Alsenborn
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Alsenborn
Local community Enkenbach-Alsenborn
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| Height : | 292–406 m above sea level NHN |
| Area : | 11.6 km² |
| Residents : | 2743 (Jun. 30, 2007) |
| Population density : | 236 inhabitants / km² |
| Incorporation : | 7th June 1969 |
| Postal code : | 67677 |
| Area code : | 06303 |
 Location of Alsenborn in the community of
Enkenbach-Alsenborn |
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 Alsenborn from a bird's eye view
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Alsenborn is the smaller district of the municipality of Enkenbach-Alsenborn , located in the Rhineland-Palatinate district of Kaiserslautern , with around 2750 inhabitants . Alsenborn was an independent municipality until 1969, before it was added to the newly formed municipality as part of the Rhineland-Palatinate administrative reform. Alsenborn gained national fame for its circus troupes, the SV Alsenborn football club , which played for promotion to the Bundesliga in the 1960s, and as the home of football player Fritz Walter , who became world champion in 1954 as the captain of the German national team.
Geography and geology
Alsenborn is twelve kilometers northeast of the city of Kaiserslautern on the Stumpfwald , part of the Palatinate Forest .
Alsenborn developed as a cluster village in the Alsenborn basin and has grown together to the west with the neighboring village of Enkenbach . Residential areas were primarily created along Talstrasse.
geology
The Alsenborn depression, which runs from east to west, is characterized by soils that are poor in minerals and covered by a layer of red sandstone that can almost only be used for forestry purposes. The trifle layers of the Middle Buntsandstein were opened up in numerous quarries and in the late 19th century offered many locals sources of income outside of agriculture.
The Alsenborn district includes the valley with the village, fields and meadows; to the south and east are the 419 meter high Schorlenberg and the Autobahn 6 . In the northeast, the stump forest joins the headwaters of the Alsenz river . The meadows along the streams and blown loess allow agriculture, which, however, was never very important because of the harsh climate and poor soil quality.
Land use
The former municipality of Alsenborn had a municipal area of 1162 hectares in 1965, which was composed as follows:
- 718 hectares of forest (693 hectares of community forest, 25 hectares of private forest)
- 234 hectares of arable land
- 39 hectares of meadows
- 49 hectares of wasteland
- 48 hectares of roads and paths
- 37 hectares of built land
- 9 hectares of commercial space
- 28 hectares of allotments, parks, cemetery, sports fields
These numbers have of course changed since then, but they give clear indications of land use. What is striking in any case is the large proportion of forests of 61 percent, while only 20 percent of the area was arable land. It is also noteworthy that only 3 percent of the forest was privately owned. This gave the community a virtual monopoly on timber.
Old field names
Alsenborn also has a share in the stump forest . The forest mountains are called 765 and 1330 dialect "Stamp", 1357, 1494 and 1596 high German "Stampf". Only later did the transformation into "stump forest" take place. “Stomp” refers to places in the area where it was necessary to “stomp” because the mountain slope was particularly steep here.
The "Schorlenberg" has large and small boulders, and this is what the "Schorl" (cf. Scholle) in the name of the mountain refers to.
The field names "Triesch" (also " Driesch ") and "Trift" denote either un-cultivated, overgrown terrain or go back to the word "drift" and were used for old cattle drives or pastures.
The designation "Bruch" and "Bruchwiesen" refers to former swampy terrain into which one broke with one's feet. The name "Dünndell" goes back to a former "Tümpeltal" in which one pool lined up against the other.
The field name “Kinderlehr” is neither related to “children” nor to “teaching”, but to irrigation ditches, so-called “Kändeln”, from which the site got its original name “Kändelerde”.
history
Prehistory and early history
There are some prehistoric sites in the Alsenborn area. These are mainly individual graves and grave fields that go back to the Bronze and Iron Ages. An extensive tool find is dated to the Hallstatt period. The buried seem to have been sedentary people.
There are also indications of armed conflicts between the originally resident Celts and the Germanic tribes advancing in the 1st century BC. BC, as a result of which the Celts were pushed further west.
Decisive for the early settlement away from the preferred settlement areas were the protected location in a depression and the springs. At the same time, the location on one of the few cross-connections to the Rhine Valley also meant bad things, as the most important military and trade routes ran through the Alsenz Valley and made the landscape a transit area during the migration period and the scene of many wars.
