is a low mountain range in Hesse, Germany that composes part of the Rhenish Slate Mountains. It is bounded by the river valleys of Rhine, Main and Lahn. On the opposite side of the Rhine, the mountains are continued by the Hunsrück...
quartzite
Quartzite
Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...
block, whose continuation can also be seen in the higher elevations to the west, namely the Sandkopf, the Wildenburger Kopf and the Mörschieder Burr (stratigraphy: Taunus quartzite; petrography: quartz sandstone and quartzitic sandstone with traces of claystone and siltstone).
Geological risks arise from abandoned mines in the Schielenbach. Not only are their shafts in the ground formerly affording access to underground slatemines, but also the dangers inherent in old slate heaps at the mines.
Climate
Breitenthal lies in a zone characterized mainly by an oceanic climateOceanic climate
An oceanic climate, also called marine west coast climate, maritime climate, Cascadian climate and British climate for Köppen climate classification Cfb and subtropical highland for Köppen Cfb or Cwb, is a type of climate typically found along the west coasts at the middle latitudes of some of the...
with a prevailing wind direction from southwest to northwest. The topographically favourable location of the municipality’s main centre in a hollow sloping gently towards the east confers a somewhat more favourable climate than that which prevails in nearby places. Very seldom is there hot and humid
Humidity
Humidity is a term for the amount of water vapor in the air, and can refer to any one of several measurements of humidity. Formally, humid air is not "moist air" but a mixture of water vapor and other constituents of air, and humidity is defined in terms of the water content of this mixture,...
weather here.
Because Breitenthal lies alee
Windward and leeward
Windward is the direction upwind from the point of reference. Leeward is the direction downwind from the point of reference. The side of a ship that is towards the leeward is its lee side. If the vessel is heeling under the pressure of the wind, this will be the "lower side"...
of the Wildenburg mountain ridge to the west and the Idar Forest to the north, showers and storms, as well as mean and absolute wind speed, are significantly less intense than would be expected given the synoptic
Synoptic scale meteorology
The synoptic scale in meteorology is a horizontal length scale of the order of 1000 kilometres or more. This corresponds to a horizontal scale typical of mid-latitude depressions...
structure.
In the odd case when Breitenthal finds itself on the windward side of the Idar Forest, there can be prolonged rainfall and low cloud ceilings
Ceiling (cloud)
- ICAO :The height above the ground or water of the base of the lowest layer of cloud below 6000 meters covering more than halfthe sky.- United Kingdom :...
ahead of warm front
Warm front
A warm front is a density discontinuity located at the leading edge of a homogeneous warm air mass, and is typically located on the equator-facing edge of an isotherm gradient...
s as long as the wind is out of the south (between 150° and 210°) and the dew point
Dew point
The dew point is the temperature to which a given parcel of humid air must be cooled, at constant barometric pressure, for water vapor to condense into liquid water. The condensed water is called dew when it forms on a solid surface. The dew point is a saturation temperature.The dew point is...
spread is only slight.
The village is practically fog
Fog
Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated...
-free; only radiation fog is seen now and then, as well as the odd advection fog inflow from the Hosenbach valley within the framework of a local atmospheric circulation that forms with low-gradient anticyclonic
Anticyclone
An anticyclone is a weather phenomenon defined by the United States' National Weather Service's glossary as "[a] large-scale circulation of winds around a central region of high atmospheric pressure, clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere"...
weather systems.
When there is a slight westerly wind, it can sometimes bring about an advection-induced hill fog on the saddle south of the village (in the training ground area) if moist air flowing from the Schielenbach condenses once it is lifted up. The village itself is not usually affected by this.
Extreme weather in the form of summertime hot-weather thunderstorm
Thunderstorm
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...
s arising in the Nahe valley can in times of overlying southeasterly upper air flows be swept over the Hosenbach valley to Breitenthal. These storms are made all the more intense by lifting processes with orographically induced increased strength, leading to unusually great amounts of precipitation
Precipitation (meteorology)
In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation (also known as one of the classes of hydrometeors, which are atmospheric water phenomena is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation...
within a short time. It was on the occasion of one such event that the lower-lying sections of the village’s new development area experienced flooded basements, prompting improvements in surface-water removal systems through changes to the drainage ditches.
History
This timeline shows the holders of the territory in which Breitenthal has lain over the centuries, from the time of its first documentary mention:The village, which had its first documentary mention in 1282 as Breydendale, sprang from an estate established to supply the lordly family, and together with the neighbouring village of Oberhosenbach
Oberhosenbach
Oberhosenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
formed a Rhinegravial and Waldgravial
Waldgrave
The noble family of the Waldgraves or Wildgraves descended of a division of the House of the Counts of Nahegau in the year 1113....
high court
Blood court
Blood Court or high justice in the Holy Roman Empire referred to the right of a Vogt to hold a criminal court inflicting bodily punishment, including the death penalty.Not every Vogt held the blood court...
in the Rhinegravial-Waldgravial Amt of Wildenburg. Once the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
had auction
Auction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...
ed off the lordly holdings to private owners as national property (bien national), Breitenthal could develop itself as a free village.
