History of catfish catching

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Wallerfang's coat of arms; The coat of arms elements are already contained in an imprint from 1614 called the “town seal” and probably refer to the earlier four mills in the village ( Mühleisen ), the seat of the German Bellistum of the Duchy of Lorraine in the village ( Lorraine cross ) and an earlier court seat (star). The blue base color of the coat of arms can also be interpreted as a reference to the Wallerfanger blue that was mined in Wallerfangen .
The center of Wallerfangen with the parish church of St. Katharina seen from Limberg

Wallerfangen ( French: Vaudrevange ) is a municipality in the Saarlouis district around 25 km northwest of Saarbrücken, right on the border with France . It is located in the central Saar valley opposite the confluence of the Prims in the Saar.

Prehistory and early history

Wallerfangen, geographic relief of the Saar Valley and the Limberg heights in the Wallerfangens district (Historical Museum Wallerfangen)
Wallerfangen, Limberg, Celtic ramparts with a ditch in front
Wallerfangen, Limberg, remains of the "Grüner See" water basin

The oldest archaeological find is the Paleolithic hand ax from Wallerfangen , a reading find from 2018. The Neolithic, Copper Age and Early Bronze Age are also only represented by reading finds. First rich bronze depots from the late Urnfield period (9th century BC), a multi-staggered section fortification from the Hallstatt period (8th – 6th centuries BC) on the peninsula-like mountain massif, which rises almost 359 m high on the Saar des Limberg as well as a burial ground with a “princess grave” distinguished by gold neck and arm rings from the latest Hallstatt period (around 500 BC) and the beginning of the La Tène period prove that the Wallerfang area was a central function in the last millennium BC. The finds from Wallerfangen are now among the treasures of the museums in Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Musée d'Archéologie Nationale), Bonn ( Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn ) and Trier ( Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier ).

The foothills of the mountain plateau to the north-west (towards Itzbach), to the north-east (towards Pachten) and to the south-east (towards Wallerfangen) have almost the same height as the middle of the plateau. All the slopes drop about 150 m steeply and thus offered the people of the Hallstatt period protection from attackers. The dominant position of the mountain was last used militarily in the Second World War , when the US Army took the Limberg and from there in the winter of 1944/1945 Dillingen / Saar with its industrial plants of the Dillinger Hütte and the Primstal were ready to storm for months until it was completely conquered in March 1945 lap.

From the almost impregnable location, you have a wide view up and down the Saar and you can also see the valleys of the Nied and Prims. A control of the Saar crossings was also possible. In Roman times , the Contiomagus fort, located on the right bank of the Saar in today's lease , protected the crossing of the Saar; in the Middle Ages, the hilltop castle Siersburg and the moated castle Dillingen had the same function.

For the people of the Hallstatt period, the Limberg also offered itself as a natural mountain fortress because at the foot of the mountain marshy meadows protected access to the slopes: the eastern access to the fortified heights was protected by the Saar, the southern slope by the Wallerfanger Lumpenbach In the sunny valley and in the northwest, the Itzbacher Mühlbach made a rapid storming difficult. The mountain plateau is only accessible from the Saargauhöhe on a level path. To the west of today's village of Oberlimberg there is a relatively narrow access point of around 150 m, which was protected by a ditch, the so-called "Landgraben" or "Marlborough Wall". The name Marlboroughwall refers to John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough , who was here in the Saar-Moselle area in the War of the Spanish Succession as Commander-in-Chief of the English troops in the campaign of 1705, which was not very successful for England, against his opponent Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars , the general -Marshal of France . In mid-June 1705, Marlborough and the rest of his troops had to withdraw without a fight. Thus the plan of an English invasion of France on the Moselle and Saar had failed, as the French song Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre reminds of to this day.