4 kilometers northeast of Alsenborn is the former stump forest court , which is said to have been a court or thing place as early as the Germanic or even Celtic times . In 1933 the Alsenborn community erected a memorial in the form of a ring made of nine small cuboid stones, the small chairs. In the middle is the large chair, a stone with the inscription " District Court of the Counts of Wormsgau and Dukes of Franconia 6th - 15th Century ". It was a court of law for the Counts of Leiningen and is one of the three imperial regional courts in Wormsgau .
Roman times
Since the Romans often bypassed the Alps on their conquest expeditions to the north, the cross-connections from Gaul to the Rhine were decisive for the consolidation of Roman rule in Germania .
A former trade route from Worms via Eisenberg , Alsenborn and Kaiserslautern to Saarland could have been taken over by the Romans. Thus the Alsenborner Senke lay at the intersection of the Roman road between the legion camps Metz and Mainz and the road that led from Worms over the iron mountain, which is important for iron smelting, to the west. Findings within the district lead to the conclusion that this was a stage place for the Romans. Roman shards, oil lamps and a coin with the image of the emperor Antoninus Pius were found in the Alsenborn valley .
middle Ages
After the retreat of the Romans, the Roman road system fell into disrepair. Little is known about the late antique and early medieval settlement of the area. After all, it is known that after the temporary presence of the Alemanni, the Franks established themselves in southwest Germany.
The name Alsenborn is mentioned for the first time in the Carolingian era when the Franconian Duke Nantharius donated the village of Entersweiler (today: Kaiserslautern ) and two mans of land near Alsenborn to the Benedictine convent Münster-Dreisen near Kirchheimbolanden in 872 . He and his wife had founded this monastery shortly before. The monastery was later destroyed during a Hungarian invasion and then abandoned.
- Staufer period
In the middle of the 12th century, a small castle was built near the Alsenz spring to secure the Salisch-Staufer rule against the Archbishop of Mainz and the Counts of Saarbrücken and Leiningen. This castle was part of a chain of castles built by order of Duke Friedrich II of Swabia and is called "Dieburg" in everyday language. It was destroyed in territorial disputes around the year 1200. A later extinct ministerial family named itself after Alsenborn in the 12th and 13th centuries.
The establishment of a Premonstratensian monastery in Enkenbach was decisive for further development . The monastery was founded in 1148 by Count Ludwig von Arnstein and Hunfried von Alsenborn. In addition to the spiritual rights, the monastery was also responsible for the administration of goods and the tithe right in Alsenborn as well as the patronage of the parish church of Alsenborn and Enkenbach, which was built in the 13th century.
The order of the Premonstratensians was founded in 1120 by Norbert von Xanten in the northern French town of Prémontré . It spread rapidly in Germany and was mainly devoted to the Christianization of the Slavs . The Premonstratensian women form the female cooperative founded by Norbert one year later with very strict religious rules.
The Enkenbach Premonstratensian women ran into financial difficulties when the monastery church was built. So in 1420 they felt compelled to sell half of the villages of Enkenbach and Alsenborn to Elector Ludwig III for 100 Rhenish guilders . from the Palatinate for sale. The other half only fell to the Electoral Palatinate after the abolition of the monastery in 1567. The Premonstratensian women only had the right to buy back the two villages, the tithe and the monastery courtyard.
Modern times
Until the end of the Thirty Years War
A court seal has been documented since 1564, which was slightly modified and remained in use until the end of the 18th century. The seal read:
- SDG ALSENTZBORN VND ENKENBACH
Enkenbach and Alsenborn together with the villages of Morlautern , Erlenbach , Baalborn and Neukirchen formed a so-called Büttelamt in the Oberamt Kaiserslautern with 525 inhabitants. From an estimate in 1592 one can calculate that Alsenborn had 33 families at that time, i.e. around 130 inhabitants.
During the Thirty Years War, Spanish troops occupied the city of Kaiserslautern between 1621 and 1631. From 1632, Swedish troops occupied the area on the left bank of the Rhine. During this time the population was badly affected by occupation, billeting, forcing people to change religion and fighting. Eight years after the end of the war, six families were living in Alsenborn again, i.e. around 25 residents.
Overall, the Büttelamt lost seven eighths of its inhabitants during the Thirty Years War, three of six villages were wiped out in 1648.
Until after the French Revolution
Even after the Thirty Years' War there was no peace. After the so-called wild - catching war , which was only settled in 1667, the Electoral Palatinate had to deal with marauding units of the Duke of Lorraine, who had been expelled from France.
The resettlement policy of Elector Karl Ludwig brought new residents from France, Tyrol and Switzerland to Alsenborn, including a number of Mennonites .
