Dietzhölztal

coat of arms	Germany map
	Coordinates: 50 ° 50 ′  N , 8 ° 18 ′  E
Basic data
State :	Hesse
Administrative region :	to water
County :	Lahn-Dill district
Height :	392 m above sea level NHN
Area :	37.45 km 2
Residents:	5612 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	150 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	35716
Area code :	02774
License plate :	LDK, DIL
Community key :	06 5 32 005
Community structure:	4 districts
Address of the municipal administration:	Hauptstrasse 92 35716 Dietzhölztal
Website :	www.dietzhoelztal.de
Mayor :	Andreas Thomas (independent)
Location of the Dietzhölztal community in the Lahn-Dill district

The municipality of Dietzhölztal is the northernmost municipality of the Lahn-Dill district in central Hesse with currently 5619 inhabitants (as of July 1, 2020).

geography

The municipality owes its name to the river Dietzhölze , which flows through three of the four districts and flows into the Dill (river) in Dillenburg and thus belongs to the river system of the Rhine . Other watercourses are the Breidebach, which flows into the Mandelbach in Almonds . The Mandelbach then flows through the Hammerweiher - the largest body of water in Dietzhölztal - and finally flows into the Dietzhölze. The highest point in the community is located near the Jagdberg , Rittershausen district, and at 673.1 m it is the highest point in the Lahn-Dill district.

The northernmost point of the Lahn-Dill district is on the border with the city of Netphen .

Neighboring communities

Dietzhölztal borders in the northwest to the city of Netphen , north to the city of Bad Laasphe (both in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in North Rhine-Westphalia ), in the east on the community Breidenbach ( Marburg-Biedenkopf ), in the southeast on the community of Eschenburg and in Southwest to the city of Haiger (both Lahn-Dill-Kreis).

Community structure

The community consists of the districts

• Ewersbach
• Stone bridges
• Almonds
• Rittershausen

history

→ Main article : Ringwall Rittershausen

The oldest archaeological finds in the municipality include the remains of the Celtic ramparts from the early La Tène period . The complex was laid out around 450 BC and abandoned or destroyed in the 3rd century BC, possibly because of the beginning Germanic settlement.

The oldest place in the community is likely to be Almonds, which was first mentioned as Mauuentelina in the Lorsch Codex around 800. However, this place fell into desolation at times in the Middle Ages .

The places Ewersbach, Rittershausen and Langenbach were probably founded during the Franconian conquest (5th to 7th centuries). Ewersbach was first mentioned on August 3, 1302, and that of Rittershausen in 1344. The place Langenbach fell into desolation in the 15th century and the district was assigned to the place Rittershausen.

During the Carolingian period, the Dietzhölze valley formed the easternmost catchment area of ​​the Haigergau , a presumably lower valley of the Lahngau . With the end of the Conradin family, the Haigergau passed to the Count Palatine . They gave it as a fief to the lords of Molsberg , who lent the Dietzhölztal to the nobles of Bicken . Benefiting from its location on the long-distance trade route from Cologne to Leipzig via Angelburg (Berg) , also known as “ Brabanter Strasse ”, Ebersbach (on the street) developed into a central location. The Lords of Bicken owned a castle here (probably a fortified courtyard) and a court court first mentioned in 1303 . The parish was separated from the parish of Haiger after 1048, the patronage right also lay with the Lords of Bicken.

From the 13th century onwards, the Counts of Nassau increasingly penetrated the Haigergau and Herborner Mark area. It came to the Dernbacher feud between Nassau and the Landgraves of Hesse , in which the von Bicken took part on the Hessian side. The Nassau counts were able to assert themselves on the Dill. In 1486 the House of Bicken finally transferred the court rights in the Dietzhölztal to Nassau. This was followed by border disputes between Nassau and Hesse, which were not settled until the middle of the 18th century.

After the transition to Nassau-Dillenburg there was an increased expansion of the iron industry and an associated increase in population. The place Almonds was settled again in 1489 and the places Steinbrücken and Neuhütte were newly created.

When the Nassau-Dillenburg line died out in 1720, the Dietzhölztal fell to the Nassau-Beilstein line . This enlarged the Ebersbach office in 1725 to include the area of ​​the Tringenstein office. The Nassau-Beilstein line died out as early as 1739 and was inherited by the Nassau-Diez ( Orange-Nassau ) house. In 1769, Bergebersbach was completely destroyed in a fire, but rebuilt.