Archaeological
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
finds from the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
have led to the assumption that there was human settlement then within what are now the municipality’s limits. In the cadastral area known as Hirtenbösch and in the Hardtwald (forest), traces of settlement and gravesites from early Hallstatt times
Hallstatt culture
The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Central European culture from the 8th to 6th centuries BC , developing out of the Urnfield culture of the 12th century BC and followed in much of Central Europe by the La Tène culture.By the 6th century BC, the Hallstatt culture extended for some...
and La Tène times
La Tène culture
The La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where a rich cache of artifacts was discovered by Hansli Kopp in 1857....
have been unearthed. Furthermore, in the area of the now vanished village of Battenhofen, clear signs of a Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
presence have been found in several spots right near the Roman road.
The estate of Breitenthal (Breidendale) was mentioned in a 1282 document with which Konrad von Schmidtburg
Schmidtburg
Schmidtburg is a ruin of a former castle next to Schneppenbach in Germany. The castle was built up in 926, and was destroyed during the War of the Grand Alliance by French troops in 1688.-External links:**...
transferred the estate to his brother Gottfried von Kyrburg. In 1318, the Dinghof (lordly estate with lower jurisdiction) of Breidindeil was transferred by the Waldgrave
Waldgrave
The noble family of the Waldgraves or Wildgraves descended of a division of the House of the Counts of Nahegau in the year 1113....
Friedrich zu Kyrburg to Archbishop of Trier Baldwin, who at once enfeoffed the Waldgrave with his own former holding as an Electoral-Trier fief. Beginning in 1409, Breitenthal belonged to the Amt of Wildenburg with which it passed in 1515 to the Rhinegrave and Waldgrave of Kyrburg. After the Old Kyrburg line had died out, it passed to the Old Dhaun line of the Rhinegraves and Waldgraves. After this line split, a three-fourths share of the ownership went to the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves of Grumbach, while each of the Salm-Salms and the Salm-Kyrburgs
House of Salm
The House of Salm was a noble family originating in the Belgian Ardennes and ruling Salm. It is above all known for the experiences of the branch which came to be located in the Vosges Mountains and over time came to rule over a principality whose capital was Badonviller then Senones.Its notable...
got a one-eighth share.
The Waldgraviate and Rhinegraviate of Salm-Kyrburg – as of 1743 the Principality of Salm-Kyrburg – stood as an Imperially immediate territory from 1499 until the Treaty of Lunéville
Treaty of Lunéville
The Treaty of Lunéville was signed on 9 February 1801 between the French Republic and the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, negotiating both on behalf of his own domains and of the Holy Roman Empire...
in 1801. The capital was Kirn
Kirn
Kirn is a town in the district of Bad Kreuznach, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the river Nahe, roughly 10 km north-east of Idar-Oberstein and 30 km west of Bad Kreuznach....
. After the Principality of Salm-Kyrburg was conquered in 1794 and 1795 by French Revolutionary
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
troops and annexed
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
by France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in 1798, the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
ceded
Cession
The act of Cession, or to cede, is the assignment of property to another entity. In international law it commonly refers to land transferred by treaty...
the country to France in the Treaty of Lunéville. The Princes lived mainly in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where Prince Friedrich III of Salm-Kyburg was put to death by guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
in the Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
in 1794.
In the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
, the region was occupied by Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
troops after the Catholic League
Catholic League (German)
The German Catholic League was initially a loose confederation of Roman Catholic German states formed on July 10, 1609 to counteract the Protestant Union , whereby the participating states concluded an alliance "for the defence of the Catholic religion and peace within the Empire." Modeled...
’s victory over the Protestant Union
Protestant Union
The Protestant Union or Evangelical Union was a coalition of Protestant German states that was formed in 1608 to defend the rights, lands and person of each member....
at the Battles of Wimpfen
Battle of Wimpfen
The Battle of Wimpfen was a battle in the Bohemian Revolt period of the Thirty Years' War on 6 May 1622 near Wimpfen. The forces of the Holy Roman Empire and Catholic League under Marshal Tilly and Gonzalo de Córdoba defeated the Protestant forces of General Ernst von Mansfeld and Georg Friedrich,...
and Höchst
Battle of Höchst
The Battle of Höchst was fought on June 20, 1622, between the combined army led by Johan Tzerclaes, Count of Tilly and Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba against Protestant forces led by Christian of Brunswick. It was a strategic Roman Catholic victory....
in 1620, whereafter it bore a heavy burden as Spain’s unwilling host. No documents about Breitenthal from this time are known, but according to oral history, a number of people from both Breitenthal and Niederhosenbach who had tried to flee were surrounded by Spanish (Brabantish
Duchy of Brabant
The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries. Its territory consisted essentially of the three modern-day Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant and Antwerp, the Brussels-Capital Region and most of the present-day Dutch province of North Brabant.The Flag of...
) soldiers in the area of the Jammereiche (“Moaning Oak”) on the boundary between these two municipalities and horribly killed.
