Old Town (Kirkel)
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Old town
Kirkel parish
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| Height : | 242 (225-269) m | |
| Area : | 5.97 km² | |
| Residents : | 1751 (Dec. 31, 2012) | |
| Population density : | 293 inhabitants / km² | |
| Incorporation : | 1st January 1974 | |
| Postal code : | 66459 | |
| Area code : | 06841 | |
Location of the old town in Saarland |
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 Old Town of the Assemblies seen from
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Along with Kirkel-Neuhäusel and Limbach, the old town is one of the three districts of the municipality of Kirkel in the Saar- Palatinate district . Until the end of 1973, Altstadt was an independent municipality in the Homburg district .
location
Altstadt is located in the east of the Saarland between Homburg , Lappentascherhof , Kleinottweiler , Niederbexbach and Limbach. The place is on the northeast bank of the Blies and is connected by two bridges with Limbach on the other bank. The two places thus practically form a double place . In the old town, the almost ten kilometer long Feilbach, coming from the Höcherberg , flows into the Blies.
history
The settlement "Limbach" (originally "Limpach", first documented mention in 1219) originally came into being at the location in the old town. This was moved to the western Bliesufer around the 13th century. The resettlement was completed by 1299 at the latest; the first documentary mention of "Altenstat" is dated with this year. A document from 1434 clearly explains the place name: In it, the Count of Homburg waived "all his rights to both Limpach, in the old and nuwen place". Despite their common history and the immediate vicinity, the development of the two localities of Altstadt and Limbach took a completely different course, especially since Limbach continuously represented an important border, customs and escort station for the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken , while Altstadt between 1492 and 1755 was a rather insignificant one Was part of Nassau-Saarbrücken .
The high court of justice of the Counts of Homburg was located in the old town for a long time before it was abandoned in the 17th century. It lay on the now wooded, 267.5 meter high hill near the cemetery. This still bears the field name " Galgenberg " today . The fallen sword in the coat of arms of the former municipality of Altstadt symbolically indicates this former function. The fact that the old town was the central place of execution in the region for centuries has its origins in the Middle Ages. At the time of the Frankish rule, the old town was the meeting place for the “ Hundreds ”, a regular gathering of 100 men capable of arms from the surrounding area. These meetings served the regional self-administration, but also the jurisprudence and the execution of judgments. From this, among other things, the neck dish developed over the centuries . On the map of the geometer Tilemann Stella from 1564, the place is still clearly equipped with the gallows.
The French Revolution had an indirect dramatic effect on the old town, and its expansion towards the east began vehemently after the cannonade of Valmy in Champagne on September 20, 1792. A short time later, the Saar-Palatinate region became a theater of war, with the old town repeatedly affected by the changing course of the front. After the French revolutionary troops had advanced to the Rhine, they were pushed back again by the Prussians. The French military moved into a fortified camp in Limbach, also in order to carry out attacks against Homburg and the magnificent palace complex on the Karlsberg. To protect the Limbach camp, jumps were built on the old town of Galgenberg. The medieval church in the village was destroyed because the roof structure and stalls were used to create the fortifications. In the course of the mutual attacks, the old town and Limbach were now again and again the focus of the fighting. The local population was confiscated to supply the troops, food supplies and cattle were requisitioned. Six men from the old town have testified the living conditions of the time for posterity with their signature: “Have we drawn the community leaders to the old town the Blug ourselves Peter Bach Alt, Georg Schwitzgebel, Jakob Baus Alt, Heinrich Baus, Jakob Baus jr., Daniel Baus in the year 1792 started again to plant gromberries and planted the hemp again and pulled the flower himself and God says call me in an emergency so I want to save you and you should praise me. Old Town, March 20, 1793 ... Peter Bach, Head ”. The hopes expressed in this document were of course not fulfilled, and the place was repeatedly at the center of acts of war. The battle that took place on August 14, 1793 in Altstadt was particularly dramatic. The combined Saxon and Prussian troops inflicted heavy losses on the French units. The number of victims varies between 350 and 500 dead, depending on the source. Where these soldiers were buried is still unclear. A mass grave is to be assumed. The scene of the battle is also unknown. The French troops were forced to “disorderly retreat” - that is, to flee over the bottleneck of the Bliesbrücke.