Between 1806 and 1813 the places belonged temporarily to the Grand Duchy of Berg . Here they were part of the Arrondissement of Dillenburg and thus of the Département of Sieg . After Napoléon Bonaparte's defeat in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig , the Orange-Nassau sovereignty was restored. However, the House of Orange-Nassau exchanged its property on the Westerwald and the Dill with the Kingdom of Prussia for Luxembourg at the Congress of Vienna . The Kingdom of Prussia handed over the territory to the Duchy of Nassau on the same day .

Peasant women in mourning and house suits from Straßebersbach and almonds

On July 1, 1816, the Ebersbach office was dissolved and incorporated into the Dillenburg office. The places Neuhütte and Straßebersbach were merged in 1818. The place Steinbrücken was given its own district in 1823, until then it was considered part of Ebersbach.

After the annexation of the Duchy of Nassau, the places belong again to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866. There it belonged to the province of Hessen-Nassau and the administrative district of Wiesbaden . In 1866 the Prussian district and provincial order abolished the Nassau office division. The places belonged to the Dill district .

In 1945 the places were assigned to the US occupation zone and thus became part of Hesse. It belonged to the Wiesbaden administrative district . With its dissolution in 1968, they became part of the Darmstadt administrative district and in 1981 part of the Gießen administrative district . In 1977 they became part of the newly created Lahn-Dill district .

In the 1960s, with the mediation of Professor Dr. Dr. hc Choei Ishibashi the partnership between the Japanese city of the same name Ishibashi and stone bridges. The city name Ishibashi means stone bridges in German. It was one of the first partnerships between a German and a Japanese community. After regional reforms in Germany and Japan, the partnership now exists between the Dietzhölztal community and the town of Shimotsuke .

Church building

On April 1, 1937, Bergebersbach and Straßebersbach were merged to form the municipality of Ewersbach (since then in this notation).

The Dietzhölztal community was reorganized as part of the regional reform in Hesse on February 1, 1971 through the merger of the previously independent communities of Ewersbach and Steinbrücken. On April 1, 1972, almonds joined the church, and took place on 1 January 1977. virtue of state law of the connection of Rittershausen.

The seat of the municipal administration was Ewersbach. Local districts were not formed in the municipality.

Population development

Dietzhölztal: Population from 1971 to 2016
year				Residents
1971			3,964
1972			5,039
1977			6,079
2002			6,909
2003			6,873
2005			6,693
2006			6,603
2007			6,588
2010			5,975
2011			5,959
2013			5,889
2014			5,797
2015			5,759
2016			5,735
Sources: Dietzhölztal municipality

Metal industry

Source:

Finds show that copper was systematically extracted and processed as early as the La Tène period in what is now the municipality .

The upper Dietzhölztal was an important center of iron production since the Middle Ages . The region had a rich deposit of iron ore from Roteisenstein . This was mined, crushed in stamp mills and smelted into iron with the help of charcoal. The smelting was originally carried out in racing furnaces . The pig iron ( furnace sow ) obtained had to be forged in hammer mills . To operate the hammer mills and other facilities, the Dietzhölze, the Mandelbach and the Ebersbach were dammed . The dammed up water drove the hammers through water wheels . The Hammerweiher was created by damming stone bridges .

In the late 16th century there was a comprehensive modernization of iron production by foreign specialists. In 1586 the first blast furnace in Nassau-Dillenburg went into operation with the Neuhütte near Ewersbach . The high demand for charcoal in the Dill area and Siegerland led to the Hauberg economy as a special form of forest management around 1560 . The ore mines became deeper and deeper, which led to ever higher demands on the water art .

As a result of the Thirty Years' War , the iron industry fell into an economic crisis, which enabled the Counts (from 1652 princes) of Nassau-Dillenburg to nationalize what had previously been largely private companies.

The following blast furnaces were in the 17./18. Century in operation in the upper Dietzhölztal: furnace near Rittershausen, Neuhütte near Ewersbach, furnace near Eibelshausen. Hammer works have been documented for this time: Neuhütte near Ewersbach, Teichhammer near Steinbrücken, Steinbrücken Trade Union , Blechhammer near Eibelshausen, Hammer near Wiessenbach.

