Esch (Bad Münstereifel)

Esch City of Bad Münstereifel Coordinates: 50 ° 29 ′ 44 ″  N , 6 ° 49 ′ 31 ″  E
Height :	469 m above sea level NHN
Residents :	243  (December 31, 2018) with Escher Heide
Postal code :	53902
Area code :	02257
Location of Esch in Bad Münstereifel
The Eschenstrasse

Esch is a district of Bad Münstereifel in the district of Euskirchen , North Rhine-Westphalia and belongs to the village community and formerly independent municipality of Mutscheid .

location

The place Esch is in the northeast of the Eifel , about ten kilometers southeast of Bad Münstereifel on the state road 165 , which cuts the western edge of the village and separates the village from the district of Escher Heide .

The watershed between the Ahr and Erft runs in the immediate vicinity to the northwest . On the same ridge there is also a junction of the old Roman road from Trier to Cologne , which , coming from Blankenheim , continues via Rheinbach to Bonn . The Wasserscheide district is located at its intersection with the L 165 .

Not far from the watershed, two streams arise, north of the Escher Bach (Trinkpützsiefen) and south of the Lamersbach (Oberbach), which flow around the Escher Höhe on both sides to unite further east at the Glückstal with the Brobach coming from Hummerzheim to the Buchholzbach , the one at Daubiansmühle Armuthsbach , which flows into the Ahr when guilty .

history

The first written mention of Esch is not known. The etymological origin of the name (see Eschflur ) may suggest an amelioration through slash and burn or plague management . Esch was therefore one of the last to be settled among the fourteen places in the Mutscheid parish .

In the course of the Donation of Are-Hochstaden , the area of ​​Mutscheid fell to Kurköln in 1246 , where it formed a Dingstuhl (judicial district) in the Electoral Office of Hardt together with Rupperath until 1794 .

Closing verses from the 3rd fire letter from the robber Johann Müller from Schönau

During the French period around 1800, Esch suffered from the pranks of the robber Johann Müller from Schönau , who, after stealing an ox from the farmer Joseph Pfahl, blackmailed the towns of Esch and Soller for money by threatening to burn them down.

19th century

The workforce of the Glückstal mine from the Libussa union in 1901

From 1803 under Napoleon I there was a revival of lead mining in the Glückstal near Willerscheid , which also enabled the Escher farmers' sons to earn extra income . The buildings for the lead smelting , in which silver also fell, were erected at a mill near the union of the Brobach with the Escher Bach and the Lammersbach. A report from 1830 puts the workforce at that time at 24 miners and miners. At the same time, 31 children were also working in ore processing under the supervision of a riser . In the middle of the 19th century the mining company employed 136 workers (mostly children) who supported a total of 336 family members. As the Glückstal mine dropped less and less in the following decades, this had, as expected, serious consequences for the people in Mutscheid.

Stagecoach romance in the Ahr valley, 19th century.

In the 19th century there were repeated severe famines in the Eifel, especially in 1816/17, 1847 and 1879/80. In a memorandum from 1853 it said: “Very many Eifel residents know no other food than potatoes and bread, which consists of a mixture of oatmeal and potatoes. One can say without exaggeration that two thirds of the entire population eat meat only once a year. ”The consequences of the terrible food situation were all too obvious:“ In 1852, only 10% of all those required to be presented were usable for military service. ”

Many farmers were heavily in debt as a result of the poor harvests, and the community of Mutscheid was hit harder when in the autumn of 1865 the villages of Reckerscheid and Hummerzheim burned down almost completely every little more than a month . The school building in Reckerscheid, which was also built for the neighboring towns of Esch, Willerscheid and Soller, burned out completely. Following reports of the hunger winter 1879/80 there was a wave of solidarity in the Empire , and in 1883 the "Eifel Fund" was launched, through the period of 18 years, 5.5 million Mark for land reclamation, wasteland afforestation and to carry out mergers were applied .

In addition to the harsh climate, the Mutscheid's poor transport connections were a hindrance to economic development. With the help of the Reich grants, the improvement of the road from Münstereifel to Schuld, which had been required since 1855, could finally be realized in 1883. After completion, a post office from Münstereifel to Adenau was set up, which, if necessary, also stopped in Esch, the highest point of the route, where u. a. the services of the local blacksmith could be used.

20th century

While the transport links were still backward, the industrial age gradually moved within earshot: a telephone line was laid as early as 1884, the connection of which was initially in Berresheim . The need in the Eifel still left its mark: In 1896, the Escher Chapel St. Georg had to be closed due to dilapidation, and in 1905 it was demolished.

