Weidenthal

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Weidenthal (disambiguation) .

coat of arms	Germany map
	Coordinates: 49 ° 25 '  N , 7 ° 59'  E
Basic data
State :	Rhineland-Palatinate
County :	Bad Dürkheim
Association municipality :	Lambrecht (Palatinate)
Height :	295 m above sea level NHN
Area :	14.49 km 2
Residents:	1722 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	119 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	67475
Area code :	06329
License plate :	DÜW
Community key :	07 3 32 048
Association administration address:	Sommerbergstrasse 3 67466 Lambrecht (Palatinate)
Website :	weidenthal.de
Local Mayor :	Ralf Kretner ( CDU )
Location of the local community Weidenthal in the Bad Dürkheim district

The village of Weidenthal

Weidenthal is a municipality in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate . It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Lambrecht (Palatinate) , within which it is the third largest local community in terms of population.

geography

location

Weidenthal is located in the middle of the Palatinate Forest in the Palatinate region . The municipality also includes the living spaces iron Kehl, Mainzertal , Forsthaus Morschbacherhof , parquet factory and quarry Rußmühle. Neighboring communities are - clockwise - Bad Dürkheim , Neidenfels , Frankeneck , Esthal , Elmstein , Waldleiningen and Frankenstein .

Surveys

In the immediate vicinity of the settlement area is the Köpfel and south of it the Eulenberg . In the west of the district rise the 506 meter high Mollenkopf and the 477 meter high Heidenkopf and directly on the boundary to Waldleiningen the Eselsohler Berg and in the area of ​​the district triangle Waldleiningen / Weidenthal / Frankenstein its 439 meter high Hohe Loog . The Kleine Pflasterberg also extends in the district triangle with Neidenfels and Frankeneck .

Waters

The Hochspeyerbach flows through the middle of the municipality . Within the district, the Langentalbach, the Weisenbach and the Rußmühlenbach flow into these one after the other from the right . In the west of the municipality, away from the buildings , the Bittenbach flows north and flows into the Leinbach beyond the Weidenthal district .

geology

The so-called red sandstone dominates on site.

history

The place was first mentioned in 1247 as Wydentall and was owned by the Lords of Frankenstein , who exercised a fiefdom of the Limburg Monastery , which later partially passed to the Knights of Hirschhorn. With their extinction, the community fell completely to the Electoral Palatinate in 1709 , to which it was until the end of the 18th century and was subordinate to the Oberamt Neustadt . The village had already been almost completely depopulated during the Thirty Years' War . In 1802 there were 674 people in the community: 382 Catholics, 251 Reformed and 41 Lutherans.

In the course of the First Coalition War , a battle took place on site. After 1792 French revolutionary troops occupied the region and annexed it after the Peace of Campo Formio (1797) . From 1798 to 1814 the village belonged to the French department of Donnersberg and was assigned to the canton Neustadt and had its own Mairie . Due to the agreements reached at the Congress of Vienna (1815) and an exchange contract with Austria , the region became part of the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1816 . From 1818 the community of Weidenthal was assigned to the Neustadt district commissioner in the Bavarian Rhine district , later to the Neustadt an der Haardt district office, from which the Neustadt an der Weinstrasse district emerged in 1938 .

After the Second World War , Weidenthal was part of the French zone of occupation and was incorporated into the newly formed state of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1946. In the course of the first administrative reform in Rhineland-Palatinate , Weidenthal moved to the newly created district of Bad Dürkheim in 1969 . Three years later, the community became part of the also newly created Verbandsgemeinde Lambrecht (Palatinate) .

population

Population development

The development of the population of Weidenthal, the values ​​from 1871 to 1987 are based on censuses:

year Residents 1815 726 1835 1,028 1871 1,355 1905 1,625 1939 1.910 1950 2,180 1961 2,565

year Residents 1970 2,567 1987 2,107 1997 2,100 2005 2.010 2010 1,867 2017 1,746

Population development in Weidenthal from 1815 to 2017 according to the table below

View of the two churches in 1897; on the left the Evangelical Church, on the right the Catholic Church

religion

Weidenthal had an independent Catholic parish in the dean's office in Bad Dürkheim within the Speyer diocese , which has been a branch of the Lambrecht-based parish of St. John XXIII since 2016 . , represents. The Catholic parish church of St. Simon and Judas Thaddäus and the parish home "Maximilian Kolbe-Haus" are located in the main street. The Catholic Church is one of the most important neo-Gothic churches in the Palatinate.