After the Thirty Years’ War came Lorrainian invasions and French king Louis XIV’s
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
War of the Reunions
War of the Reunions
The War of the Reunions was a short conflict between France and Spain and its allies. It was fueled by the long-running desire of Louis XIV to conquer new lands, many of them comprising part of the Spanish Netherlands, along France's northern and eastern borders...
with the Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession). In the face of the Lorrainian troops, the local lords (the Rhinegraves, the Duke of Palatinate-Zweibrücken and the Lords of Oberstein) joined forces in 1651 and, for their small population, fielded quite a large army of 1,700 infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
men and 300 cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
men, who were stationed at the Wildenburg (castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
) and in Herrstein, and who were under Rhinegrave Johann Ludwig’s overall command. Already in December 1651, and again in 1652, there were two battles between Herrstein and the Wildenburg, which was destroyed as a result of the encounters. The Lorrainians were, however, defeated in both battles, and driven away. A focal point in the struggle was the ridge between the Fischbach and Oberwörresbach
Oberwörresbach
Oberwörresbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
, which is visible across the Schielenbach from Breitenthal. Only in 1713, though, with the Treaty of Utrecht
Treaty of Utrecht
The Treaty of Utrecht, which established the Peace of Utrecht, comprises a series of individual peace treaties, rather than a single document, signed by the belligerents in the War of Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht in March and April 1713...
, did the area get a chance to regenerate after 93 years of fighting.
With its splintered territory, the Rhinegravial-Waldgravial domain was rather backward, even for its time. Until the French Revolutionary occupation in 1795, the people were unfree serfs
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
who were subject to their lord’s ill codified justice system.
The Hunsrück robber and outlaw Johannes Bückler, known as Schinderhannes
Schinderhannes
Johannes Bückler , nicknamed Schinderhannes, was a German outlaw who orchestrated one of the most fascinating crime sprees in German history. He was born at Miehlen, the son of Johann and Anna Maria Bückler. He began an apprenticeship to a tanner, but turned to petty theft. At 16 he was arrested...
, was suspected of having committed an offence in Breitenthal. During an interrogation that included 565 questions, he was asked in Question 297 whether he “also [knew] nothing about the theft of beehives that happened to Philipp Dörr of Breitenthal, in the month of Vendémiaire
Vendémiaire
Vendémiaire was the first month in the French Republican Calendar. The month was named after the French word vendange .Vendémiaire was the first month of the autumn quarter . It started on the day of the autumnal equinox, which fell between 22 September and 24 September, inclusive. It thus ended...
last in the garden abutting his house.” Schinderhannes denied any knowledge.
Between 15 and 17 December 1795, there were clashes between French and Austrian troops on a line from Hennweiler
Hennweiler
Hennweiler is a municipality in the district of Bad Kreuznach in Rhineland-Palatinate, in western Germany....
through Wickenrodt
Wickenrodt
Wickenrodt is a municipality in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....
to Asbach
Asbach, Birkenfeld
Asbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
, and therefore in the Breitenthal area, too. The Austrians were overwhelmed and retreated. The neighbouring, Sponheim
County of Sponheim
The County of Sponheim was an independent territory in the Holy Roman Empire which lasted from the 11th century until the early 19th century...
village, Niederhosenbach
Niederhosenbach
Niederhosenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.-Location:The...
, was sternly punished by the French for supporting the Austrians. On 30 December 1795, a ceasefire
Ceasefire
A ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces...
went into effect, after which Breitenthal, along with the rest of the region, came into French hands.
Under Napoleon
Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
ic administration after the conquest of the lands on the Rhine’s left bank in 1795, Breitenthal was a commune
Communes of France
The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...
in the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Hottenbach in the canton
Cantons of France
The cantons of France are territorial subdivisions of the French Republic's 342 arrondissements and 101 departments.Apart from their role as organizational units in certain aspects of the administration of public services and justice, the chief purpose of the cantons today is to serve as...
of Herrstein in the arrondissement
Arrondissements of France
The 101 French departments are divided into 342 arrondissements, which may be translated into English as districts.The capital of an arrondissement/district is called a subprefecture...
of Birkenfeld in the Department of Sarre, established in 1798 as part of the French First Republic
French First Republic
The French First Republic was founded on 22 September 1792, by the newly established National Convention. The First Republic lasted until the declaration of the First French Empire in 1804 under Napoleon I...
, becoming in 1804 the First French Empire
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
. This, at least, spelt the end of serfdom for the local inhabitants; the Rhinegraves and Waldgraves lost their privileges over the peasants, who could now fish and hunt more or less unhindered. Tithes were abolished, and equality before the law
Equality before the law
Equality before the law or equality under the law or legal egalitarianism is the principle under which each individual is subject to the same laws....
and the freedom to settle were enacted. The local inhabitants became free French citizens, with all attendant rights and obligations, after the Treaty of Lunéville of 9 February 1801. The Code civil
Napoleonic code
The Napoleonic Code — or Code Napoléon — is the French civil code, established under Napoléon I in 1804. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified...
was introduced. Disadvantageous, though, were the taxes, which were quite high, and the compulsory military service.
The French era ended in January 1814 with the occupation by Blücher’s
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Fürst von Wahlstatt , Graf , later elevated to Fürst von Wahlstatt, was a Prussian Generalfeldmarschall who led his army against Napoleon I at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in 1813 and at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 with the Duke of Wellington.He is...
Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n troops. The region first found itself under the Generalgouvernement Mittelrhein, a provisory body run by the Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
ns, but by 16 June 1814, it had been put under the joint Imperial and Royal Austrian
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
and Royal Bavarian
Kingdom of Bavaria
The Kingdom of Bavaria was a German state that existed from 1806 to 1918. The Bavarian Elector Maximilian IV Joseph of the House of Wittelsbach became the first King of Bavaria in 1806 as Maximilian I Joseph. The monarchy would remain held by the Wittelsbachs until the kingdom's dissolution in 1918...
Landesadministrationskommission. As of 2 June 1815, the area around Herrstein was awarded to Prussia, and administered as the Oberstein district, on the basis of the 25th article of the concluding act of the Congress of Vienna
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
. In the course of the implementation of the Concert of Europe
Concert of Europe
The Concert of Europe , also known as the Congress System after the Congress of Vienna, was the balance of power that existed in Europe from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the outbreak of World War I , albeit with major alterations after the revolutions of 1848...
after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, though, Prussia had to indemnify several lesser rulers with pieces of territory on the Rhine’s left bank under Article 49 of the concluding act of the Congress of Vienna. Thus, in 1817, Breitenthal, along with the whole Birkenfeld region from Kirnsulzbach
Kirn-Sulzbach
Kirn-Sulzbach is a Stadtteil of Kirn in the district of Bad Kreuznach, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....
in the east to Selbach (nowadays an outlying centre of Nohfelden
Nohfelden
Nohfelden is a municipality in the district of Sankt Wendel, in Saarland, Germany. It is situated approx. 15 km north of Sankt Wendel, and 20 km southwest of Idar-Oberstein....
in the Saarland
Saarland
Saarland is one of the sixteen states of Germany. The capital is Saarbrücken. It has an area of 2570 km² and 1,045,000 inhabitants. In both area and population, it is the smallest state in Germany other than the city-states...
) in the west, was ceded to the Oldenburg-ruled Principality of Birkenfeld (as of 1919, this became the Birkenfeld section of Oldenburg).
During this time, the village belonged to the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Herrstein. As a result of this rather arbitrary border (the criterion for forming a territorial unit was a population figure of 20,000), Breitenthal wound up a border town
Border town
A border town is a town or city close to the boundary between two countries, states or regions. Usually the term implies that it is one of the things the town is most famous for. Border towns can have highly cosmopolitan communities, a feature they share with port cities...
. While Oberhosenbach
Oberhosenbach
Oberhosenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
, Wickenrodt
Wickenrodt
Wickenrodt is a municipality in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....
and Weiden
Weiden, Rhineland-Palatinate
Weiden is a municipality near the city of Idar-Oberstein in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....
were likewise Oldenburg territory, the neighbouring municipalities of Sulzbach
Sulzbach, Birkenfeld
Sulzbach is a municipality in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....
and Hottenbach
Hottenbach
Hottenbach is a municipality in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....
were Prussian territory. This border persisted as a district boundary between the Birkenfeld and Bernkastel districts even after German Unification
Unification of Germany
The formal unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871 at the Versailles Palace's Hall of Mirrors in France. Princes of the German states gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm of Prussia as Emperor Wilhelm of the German...
and indeed as late as 1969, the time of administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....
. It is still the boundary between the Verbandsgemeinden of Herrstein and Rhaunen
Rhaunen (Verbandsgemeinde)
Rhaunen is a Verbandsgemeinde in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The seat of the Verbandsgemeinde is in Rhaunen....
.
In 1883, there was an anthrax
Anthrax
Anthrax is an acute disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Most forms of the disease are lethal, and it affects both humans and other animals...
outbreak in Breitenthal that claimed three lives. The epidemic began with the consumption of an infected animal. News of the outbreak appeared in newspapers all over Germany.
Seventeen men from Breitenthal either fell or went missing
Missing in action
Missing in action is a casualty Category assigned under the Status of Missing to armed services personnel who are reported missing during active service. They may have been killed, wounded, become a prisoner of war, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave can be positively...
in the First World War, all in fighting on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
in Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
, Picardy
Picardy
This article is about the historical French province. For other uses, see Picardy .Picardy is a historical province of France, in the north of France...
, Champagne
Champagne, France
Champagne is a historic province in the northeast of France, now best known for the sparkling white wine that bears its name.Formerly ruled by the counts of Champagne, its western edge is about 100 miles east of Paris. The cities of Troyes, Reims, and Épernay are the commercial centers of the area...
, on the Meuse
Meuse
Meuse is a department in northeast France, named after the River Meuse.-History:Meuse is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
around Verdun
Verdun
Verdun is a city in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.Verdun is the biggest city in Meuse, although the capital of the department is the slightly smaller city of Bar-le-Duc.- History :...
and in the Vosges
Vosges
Vosges is a French department, named after the local mountain range. It contains the hometown of Joan of Arc, Domrémy.-History:The Vosges department is one of the original 83 departments of France, created on February 9, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was made of territories that had been...
.