During the Palatinate and Spanish War of Succession, the population again only had to flee into the woods or to neighboring fortified places. Only after 1713 did some calm appear to have returned. In 1707 Alsenborn had 113 inhabitants, the number of which increased continuously in the next quieter decades due to immigration, so that in 1728 the first schoolhouse was built in Alsenborn.
During the Revolutionary Wars, the population was heavily burdened by troops of the French, Prussians, Saxony, Austria and in 1815 in the Wars of Liberation also the Russians. The encumbrances included billeting, the distribution of food and horse fodder, war contributions, appraisals and the provision of hostages.
Due to its location on the connecting routes, the area around Alsenborn was once again a troop passage area and theater of war. In the immediate vicinity of Alsenborn, the three-day "Battle of the Schorlenberg" took place from September 17th to 19th, 1794 as part of the Second Battle of Kaiserslautern. Even today, the "Blucher's Lair" is reminiscent of the success of Blucher against the French Moselle Army.
Bavarian rule
With the reorganization of Europe in the Congress of Vienna , the Palatinate became part of Bavaria in 1816 . After the unsuccessful revolution of 1848 and as a result of the economic situation, according to the Protestant parish register of Alsenborn, 385 people emigrated from Enkenbach and Alsenborn, which together had a little over 2,000 inhabitants, within ten years.
The railway, which was built between 1845 and 1849 under the construction management of Paul Camille von Denis and connected the Saarland with the Rhine, was particularly important . With the construction of the Alsenz Valley Railway a few years later, Alsenborn and Enkenbach were connected via Hochspeyer from 1870 and via Kaiserslautern from 1875. The breakthrough for forestry was also achieved with the construction of the railways. Wood was not only needed for the construction of the railway lines. The coal stores in Saarland needed large amounts of support wood to expand the pits. The large forest ownership of the community now had a favorable effect on the population, because the community did not need to levy any levies .
Until the end of World War II
Even before the beginning of World War I, the declining efficiency of the quarries and thus the rise in unemployment meant that community levies were raised. The community now also had to subscribe to war bonds and lost a large part of its assets.
In 1919 the municipality was still able to tackle electrification through the Alsenz works, but the inflation year 1923 ruined the municipal finances for good. A large part of the population turned to the peddler trade for lack of other sources of income. Around a sixth of the population of Alsenborn lived on the outpatient trade during these years. Alsenborn had 1,544 inhabitants in 1925, of which about 75 people applied for a traveling trade license. Eight of them were entertainers . The others mainly traded haberdashery and linen. Alsenborn has from this time the reputation of an "artist and peddler village".
The political changes were announced on December 7, 1932, when a "Volksgemeinschaft" formed in the local council, which proceeded against the incumbent mayor. This then resigned with six councilors on March 13, 1933. The local group leader of the NSDAP became a permanent guest of the municipal council meetings. The first job creation measure of the new regime was the construction of the Reichsautobahn between Mannheim and Saarbrücken.
The Second World War killed 134 Alsenborn citizens. On March 20, 1945, an American vanguard advanced. On that day there was still fighting, as heavy flak was in position near the village .
- Since the Second World War
On April 21, 1945, the mayor, who had to resign in 1933, opened the first post-war municipal council meeting. The catastrophic nutritional situation in the post-war years had a particularly severe impact on the Alsenborn community, as it was run as a "rural community" and thus received fewer subsidies than a "city community". In 1948, Alsenborn, as an industrial village with around 1,700 inhabitants, had 89.9 percent workers.
Reconstruction and population growth began after the currency reform . In 1965 Alsenborn already had 2505 inhabitants compared to 1706 in 1939.
As part of the administrative reform, Alsenborn was merged with Enkenbach on June 7, 1969 to form the municipality of Enkenbach-Alsenborn . Since this amalgamation was not desired by the population, the amalgamation was ordered by the 13th state law on administrative simplification in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The Alsenborner feared above all to lose their independent profile. This fear was reinforced when the Enkenbach local council pleaded for the common community to be called “Enkenbach”. In the opinion of the Alsenborner, their place was much better known and centuries older. Annoyed by this naming, an application for incorporation into Kaiserslautern was even discussed.
The agreement on the double name Enkenbach-Alsenborn calmed the minds again. But some administrative acts, such as the renaming of streets of the same name and the construction of the municipal administration in Enkenbach, caused new upset between the two villages. A common identity does not yet exist.
