Mackenrodt
Encyclopedia
Mackenrodt 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 west of the river Nahe in the Hunsrück
Hunsrück
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...

. The municipal area is 64.6% wooded. To the southeast lies the town of 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...

.

History

Mackenrodt has not always been the smallest municipality between the Idarbach and the Siesbach. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the village had more inhabitants than, for instance, Hettenrodt
Hettenrodt
Hettenrodt is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...

 or Kirschweiler
Kirschweiler
Kirschweiler 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...

.

Unearthed within Mackenrodt’s limits have been a few 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 Treverian (the Treveri
Treveri
The Treveri or Treviri were a tribe of Gauls who inhabited the lower valley of the Moselle from around 150 BCE, at the latest, until their eventual absorption into the Franks...

 were a people of mixed Celtic and Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...

 stock, from whom the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 name for the city of Trier
Trier
Trier, historically called in English Treves is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC....

, Augusta Treverorum
History of Trier
Trier in Rhineland-Palatinate, whose history dates to the Roman Empire, is often claimed to be the oldest city in Germany. Traditionally it was known in English by its French name of Treves.- Prehistory :...

, is also derived) and 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....

 times. However, this does not mean that today’s village is as much as 2,000 years old. Beginning about AD 500, the old settlements in the area were forsaken owing to the throngs of warlike Germanic peoples who were flooding in from the east. Only relatively late did people – as it happens, the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

 – once again settle on the upper Nahe. Before anyone could settle, though, land had to be cleared. This can even be seen in placenames like Mackenrodt, Hettenrodt and Algenrodt. The ending —rodt refers to clearing woodland (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....

 still has a verb roden that means “clear” in the sense of removing trees).

The whole area was throughout the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 part of the local feudal territory known as the Idarbann, both politically and ecclesiastically. One of the first measures undertaken by these new settlers was the establishment of churches; the ones in Birkenfeld
Birkenfeld
Birkenfeld is a town and the district seat of the Birkenfeld district in southwest Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is also the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde.-Location:...

 and Brombach (see Niederbrombach
Niederbrombach
Niederbrombach 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 Birkenfeld, whose seat is in the like-named town.-Location:The municipality lies...

, Oberbrombach
Oberbrombach
Oberbrombach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...

) were already being mentioned in documents dating from about 700.

The old greater parish of Idar might originally have been coëxtensive with the judicial region of the Idarbann. The execution place of this region was found at the point where Mackenrodt’s, Algenrodt’s and Idar’s limits all met each other, a spot that even today in the official cadastral nomenclature still bears the name Galgenberg – “Gallows Mountain”. To the parish of Idar, the Reformation
Protestant 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...

 came quite early on, before 1544.

No later than 1320 or 1321, the Idarbann belonged as a subfief to the Imperial
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...

 Lordship of Oberstein. Mackenrodt had its first documentary mention in the enfieffment document as a result. The village shared its fate with the rest of the Idarbann in a political and economic sense. Thus, Mackenrodt passed along with the rest of the Idarbann to the “Hinder” County of 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...

 in 1766, and then in 1771 to the Margraviate
Margrave
A margrave or margravine was a medieval hereditary nobleman with military responsibilities in a border province of a kingdom. Border provinces usually had more exposure to military incursions from the outside, compared to interior provinces, and thus a margrave usually had larger and more active...

 of Baden
Baden
Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....

, and soon thereafter to the French 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...

 – as of 1804 the 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...

. In 1814, the area found itself under a joint Imperial-Royal Austrian
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...

 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...

 “State Administrative Commission” (Landesverwaltungskommission) before 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,...

 awarded it to the Kingdom of 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...

, who in turn 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...

 it in 1817 to the Principality of Birkenfeld, an exclave of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, most of whose territory was in what is now northwest Germany, with a coastline on the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

. In 1918, Oldenburg became a “free state” within Weimar Germany
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

. 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...

 finally merged Oldenburg with Prussia in 1937. Since 1948, Mackenrodt has been part of the then newly founded state
States of Germany
Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...

 of 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 ....

.

The discovery of agate
Agate
Agate is a microcrystalline variety of silica, chiefly chalcedony, characterised by its fineness of grain and brightness of color. Although agates may be found in various kinds of rock, they are classically associated with volcanic rocks and can be common in certain metamorphic rocks.-Etymology...

 at the old execution place, the Galgenberg, set the course for the whole region’s economic development. Over the centuries, Idar – now merged with Oberstein – became a world centre of the gemstone industry.