Together with the neighboring towns of Frankenstein and Neidenfels, there is a Protestant parish that belongs to the Protestant Church of the Palatinate . The Christ Church can be found in the center of the village at Kerweplatz in the main street. In addition, there is the so-called "Otto-Riethmüller-Haus", which serves as an educational facility for the "Evangelical Community Youth".

In 2013, 42.0 percent of the population were Protestant and 37.4 percent Catholic. The rest belonged to another religion or were non-denominational.

politics

Municipal council

The municipal council in Weidenthal consists of 16 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	CDU	FWG	SPD	LEFT	WGR	total
2019	9	3	3	1	-	16 seats
2014	5	3	6th	2	-	16 seats
2009	5	5	5	1	-	16 seats
2004	4th	7th	4th	-	1	16 seats

• FWG = Free Voting Group Talgemeinden e. V.

mayor

Local mayor is Ralf Kretner (CDU). In the direct election on May 26, 2019, he was elected with 61.88 percent of the vote and is the successor to Bernhard Groborz (SPD), who no longer ran for this office. Before that, Paul Mar from the FWG held this office until 2009.

coat of arms

	Blazon : "In silver, an upright growing golden crook with a left-hand curvature (abbot)."
	Foundation of the coat of arms: It was approved by the Bavarian king in 1845 and goes back to a court seal from 1747. It commemorates the former liege lord , the abbot of Limburg .

Culture and sights

War memorial

Cultural monuments

There are a total of 28 objects on site that are under monument protection , including the Betzenkammer and the war memorial. The latter is located on the Köpfel and is one of the landmarks of Weidenthal; from the point of view of the monument there is a panoramic view of the entire village. It has a certain similarity to the gymnastics memorial in Deidesheim.

Other structures

There is also a memorial to the displaced persons in the cemetery, which was erected in 1954. There is also a so-called five - wound cross on site .

nature

The municipality is located in the Palatinate Forest Nature Park , which in turn belongs to the Palatinate Forest-Vosges du Nord Biosphere Reserve . Weidenthal has a natural swimming pond as a swimming pool .

societies

With FC Wacker Weidenthal, there is a football club with its own hard court, the Karl-Heinz sports field . This is also at the JFV Leinbach 2014 e. V. involved. There is also a gymnastics club with its own competition area, its own cinder track and a tennis court - two sand courts, a tar court and a tennis wall - as well as a shooting club with its own shooting lanes in various sizes. There is also a gymnasium and multi-purpose hall that is used by all clubs as well as the two kindergartens and the primary school. The tennis club was transformed into the Turnverein 1908 e. V. Weidenthal integrated.

In addition, Weidenthal and the neighboring village of Frankenstein have a local branch of the Palatinate Forest Association , which was awarded the Eichendorff plaque in 2006.

Events

The Weidenthaler Kerwe takes place once a year . The corps student association Krischertisch from Neustadt took over an Easter trip every year from 1908, which led via Weidenthal, among other places.

The " World Champion in Christmas tree throwing" has been determined in Weidenthal every year since 2007 and is now a regular item on the program worldwide in press and radio. The event will take place at the beginning of January as part of the Knutfest on the sports field of FC Wacker Weidenthal.

Since August 2007 there has been an annual night mountain bike race on the grounds of the Turnverein Weidenthal called "Schlaflos im Sattel". The annually slightly different circuit is around ten to twelve kilometers long. It begins in the Erdbeertal and then runs along the Stempelweg into the Weissenbach and then back to the Erdbeertal via a loop over the Maifeld.