Place name
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The village name Alsenborn was originally a field name for the source of the Alsenz and developed from the old word "Alsenzbrunne", whereby the second part of the name changed from "-brunne" to "-born". The river Alsenz was originally called "Alis'ontia" in Latin . The ending - ontia goes back to the Latin alisa and is etymologically related to the old German arila , which was transformed into today's word alder . As the Alsenz gets its name from the alders growing on its banks, the name Alsenborn means "Erlenquelle".
- Alsenzbrunne (865)
- Alsenceburnen (1148)
- Alsenburne (1273)
- Alsentzborn (1321)
- Alsenborn (1551).
coat of arms
In the coat of arms of the municipality of Enkenbach-Alsenborn stands for the district Alsenborn the golden fountain, with the fountain column and the two tubes with flowing silver water and the golden lion turned to the left on the top.
Alsenborn's former coat of arms shows a golden fountain in blue, from the basin of which rises a column on which a golden lion sits. Water runs from two pipes to the left and right into the fountain bowl.
religion
Alsenborn was already a pastor in the Middle Ages with Enkenbach as a branch. The patronage right of the parish church (Sankt Vitus ) was owned by the Wartenbergers and was lent by them. In 1273 the parish law came to the Enkenbach monastery.
In the middle of the 16th century Alsenborn became Protestant; but in the Thirty Years' War the village began to be re-Catholic, which was followed by a wave of Lutheran conversions after the Spaniards withdrew . In 1698 the Catholic parish Alsenborn was re-established as a "pastorate". The Protestant Church was then a Simultaneum . Until 1706, Enkenbach was also looked after from Alsenborn; then the parish seat was moved to Mehlingen and in 1708 to Enkenbach to the monastery church.
In 1707 Alsenborn had 78 Reformed, 29 Catholics and 6 Lutherans among 113 inhabitants. In the neighboring town of Enkenbach, 58 of the 78 inhabitants were Reformed, 8 Catholics and 12 Lutherans. (Around 260 years later there were 80% Protestants, 18% Catholics and 2% others, i.e. Mennonites, New Apostolic and non-religious.)
Peter day
In 1776 an epizootic disease in Alsenborn and Enkenbach broke out today at the on February 22 from all denominations committed Peterstag remembered or "cattle goat."
In the chronicle of the community of Mehlingen it says:
“ The year 1776 is overshadowed by a great misfortune for the district villages as well as for Enkenbach and Alsenborn. Towards the end of the year a terrible epidemic broke out among the clawed cattle, which also spread to the neighboring villages. One stall after the other was hit by the disease and the animals died. Nobody knew what to do. In the greatest need, people pleaded with God that he might turn things around. The miracle happened, but there was only one cow left. In Neukirchen and Enkenbach a street is then called 'Kuhgasse'. The citizens vowed to celebrate the turning point, it was February 22nd, 1777, St. Peter's Day, every year with going to church, which they faithfully kept to this day. There is no work on this day and the children have no school. "
Protestants
The Protestant parish belongs to the Protestant church district of Winnweiler within the Evangelical Church of the Palatinate .
The Alsenborn Protestants, led by their pastor Karl-Georg Faber, took part in the Hambach Festival in 1832. Disappointed at the failure of the constitutional idea, many emigrated and followed the two famous Alsenborners, the Reformed theologian Johann Peter Müller and Andreas Schreiber . Johann Peter Müller was the son of the pastor of Alsenborn and came to prominence in Pennsylvania as the prior of the Ephrata Monastery .
Catholics
The Catholic parish of Enkenbach-Alsenborn was cared for by the Fathers of the Franciscan Monastery in Kaiserslautern. They changed frequently and only lived temporarily in the village after a room in the Reformed rectory had to be made available for them from 1699. After the war years of 1688/1698 the Catholic parish of Enkenbach-Alsenborn was reestablished.
A new beginning for the Catholics in Alsenborn took place during the area mission “Around Kaiserslautern” in November 1962. Now the Catholics in Alsenborn were thinking about building a church again. Until then, they rented a tavern. The new Alsenborn St. Joseph's Church was consecrated on December 7, 1969 by Bishop Friedrich Wetter . It is noteworthy that the first Catholic pastor in Alsenborn, Eckehart Breiding, was a converted former Protestant pastor who was married when he took up his duties and already had three children. At the end of his service life he had eight children, five more than his Protestant brother, who was not celibate .