In 1911, the municipalities of Mutscheid, Schönau and Mahlberg asked the Prussian Railway Minister and the House of Representatives in Berlin to fight local poverty by connecting to the railway line to Münstereifel. In 1913 the newspapers reported about a planned continuation from Münstereifel via Schönau and Holzmülheim to Blankenheim (Ahr) , and two years later, after the outbreak of the World War , an alternative route from Rheinbach over the ridge of the watershed was even implemented for the strategic embankment required by the army command to Tondorf .

In anticipation of the associated blessings, the hotel on the watershed was built in 1913. When the planned connection did not come about, the hotel stayed in the following period thanks to overnight stays in the vicinity of the traditional St. Michaelis - pilgrimage to the nearby Michelsberg .

When the Rhineland was occupied by France after the First World War , efforts to establish a rail link finally had no chance. Instead, the peripheral areas were now opened up by the Kraftpost . Electrification through overhead lines also fell in the same phase, making a number of technical innovations possible ( radio, etc.), with the help of which the high-altitude area finally found a connection to the modern age. The life of the farmers and their work animals was soon made easier by the first tractors.

Second World War

During the Second World War , Esch was the scene of several dogfights, in which the village narrowly escaped disaster twice. The first attack was probably more by chance when an Allied air fleet unloaded its remaining bomb load on the return flight shortly before Esch. An estimated 20 bombs fell on the height between Reckerscheid and Willerscheid in a young spruce forest north of the Escher Bach. Isolated splinters reached the farms in Esch, and one broke through the power cable of a threshing machine .

An American Boeing B-17 shot down over Germany

An even more exciting spectacle was when German fighters shot down a four-engine American bomber over Esch . After losing parts of the wings in an explosion over the town, the plane crashed with a full bomb load on the old road near the junction to Nitterscheid . It had about ten bombs on board, which luckily did not explode. An engine that had torn off in the mid-air explosion fell on the Escher Höhe next to a residential building, and other debris was scattered all over the village up to the Escher Heide. The pilot was killed while jumping with a damaged parachute, but other crew members were able to save themselves and were trapped in the surrounding forests. Esch experienced another aerial battle in the last months of the war when a German fighter pilot was shot down over the place. The plane crashed not far from the first crash site next to the road to Nitterscheid in the swampy meadow (Siefen) on the Lammersbach below the old dairy . The pilot was able to save himself with the parachute.

In an air raid on the watershed in June 1944, three foreign fatalities were mourned. In the labor camp repurposed hall of the local hotels were about fifty Polish wartime forced laborers housed the u. a. helped with the cultivation of the Escher and Sasserath Heath. The hotel later served as accommodation for refugees and members of the armed forces .

To defend the strategically important altitude near Mahlberg , the German command held about 100 soldiers with several tanks ready at the beginning of March 1945, who on March 6th fought an artillery battle with advancing units of General Omar Bradley's 1st US Army . The Americans tried to fire at an ammunition dump north of the watershed from their position on the White Stone , but missed their target.

After the capture of Mahlberg on March 7th, the same day on which Bradley's 9th Panzer Division captured the intact bridge at Remagen and the first bridgehead across the Rhine , the village of Esch was also shot at from the Reckerscheider Weg. The inhabitants spent the night in a tunnel dug into the mountain slope near the Escher Bach to safety. The German soldiers had already withdrawn at this point, and the following morning the officers and men of the 1st US Army took up quarters in Esch. Since their further advance towards the Ahr valley stalled when guilty, they stayed longer in the place, which served as a supply depot and ammunition store. The escape of the Germans ended only three days later when 23,000 Wehrmacht soldiers were trapped in the Eifel by the simultaneous advance of the 3rd US Army under General George S. Patton along the Moselle .

post war period

In the post-war period , Esch experienced an upswing with the watershed and the gas station due to the through traffic to the Nürburgring , to which the generous expansion of the road from Eicherscheid to Schuld, which made it possible to set up a machine factory, also contributed in the mid-1960s .

After the war there was still a cattle show and a dairy in Esch, but with the decline of agriculture in the 1960s, these initiatives were discontinued. The village forge was given up due to the structural change that was taking place, as was a mom and pop shop that was active until the 1980s . The next larger grocery store is in Schönau today.

After the region was incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia in 1816, the place Esch belonged to the municipality of Mutscheid, but with the municipal reorganization it became a district of the city of Bad Münstereifel on July 1, 1969. With just under 250 inhabitants, Esch is now the largest of the fourteen villages in Mutscheid.