The ramparts on the southeastern foothills of the Limberg, the so-called "Schwedenschanzen", are said to have been used by Swedish troops during the Thirty Years' War . These "Schwedenschanzen" are to be regarded as the core of the Hallstatt plateau fortifications. The part of the Limberg plateau between Landgraben / Marlboroughwall and the Schwedenschanzen was probably used as a "outer bailey". The main rampart runs roughly in a north-south direction and has a length of approx. 230 m from stone slope to steep slope. Today's route to Hof Limberg and its pilgrimage chapel cuts through the ramparts and divides it into a northern half of approx. 90 m and a southern half of approx. 140 m. The large main wall is 15 m wide at its foot and is still 3 m high today. Originally it was built as a wood-earth wall. The trench in front of it is about 2 m deep and about 20 m wide. The original passage was probably at the southern end of the wall, where today the "Green Way" on the southwest slope of the Limberg leads to the Limberg farm. The access path runs 6 to 8 m below the plateau height, so that the attackers could be attacked from above by the defenders. The southern end of the great wall was bent inwards at right angles at the gate to the fortress. From this wall knee, a rampart led down to the fortress gate 8 m below the plateau. After passing this gate, there was another barrier after about 160 m. A second wall, about 300 m behind the main wall in the direction of Hof Limberg, makes access to the mountain tongue high above the Saar more difficult. Today's wall crown is in places 2.5 m higher than the floor of the trench in front of it.

About 30 m southeast of the second wall there is a younger, seemingly unfinished wall system, perhaps from the 18th century, in the form of an open trapezoid. The steep wall, which is still 2 m high in places, stretches from the northeast slope of the Limberg to today's forest path, where it bends in a south-easterly direction to run along the forest path for a length of 32 m. Then it runs at an obtuse angle about 20 m to the east. Within this separate system is the so-called "Green Lake", a pond approximately 20 m long and approx. 8 m wide. The water basin could have been used as a cistern in the event of a siege.

About 100 m in front of the main wall, a 12 m wide trench without an associated wall crosses the ridge in front of a low step. Perhaps there was a palisade here on the edge of the step. Likewise, the northeastern foothills of the Limberg, which is differentiated from the rest of the plateau by a stepped terrain, seems to have been protected by another palisade.

The Hallstatt period plateau fortress has a total area of ​​2.5 km 2 .

On the Itzbacher Königsberg (344.7 m), which is adjacent to Limberg, investigations into a prehistoric height fortification by the State Monuments Office of Saarland began in 2010. The ramparts that existed there contained well-preserved remains of a dry stone wall made of large broken sandstones without wood stiffening. The exposed walls have a width of 1.80 m and a still preserved height of 1.40 m. At the rear of the walls there is a 6.40 m wide ramp made of earth and stones, which could be used to reach the top of the wall in the event of a defense. At the front of the wall a wide trench is carved into the rock. Ceramic shards indicate the late Bronze Age or the Iron Age . The excavations and their evaluations will continue.

Gallo-Roman era

Wallerfanger Azuritgestein (Historical Museum Wallerfangen)
Roman Emilianus tunnel, upper tunnel
Wallerfangen, Blauwald, Gallo-Roman rock relief "Three Capuchins", the relief images carved into a rock face are supposed to represent Celtic deities, detail (copy in the Historical Museum Wallerfangen)
Emilianusstollen, inscription: "INCEPTA OFFICINA EMILIANI NONIS MART"
Wallerfangen, Blauwald, Gallo-Roman rock relief "Three Capuchins", detail (copy in the Historical Museum Wallerfangen)