Sights and culture
Buildings
Protestant Church
The Protestant Church was built in its present form in 1733 and renovated in 1964. The basement of the tower is particularly valuable in terms of art history. During restoration work in 1964, medieval frescoes using the fresco secco technique from the middle of the 13th century were uncovered, which had previously been under plaster.
Catholic Church
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The Catholic Josefskirche was consecrated on December 7, 1969 by Bishop Friedrich Wetter . It has 290 seats on an almost square floor plan. The predominant building elements are concrete and wood. The folding top is clad with Nordic spruce. A tower was deliberately omitted and a wooden bell carrier was built instead. The roof of the church and the rectory is clad with black clapboards.
Castle ruins
To the east of the old town center Alsenborn at the Alsenz spring are the ruins of the former Alsenborn castle , of which a 45 to 50 meter wide and around 3 meter high hill has been preserved. There are still traces of improper excavations and erosions from the 19th and 20th centuries. The castle was a tower hill castle or moth built in the swampy meadow area . The complex consisted of a ring wall designed as a five-fold broken polygon with a residential tower in the middle. The inner diameter of the curtain wall was about 27 meters and had a thickness of 1.50 meters.
Circus museum
In the center of Alsenborn is the so-called Bajasseum , a small circus museum that recalls the days of the artists in the village. The exhibition is structured according to epochs and leads from the present back into the past. In the Bajasseum you can also see “ the smallest circus in the world ”, a replica of a circus by the model maker Herbert Guth from Friedrichsdorf . The museum is called Bajasseum after the Alsenborner's nickname, Bajass, which is derived from the Italian word Bajazzo (= " buffoon "). This Bajass is depicted as a symbol of Alsenborn on the town hall fountain of the Verbandsgemeinde with a pointed clown hat and a balancing pole in his hand.
Fritz Walter Museum
On May 20, 2004, the property of Fritz Walter and his wife was opened to the public and an exhibition designed by private individuals, Fritz Walter - in memoriam , was opened. This exhibition was open to the public until the end of 2006 and has since been transferred to Kaiserslautern in order to make it accessible to a wider audience.
Life path
Starting from the source of the Alsenz by the swimming pool, the Catholic parish and the Protestant parish Alsenborn created a 4.5 kilometer circular route. It leads largely through the forest and ends at the 12th station at the Protestant church.
School system
As early as 1698, Pastor Agricola had received an official letter stating that it was his duty to oversee the school in his parish. But Pastor Agricola resisted such an imposition: his predecessors had at most voluntarily held school now and then. With the great expansion of his double parish, he had no time for it. Rather, one could transfer the school office to the bell ringer.
Agricola's argument seems to have convinced and he was no longer pushed. Although he had categorically refused to teach in the previous year, in 1699 Agricola had the upper room of the parsonage prepared for school purposes on his own initiative. But it wasn't until 1728 that the first schoolhouse was built, which 56 students attended. A second Protestant teaching position was set up in 1820 and a new schoolhouse with two halls and two apartments was built in 1823/24. A Catholic school position was only approved in 1842.
Compulsory schooling was later made more difficult for the children of the artists who lived in Alsenborn. The regular school attendance of their children was a prerequisite for the issuance of the certificate of good repute by the local authorities and for obtaining the trade license. Section 62 of the German Trade Code of January 1, 1879 (with the amendment to the amendment of January 1, 1894) said:
“ The permission to bring children who are of school age must be refused and the permission already granted must be withdrawn if the child is not adequately taught. "
If the children did accompany their parents, they had to present a record book on their return, which showed how long they had attended school on the way. If they did not have enough evidence, the parents were given "school failures".
As for Alsenborn, in 1882 the local school authority officially complained to the Royal Bavarian District Office in Kaiserslautern about the lack of school attendance. A notification from the district office of Kaiserslautern obliged the mayor to notify the artists concerned within 14 days:
“ The artists are to be notified as soon as possible and their children are to be encouraged to attend the weekday and Sunday school there themselves; possibly they are to be punished relentlessly for failing to attend school and a report of the possible departure of the children is to be reported here immediately. "
The parents could not be ignorant of compulsory school attendance either, because when they applied for a trade license, they were advised that children are not allowed to be used in a trade and that they have to attend school. It had a mitigating effect when parents had their children given private tuition after their return or sent them to school abroad.
The authorities wanted to give the school-age artist children a minimum education that would enable them to lead a normal life and probably wanted to take action against child labor .
Club life
The choral society Alsenborn e. V. was founded on May 5th, 1868 as an all-male choir; the women's choir was only added in 1975. The choral society maintains contacts at home and abroad, so that it is known nationwide through many guest appearances.
