Otterstadt

coat of arms	Germany map
	Coordinates: 49 ° 22 '  N , 8 ° 27'  E
Basic data
State :	Rhineland-Palatinate
County :	Rhine-Palatinate District
Association municipality :	Rheinauen
Height :	99 m above sea level NHN
Area :	15.57 km 2
Residents:	3475 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	223 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	67166
Area code :	06232
License plate :	RP
Community key :	07 3 38 021
Association administration address:	Ludwigstrasse 99 67165 Waldsee
Website :	www.otterstadt.de
Local Mayor :	Bernd Zimmermann ( CDU )
Location of the local community Otterstadt in the Rhein-Pfalz-Kreis

Otterstadt is a municipality in the Rhein-Pfalz-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate . It belongs to the Rheinauen community .

geography

The municipality, which belongs to the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region, is located directly on an old loop of the Rhine . In the south is the Speyer-Nord district of the city of Speyer , in the Rhine lowlands the Binsfeld whose northern part still belongs to Otterstadt, in the west Schifferstadt and in the north Waldsee . To the east, on the right bank of the Rhine, lie the municipalities of Brühl and Ketsch , which belong to Baden-Württemberg .

history

A clay vessel of the Rössen culture , which was found in the Otterstadt district, dates from the 4th or 3rd millennium BC. Chr.

Germanic traces in the district from the time before permanent settlement are shown by the hoard find from Otterstadt, which mainly consists of kitchen utensils, contains Roman booty from the 3rd century and is now kept in the Historical Museum of the Palatinate in Speyer .

Otterstadt was first mentioned on April 7th, 1020 in a document of the Speyer bishop Walther, but probably already in the 7th / 8th. Founded in the 19th century by the Franks.

With other places in Speyergau , Otterstadt was freed from imperial jurisdiction by Emperor Otto II in 974 and placed under the diocese of Speyer. The bishop then took over the sovereignty of Otterstadt in 1065. From 1090 to 1797 Otter town was owned by the Speyer St. Guido pin under the suzerainty of the high pin Speyer .

During the Thirty Years War Otterstadt was looted and set on fire. The population decreased from 390 to 150 between 1618 and 1661. In the Palatinate War of Succession , the place was burned down again in 1689.

After belonging to the French department of Donnersberg 1797–1813, Otterstadt was administered by the Speyer district office in the Bavarian Rhine district. After the Second World War , the Speyer district became the then newly formed state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The community took in more than 200 displaced people. In 1969 the district was dissolved and Otterstadt was added to the Ludwigshafen district, which has been the Rhine-Palatinate district since 2004. Since 1972 the place has been part of the newly formed Verbandsgemeinde Waldsee, since January 1, 2016 Verbandsgemeinde Rheinauen.

On December 31, 2003 Otterstadt became debt-free. Even today (as of 2018) the community is debt-free.

Population development	1618	1661	1802	1850	1941	1970	1987
Otterstadt	390	150	415	1466	1769	2458	3116

Catholic Church

Religions

In accordance with the long membership of the Speyer monastery, the vast majority of the residents were Catholic. In 1850, 1,352 of 1,466 Otterstadt residents were Catholic, i.e. more than 92 percent. The first Jewish family was mentioned in 1684. In the period that followed, a small community was formed until 79 Jews lived in Otterstadt in 1850. The Jewish cemetery had existed since 1823 . Thereafter, in line with the trend in the region, many emigrated to America while the remainder moved to the larger cities. In 1933 there were still three Jewish families in Otterstadt.

On October 31, 2014, 44.316 percent of the population were Catholic and 22.499 percent were Protestant. The rest belonged to another religion or were non-denominational.

politics

town hall

Municipal council

The municipal council in Otterstadt consists of 20 council members, who were elected in a personalized proportional representation in the local elections on May 26, 2019 , and the honorary local mayor as chairman.

The distribution of seats in the municipal council:

choice	SPD	CDU	FDP	FWG	gkL	BIO	total
2019	5	9	1	-	1	4th	20 seats
2014	4th	8th	-	5	-	3	20 seats
2009	5	8th	-	7th	-	-	20 seats
2004	5	8th	-	7th	-	-	20 seats

• FWG = Free Voting Group Otterstadt e. V.
• gkL = green municipal list Waldsee-Otterstadt e. V.
• BIO = Citizens Initiative Otterstadt e. V.

mayor

Bernd Zimmermann (CDU) has been the local mayor of Otterstadt since 2009. He has been re-elected twice so far, most recently in a run-off election on June 16, 2019 with a share of 54.10% of the votes, after none of the original three applicants had achieved the necessary majority in the local election on May 26, 2019.

coat of arms

	Blazon : "On a silver background a blue mark in the form of a ring, to which three V-like angles are set at equal intervals so that their inner tips cover the outer edge of the ring."
	Foundation of the coat of arms: It was approved in 1951 and refers to an old district stone. Previously a coat of arms had been carried, which St. Remigius pointed and traced back to a court seal from the 15th century. The flag, which was awarded in 1980, is split blue-white-blue in a ratio of 1: 5: 1 and shows the place symbol from the coat of arms.

