Gemünden (Hunsrück)

Basic data
State :	Rhineland-Palatinate
County :	Rhein-Hunsrück district
Association municipality :	Kirchberg (Hunsrück)
Height :	300 m above sea level NHN
Area :	10.67 km 2
Residents:	1296 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	121 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	55490
Area code :	06765
License plate :	SIM, GOA
Community key :	07 1 40 041
Association administration address:	Marktplatz 5 ; 55481 Kirchberg (Hunsrück)
Website :	www.gemuenden.de
Mayoress :	Agnes Chudy ( CDU )
Location of the local community of Gemünden in the Rhein-Hunsrück district

Gemünden is a municipality in the Rhein-Hunsrück district in Rhineland-Palatinate . It belongs to the Kirchberg (Hunsrück) community .

geography

Gemünden is located on the southwestern edge of the Soonwald , a part of the Hunsrück that belongs to the Rhenish Slate Mountains . The place is located between Kirchberg in the northwest and Simmertal in the southeast. In Gemünden the Lametbach flows into the Simmerbach , which now flows as Kellenbach in the direction of the Nahe .

The northern settlement of Panzweiler belongs to the village .

history

The place is mentioned for the first time in a document in 1304. Local rulers were the Counts of Sponheim . In the 14th century, Gemünden obtained municipal rights with fortifications, courts and markets. In 1417 the Electoral Palatinate received 1/5 of the town and castle of Gemünden. In 1437 half of the shares in Sponheim were given to the Counts of Veldenz and Baden . The Veldenzer shares went to the Pfalz-Simmern line , the Baden share was also in the hands of the Count Palatine at the end of the 15th century. In 1514 Friedrich Schenk von Schmidtburg bought the place and the city. With the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine in 1794 by French revolutionary troops , the place became French, in 1815 it was assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia at the Congress of Vienna . Since 1946 the place has been part of the then newly formed state of Rhineland-Palatinate .

Jewish community

Under the protection of the von Schmidtburg taverns , Jews had lived in Gemünden since around 1700. In the 19th century, up to a fifth of the population were Jewish . The Jewish community had a synagogue , a school, a ritual bath and a cemetery, which is now a listed building. Social life was shaped by various associations. "Due to the high Jewish population, Gemünden was known in the area as" Little Nazareth "or" Little Jerusalem ". The Jewish families earned their living mainly as cattle traders and as small traders. Since the second half of the 19th century, several of them had opened shops and stores on site. "

Long before the National Socialist seizure of power , there were anti-Jewish clashes in Gemünden, as an article in the Jüdisch-Liberalen Zeitung on September 14, 1928 shows: “Gemünden. (Attempted storming of the synagogue). In Gemünden (Hunsrück) it happened at a National Socialist event, at which the Volkish member of the state parliament Dr. Ley - Cologne spoke to bloody clashes between Hitlerites and communists. Since the local police had not taken any precautions, some swastika activists tried to storm the synagogue. The little town of Gemünden has been a playground for the Hitler rowdies for some time. After these events, the synagogue community turned to the Ministry in Berlin with a request for protection. "

In 1933, there were 61 Jewish residents in Gemünden. In the following years, due to the consequences of the economic boycott, the increasing disenfranchisement and the reprisals, some of the Jewish community members moved away or emigrated, mainly to France and North America, in only one case to Palestine. By 1938 around two thirds of the Jewish population had left the place. During the November pogrom in 1938 , the synagogue was desecrated and devastated, and finally set on fire. The fire ruin was later canceled. The Jews who remained in Gemünden were deported to the extermination camps until 1943 , with at least 22 people falling victim to the Holocaust .