After the First World War, the region once again found itself under French administration. On 30 June 1930, the last French troops left the Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
, ending the occupation.
Under §8(1) of the Greater Hamburg Act enacted by the Nazis during the Third Reich
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
on 1 April 1937, the Birkenfeld section of Oldenburg was ceded to Prussia – which was still a distinct entity within Germany even then – becoming a district within the Rhine Province
Rhine Province
The Rhine Province , also known as Rhenish Prussia or synonymous to the Rhineland , was the westernmost province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia, within the German Reich, from 1822-1946. It was created from the provinces of the Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg...
. Thus, on 26 October 1937, Breitenthal became Prussian.
Eight men from Breitenthal fell and six went missing in the Second World War. There were other victims, too: five forced labourers from Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
were used in Breitenthal during the war. Air raid
Strategic bombing
Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in a total war with the goal of defeating an enemy nation-state by destroying its economic ability and public will to wage war rather than destroying its land or naval forces...
victims, too, from Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
and Koblenz
Koblenz
Koblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck and its monument are situated.As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the...
, were temporarily housed in Breitenthal, particularly at the end of the war.
There was little in the way of fighting in Breitenthal. In the winter of 1944-1945, a fighter-bomber
Fighter-bomber
A fighter-bomber is a fixed-wing aircraft with an intended primary role of light tactical bombing and also incorporating certain performance characteristics of a fighter aircraft. This term, although still used, has less significance since the introduction of rockets and guided missiles into aerial...
attack on a Breitenthal farmer’s horse-drawn vehicle killed a horse. In sporadic skirmishes with advancing US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
forces, two German soldiers were killed near the village.
The Second World War ended in Breitenthal on the afternoon of 18 March 1945 when the village was surrendered without a fight to US troops of either the 41st Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron or the 492nd Armored Field Artillery Battalion of Combat Command B of the 11th Armored Division “Thunderbolt”. The latter had taken up a position near Oberhosenbach to lend the former some supporting fire, if needed. The fire was instead aimed at German infantry, columns of vehicles and anti-aircraft
Anti-aircraft warfare
NATO defines air defence as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action." They include ground and air based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and passive measures. It may be to protect naval, ground and air forces...
emplacements. Five German vehicles were destroyed, 15 prisoners
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
were taken and one German soldier was killed.
After the war, Breitenthal at first kept its rural, agricultural
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
structure. With the growth of industrialization, though, farming came to be done only as a sideline; by the turn of the 21st century, there were only two fulltime operations left. Although the village has expanded, the population figures have not changed much, despite the doubling of the number of residential buildings, including three designed for several families.
Population development
Listed here are population figures for selected years – each time as at 31 December – since the Congress of ViennaCongress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
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Municipal council
The council is made up of 8 council members, who were elected by majority votePlurality voting system
The plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member constituencies...
at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.
Coat of arms
The German blazon reads: In schräggestelltem Schild vorne in Blau zwei silberne Spitzen mit breitem Zwischenraum, hinten ein blaubewehrter und -gezungter roter Löwe in Gold.The municipality’s arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
might in English heraldic
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
language be described thus: Per bend azure a base argent issuant from which two piles transposed of the same, the dexter standing no higher than the fess point and the sinister no higher than the nombril point, and Or a lion rampant gules armed and langued of the first.
The charge
Charge (heraldry)
In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon . This may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object or other device...
s on the escutcheon’s dexter (armsbearer’s right, viewer’s left) side are canting
Canting arms
Canting arms are heraldic bearings that represent the bearer's name in a visual pun or rebus. The term cant came into the English language from Anglo-Norman cant, meaning song or singing, from Latin cantāre, and English cognates include canticle, chant, accent, incantation and recant.Canting arms –...
for the municipality’s name, Breitenthal, which comes from the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
words breiten Tal (with the archaic spelling of the latter word, with an H). The base form of this expression, without an article, would be breites Tal in the nominative case
Nominative case
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
since the noun Tal takes the neuter gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
. The phrase is therefore presumably in the dative case
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
, in which an adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
takes the —en ending in the neuter when there is an article. The grammatical niceties aside, the words together mean “broad dale” (and are even cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
with their English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
counterparts). The two “piles transposed” (upward-pointing wedgelike charges) with a flat line between them are meant to illustrate a broad dale between two hills, and thereby recall the municipality’s name. The lion on the sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side is a reference to the village’s former allegiance to the Rhinegraves and Waldgraves.
The arms have been borne since 18 May 1962.
Town partnerships
Breitenthal fosters unofficial but close contacts with the following places: Breitenthal in SchwabenBreitenthal
Breitenthal is a municipality in the district of Günzburg in Bavaria in Germany. The Oberrieder Weiher, a in the region Mittelschwaben popular greenbelt recreation area, is in the municipal area of Breitenthal....
, Günzburg district
Günzburg (district)
Günzburg is a district in Bavaria, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Dillingen, Augsburg, Unterallgäu and Neu-Ulm, and by the state of Baden-Württemberg ....
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
Customs
Characteristic for the region and the village are names for older buildings and members of long-established families.A custom is the Meie in which the village women meet once each month to exchange village news over drinks and snacks. The meeting place each time is a different participant’s house.