Chapel of St. George

The patron saint of Esch is St. Georg . His chapel was built in 1717 and consecrated on April 22, 1724 by the Jesuit priest Johann Dursfeld. Masses were celebrated on the feast day of St. George ( April 23 ) and St. Maternus ( September 11 ), one of the first bishops of Trier and Cologne, who was a popular cattle patron until the 18th century. In 1905 it had to be demolished because it was dilapidated. The chapel housed a 30 kg bell that is now kept in the Esch fire station .

economy

The largest local employer since 1965 has been the EMB Eifeler Maschinenbau GmbH factory at Landstrasse 165. There is also a gas station, a carpenter's shop, two freight forwarding companies and the Zur Wasserscheide restaurant . Today there are only farms in the district of Escher Heide, including several riding stables.

With Datanet GmbH in the Hardtbrücke district , just under three kilometers further south on the L 165, a dynamic high-tech company has also set up shop near Esch for several years.

Attractions

Center of Esch with half-timbered house

The lovingly restored half-timbered houses around the circular old town center at the end of Eschenstrasse , where two old well houses have also been preserved, are worth seeing . From the hilltop on the outskirts there is a view of numerous Eifel mountains from the Michelsberg ( 586.1  m ) over the Hohe Acht ( 746.9  m ) and the Nürburg (approx.  676.5  m ) to the Aremberg ( 623.8  m ) . The peaks in the vicinity around the Odesheimer Höhe (approx.  468  m ) may have been the reference points of a Mutscheider calendar system for determining the solstice and lunar change in Celtic prehistory .

Due to its central location in the Ahr Mountains , Esch is predestined for gentle nature and hiking tourism. With secluded forests, hills, meadows and streams, the typical terrain of the Eifel invites you to go on long jogging or cycling tours. Disclosed is in particular the main trail 3 of Eifelverein , the Erftstadt-Lieser-Mosel path , the second stage of Bad Münster Eifel to Wershofen to approximately halfway touches the watershed districts and Escher Heide.

Interesting destinations for hikes in the vicinity of Esch are the Roman road from the watershed to Bröhlingen and the extensive forest area around Kop Nück , the St. Michaels chapel on the Michelsberg near Mahlberg, the valley of the Escher Bach and the remains of the lead melt in the Glückstal , the forest clearing with the mouth hole of the Roland tunnel near Willerscheid (where a well-known forest festival takes place every year on the last weekend in July), the height of the Sasserather Heide and the Hagelkreuz near Nitterscheid, the chapel of the Fourteen Holy Helpers between Nitterscheid and Honerath and the parish church of St. Helena and the memorial in Mutscheid . Not too far away are the Gut Hospelt and the Lüfthildis chapel near Odesheim , the equestrian center at the Buchholzbacher Mühle , the hand-weaving village of Rupperath, the Wensburg in the Liersbach valley and the Effelsberg radio telescope , which with a mirror diameter of 100 m is one of the largest fully mobile radio telescopes on earth heard.

Connection

The most important connection is the country road 165 from Bad Münstereifel via Eicherscheid, Schönau and Esch to Schuld . This road, which was expanded in the 1960s and is called Provinzialstraße between Schönau and Hardtbrücke , is particularly popular with racing fans on the way to the Nürburgring because of its long curves. On the southern outskirts of Esch there is the junction of the district road 55 to Nitterscheid, Sasserath , Hilterscheid and Ohlerath . The most important secondary connection to Esch is the Landstrasse 113, which leads from its starting point Wasserscheide via Rheinbach to Bonn.

The RVK bus line 822 stops in town. The TaxiBusPlus is available. The stop is opposite the petrol station. The primary school children are brought to the Catholic primary school St. Helena in Mutscheid. High school and high school students usually go to Bad Münstereifel.

Clubs and customs

In Esch there is a village club and a bachelor club that organize a village festival in summer. Further highlights in the course of the year are the erection of the maypole on April 30th, the forest festival in Glückstal at the end of July, the Mutscheider fair on the first weekend in September, the pilgrimage to the Michelsberg on September 29th and the Martinsfeuer on November 11th.

For other activities (sport, singing, etc.), the citizens of Esch are mainly involved in the clubs of the former municipality of Mutscheid, such as the sports club SV 47 Mutscheid , the St. Cäcilia Mutscheid wind orchestra , the Mutscheid choir Eifelklang and the St. Cäcilia Mutscheid church choir .

A tank tender is stationed in Esch and belongs to the Mutscheid fire fighting group of the 4th platoon of the Bad Münstereifel volunteer fire brigade .