Other Nassau-Dillenburg ironworks were located in the Dill Valley and on the Scheldt. The County of Wittgenstein (north) and the County of Siegen also operated their own ironworks, which regularly led to disputes over the limited resources of ore and charcoal.

The iron industry experienced a significant slump in the first half of the 18th century. The shortage of charcoal led to an increase in production costs. Despite the formation of a price cartel by the Counts of Nassau, Solms and Wittgenstein, it was not possible to pass these prices on, so that the ironworks in the Dietzhölztal became a considerable financial burden on the Nassau-Dillenburg national budget. This was one of the reasons that from 1730 the principality was under compulsory administration by the Reich Debit Commission due to excessive indebtedness . Only after the transfer of rule to the Orange-Nassau line was it possible to modernize the iron industry from 1743, whereby the focus was placed on the processing industry such as wire drawing .

After the founding of the Duchy of Nassau, the industrialist Johann Jacob Jung gradually succeeded in acquiring ownership of all furnaces and hammer mills in the Dietzhölztal from 1816. After the introduction of the puddling process , the iron hammers were no longer needed and were dismantled around 1870. The Hammerweiher near Steinbrücken, however, was preserved. The Jung family consolidated this property in 1883 in the Hessen-Nassauischer Hüttenverein Aktiengesellschaft with its headquarters in Steinbrücken. In the 1930s this company merged with the Buderus company from Wetzlar .

Some metalworking companies are still represented in the Dietzhölztal today. The most important company is Rittal GmbH & Co. KG of the Friedhelm Loh Group, founded in Rittershausen .

politics

mayor

Since the merger to form the Dietzhölztal municipality, the municipality has had the following mayors:

• 1971–1980: Heinz Hofmann (from 1969 mayor of Ewersbach, † 1980, SPD),
• 1981–1998: Werner Dreiässigacker (* 1937, FWG),
• 1998–2013: Stephan Aurand (* 1964, SPD),
• from 2014: Andreas Thomas (1965, independent).

From 1998 to October 31, 2013, Stephan Aurand was the first directly elected mayor in Dietzhölztal. He was re-elected twice. In the last re-election on February 7, 2010, he received 67.9 percent of the vote. The turnout was 64.6 percent. He resigned from office because on November 1, 2013, he became the new full-time district member of the Lahn-Dill district.

In the direct mayor election on February 9, 2014, the non-party, FWG-supported Andreas Thomas, with 70.1 percent of the votes cast, won against his two competitors from the SPD and CDU. The turnout was 59.4 percent.

In the election on October 20, 2019 (turnout 42.79 percent), Thomas prevailed with 72.61 percent against his 17-year-old SPD challenger Christian Schüler (27.39 percent) and is expected to remain mayor of the community until 2025 .

Community representation

The local elections on March 6, 2016 produced the following results, compared to previous local elections:

Distribution of seats in the municipal council 2016     A total of 23 seats SPD : 9 FW : 6 CDU : 8	Parties and constituencies		% 2016	Seats 2016	% 2011	Seats 2011	% 2006	Seats 2006	% 2001	Seats 2001
	SPD	Social Democratic Party of Germany	38.3	9	46.7	11	34.1	8th	32.5	8th
	CDU	Christian Democratic Union of Germany	36.8	8th	34.6	8th	38.2	9	26.4	6th
	FWG	Free community of voters	24.9	6th	17.0	4th	23.6	5	23.0	5
	FDP	Free Democratic Party	-	-	1.7	0	4.1	1	1.7	0
	BLD	Dietzhölztal citizens list	-	-	-	-	-	-	16.3	4th
	total		100.0	23	100.0	23	100.0	23	100.0	23
	Voter turnout in%		43.4		40.4		38.8		46.9

Town twinning

• Shimotsuke , Japan

Culture and sights

→ Main article : List of cultural monuments in Dietzhölztal

Ewersbach

• Protestant chapel, single-nave building with hipped roof and small turret from the 13th century, reconstruction in the 17th century
• Protestant church , late Romanesque building with west tower from the 13th century, late Gothic reconstruction in the 15th century.
• several half-timbered houses from the 18th century

Almonds

• Protestant chapel , half-timbered building with half-hipped roof and ridge turret built in 1756
• stone arch bridge from the early 19th century
• Half-timbered houses 17th and 18th centuries

