Baltzenheim

Baltzenheim (German Balzenheim , dialect "Balze") is a French commune with 574 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in the Grand Est region (until 2015 Alsace). It belongs to the canton of Ensisheim and the Pays Rhin-Brisach municipal association .

geography

Baltzenheim is 1.5 km west of the Rhine , which forms the border between France and the Federal Republic of Germany . The Rhine canal runs parallel to the natural stream . There is a weir to the northeast of Baltzenheim .

In the year 786 a settlement on the ground of the city was mentioned for the first time, in 847 it received the name Baldofesheim .

The Thirty Years War destroyed a large part of the population, so that in 1636 only six people lived in the village.

Around 1720, the place repeatedly fell victim to the Rhine , which often led to floods until it was dammed in the 19th century. A former arm of the Rhine , the Rhin de Biesheim or Le Giessen , runs immediately east of Baltzenheim. From 1871 until the end of the First World War , Baltzenheim belonged to the German Empire as part of the realm of Alsace-Lorraine and was assigned to the Colmar district in the Upper Alsace district .