The Alsenborn Accordion Orchestra was founded in 1960 as a department of the Alsenborn Choral Society and, through targeted training for the next generation, developed into an orchestra that became known nationwide. It undertakes concert tours to Italy, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Hungary. It has also made several radio productions.
The Alsenborn gymnastics club was founded in 1903 as the Alsenborn cycling club and later converted into a gymnastics club at the request of several members. In 1946 the association was dissolved by order of the occupying forces and re-established on May 25, 1946.
Economy and Transport
Business location
Alsenborn is a sub-center in Rhineland-Palatinate . The functions of a sub-center primarily include supplying the residents with “qualified, frequently recurring local needs”.
Road traffic
Alsenborn is on the federal highway 6 , one of the most important east-west connections in Germany. But even in historically distant times it was on an important east-west connection route.
The greater area around Kaiserslautern has been a transit country since ancient times. Old traffic routes criss-cross it from all directions. When the Romans advanced into the Rhineland, they took over the roads that had already been improved by the Celts and built them with solid road structures that are durable against the weather. Since these streets were primarily intended for marching troops, their width was about three meters. They preferred heights and watersheds as military roads in view of the security of the troops in closed forest areas. Steep climbs were not avoided.
After the legions withdrew, the Roman road system fell into disrepair. The medieval country roads were no better than dirt roads. Strangers were forbidden to stray from the streets in order to deprive them of the opportunity to evade taxes. In Alsenborn, too, a toll was levied early on from travelers. Because the carters often drove across the fields around the villages in order to save the high road toll, a customs post was established near Alsenborn in the 17th century, which is still remembered by field names such as "Zollstock" and "Schlagbaum". In 1662 the customs officer in Alsenborn informed the city council of Lautern that the road from Mannheim via Frankenthal and Hertlingshausen to Alsenborn and Kaiserslautern im Walde was so bad that loads could no longer pass. Thereupon the Lauterer city fathers decided to have the obstacles "removed by knowledgeable people". But as a rule, the neighboring gentlemen were satisfied when a merchant's car overturned, so the goods belonged to them according to the so-called basic transport law.
Rail transport
In the annual report of the Palatinate Ludwig Railway, which has been operating between the Rheinschanze near Ludwigshafen am Rhein and Bexbach since 1849, for the years 1859/1860, an earlier suggestion was taken up again and a railway line from Kaiserslautern or Hochspeyer via Winnweiler through the Alsenz valley to Bad Kreuznach was suggested.
The project, which started in the autumn of 1868, made rapid progress, and the acquisition of land for the railway did not cause any difficulties. From a technical point of view, height differences between Hochspeyer and the watershed to be overcome of 34 meters and from here to Ebernburg of at least 183 meters had to be mastered. The entire Alsenz valley line was open to traffic on May 16, 1871. The closest station was Enkenbach station .
The history of the Eistalbahn begins with a submission from Carl von Gienanth from 1865 aimed at a project concession for a rail link between Grünstadt, Eisenberg and Dreisen . As early as 1867, an “Eistal Committee” issued a memorandum in favor of building a railway line from Grünstadt through the Eistal to Alsenborn – Enkenbach. While the Grünstadt – Eisenberg section of the Eistalbahn was opened in 1876, the gap to Enkenbach was not closed until 1932, which also gave Alsenborn a stop. In 1976, however, public transport was discontinued there.
Bus transport
Alsenborn is connected to Kaiserslautern via the bus routes 6501 and 6519 of the Saar-Pfalz-Bus and bus route 457 of the Rhein-Neckar bus service .
particularities
The circus village Alsenborn
Alsenborn has a circus tradition and is therefore also home to a small circus museum in the town center. The place was considered the home of tightrope walkers and the village where the Bajasse live. As if from nowhere a large group of artists and circus owners developed in Alsenborn in the course of the 19th century, which lasted into the 20th century and gradually disappeared after the Second World War.
Beginnings
On November 20, 1847, the 22-year-old musician Karl Lorenz Schramm , born in Carlsberg , son of the puppet player and musician Justus Schramm, married Elisabetha Wolf from Kirrweiler, four years older , in Alsenborn . With this date begins "the circus episode" in Alsenborn's local history.
Originally all of them belonged to the "Gevatterschaft der Schramm", who set up their winter quarters in Alsenborn every year, but when the word got around in artist circles that the community did not charge any "artists", artists who were not in contact also moved to Alsenborn the local artists.