In Celtic times, today's Wallerfanger local area was under the influence of the Treveri and Mediomatriker tribes . In Roman times, with the founding of the Vicus Contiomagus, the central location was moved from the left to the right side of the Saar. The vicus was created during the settlement phase after the conquest of Gaul by Gaius Julius Caesar from 58 to 51 BC. BC Contiomagus was located at the intersection of the highways Metz - Mainz and Trier - Strasbourg , in what is now the Dillinger district of Pachten , on the border with today's Wallerfanger district. In the years 275/276 Contiomagus was destroyed and rebuilt in the course of the great migration . Wallerfangen itself remained important as an industrial location on the left bank of the Saar. On the slopes of the Limberg and in the district of St. Barbara , Roman mining with regard to the copper minerals azurite and malachite in the Emilianus tunnel on the Hansenberg dates from the 2nd to 3rd centuries. Proven century AD. The copper ore appeared in finely divided form or in small, walnut-sized nests in the red sandstone below a layer of clay. The copper gives the Upper Buntsandstein a slight bluish tinge, so that later on, several Wallerfanger tubs were given special names: Blaufels, Blauwald and Blauloch. There were two types of copper: a blue copper glaze or azurite (2CuCO 3 • Cu (OH) 2 ) and a greenish malachite (CuCO 3 • Cu (OH) 2 ). These copper compounds got into the existing red sandstone through circulating water that rose along a tectonic fault, the Felsberg Fault.

The product of azurite, the azure blue color, was used in many places in the northwestern provinces of the Roman Empire . The copper oxides were melted out mainly in the neighboring Gallo-Roman settlement of Contiomagus on the other side of the Saar.

Next to the mouth hole of the tunnel at Hansenberg from the 2nd / 3rd In the 19th century, a Latin inscription has been preserved, with which a certain Emilianus indicated that he owned his mine and that mining had started on schedule: "INCEPTA OFFICINA EMILIANI NONIS MART" (German translation: Emilianus started operations on the Nones of March). It is the only surviving Latin inscription of this type north of the Alps . The inscription was first described in 1859 during an excavation by the Metz engineer Jacquot. The tunnel that Emilianus had dug back then is the only Roman mine tunnel in Germany that is open to visitors today. The Saarland state curator and director of the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Saarbrücken Reinhard Schindler began in 1964 to uncover the flooded and clogged tunnel. A wider area of ​​the tunnel was exposed and secured from 1966 with the help of specialists from the German Mining Museum in Bochum . As of 1992, further areas of the tunnel system were exposed in a 9 m deeper bed by the German Mining Museum and secured with a galvanized steel lining .

Catfish catching, Bruss gallery

With the Great Migration, the mining of azurite in Wallerfangen ended for a long time. It was not until the end of the Middle Ages that the "Azzuro della Magna" or "Azzuro del Almagna" (German Blue), which was traded as far as Italy , began to be promoted again. The mining and trading of azurite flourished from the 15th to the 17th centuries. Statements from the work "Fröhliche Heimfahrt" by the early modern poet Caspar Scheidt from 1553 suggest that the Nuremberg Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer also painted with " Wallerfanger Blue ". The first mention of the late medieval-early modern mining of azurite dates back to 1492, when the ducal-Lorraine collector Hans von Pfaffenhofen recorded the mining in an account. In 1515, 15 entrepreneurs owned mining rights on the Hansenberg, Limberg, in the Blauwald and near the Humburg , the presumed fortress of the high medieval Wallerfanger counts .

In the 18th century, the general contractor Jean Jacques Saur from the ducal Lorraine was able to obtain the concession for all mining in the Duchy of Lorraine . In 1746 the concession for the mining of copper minerals in Wallerfangen was confirmed to him. But now the ore should be used for copper and no longer for color production. Due to the low income, the company had to be closed after a few years. The dismantling was resumed in 1793, when blasting work began on the Limberg, but here too the work was discontinued after a short time due to poor prospects of profit.

