Herleshausen
Encyclopedia
Location
Herleshausen lies north of a section of the boundary with ThuringiaThuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
in the thickly wooded area between the Ringgau and the Thuringian Forest
Thuringian Forest
The Thuringian Forest running northwest to southeast, forms a continuous stretch of ancient rounded mountains posing ample difficulties in transit routing save through a few navigable passes in the southern reaches of the German state of Thuringia. It is about long and wide...
(ranges) with the Thuringian Forest Nature Park in the southeast. It is found between the river Werra
Werra
The Werra is a river in central Germany, the right-source river of the Weser. The Werra has its source near Eisfeld in southern Thuringia. After 293 km the Werra joins the river Fulda in the town of Hann. Münden, forming the Weser....
in the south and the Autobahn A 4 (Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
–Görlitz
Görlitz
Görlitz is a town in Germany. It is the easternmost town in the country, located on the Lusatian Neisse River in the Bundesland of Saxony. It is opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was a part of Görlitz until 1945. Historically, Görlitz was in the region of Upper Lusatia...
) in the north.
Herleshausen borders on the municipal area of the district-free town of Eisenach
Eisenach
Eisenach is a city in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated between the northern foothills of the Thuringian Forest and the Hainich National Park. Its population in 2006 was 43,626.-History:...
, whose main centre lies some 12 km eastsoutheast. To the district seat of Eschwege
Eschwege
Eschwege , the district seat of the Werra-Meißner-Kreis, is a town in northeastern Hesse, Germany.- Location :The town lies on a broad plain tract of the river Werra at the foot of the Leuchtberg northwest of the Schlierbachswald and east of the Hoher Meißner...
to the northnorthwest, it is about 22 km, and to Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
, the nearest city, to the northwest, it is about 60 km (each time as the crow flies
As the crow flies
"As the crow flies" or beelining is an idiom for the shortest route between two points; the geodesic distance.An example is the great-circle distance between Key West and Pensacola, at either end of the U.S...
).
Neighbouring communities
Herleshausen borders in the north on the communities of RinggauRinggau
- Location :The community of Ringgau lies in the like-named low mountain range some 11 km south of Eschwege between the Hoher Meißner and the Thuringian Forest.- Neighbouring communities :...
(Werra-Meißner-Kreis) and Ifta
Ifta
Ifta is a municipality in the Wartburgkreis district of Thuringia, Germany....
(Wartburgkreis
Wartburgkreis
Wartburgkreis is a Kreis in the west of Thuringia, Germany. Neighboring districts are the districts Unstrut-Hainich, Gotha, Schmalkalden-Meiningen, and the districts Fulda, Hersfeld-Rotenburg and Werra-Meißner in Hesse...
in Thuringia), in the east on the town of Creuzburg
Creuzburg
Creuzburg is a town on the Werra river in the Wartburgkreis in Thuringia, Germany.-Geography:Creuzburg is in the area known as the Muschelkalk...
and the community of Krauthausen
Krauthausen
Krauthausen is a municipality in the Wartburgkreis district of Thuringia, Germany....
(both in the Wartburgkreis), in the southeast on the Thuringian district-free town of Eisenach, in the south on the community of Gerstungen
Gerstungen
Gerstungen is a municipality in the Wartburgkreis district of Thuringia, Germany.-History:Between 1945 and 1990 Gerstungen served as East German inner German border crossing on the Thuringian Railway...
(Wartburgkreis) and in the west on the town of Sontra
Sontra
Sontra is a small town in the Werra-Meißner-Kreis in northeastern Hesse, Germany.The air spa of Sontra is known as Berg- und Hänselstadt, with Bergstadt referring to the time when there was bituminous shale mining in town, and Hänselstadt to the town’s former membership in the Hanse...
(Werra-Meißner-Kreis).
Constituent communities
The community’s eleven Ortsteile are Herleshausen, Wommen, Nesselröden, Breitzbach, Unhausen, Holzhausen, Markershausen, Altefeld, Archfeld, WillershausenWillershausen (Herleshausen)
Willershausen is a village and castle in the Gemeinde of Herleshausen in Werra-Meißner-Kreis, Hesse.In 1383, the Treusch von Buttlar were lords of Willershausen and adjacent areas. Already at the end of the 13th Century, the residential tower and the defensive tower of the present castle were...
and Frauenborn.
History
In 1019, Herleshausen had its first documentary mention in a donation document in which ownership was transferred to the Kaufungen Monastery, which then held the village until SecularizationSecularization
Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions...
in 1521. Thereafter, it passed to the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel, who enfeoffed various lords with it.