Local speech
The Breitenthal dialectDialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
is a variant of what is otherwise known as the Moselländisch dialect, also known as Hunsrückisch
Hunsrückisch
Hunsrückisch is a German dialect spoken in the Hunsrück region of Germany . This mountainous region of Germany has long been an exporter of immigrants to the United States, Canada, Brazil, Australia and other parts of the world....
. In this dialect, the municipality’s name becomes Bränel. In a map entry by French geographers in 1737, the village is named as Breneldal.
Natural monuments
On a hill south of the village stands a grove of trees known as the Jammereiche (“Moaning Oak”), said in the local oral history to have been the scene of ghastly incidents during the Thirty Years' WarThirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
. The coppice that once stood next to the grove was felled quite recently, leaving the grove standing alone as a prominent landmark.
Clubs
Typical of villages in the Hunsrück is a well developed club life. DSG Breitenthal ‘95 e.V.Eingetragener Verein
Eingetragener Verein is a legal status for a registered voluntary association in Germany and Austria. While any group may be called a Verein, registration as eingetragener Verein holds many legal benefits because a registered association may legally function as a corporate body rather than just...
was the first of Rhineland-Palatinate’s now three independent women’s football clubs. DSG Breitenthal’s Team 1 plays in the Verbandsliga Südwest and its Team 1b plays in the Bezirksliga Nahe.
The gymnastic and sport club TuS Breitenthal / Oberhosenbach is a sport club with a broad offering of activities. The football department’s first team currently plays in the Kreisliga West I.
The Singgemeinschaft Breitenthal is a mixed choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
integrated into the Nahe-Hunsrück-Chor (choir). The choir is a successor to the Männergesangverein Breitenthal, a men’s choir established in 1892. This became a mixed choir after 1919. When the Second World War ended, so did singing in Breitenthal choirs, at least for a few years. The first new choir to arise in the village was a women’s choir that sang mainly at burials. Only in late 1955 did the new choir, now known as the Singgemeinschaft (“Singing Association”), come into being.
The Förderverein der Freiwilligen Feuerwehr Breitenthal (“Breitenthal Fire Brigade Promotional Association”) set itself up after restructuring of the firefighting establishment within the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein. In 2000, a new concept in firefighting came into force, one that took into account the demographic development and changes to commercial structures in the municipalities. The local fire brigades were gathered together in “launching” areas in such a way that each local brigade remained a standalone brigade. This was meant to ensure, especially during the daytime, that enough firefighting personnel were available to keep to the 8-minute response time set forth by law. The Promotional Association supports the Breitenthal local fire brigade with both personnel and materiel.
The Schalke-Fanclub Bräneler Knappen was founded on 1 March 2008 and offers local fans of FC Schalke 04
FC Schalke 04
Fußball-Club Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04, commonly known as simply FC Schalke 04 or Schalke , is a German, association-football club originally from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia. Schalke has long been one of the most popular football teams in Germany, even though major...
a home base.
Buildings
The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-PalatinateRhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....
’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:
- Oldenburger Straße 6 – estate complex; house marked 1856, exterior renovation in early 20th century
- Oldenburger Straße 10 – scattered estate; house, partly timber-frameTimber framingTimber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...
, marked 1832, essentially possibly older, timber-frame barn
Streetscape
Breitenthal is, if the new building developments are not counted, like many of the region’s municipalities in that it has a more or less irregular assemblage of (formerly) agricultural buildings along the main street (in this case, Oldenburger Straße) without an identifiable village centre.Predominating among these houses – even among the newer ones that were built in the 1950s in rustic style – is the typical Hunsrück Quereinhaus (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street) with the eaves facing the street. The noteworthy – and also interesting from a cultural history perspective – more lavish buildings in the village are built as scattered homesteads, expressing something of the size of the owner’s estate and his social standing. The new building developments are structured and laid out in contemporary fashion.
In Breitenthal, little in the way of old building is still preserved. Of cultural-historical importance is the property at Oldenburger Straße 9, which has a freestanding house surrounded by a hook-shaped commercial wing marked “1856”; as such it is one of the most northerly examples of this building form, which is also rare in this region. Particularly noteworthy are the weightbearing sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
columns on the commercial wing where it faces the street.
The village’s oldest building is a scattered estate at Oldenburger Straße 10 (see above), marked “1832” above the door, which is, however, essentially from the 17th century. The succession of owners is known back to 1660. The Classicist
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
front door with a leaded window
Leadlight
Leadlights or leaded lights are decorative windows made of small sections of glass supported in lead cames. The technique of creating windows using glass and lead came is discussed at lead came and copper foil glasswork...
, curved panes and old lock
Lock (device)
A lock is a mechanical or electronic fastening device that is released by a physical object or secret information , or combination of more than one of these....
s, was removed during renovation work in the 1990s. The old schoolhouse from 1840, on whose upper floor the classrooms were found, is in a very bad state and currently stands empty.
New building developments were opened up on the village’s northern outskirts in the 1950s and on its northwestern outskirts in the 1970s. As planned, the newer development was expanded a few years ago with the addition of the building plots west of Waldstraße and along the street “Im Forstgarten”.