House names

Some long-established families in Esch still keep the dialectal house name , which only rarely coincides with the official family name. The house name is usually passed on to the male descendants, but under certain conditions it is also passed on in the female line. A house baptism, as it takes place in some neighboring towns during the fair, is not common in Esch.

Traditional house names in Esch are: Adams, Bäckersch, Bau, Freuschene, Hamesch, Jasse, Kassel, Käthringe, Klaespittersch, Klaestringe, Kloße, Lehm, Liene, Mejanns, Mejrierte, Nieße, Schmotte, Thele, Tönnesse .

In dialectal usage, the house name is placed in front of the first name: Josef Burggraf = Tönnesse Jüpp .

Personalities

• Michael Wink (born April 10, 1951 in Esch), biologist and professor at Heidelberg University
• Andrea Rings (* 1965 in Euskirchen, grew up in Esch), biologist and children's book author

literature

• Wolfgang Bergheim ( inter alia): Mutscheid 893-1993 , Berlin, Bonn, 1993.
• Friedrich Knauer: The Sasserath Heath. On the agricultural and social history of a landscape , Westkreuz-Verlag, Bad Münstereifel, 2000, ISBN 3-929592-52-5 .

Web links

• Esch on the homepage of the city of Bad Münstereifel
• Mahlberg.info on the history of the Michelsberg and its chapel

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Population figures . Retrieved March 11, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Willibald Alexis: Schinderhannes . In: The new Pitaval: A collection of the most interesting crime stories of all countries from older and more recent times . FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1869, p. 50 .
3. ↑ Udo Fleck: “Thieves - Robbers - Murderers”. Study on the collective delinquency of Rhenish robber gangs at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century , dissertation, Trier 2003, p. 50. ( PDF )
4. ↑ Edgar Fass: Glückstal and Klappertshardt - A look back at the earlier lead ore works in the Mutscheid . wisoveg.de. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
5. ↑ Carl Brandt: Famine in our homeland 150 and 120 years ago . wisoveg.de. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
6. ↑ Dr. Braun (MdL 1853), quoted in: Hans-Dieter Arntz: Natural disasters and emergencies in the Eifel . hans-dieter-arntz.de. January 23, 2007. Accessed May 24, 2013.
7. ↑ Hans-Dieter Arntz: Natural disasters and emergencies in the Eifel , ibid.
8. ^ Josef Matthias Ohlert: Efforts to open up the city of Münstereifel for traffic in the 19th century . wisoveg.de. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
9. ^ Franz J. Henseler: From the postal history of the Ahr valley . Kreis-ahrweiler.de. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
10. ↑ Erich Mertes: 500 years of post in the Eifel . Jahrbuch-daun.de. Archived from the original on January 8, 2016. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
11. ↑ Information on stagecoach traffic in Münstereifel . wisoveg.de. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
12. ↑ Continuation of the Euskirchen - Münstereifel railway line . In: Euskirchener Zeitung , January 29, 1913. Retrieved May 24, 2013. 
13. ↑ The Euskirchen – Münstereifel railway line . In: Euskirchener Volksblatt , October 1, 1935. Retrieved on May 24, 2013. 
14. ↑ Thomas Fues: Festschrift for the 100th anniversary of the Euskirchen – Bad Münstereifel railway line 1890–1990 , quoted in: Chronicle of the village of Frohngau 1900 to 1945 . ps-frohngau.de. Archived from the original on November 1, 2013. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
15. ↑ Euskirchen Postbuses from the 20s to 60s . wisoveg.de. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
16. ^ According to eyewitness reports by Josef Weber (1932–2019) from Esch.
17. ↑ Edgar Fass: Events of the Second World War in the Münstereifel high altitude area . wisoveg.de. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
18. ↑ Martin Bünermann: The communities of the first reorganization program in North Rhine-Westphalia . Deutscher Gemeindeverlag, Cologne 1970, p. 87 .
19. ↑ Company history . emb-eifel.de. Archived from the original on October 25, 2014. Retrieved on May 24, 2013.
20. ↑ About us . Landgasthof zur Wasserscheide. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
21. ↑ Company profile . DATANET GmbH. Archived from the original on June 30, 2013. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
22. ^ Heinrich Klein: The peasant calendar Odesheim - calendar analyzes Michelsberg, Odesheim and Mutscheid. vorzeitkalender.de, accessed on January 21, 2016 . 
23. ↑ Erft-Lieser-Mosel-Weg - 2nd stage: Bad Münstereifel - Wershofen (21.5 km) . eifelverein.de. Archived from the original on March 10, 2012. Retrieved on May 24, 2013.
24. ↑ Sights around Esch . eifel.de. Retrieved May 24, 2013.