Economy and Infrastructure

economy

The Pfälzische Parkettfabrick Weidenthal , LBM Zerspanungstechnik and the Fuder joinery are the three remaining larger companies in Weidenthal. The last large local company, Chemiefabrik E. Baumheier , ceased operations in 1996 and the site was later sold. The factory in the center of the village had already ceased operations years earlier; the S-Bahn stop is now located there. In 1865 a savings bank was founded in Weidenthal, which merged into the Sparkasse Rhein-Haardt .

traffic

Former reception building of the Weidenthal train station

The Weidenthal station was commissioned in 1849, when the Palatine Ludwig Railway was opened to full length and which later became the Mannheim-Saarbrücken railway emerged. The platforms used to be in the southern area of ​​the station, before they were moved 800 meters further north in 2003 towards the center of the village. Since then, the trains of the RheinNeckar S-Bahn have stopped here . The S1 and S2 lines provide direct connections to Kaiserslautern and Homburg in the west and Ludwigshafen , Mannheim and Heidelberg in the east. Weidenthal belongs to the tariff area of ​​the Rhein-Neckar transport association .

In addition, the Schönberg-Langeck-Tunnel , the Gipp-Tunnel , the Köpfle-Tunnel and the southern part of the Eisenkeil-Tunnel lie along the railway line within the boundaries of the municipality .

The federal highway 39 runs through the village and leads from Hockenheim to Frankenstein. The community is also the starting point for Kreisstraße 38 , which leads via Waldhaus Schwarzsohl to Elmstein.

tourism

Gastronomy in Weidenthal

Weidenthal is located on the Staudernheim-Soultz-sous-Forêts long-distance hiking trail marked with a blue bar and on the route of a hiking trail marked with a white-green bar . There is also a hiking trail through the community that is marked with a green cross and leads from Freinsheim to Erlenkopf , as well as a path marked with a yellow-red bar from Lichtenberg Castle to Wachenheim .

education

There is a primary school on site.

Personalities

Honorary citizen

• Friedrich Laubscher, awarded on January 7, 1979
• Emil Groh, awarded in January 1996
• Oskar Schöttner, awarded on January 16, 2000
• Ernst Niederberger , commercial clerk, awarded on January 13, 2008; in addition, since 2007 he has been awarded the Federal Cross of Merit
• Siegfried Held, awarded on January 13, 2008

Sons and daughters of the church

• Casimir Wurster (1854–1913), chemist
• Friedrich Müller (1865–1941), mechanical engineer and university professor
• Herward Koppenhöfer (* 1946), football player

People who have worked in the community

• Ludwig Schandein (1813–1894), Palatinate historian and dialect poet, was at times a primary school teacher in Weidenthal
• Max von Siebert (1829–1901), architect and Bavarian building officer, died on site
• Karl Ritter (1916–1994), politician (SPD), local mayor from 1969 to 1971
• Klaus Armstroff (* 1957), politician (NPD, Der III. Weg), lives on site

Web links

Commons : Weidenthal  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Internet presence of the local community Weidenthal
• Literature about Weidenthal 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. ↑ State Statistical Office Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Official directory of the municipalities and parts of the municipality. Status: January 2019 ^{[ Version 2020 is available. ]} . S. 138 (PDF; 3 MB).
3. ↑ Michael Frey : Attempt at a geographical-historical-statistical description of the royal. bayer. Rheinkreises , second part, Speyer: Neidhard, 1837, p. 585 ff ( Google Books )
4. ↑ State Statistical Office Rhineland-Palatinate - regional data
5. ^ Pages of the Protestant church community Weidenthal-Frankenstein-Neidenfels. Retrieved April 2, 2019 . 
6. ↑ KommWis, as of December 31, 2013
7. ↑ Elections 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 Lambrecht (Pfalz), Verbandsgemeinde, seventh line of results. Retrieved October 18, 2019 . 
10. ^ Karl Heinz Debus: The great book of arms of the Palatinate. Neustadt an der Weinstrasse 1988, ISBN 3-9801574-2-3 .