Among the few foreign circus families who settled in Alsenborn, the art rider and circus owner Andreas Bügler from Münchweiler deserves special mention. His six children were among the best artists of their time. Having achieved prosperity during the founding period , Bügler acquired a stately house, near which he built stables for his animals. But things went downhill for him after his wife's death.
The marriage of his son Jerôme to Magdalena Eva Althoff led the oldest circus dynasty in Germany to Alsenborn in 1883: the Althoffs under the leadership of Adolf Althoff . After they had acquired the Büglersche property, Wilhelm Althoff III. from here toured his circus until inflation forced him to give up the company in 1927. With Wilhelm Althoff's death in 1933, the decline of Alsenborn artists began.
Social position of the artists
Even if they had been living in Alsenborn for years, the artists remained strangers, in dialect and in their moral ideas. They were mostly not part of normal village life and never played a role in village politics or club life. Citizens' assemblies in which general issues were negotiated mostly took place without them.
While the first artists lived in permanent houses, some of those who moved in from 1880 lived in their touring car throughout the winter because they could neither rent an apartment nor buy a house. Artists who achieved something had a higher status in the village hierarchy. The artists also had sympathizers in the village, including the mayor and the landlord.
The annual return of the artists is said to have been a bigger event, because it was a pleasant break from everyday life when the artists came back from the wide world. Occasionally they were even greeted with music at the entrance to the village. The Alsenborn business people also benefited from the artists, as they freely spent their money in winter.
The plowing elephant
One of the stories that are told over and over again about the artists is the story of the plowing elephant.
During the war, the master carpenter Schmitt was asked by a farmer's wife if he didn't know someone who could dig up her garden. Master carpenter Schmitt pointed out that most of the men and horses had moved in. Then it occurred to him to use a circus elephant to tend the garden. He fetched a plow and an iron harrow, harnessed the elephant to it, and got to work. After this unusual work, however, the elephant rioted.
There is also a photo of this story that can still be found in many households today. However, this is a photomontage of an Indian working elephant with a picture of a plowing farmer.
On June 21, 2006 a life-size memorial of this plowing elephant was erected on a traffic roundabout. The 16-ton monument was made in China for 18,000 euros and then shipped to Germany. The production by a local stonemason would have cost around 70,000 euros. When setting up it had to be clarified in which direction the rear part of the granite elephant should point. As a compromise, it stands parallel to the municipal boundary.
The figure of the farmer was contributed by the Enkenbach company Hegerguss based on old photos and a body scan .
The hairdresser in the lion cage
Also often told is the tragic story of the hairdresser Peter Feierabend, who was killed by a lion during a hairdressing demonstration in a lion cage.
The Alsenborn circus and variety companies started their season with a performance in Alsenborn. They provided themselves with money for the trip and were able to try out new sensations in front of an audience. In February 1911, leaflets announced that the menagerie owner Wieser wanted to be shaved in the lion cage by the Alsenborn hairdresser Peter Feierabend. To make the shave perfect, the hairdresser wanted to walk around Wieser and shave the left side of his face while standing behind him. A lion presumably saw his master threatened by this, lunged at the hairdresser and bit the back of his head. Panic broke out. The lion had bitten itself so tightly that its jaws had to be pried open with sticks. The barber died a short time later. His tombstone has the inscription:
“ The wild animals have ruined him, Lord, God, of hosts comfort us, let your face shine so we will recover. I am redeemed from the lion's jaws "
Elisabeth Endres
The most famous artist from Alsenborn was the tightrope walker Elisabeth Endres , born in 1922 , who celebrated her greatest successes in the 1930s. In her heyday she was the youngest tightrope walker in the world. After the end of World War II, she went to the USA and ran a ballet school there.
Cinema company
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Thys family of artists could no longer make a living from the summer variety show alone. As an additional source of income, she set up a traveling cinema, which was mainly played in Alsenborn. Initially, the demonstrations took place in the hall of the Halbgewachs inn. When this no longer complied with the safety regulations, the conversion of a car hall into a light play area was considered. This conversion did not take place after all, and in the summer the Thys family continued to travel with their variety. When Thys was supposed to be removed from the list of traveling cinema performers by the Reichsfilmkammer, specialist group for supplementary programs and cinemas , Gaustelle Saarpfalz in Neustadt due to infrequent screenings, the Alsenborn community advocated him with the following words:
“ Thys has a good reputation; nothing is known to be disadvantageous against him. In the summer months he and his children and their families live on a traveling circus. Thys used to be able to save savings for the winter from his earnings in the summer. This is no longer possible today because a traveling circus only generates little income. That's why Thys has been running a cinema in winter for a long time. If he is deprived of the opportunity to do so, he is without any merit or income. "
After this request, Thys was again allowed to play and played every three weeks in the Alsenborn gym. This was community property, had the necessary facilities and offered space for 400 visitors. Since there were no more suitable halls available in the post-war period and the projection equipment no longer met the required standards, the Thys family had to give up the cinema in January 1950.