The old town was an independent municipality until the end of 1973 and was merged with Limbach and Kirkel-Neuhäusel to form the new municipality of Kirkel on January 1, 1974 as part of the Saarland regional and administrative reform .
Residents
Altstadt has 1751 inhabitants, 902 of whom are male and 849 are female. 1713 of the population are German and 38 are foreigners. The religious affiliation is 527 Roman Catholic , 899 Protestant , 62 other and 263 without religion (as of December 31, 2012).
Transport links
The old town lies on the Saarland state road L116 between Limbach and Bexbach . The L114 leads via Limbach to Neunkirchen .
Old town once had a train station on the Homburg – Neunkirchen railway line , but it has since been closed due to its peripheral location. From Old Town there on the L219 towards Kleinottweiler the junction Homburg the A6 motorway can be achieved. In neighboring Limbach there is a connection to the A8 motorway and the Limbach train station. This is on the electrified Mannheim – Saarbrücken railway line . This route also opens up the medium-sized centers of Homburg and St. Ingbert as well as the state capital Saarbrücken .
Regional buses operated by Deutsche Bahn AG and Neunkircher Verkehrs-AG provide connections to Neunkirchen, Homburg, Blieskastel and Bexbach.
Attractions
The " bell tower " is considered the landmark of the old town. It stands in the oldest part of the village and was built in 1859 because the old town no longer had a church at that time and therefore no bells were available. The red sandstone tower, which was restored in 2003, is officially a listed building. There are six more in the old town: Two tombstones from the 19th century in the cemetery (including the grave of Johann Peter Friedrich Weber and his wife Charlotte Elisabetha Bach, the parents of Christian Weber, who founded the Karlsberg Brewery in Homburg in 1878 ), the three-winged residential complex of the customs station from the League of Nations in 1925, the building of the "elementary school" from 1930 and two boundary stones in the state forest "Am Zunderbaum". These red sandstone blocks date from the year 1604 and mark the historical border between Nassau-Saarbrücken and Pfalz-Zweibrücken as the last relics of the then new and elaborate stone.
The former toll station Homburg (Saar) West is designated as a priority area for nature conservation in the State Development Plan for the Environment of the Saarland and as a “maintenance zone” within the Unesco Biosphere Reserve Bliesgau. The two nature reserves " Höllengraben " (together with Homburg) and " Kühnbruch " (with Niederbexbach) belong to the district of the old town . Both wetlands are located in the valley of the Blies. Immediately next to the “Limbach sewage treatment plant” in the old town, another wetland is designated as a protected landscape component.
Facilities
- Hugo Strobel Hall
- Municipal library old town
- Grass football pitch of SV Altstadt
- EVS sewage treatment plant "Limbach"
- Energis waterworks "Beeden"
literature
- Martin Baus, Wolfgang Kerkhoff and Hans Schwender: Altstadter Moments, A word and picture book , Merzig 1985.
- Martin Baus and Karin Scheid (eds.): 700 years old town , commemorative publication for the 700th anniversary celebration in 1999, St. Ingbert 1999.
- Martin Baus: A pretty garden and a draw well were once there, the old town bell tower is 150 years old . In: Saarpfalz-Jahrbuch 2010 , Homburg 2009, pp. 59–62.
- Martin Baus: From the neck court to the landscape protection area, on the cultural history of the old town Galgenberg . In: Saarpfalz-Jahrbuch 2011 , St. Ingbert 2010, pp. 137–143.
Web links
- Old town website , private offer
- Old town district on the website of the municipality of Kirkel
- Literature about the old town (Kirkel) in the Saarland bibliography
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Survey of residents of the community of Kirkel , accessed on March 31, 2014
- ^ Old town information page on the website of the municipality of Kirkel
- ↑ New Structure Act - NGG of December 19, 1973, § 13, published in the Saarland Official Gazette 1973, No. 48, p. 855 (PDF page 26; 499 kB)
- ^ Federal Statistical Office (ed.): Historical municipality directory for the Federal Republic of Germany. Name, border and key number changes in municipalities, counties and administrative districts from May 27, 1970 to December 31, 1982 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart / Mainz 1983, ISBN 3-17-003263-1 , p. 803 .
