Hartenfels
Encyclopedia
Hartenfels is an Ortsgemeinde – a community belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde
Verbandsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde is an administrative unit in the German Bundesländer of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt.-Rhineland-Palatinate:...

– in the Westerwaldkreis
Westerwaldkreis
The Westerwaldkreis is a district in the east of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...

 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...

. The community belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Selters
Selters (Verbandsgemeinde)
Selters is a Verbandsgemeinde in the district Westerwaldkreis, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The seat of the Verbandsgemeinde is in Selters....

, a kind of collective municipality.

Geography

Location

Hartenfels lies 4 km from Herschbach
Herschbach
Herschbach may refer to:*Dudley R. Herschbach, American chemist*Herschbach, Selters, a municipality in the Verbandsgemeinde Selters, Westerwaldkreis, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...

 and 8 km from Selters on the Holzbach.

History

Hartenfels Castle was first mentioned in old writings in 1249. The community is known for its castle ruins, of whose former shape only a few walls and one tower now remain. It was built in the 13th century to keep watch over the nearby trade road leading from Frankfurt to 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...

. In dialectal speech, the ruins bear the name Schmanddippe. In 1999, the community celebrated 750 years of existence. Seven years later came a chronicle.

Community council

The council is made up of 12 council members, as well as the honorary and presiding mayor (Ortsbürgermeister), who were elected in a majority vote
Plurality 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...

 in a municipal election on 7 June 2009.

Hartenfelser Kopf Windfarm

In the summer of 2006, 12 Enercon E-70 wind turbine
Wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or...

s were installed on the Hartenfelser Kopf. These supply roughly 12,500 households, making it one of the biggest windfarm projects in a forest that has ever been built in the Federal Republic. Four of the turbines stand within Hartenfels’s limits.

Regular events

In January, in honour of the community’s patron saint
Patron saint
A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...

, Anthony
Anthony the Great
Anthony the Great or Antony the Great , , also known as Saint Anthony, Anthony the Abbot, Anthony of Egypt, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, Abba Antonius , and Father of All Monks, was a Christian saint from Egypt, a prominent leader among the Desert Fathers...

, whose feast day is 17 January, two concerts are held by the community’s music club on two consecutive weekends. On the Burgberg (“Castle Mountain”), the yearly music festival Rock am Turm is held at Whitsun
Whitsun
Whitsun is the name used in the UK for the Christian festival of Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after Easter, which commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ's disciples...

. At Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

, a lit, real fir
Fir
Firs are a genus of 48–55 species of evergreen conifers in the family Pinaceae. They are found through much of North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, occurring in mountains over most of the range...

 tree (Tannenbaum in 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....

) up to 8 m tall is put up on top of the castle tower. The kermis in Hartenfels is usually held on the first weekend in July.

Choirs, clubs, etc.

The community is enriched by a music club with many members, a likewise popular volunteer fire brigade, a Möhnenverein (roughly, “Foolish Women’s Club” – it is an organization devoted to the yearly Carnival
Carnival
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...

 festivities) with a men’s ballet, as well as a church 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...

.

Transport

The community lies west of Bundesstraße
Bundesstraße
Bundesstraße , abbreviated B, is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.-Germany:...

8, leading from Limburg an der Lahn
Limburg an der Lahn
Limburg an der Lahn is the district seat of Limburg-Weilburg in Hesse, Germany.-Location:Limburg lies in western Hesse between the Taunus and the Westerwald on the river Lahn....

 to Siegburg
Siegburg
--122.148.78.228 05:06, 14 November 2011 Siegburg is a city in the district of Rhein-Sieg-Kreis, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany...

. The nearest Autobahn interchange
Interchange (road)
In the field of road transport, an interchange is a road junction that typically uses grade separation, and one or more ramps, to permit traffic on at least one highway to pass through the junction without directly crossing any other traffic stream. It differs from a standard intersection, at which...

 is Mogendorf
Mogendorf
Mogendorf is a municipality in Westerwaldkreis district, Rhineland-Palatinate, in western Germany....

on the A 3 (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...

–Frankfurt). There are further Autobahn interchanges near Dierdorf
Dierdorf
Dierdorf is a municipality in the district of Neuwied, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated in the Westerwald, approx. 20 km northeast of Neuwied, and 20 km north of Koblenz....

 and Montabaur
Montabaur
Montabaur is a town and the district seat of the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. At the same time, it is also the administrative centre of the Verbandsgemeinde of Montabaur – a kind of collective municipality – to which 24 other communities belong...

. The nearest InterCityExpress
InterCityExpress
The Intercity-Express or ICE is a system of high-speed trains predominantly running in Germany and neighbouring countries. It is the highest service category offered by DB Fernverkehr and is the flagship of Deutsche Bahn...

 stop is the railway station at Montabaur on the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line.

Further reading

On the occasion of its 750-year jubilee, the community of Hartenfels published a chronicle, written and compiled by the late Altbürgermeister und Ehrenbürger (“Old Mayor and Honorary Citizen”): Josef Marx.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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