The Gemünder have apparently not found their peace with the expelled and murdered Jewish fellow citizens to this day. On the day of the Rhineland-Palatinate state election in March 2016, the people of Gemünd were able to vote on the laying of stumbling blocks . “In November 2015, the municipality's council had postponed a decision on this and voted in favor of a citizens' survey. The suggestion of the relocation came from the parliamentary group "Citizens for Gemünden", which wanted to remember the murdered former Jewish fellow citizens in the former regional stronghold of National Socialism. The "Citizens for Communities" parliamentary group had prepared a working group that was supposed to develop a concrete concept for laying stumbling blocks. € 2,000 has already been set in the municipality's budget for the relocation; some private individuals were willing to take on sponsorships. In the run-up to the vote, the CDU parliamentary group in Gemünden has indirectly positioned itself against stumbling blocks. In 2003, the CDU had already favored a memorial stone in memory of Jewish fellow citizens at the Jewish cemetery. The result of the vote on the day of the state elections was that a majority of 238 people from Gemünden voted against Stolpersteine, 139 voted in favor and 53 abstained. However, the citizens' survey is not binding for the municipal council. "

politics

Municipal council

The municipal council in Gemünden consists of 16 council members, who were elected in a personalized proportional representation in the local elections on May 26, 2019 , and the honorary local mayor as chairman.

The distribution of seats in the municipal council:

choice	SPD	CDU	FWG	BfG	total
2019	-	6th	5	5	16 seats
2014	-	4th	6th	6th	16 seats
2009	3	4th	5	4th	16 seats
2004	4th	6th	6th	-	16 seats

FWG = FWG Gemünden e. V.
BfG = Citizens for Gemünden e. V.

mayor

The local mayor of Gemünden is Agnes Chudy (CDU). In the local elections on May 26, 2019, she was elected with a share of 78.60% of the votes, making her successor to Dieter Kaiser.

coat of arms

	Blazon : “Divided; above, sheathed in blue and gold, below a silver clasp in red. "
	Justification of the coat of arms: The upper half of the shield refers to the former affiliation to the front county of Sponheim , the lower half of the shield refers to the Schmidtburg.

Culture and sights

View from the castle towards Soonwald

Simmerbach and Gemünden Castle

Gemünden is also called the “Pearl of the Hunsrück” by the locals because of its historic center and its exposed valley location. The Gemünden Castle stands on a ridge above the Simmerbach . A good two kilometers south of Gemünden on a 555 meter high hilltop of the Soonwald , the Koppensteiner Höhe , lies the ruins of the Koppenstein Castle , five kilometers east of it the Alteburgturm . The Lützelsoon rises southwest of Gemünden .

Buildings

tourism

A 4 km long geological nature trail begins and ends in Gemünden, 23 rock groups from the Hunsrück-Nahe area are shown and explained on display boards. The nature trail touches the Kaisergrube , opened in 1873 , where slate was mined until 1969. Slate mining began in Gemünden at the beginning of the 19th century. On an annual average, 600 tons of slate were extracted and processed in Gemünden, and up to 35 miners found work in the pits.

Gemünden is the starting point of the Schinderhannes-Soonwald cycle path to Simmern .

Regular events

According to old tradition, the fair is set on the last weekend in July and the fire brigade festival on the last weekend in August. The carnival is celebrated intensely with street parades, cap meetings and children's events.

Personalities

Born in Gemünden

Heinrich Knebel (1801–1859), headmaster in Simmern and pastor in Ravengiersburg, teacher and director of various Rheinischer grammar schools

Louis Wirth , actually Ludwig Wirth, (1897–1952), sociologist

Julius Baruch (1892–1945), wrestler and European weightlifting champion

Josef Grohé (1902–1987), NSDAP - Gauleiter of the Gau Cologne-Aachen

Otto Wirth (1905–1991), cultural scientist at Roosevelt University in Chicago

Felix Stilz (1928–2017), tax advisor , was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class , for his voluntary work

Dieter Finzel (* 1940), President / Honorary President of the Hamm Bar Association, Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon

Connected to Gemünden

Carsten Braun (* 1978), composer; lived in Gemünden from 1978 to 1999

literature

Werner Zwiebelberg: The old Gemünden . Publication of the regional study group in the administrative region of Koblenz e. V. Harald Boldt, Boppard 1970.
Werner Zwiebelberg: The citizens and residents of Gemünden in the Hunsrück: 1360–1800 (= Hunsrück History Association, series of publications, 10). 1975.
Volker Boch: Jews in Gemünden - history and destruction of a Jewish community in the Hunsrück . Ed .: Erhard Roy Wiehn . Hartung-Gorre, Konstanz 2003, ISBN 3-89649-824-X .