Rittershausen

• Protestant church , hall building with crooked hip roof and ridge turret, built in 1769
• Half-timbered houses 17th and 18th centuries
• Stone bridge from the early 17th century
• Multipurpose building (half-timbered) from the 18th century, which housed the bakery, barn, mayor's office, shepherd's apartment and fire brigade shed under one roof

Stone bridges

• Protestant chapel , half-timbered building with roof turret built in 1709, subsequent addition of a stair tower on the north side
• Half-timbered houses 17th and 18th centuries
• Japanese garden

Economy and Infrastructure

traffic

The districts of the community are connected to the neighboring community of Eschenburg via bus lines 300, 301. There is also a connection to Dillenburg with line 302.

The Dietzhölztalbahn used to lead to the community.

Companies

The main plant of the switch cabinet manufacturer Rittal GmbH & Co. KG is located in the Rittershausen district. With the company Kreck Metallwarenfabrik GmbH there is another medium-sized metalworking company in Rittershausen. Karle & Rubner GmbH, based in Steinbrücken, manufactures a. a. Balcony & stair railings. The company Omnical Kessel- und Apparatebau GmbH in Ewersbach, whose origins can be traced back to the 18th century and which guaranteed the families work and existence for generations, had to file for bankruptcy in spring 2015. The service and engineering activities were taken over by the Viessmann Group. In addition, there are several smaller, mostly metal-processing companies in Dietzhölztal.

education

Elementary schools

• Jung-Stilling-School Ewersbach
• Jung-Stilling-School Rittershausen
• Primary school almonds

Universities In the district of Ewersbach there is a state-recognized university with the Ewersbach Theological University of the Federation of Free Evangelical Congregations in Germany .

literature

• Hans-Joachim Becker: The development of the Nassau-Dillenburg ironworks in the 17th and 18th centuries . In: Nassau Annals . tape 118 . Verlag des Verein für Nassau antiquity and historical research, 2007, ISSN  0077-2887 , p. 301-334 .
• Hellmuth Gensicke : State history of the Westerwald . 3. Edition. Historical Commission for Nassau, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-922244-80-7 .
• Hermann-Josef Hucke [editor] (ed.): Großer Westerwaldführer . 3. Edition. Westerwald-Verein e. V., Montabaur 1991, ISBN 3-921548-04-7 .
• Heinz Wionski: monuments in Hesse Lahn-Dill I . Ed .: State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen. 1986, ISBN 3-528-06234-7 (Former Dillkreis).

• Literature about Dietzhölztal in the Hessian Bibliography

Web links

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

• Website of the Dietzhölztal community
• Hike through the Dietzhölztal
• Dietzhölztal, Lahn-Dill district. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
• Link catalog on the topic of Dietzhölztal at curlie.org (formerly DMOZ )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hessian State Statistical Office: Population status on December 31, 2019 (districts and urban districts as well as municipalities, population figures based on the 2011 census) ( help ).
2. ^ Municipal reform: mergers and integration of municipalities from January 20, 1971 . In: The Hessian Minister of the Interior (ed.): State Gazette for the State of Hesse. 1971 No. 6 , p. 248 , para. 12 ( online at the information system of the Hessian state parliament [PDF; 6.2 MB ]).
3. ↑ Law on the restructuring of the Dill district, the districts of Gießen and Wetzlar and the city of Gießen (GVBl. II 330–28) of May 13, 1974 . In: The Hessian Minister of the Interior (ed.): Law and Ordinance Gazette for the State of Hesse . 1974 No. 17 , p. 237 , § 26 ( online at the information system of the Hessian state parliament [PDF; 1,2 MB ]).
4. ^ 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. 356-357 .
5. ^ The Dietzhölztal project a project of the University of Münster.
6. ^ Hessian State Statistical Office: direct elections in Dietzhölztal
7. ↑ Jörgen Linker: Region Wetzlar: Aurand becomes the new number three in the district. In: Mittelhessen.de. September 9, 2013, accessed December 5, 2013 . 
8. ^ Result of the municipal election on March 6, 2016. Hessian State Statistical Office, accessed in April 2016 . 
9. ^ Hessian State Statistical Office: Result of the municipal elections on March 27, 2011
10. ^ Hessian State Statistical Office: Result of the municipal elections on March 26, 2006