Very recently, there has been a greater amount of work aiming to fill in gaps in the streetscape in the old village to avoid “urban decay
Urban decay
Urban decay is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude...
” in the municipality’s original centre. Unlike many places in the region, Breitenthal has very few buildings that stand empty or are unfit for use.
Regular events
The local clubs hold a joint CarnivalCarnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
– locally Fastnacht – ball with presentations and lively contributions. Over the years, certain groups have managed to come out as the ball programme’s headers. The gymnastic and sport club does the staging while the volunteer fire brigade does the men’s ballet. Then there are the “well informed witches”.
The Sportfest staged by the Breitenthal/Oberhosenbach gymnastic and sport club is held over four days each year in late May and early June. As one of the region’s first great village festivals each year. Saturday evening, with its popular music bands filling the programme, is an especially strong draw.
At irregular intervals, the Leckschmier-Kirb (“Lekvar
Lekvar
Lekvar is a thick jam or fruit butter. Lekvár is a very thick, sometimes coarse jam of pure ripe fruit. Lekvar is of Central and Eastern European origin....
Fair”) is held, at which great kettles of homemade Leckschmier, as it is locally known (Latwerge in standard High German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
), are cooked over open fires and marketed along with homemade sourdough
Sourdough
Sourdough is a dough containing a Lactobacillus culture, usually in symbiotic combination with yeasts. It is one of two principal means of biological leavening in bread baking, along with the use of cultivated forms of yeast . It is of particular importance in baking rye-based breads, where yeast...
bread.
The Quetsche-Kirb was an event staged by the Braun Inn (Gasthaus Braun), at which freshly baked Zwetschge (a plum
Plum
A plum or gage is a stone fruit tree in the genus Prunus, subgenus Prunus. The subgenus is distinguished from other subgenera in the shoots having a terminal bud and solitary side buds , the flowers in groups of one to five together on short stems, and the fruit having a groove running down one...
variety) cakes could be eaten in great numbers, mostly with Kirner beer, or singly with coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
.
The Singing Association’s theatre group produces a folk play at irregular intervals, usually at Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
, whose contents and language are often adapted to traditional Breitenthal norms. This is presented at the hall with a stage at the Braun Inn.
Economy and infrastructure
Until the late 19th century, crudely worked slateSlate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...
quarrystones were used as a building material. Given the low level of processing that this stone required, it was mined in pits on the surface rather than underground, despite the problematic geological structure of Hunsrück slate. In 1824, when the Oldenburg government issued a ban on thatches
Thatching
Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge , rushes, or heather, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in both tropical and temperate climates...
, there was suddenly a great demand for a roofing material that did not burn. The thin sheets of slate used for this could only be mined underground because of the difficulty of processing the stone.
Until the early 1960s, high-quality slate was still being mined and processed in the Schielenbach to the village’s southwest. The mining rights were leased mostly to Breitenthal citizens by the municipality. Many Breitenthalers earned extra income – often as a secondary job – doing this, even though by today’s standards the working conditions were very unfavourable. Local geological peculiarities meant that the slate could only be mined underground, not quarried at the surface: since the slate in the Breitenthal area stood steeply upright, and because only a small part of it was technically exploitable, mining had to proceed right into the mountain. (Around the Schielenbach, many old borehole
Borehole
A borehole is the generalized term for any narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water or other liquid or gases , as part of a geotechnical investigation, environmental site...
s can still be found; they all belong to the same mining complex.) Any meaningful processing of the material thus mined could then only be done as long as it was moist from groundwater
Groundwater
Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock...
. This in turn meant that the processing had to be done on site, and this is still witnessed today by the great waste heaps in the Schielenbach former mining area.
Today, the municipality’s main economic function is as a residential community housing commuters
Commuting
Commuting is regular travel between one's place of residence and place of work or full time study. It sometimes refers to any regular or often repeated traveling between locations when not work related.- History :...
Transport
Breitenthal is crossed by Landesstraße (State Road) 180, which is met by Kreisstraße (District Road) 23 from WickenrodtWickenrodt
Wickenrodt is a municipality in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....
and Kreisstraße 26 from Niederhosenbach
Niederhosenbach
Niederhosenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.-Location:The...
within the municipality.
The southern stretch of the planned Hunsrückspange (“Hunsrück link”) is to come from the Fischbach valley and through the Schielenbach by way of the Breitenthal municipal area, thereby negotiating a change in elevation of 120 m over a distance of one kilometre. To keep the gradient to no more than 8%, extensive alignment measures will need to be undertaken. The municipality’s residential and transport areas, at 11.2% of Breitenthal’s municipal area, currently exceed the average for Rhineland-Palatinate Ortsgemeinden in the same size class (9.0%) by 27%. The project’s implementation will further worsen this situation, which is why this highway’s planned alignment is the subject of much controversy.
Bus route 346 (Idar-Oberstein
Idar-Oberstein
Idar-Oberstein is a town in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. As a Große kreisangehörige Stadt , it assumes some of the responsibilities that for smaller municipalities in the district are assumed by the district administration...
