Mittelreidenbach

Mittelreidenbach

Coat of arms
Mittelreidenbach

Coordinates: 49°43′33″N 07°26′28″E / 49.72583°N 7.44111°E / 49.72583; 7.44111Coordinates: 49°43′33″N 07°26′28″E / 49.72583°N 7.44111°E / 49.72583; 7.44111
Country Germany
State Rhineland-Palatinate
District Birkenfeld
Municipal assoc. Herrstein
Government
 • Mayor Peter Ballat
Area
 • Total 5.07 km2 (1.96 sq mi)
Population (2015-12-31)[1]
 • Total 741
 • Density 150/km2 (380/sq mi)
Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes 55758
Dialling codes 06784
Vehicle registration BIR

Mittelreidenbach is an Ortsgemeinde - a member of the Verbandsgemeinde [United Municipalities of] Herrstein - in the district of Birkenfeld in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, in southwestern Germany.

Geography

Location

The village lies in the Reidenbach valley southeast of the Nahe River. To the west lies Idar-Oberstein.

History

There is already the evidence of the fact that Mittelreidenbach is a very old settlement. The stones with markings, called "Hollen- and Bellenstein" [“Hell and Bell Stones”] in the ancient times, and the eleven graves of the Huns (burial sites of the Celts) are known to be in the area of the sports fields of Mittelreidenbach.

The foundation of the present village of Mittelreidenbach goes back to the Frankish period (800-1000 AD). In the 12th Century, the settlement belonged to the district of Naumburg bei Bärenbach. In this history appears a Ritter [knight], Werner von Reidenbach, in the years between 1282 - 1287, as the resident of Hachenpfuhls (now Hachenfels) near Naumburg. In 1321 the Herren [Lords] von Reidenbach zu Dune und Stein (Oberstein, now Idar-Oberstein) were given the properties of Weiersbach and Nahbollenbach.

One of the first earliest mentions of Mittelreidenbach is found in a deed of sale in 1340, when the Edelknecht (the lowest rank of medieval German nobility) Johann von Oberstein sold the tithes in Reidenbach to the Archbishop of Trier, Baldwin of Luxembourg. After the extinction of the family of the Ritter von Reidenbach, the properties fell to the Herren von Schwarzenberg. With the extinction of the House of Schwarzenberg in 1483, the brothers Bernhard and Jost von Flersheim in Rheinhessen inherited the village and estate of Reidenbach. Later the Reidenbach package went as the dowry of Anna, the daughter of Jost Flersheim, to Emmerich von Dietz, the district officer of St. Wendel. When the male line of the House of Dietz became extinct in 1616, the village and estate of Reidenbach were annexed as orphaned fiefs by the Archbishopric of Trier and assigned to the district of St. Wendel. In 1779, it was transferred to the district of Oberstein.[2]

Under the crosier of the Archbishop, Mittelreidenbach remained until Napoleon and his Grande Armée overran the Palatinate. On 23 January 1798, the village was added to the French Empire as a part of the Département de la Saar, where it would stay in the arrondissement [prefecture] of Birkenfeld until 1814. In 1816, the Congress of Vienna gave it to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (after 1826, the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The Duchy assigned it to the Principality of Lichtenberg, which was administrated by town of Lichtenberg, but the Principality's distance from the Duchy proved to be problematic. In 1834, the Principality was sold to the Kingdom of Prussia. MIttelreidenbach became Prussian, this time in the district of St. Wendel of the Rheinprovinz [Province of the Rhineland].[3] With the fall of Prussia in 1918, it was added to Germany. Since the end of World War II, Mittelreidenbach has belonged to the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Since the administrative reforms of 1970, it has been a member of the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein.[4]

Population

The growth of the population of Mittelreidenbach, as shown by the numbers for the years between 1871 and 1987 from the national, state and local censuses:[5]

Year Residents
1815 204
1835 284
1871 328
1905 423
1939 533
Year' Residents
1950 536
1961 643
1970 699
1987 726
2005 786

Politics

Municipal council

The council is made up of 12 council members, who were elected by majority vote at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, with the honorary mayor as the chairman.[6]

Mayor

The mayor of Mittelreidenbach is Peter Ballat, and his deputies are Reimund Steitz and Renate Hirth.[7]

Coat of Arms

Mittelreidenbach’s arms might be described thus: “Per pale vert a hammer and a pick per saltire surmounted by an ear of wheat couped palewise, all argent, and argent a cross gules.”

Heritage Places

The following historic and cultural places of Mittelreidenbach are on the Register of Heritage Places of the State of Rheinland-Palatinate (as of 14 March 2011):[8]

Economy and Infrastructure

For centuries, Mittelreidenbach was an agricultural community. But industrialization and improved transportation in the late 19th Century and afterwards brought rapid changes to the village. In the years after World War II, the boom of prosperity allowed Mittelreidenbach to develop the “Ringstraße” and “Auf der Acht” areas in the 1960s and 1970s, to add a sewage system as well as the water supply system in 1974 and 1975, to resurface the roads and replace the 140-year-old village bridge, and to redesign the village square. But, eventually, because there were better jobs in the neighboring towns and cities, Mittelreidenbach turned into a residential community. Today, the only businesses in the village are two restaurants and three construction companies.

But the changes did not keep Mittelreidenbach from winning several times since 1986 in various classes of the national competition, “Our Village is Beautiful” (German: “Unser Dorf soll schöner werden”). [9]

Transportation

To the east runs Bundesstraße 270. Serving nearby Fischbach is a railway station on the (Bingen–Saarbrücken) Line of the Nahe Valley Railway.

References

  1. ↑ "Gemeinden in Deutschland mit Bevölkerung am 31. Dezember 2015" (PDF). Statistisches Bundesamt (in German). 2016.
  2. ↑ (de) Dr. W[ilhelm]. Fabricius (1861-1920), Das Hochgericht auf die Heide (Die Wildgrafschaft zwischen Oberstein, Meisenheim, Lauteren und Kusel) [The Rulers of the Heath (The Wilderness between Oberstein, Meisenheim, Lauteren and Kusel)], in: Westdeutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst [Western German Magazine of History and Art], Vol. XXIV (1903), pp. 158-159
  3. ↑ (de) Dr. E[rich]. Uetrecht (ed.), Meyers Orts– und Verkehrs-Lexikon des Deutschen Reichs, Band 2: L-Z [Meyers Commercial Gazetteer of the German Empire, Volume 2: L-Z], Leipzig, Biographisches Institut, 1912, p. 194
  4. ↑ (de) Ortsgemeinde Mittlereidenbach, “Geschichte des Dorfes” [History of the Village]
  5. ↑ (de) Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz [Rhineland-Palatinate State Bureau of Statistics] Regional data
  6. ↑ (de) Kommunalwahl Rheinland-Pfalz 2009, Gemeinderat [2009 Municipal Council Elections of the Rhineland-Palatinate]
  7. ↑ (de) Mayor and Deputies of Mittelreidenbach
  8. ↑ (de) Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe Rheinland-Pfalz [General Commission of the Cultural Heritage of Rhineland-Palatinate] (ed.): Nachrichtliches Verzeichnis der Kulturdenkmäler Kreis Birkenfeld [Register of Heritage Places of the District of Birkenfeld] (PDF 1.5 MB), Mainz, 2011, p. 20
  9. ↑ (de) Ortsgemeinde Mittlereidenbach, “Unser Dorf heute” [Our Village Today]

Literature

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