The community found itself on a much more public stage after the Second World War when a border checkpoint between East and West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
was built near Herleshausen. Many prisoner exchanges between the two German states took place during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
at the border checkpoint, including German soldiers returning from Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
captivity and East German citizens traded to West Germany in return for hard currency and goods
Wolfgang Vogel
Wolfgang Vogel was a German lawyer active in East Germany at the time of the Cold War who had brokered some of the most famous swaps of spies or exchanges against ransom of political prisoners between the Soviet bloc and the West...
.
Community council
The municipal election held on 26 March 2006 yielded the following results:| Parties and voter communities | % 2006 |
Seats 2006 |
% 2001 |
Seats 2001 |
|
| CDU | Christian Democratic Union of Germany | 32.4 | 6 | 30.7 | 6 |
| SPD | Social Democratic Party of Germany Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany... |
49.1 | 9 | 53.3 | 10 |
| WSRG | Wählergemeinschaft Südringgau | 18.5 | 4 | 16.0 | 3 |
| Total | 100.0 | 19 | 100.0 | 19 | |
| Voter turnout in % | 65.0 | 66.9 | |||
Town partnerships
CléderCléder
Cléder is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in north-western France.-Population:Inhabitants of Cléder are called in French Clédérois.-Internation relations:Cléder is twinned with Ashburton, Herleshausen and Taninges.-References:*...
, Finistère
Finistère
Finistère is a département of France, in the extreme west of Brittany.-History:The name Finistère derives from the Latin Finis Terræ, meaning end of the earth, and may be compared with Land's End on the opposite side of the English Channel...
, 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...
Lauchröden, constituent community of Gerstungen
Gerstungen
Gerstungen is a municipality in the Wartburgkreis district of Thuringia, Germany.-History:Between 1945 and 1990 Gerstungen served as East German inner German border crossing on the Thuringian Railway...
, Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
Coat of arms
The community’s armsCoat 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 be described thus: Gules a wall embattled with two end towers with pointed roofs argent and with closed gate Or, above which a tower with a double cupola of the second.
The crenellated wall stands for the fortress church estate, which has the parish church’s quire tower rising above it. The tincture
Tincture (heraldry)
In heraldry, tinctures are the colours used to emblazon a coat of arms. These can be divided into several categories including light tinctures called metals, dark tinctures called colours, nonstandard colours called stains, furs, and "proper". A charge tinctured proper is coloured as it would be...
s red and silver are Hesse’s state colours. The coat of arms was approved in 1954 by the Hesse Interior Ministry.
Schloss Augustenau
After the ReformationProtestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
was introduced and Hesse’s monasteries were secularized, Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse
Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse
Philip I of Hesse, , nicknamed der Großmütige was a leading champion of the Protestant Reformation and one of the most important of the early Protestant rulers in Germany....
enfeoffed with the Herleshausen estate his troop leader Georg von Reckerode, who built himself the “Steinstock” palace there in 1539. After Reckerode’s death in 1558, he was followed as fiefholder by the family von Wersebe, who enlarged the complex by building two wings onto it. When the Wersebes’ male line died out in 1678, the palace and the Herleshausen estate passed back to Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel
Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel
Karl I was Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel from 1670 till his death.Born at Kassel, he was the son of Wilhelm VI of Hesse-Kassel and Hedwig Sophia of Brandenburg, daughter of Georg Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg. After the early death of his father, his mother ruled as regent until 1675...
, who transferred it to his brother Philipp, first as a fief, and later to have as his own. Thereafter, the palace and the Herleshausen estate were held by the family Hesse-Philippsthal-Barchfeld. In 1821, the palace was given the name “Augustenau”, after Landgrave Charles’s recently deceased consort Auguste von Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen.
Transport
Herleshausen has a railway station on the Thüringer Bahn railway between Eisenach and BebraBebra
Bebra is a small town in Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in northeastern Hesse, Germany.-Location:Bebra lies some 45 km south of Kassel on the Fulda. The town is easy to find on most maps thanks to its prominent location on the Fuldaknie...
. Here, the last prisoners of war
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 released after Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. He was the chancellor of the West Germany from 1949 to 1963. He is widely recognised as a person who led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that had forged close relations with old enemies France,...
’s visit to Moscow in 1955.
Running by the community is a section of the Autobahn A 4 (Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
–Görlitz
Görlitz
Görlitz is a town in Germany. It is the easternmost town in the country, located on the Lusatian Neisse River in the Bundesland of Saxony. It is opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was a part of Görlitz until 1945. Historically, Görlitz was in the region of Upper Lusatia...
) with its Herleshausen 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...
. The Herleshausen service centre
Rest area
A rest area, travel plaza, rest stop, or service area is a public facility, located next to a large thoroughfare such as a highway, expressway, or freeway at which drivers and passengers can rest, eat, or refuel without exiting on to secondary roads...
was torn down in 2005 to make way for the 6-lane expansion. There are, however, new plans to build another service centre, “Werratal”, on the A 4’s south side.