The history of the locomotive
The Alsenborn acrobat Lorenz Schweitzer III. had to give up his job after an accident and in 1897 bought one of the first bioscopes with his savings . He moved with it from place to place and showed his films. Before he left Alsenborn, he gave the first film screening in Alsenborn. Among other things, he showed a film from the railroad experience in which a locomotive raced towards the audience. At this scene panic broke out in the hall and all the spectators ran towards the exits and windows. Out on the street they vented their anger and scolded Lorenz Schweitzer violently.
SV Alsenborn
In sporty successful times also can football of the team SV Alsenborn look back, who narrowly failed to make it into the top German division in the 1960s.
Sponsored by contractor Hannes Ruth, who used to play for 1. FC Kaiserslautern , and with the support of Fritz Walter , who lived in Alsenborn from 1965, the club achieved a sensational rise. The president of the association was the medical doctor Dr. Leopold Dietzel, who took over the housekeeping. In his book Alsenborn - Rise of a Village Team , Fritz Walter reports that the idea to build the village club came about at the European Cup final between Real Madrid and Benfica Lisbon in Amsterdam. This was the so-called "Amsterdam Oath". Three championship players from 1. FC Kaiserslautern switched to SV Alsenborn and their own talents developed into players who were later used by other clubs in the 1. and 2. Bundesliga. The professional world became aware of the small village club, which even had a floodlight system earlier than 1. FC Kaiserslautern .
In the third year in the Regionalliga Südwest, SV Alsenborn became Southwest Champion and reached the Bundesliga promotion round in 1967/68 and in the two following years. The team, in which at that time only one native Alsenborn played, took a good middle place in their group. The promotion games in the Berlin Olympic Stadium in front of 80,000 spectators were highlights in Alsenborn's football life. The place became known through the sports coverage , and the performance of the small local club caused a stir nationwide. But after three years of promotion games, the vigor was lost in 1970 and SV Alsenborn sold a total of 31 players to clubs such as FC Bayern Munich , 1. FC Kaiserslautern , 1. FC Nürnberg , Borussia Mönchengladbach and FC Schalke 04 .
When the Second Bundesliga was introduced in 1974 , SV Alsenborn fulfilled the athletic qualification for promotion. When this was refused because the stadium was too small, the sporty decline began. At that time, 1. FC Saarbrücken rose, and there are rumors that not everything was fair. SV Alsenborn had expanded its stadium to accommodate 15,000 spectators, had to reverse purchases already made and was facing major financial problems. However, a few years later the license was withdrawn from 1. FC Saarbrücken for economic reasons. Since the 1990/91 season, SV Alsenborn has been playing in the B class with players who have now all come from Alsenborn again.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Official municipality directory (= State Statistical Office of Rhineland-Palatinate [Hrsg.]: Statistical volumes . Volume 407 ). Bad Ems February 2016, p. 163 (PDF; 2.8 MB).
literature
- Municipal administration Enkenbach-Alsenborn: Alsenborn 872–1972. Contributions to a local history . Home office Pfalz, Kaiserslautern.
- Gisela Grasmück: Artists in Alsenborn. From fellow citizens and outsiders. Socio-historical micro-analysis of a mobile population group. Studies on folk culture in Rhineland-Palatinate. on behalf of the Society for Folklore in Rhineland-Palatinate . Mainz 1993.
- Jo van Alsen: The Alsenborn forest man. 1st sheet collage from archive pictures 1920–1930 - stories from Alsenborn in the "golden twenties" . 1991, ISBN 3-929024-00-4 .
- Jo van Alsen: Silver lining in the sky. 1. Sheet collage of archive pictures and drawings 1939–50. Diaries of the war years 1944/45. Recorded and related to Alsenborn / Pfalz, 1946 and after . 1991, ISBN 3-929024-01-2 .
- Fritz Walter: Alsenborn - ascent of a village team . Norderstedt 2001, ISBN 3-8311-1846-9 .
Web links
- History and culture
- Literature about Alsenborn in the Rhineland-Palatinate state bibliography