Culture and sights

Stickelspitzer fountain

Remigiushaus

Buildings

Uzname for the inhabitants of the Rhine community is "Stickelspitzer". This name goes back to an anecdote according to which the people of Otterstadt took a trespassing impostor who demanded a major upfront investment on the railway line to be built in order to allegedly help Otterstadt to build a train station. In their anticipation, the citizens were already sharpening sticks with which they wanted to mark the promised railway line in the area. This incident is staged in the Stickelspitzer fountain, which Georg Günther Zeuner created in 1986. Here the fraudster is stealing away with a bulging bag, his horse's foot is clearly visible.

Another attraction of the community is the Otterdritschen Brunnen, which was created in 2004 by the renowned sculptor couple Professor Gernot Rumpf and his wife Barbara from Palatinate .

The Remigiushaus was built in 1750 as a church to replace the old and now too small church on the lake. When she too became too small, the congregation built the new Church of the Assumption of Mary. After the building had long served as a Raiffeisen warehouse, Otterstadt bought it and set up a community center.

The village church Maria Himmelfahrt dates from 1891. The construction with the 50 meter high church tower was paid for by the then wealthy Otterstadt for 133,600 marks, while the interior furnishings were largely financed by donors.

See also: List of cultural monuments in Otterstadt

Economy and Infrastructure

traffic

Bundesautobahn 61 runs to the south and Bundesstraße 9 to the west . The Koller ferry runs across the Rhine to Brühl.

Directly south of Otterstadt, Kreisstraße 2 runs in an east-west direction to the Rhine and then bends south in the direction of Speyer, where it runs to the A 61 on the main Rhine dike, crosses under it, and then continues along the main Rhine dike to Speyer run away.

Bus lines lead to the surrounding villages, to Speyer and Ludwigshafen am Rhein . The RheinNeckar S-Bahn stops in Speyer and Schifferstadt . Otterstadt belongs to the tariff area of ​​the Rhein-Neckar transport association .

Public facilities

There are three kindergartens and one elementary school in the community. There is also a youth center, the summer festival hall and the Remigiushaus.

Personalities

Honorary citizen

• Abraham Weil
• Former Mayor Erich Flory

Sons and daughters of the church

• Jakob Müller (1922–1993), politician (SPD), trade unionist and member of the state parliament

literature

• Lorenz Mayer: Local history. A contribution to the history of the villages of Schifferstadt and Otterstadt and the surrounding area or: A little piece of Franconia's old days. Self-published, Otterstadt, 1908. Online.
• Prof. Fr. J. Hildenbrand: Otterstadt - contributions to its local history . 1923
• Alfons Schreiner: Otterstadt . 1981
• Speyerer Volksbank (ed.): Otterstadt in those days . 1981.
• Horst Kuhn: Otterstadt my home . 1994
• Irmtrud Dorweiler: Otterstadt - portrait of a village / from the beginnings to the present . 2004.

Web links

Commons : Otterstadt  - collection of images

• Internet presence of the local community Otterstadt
• Aerial view of the entire Binsfeld area, the Rhine lowlands south of the Otterstadt development. - Very easy to recognize, the motorway as the southern border of the area and the arc of Hochgestade and Kreisstraße 2, which trace the course of an old Rhine arc. At the top of the Hochgestade is Otterstadt , on the right you can see part of the Reffenthal water training area.
• Literature about Otterstadt in the Rhineland-Palatinate State Bibliography

Individual evidence

1. ↑ State Statistical Office of Rhineland-Palatinate - population status 2019, districts, communities, association communities ( help on this ).
2. ↑ enactment: plenary 16/107. State Parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate, November 11, 2015, p. 7092 f. , accessed January 17, 2016 . 
3. ^ Budget plan of the local community Otterstadt for the financial year 2004 page 8.
4. ↑ Debt of public budgets in Rhineland-Palatinate as of December 31, 2008 , State Statistical Office Rhineland-Palatinate (PDF, p. 39)
5. ↑ Local community still free of debt , rheinpfalz.de , December 15, 2017
6. ↑ Municipal statistics . In: KommWis. October 31, 2014, accessed November 30, 2014 . 
7. ^ The regional returning officer RLP: City council election 2019 Otterstadt. Retrieved October 9, 2019 . 
8. ^ The Regional Returning Officer Rhineland-Palatinate: Municipal elections 2014, city and municipal council elections
9. ^ The Regional Returning Officer RLP: direct elections 2019. see Rheinauen, Verbandsgemeinde, fourth row of results. Retrieved October 9, 2019 . 
10. ^ Speierer Zeitung of December 28, 1896. Archived from the original on August 25, 2000 ; Retrieved November 30, 2014 .