Mackenrodt farmers found extra work as stone miners and agate grinders, as well as, later, as goldsmiths, grinding machine
Grinding machine
A grinding machine, often shortened to grinder, is a machine tool used for grinding, which is a type of machining using an abrasive wheel as the cutting tool...

 operators and diamond grinders. Nevertheless, agriculture
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...

 and livestock raising for feeding the population remained until the end of the 19th century the more important industry. In 1833, Mackenrodt was described as “a village feeding itself by cropraising and livestock raising, lying one hour from Idar, with which it is parochially united.”

At the time, the village had 178 inhabitants, 176 of whom were 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...

, while the other two were Catholic. The municipal area measured 1,810 Morgen
Morgen
A morgen was a unit of measurement of land in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the Dutch colonies, including South Africa and Taiwan. The size of a morgen varies from 1/2 to 2½ acres, which equals approximately 0.2 to 1 ha...

(490 ha). The village was made up of 27 private buildings and one schoolhouse. One hundred and fifty years later, there were about 100 buildings, among them a church, administered as a branch church of Idar, and a sport clubhouse, which was also used as a community centre.

With 400 or so inhabitants, Mackenrodt is still well behind most of the other smaller communities around Idar-Oberstein’s periphery. The marked growth seen in, for instance, Göttschied, Kirschweiler or Rötsweiler-Nockenthal
Rötsweiler-Nockenthal
Rötsweiler-Nockenthal is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...

, where ample building development areas have attracted people from Idar-Oberstein who could not find property in their own town, simply is not replicated in Mackenrodt. Another factor that may explain the weak growth in Mackenrodt is the village’s lack of a main road running through it. There are only six businesses in the village, all dealing with gemstones, but each one employs only one or two persons. Most people in Mackenrodt must commute
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 :...

 to their jobs, mostly in Idar-Oberstein. This is easy enough for those with cars, but public transport links are bad, especially in the evening.

Municipal council

The council is made up of 8 council members, who were elected by 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...

 at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.

Mayor

Mackenrodt’s mayor is Reiner Mildenberger, and his deputies are Klaus Gans and Gerd Nilius.

Coat of arms

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 be described thus: Per bend chequy argent and gules, and vert a spade blade argent.

Mackenrodt’s arms are unusual in that they have a “chequy” field whose 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 begin in dexter chief with the metal rather than the colour. This, at least, is what can be seen in this article, at the municipality’s own website and at the Verbandsgemeinde’s website. While this arrangement is usual under English heraldic rules, it is rather unusual in German heraldry
German heraldry
German heraldry refers to the cultural tradition and style of heraldic achievements in modern and historic Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, including national and civic arms, noble and burgher arms, ecclesiastical heraldry, heraldic displays and heraldic descriptions...

. An example of Mackenrodt’s arms with the chequy field beginning with the colour rather than the metal can be seen at Heraldry of the World.

Transport

To the south runs Bundesstraße
Bundesstraße
Bundesstraße , abbreviated B, is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.-Germany:...

41. Serving Idar-Oberstein is a railway station that, as a Regional-Express and Regionalbahn
RegionalBahn
The Regionalbahn is a type of local passenger train in Germany.-Service:Regionalbahn trains usually call at all stations on a given line, with the exception of RB trains within S-Bahn networks, these may only call at selected stations...

 stop, is linked by way of the Nahe Valley Railway (Bingen
Bingen am Rhein
Bingen am Rhein is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.The settlement’s original name was Bingium, a Celtic word that may have meant “hole in the rock”, a description of the shoal behind the Mäuseturm, known as the Binger Loch. Bingen was the starting point for the...

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....

) to 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...

 and the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region. The Rhein-Nahe-Express running the 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...

-Saarbrücken route serves the station hourly. Every other train goes through to the main railway station
Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof
is the central station for Frankfurt am Main. In terms of railway traffic, it is the busiest railway station in Germany. With about 350,000 passengers per day the station is the second most frequented railway station in Germany and one of the most frequented in Europe.- Proto-history :In the late...

 in 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...

 with a stop at Frankfurt Airport
Frankfurt Airport
Frankfurt Airport may refer to:Airports of Frankfurt, Germany:*Frankfurt Airport , the largest airport in Germany*Frankfurt Egelsbach Airport, a general aviation airport*Frankfurt-Hahn Airport , a converted U.S...

. Formerly, fast trains on the Frankfurt-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...

route had a stop at Idar-Oberstein.

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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