- Herrstein - Wickenrodt) run by Omnibusverkehr Rhein-Nahe (ORN) links the municipality with the middle centre
Central Place Theory
Central place theory is a geographical theory that seeks to explain the number, size and location of human settlements in an urban system. The theory was created by the German geographer Walter Christaller, who asserted that settlements simply functioned as 'central places' providing services to...
of Idar-Oberstein. Special buses are used to ferry children to and from school or kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...
in Niederwörresbach
Niederwörresbach
Niederwörresbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.Niederwörresbach was...
.
The nearest railway stations are at Idar-Oberstein and Kirn
Kirn
Kirn is a town in the district of Bad Kreuznach, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the river Nahe, roughly 10 km north-east of Idar-Oberstein and 30 km west of Bad Kreuznach....
, from which run hourly trains to Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
/Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
or Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken is the capital of the state of Saarland in Germany. The city is situated at the heart of a metropolitan area that borders on the west on Dillingen and to the north-east on Neunkirchen, where most of the people of the Saarland live....
on the Nahe Valley Railway.
Frankfurt-Hahn Airport
Frankfurt-Hahn Airport
-Cargo airlines:-Other facilities:AirIT Services AG, a subsidiary of Fraport, has its head office in Building 663 at Hahn Airport.-References:*Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982 USAF Reference Series, Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force,...
lies 19 km to Breitenthal’s north and can be reached in 20 minutes.
Local, regional and long-distance cycle and hiking
Hiking
Hiking is an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often in mountainous or other scenic terrain. People often hike on hiking trails. It is such a popular activity that there are numerous hiking organizations worldwide. The health benefits of different types of hiking...
paths, such as the Sirona-Weg and the Saar-Hunsrück-Steig (Traumschleife Mittelalterpfad) lead either through or right by the village.
Established businesses
Breitenthal has two fulltime agriculturalAgriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
operations. One specializes in hog
Domestic pig
The domestic pig is a domesticated animal that traces its ancestry to the wild boar, and is considered a subspecies of the wild boar or a distinct species in its own right. It is likely the wild boar was domesticated as early as 13,000 BC in the Tigris River basin...
raising and fattening. Six other businesses are located in Breitenthal.
Service sector
Some of the tertiary sector of the economy is based on wheels. Baker’s and butcher’s services are mobile, and drive into Breitenthal regularly. Even the district savings bank sends a weekly mobile bank branch to the village.In the way of health services, there are two general practitioner
General practitioner
A general practitioner is a medical practitioner who treats acute and chronic illnesses and provides preventive care and health education for all ages and both sexes. They have particular skills in treating people with multiple health issues and comorbidities...
s and one dentist
Dentist
A dentist, also known as a 'dental surgeon', is a doctor that specializes in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the oral cavity. The dentist's supporting team aides in providing oral health services...
in neighbouring Herrstein. The nearest hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
is in Idar-Oberstein.
Breitenthal’s Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
access comes by way of a DSL
Digital Subscriber Line
Digital subscriber line is a family of technologies that provides digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network. DSL originally stood for digital subscriber loop. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line ,...
service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
.
Public institutions
The village school building, dedicated on 19 October 1957, was converted into a community centre after the Herrstein Regional School opened. Besides a guestroom, the building also has a further small lodging room in the basement (the Jugoslawen-Raum, so called after a group of YugoslavYugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
lumberjacks were housed there for a while), which is mainly used as a youth centre and a meeting room for TuS Breitenthal (gymnastic and sport club), and shower and changing rooms. In the attic are both a gymnastic and exercise room and a church room, where the Wickenrodt Evangelical
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
parish holds its services.
The municipal graveyard with its mortuary, built in 1966, lies on the village’s southeastern outskirts on Kreisstraße 26 on the way to Niederhosenbach
Niederhosenbach
Niederhosenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.-Location:The...
.
TuS Breitenthal/Oberhosenbach has at its disposal a grass-covered sporting ground on the way out of the village towards Oberhosenbach (and actually within Oberhosenbach’s limits). Nearby are a small playground and a football pitch. South of the village, on the way to the Jammereiche, on a meadow, lies a floodlit
Floodlights (sport)
Floodlights are broad-beamed, high-intensity artificial lights often used to illuminate outdoor playing fields while an outdoor sports event is being held during low-light conditions....
drill ground, which serves the gymnastic and sport club’s football teams as a training ground. DSG Breitenthal ’95 has no sporting ground at its disposal in Breitenthal. They play and train at TuS Tiefenstein’s sport facilities in Idar-Oberstein
Idar-Oberstein
Idar-Oberstein is a town in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. As a Große kreisangehörige Stadt , it assumes some of the responsibilities that for smaller municipalities in the district are assumed by the district administration...
.
External links
- http://www.swr.de/landesschau-rp/hierzuland/-/id=100766/did=3221574/pv=video/gp1=3382804/nid=100766/1ev3cx9/Brief portrait of Breitenthal with film at SWR FernsehenSWR FernsehenSWR Fernsehen is a German regional television channel targeting the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. It is produced by Südwestrundfunk and is one of eight regional "third channels" broadcast by the ARD members....
]