Galmbach (Kailbach)

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Forsthaus Eduardsthal in the desert Galmbach 2017
Remnants of the wall of a former building in Galmbach 2017
Excerpt from Haas' map from around 1800 with Galmbach, which is still referred to here as Gallenbach.

Galmbach is a deserted area in the Kailbach district of the city of Oberzent in the Odenwaldkreis in Hesse . After the settlement was extinguished, the forester's house Eduardsthal of the princely house of Leiningen was built at this point .

Geographical location

The village was the Galmbach in the left southeastern side valley Itter stream that the Galmbach just above opening out from Kailbach deep in the mountains of red sandstone Odenwald notched does. As a Hessian national territory, this narrow valley protrudes like a finger deep into the Baden region and is the most southeastern part of Hesse. After three and a half kilometers from the north along the Galmbach, you reach a basin with a diamond-shaped area of ​​around 30 hectares. Here the village of Galmbach was 370 meters above sea level. The valley basin is surrounded on all sides by a wreath of steep and towering Odenwald peaks. They include, starting just to the right of the Galmbach in the north and counting clockwise:

  • Sachsenberg ( 499.3  m above sea level )
  • Kinzert ( 553.2  m above sea level ), which drops over the Heidenbuckel into the valley
  • Lenzberg ( 549.7  m above sea level )
  • Dickbuckel ( 564  m above sea level ) with its broad spur, also called Lenzberg
  • Reisenberg ( 567.8  m above sea level )
  • Hart ( 581  m above sea level ), under which the Schwanne extends into the valley floor
  • Köpfchen ( 571  m above sea level ) with a northern secondary peak ( 553.1  m above sea level ) and its valley slope Lichtewald
  • Salt coating head ( 576.1  m above sea level. NN ), behind the side peaks of the condyle obscured
  • Schildenberg ( 552.3  m above sea level ) with a southern secondary peak (over 550  m above sea level )

In the valley basin of Galmbach the water that feeds the Galmbach collects from all directions. The short main spring streams come from the east, from the cut between Heidenbuckel and Lenzberg , and from the south, fed there by the Hart and its neighboring peaks. A small pond is dammed up where all the source streams meet in the valley floor. The pond is located on the former village boundary.

history

Reservoir of the Galmbach desert on the former outskirts in 2017

The place "Gollenbach" has been documented since 1443. It got its name from the wet valley areas called "Gollen". In the 16th century there was the name form Gallenbach . In the 18th century there were at least 12 farm estates in the secluded valley, but these were severely fragmented due to inheritance. In 1806 Gallenbach came to the Grand Duchy of Hesse with the Erbach-Fürstenauischen Amt Freienstein . After 1800 bad harvests put the inhabitants of the village now called Galmbach in need. In 1828 Galmbach still had 19 houses and 149 inhabitants.

In the period from 1832 to 1836, the Princely House of Leiningen gradually acquired all the land in the Galmbach district in order to round off the wildlife park in Leiningen . Whatever buildings were suitable were preserved, the rest were auctioned off for demolition or fell into disrepair. Only a forester's house for the forest workers in Lining remained and is now leased as a weekend house.

The municipality of Galmbach was dissolved in 1836. The independent Eduardsthal district was created in its place , named after the son of Prince Karl, Prince of Leiningen . This in turn was dissolved by a resolution of the Hessian state government at the same time as a number of other independent districts with effect from April 1, 1953. It was incorporated into the community of Kailbach on the other side . This cabinet resolution, which was apparently inadequate from a legal point of view, was confirmed retrospectively by the law on the incorporation of parish-free land in the Darmstadt administrative region of July 4, 1966 (GVBl. I p. 177).

Other desert areas in the Odenwald

Another abandoned community north of Galmbach called Neubrunn , which was on the road from Kailbach to Kirchzell, was named Ernsttal after another son by the Prince of Leiningen . Also in the villages of Sondernach (now known as Reisenbacher Grund) and Ober- und Unterferdinandsdorf , all located a little south of Galmbach , all in the area of ​​what is now the margravial Baden Forest, but also in Wiesenthal , Michelbuch or Dürr-Ellenbach , the barren soil could not find its inhabitants feed more, so that they moved away or emigrated in the first half of the 19th century. Their villages ceased to exist.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dissolution of the independent districts and independent land in the Darmstadt administrative district; here: Erbach district from March 31, 1953 . In: The Hessian Minister of the Interior (Ed.): State Gazette for the State of Hesse. 1953 No. 19 , p. 427 , item 486; Paragraph 9 ( online at the information system of the Hessian State Parliament [PDF; 2.4 MB ]).
  2. ↑ Law on the incorporation of parish-free land in the Darmstadt administrative district (GVBl. II 331-12) of July 4, 1966 . In: The Hessian Minister of the Interior (ed.): Law and Ordinance Gazette for the State of Hesse . 1966 No. 20 , p. 177 , §§ 19, 40 No. 5 ( online at the information system of the Hessian Landtag [PDF; 939 kB ]).

Web links

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

Coordinates: 49 ° 31 ′ 20.5 ″  N , 9 ° 6 ′ 41.3 ″  E