Mining inspector Daub started a new attempt to extract copper in 1855 with the establishment of the "Paul's Hope Union". The company was based on the attempt to make the previously disregarded copper-bearing rocks in the previous tunnels in the seam cellar, in the Blauwaldstollen and in the Bruss gallery and in the newly sunk tunnel in the Sonnenkuppe on Limberg usable by chemical leaching. The rock was treated with hydrochloric acid . In 1864, a refinery was built in the Sonnental, in which the extracted rock was ground in a steam rolling mill and leached in vats with hydrochloric acid. With the addition of sheet iron waste from the nearby Dillinger Hütte , the copper was precipitated in the liquid , so that a cement-copper sludge was created. This sludge was transported by ship to Linz on the Rhine , where it was processed. As a result of the high transport costs and the increased production costs for hydrochloric acid, the company had to be discontinued in 1866. The refining building in the Sonnental (near today's Sonnental house, shortly before the road branches off to Oberlimberg ) were demolished around 1932.

middle Ages

Frankish conquest

Wallerfangen, first mention of the place "uualderuinga" from 962, Heidelberg University Library, No. 321
Wallerfangen, reconstruction of the medieval town complex from the banks of the Saar; on the right the Lumpenbach; left the Mühlenbach (local history museum Wallerfangen)
Catfish catching on the Lorraine map by Martin Waldseemüller (1513)

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and the Battle of Soissons in 486 (or 487), which the Sal- Franconian ruler Clovis I won, a new stage in the region began under the rule of the Franconian Empire . Franconian graves from the younger Merovingian period (early 7th century AD) in the Rammelfangen district document the beginning of Germanic settlement in the early Middle Ages.

Part of Lotharingia

With the Treaty of Verdun of August 10, 843, the area of ​​today's municipality of Wallerfangen was assigned as part of the Franconian Middle Kingdom of Emperor Lothar I , a grandson of Charlemagne , as the immediate royal domain (Lotharii Regnum). Lothar I's successor as king (but without the dignity of emperor) was his son Lothar II ; he gave the greater territory the name "Lotharingien" ("the kingdom of Lothar"). After King Henry I had restored central power in Eastern Franconia, the Lorraine Duke Giselbert also submitted to him in 925 . Heinrich incorporated the Duchy of Lorraine as the fifth tribal duchy in Eastern Franconia . Thus, in 925, today's local area with the Lorraine rulership finally came to the East Franconian Empire .

Part of Upper Lorraine

With the disintegration of the old duchy into the duchies of Upper Lorraine and Lower Lorraine , the current area of ​​Wallerfangens came to Upper Lorraine (as a duchy until 1766) and was part of the ducal property. The documentary tradition begins in the 10th century AD. The first written mention of Wallerfangens dates back to the year 962. The name Wallerfangen first appeared here as "uualdervinga". In the document from the year 962 he designates a county, as whose count Egilolf is named. A property of a man named Thido located in the county is given to the Imperial Abbey of St. Maximin in Trier to promote the salvation of his soul.

“In the name of the supreme and eternal deity. Since the indescribable goodness of our Lord and Savior promises that sins will be cleansed through alms by speaking in the Gospel, give alms and everything will be clean for you, therefore I hand over, Thiedo, to participate in this sure and saving promise earn, for the salvation of my soul and that of my father Humbertus, but also for the acquisition of my benefice, a certain good of my inheritance, called Dalaheim, which is in Rizzigau in the county of Walderfinga, which Count Egilolf seems to be in charge of.

So I gave that place to Dalaheim and want it to be there forever, with the church and what belongs to the aforementioned property, both for servants who live inside and outside, as well as for buildings, developed and undeveloped land, meadows , Pastures, forests, water and flowing waters, movable and immovable goods, paths and impassable areas, at exits and entrances, at demands and things to be acquired.

And I give it so far without any objection from any monk in the place where holy Maximin himself rests through God. Furthermore, those servants should keep that according to inheritance law and own it for their benefit. The farm cooperative should also keep its services and taxes, as it was done by my parents and me.

But if any of my relatives or anyone else should try to destroy the alms of my donation, then the piety of all honest people should resist him, and if he does not give up, he will give an account to God on the day of the terrible trial as the destroyer of an almsgiving.

However, this transmission took place publicly in Trier in the basilica of St. Maximin, the confessor of Christ and bishop, in the presence of the venerable abbot of this monastery, Wiker, and all the monks and at the same time the governor of the house, Hildrad, through the guarantors, who we popularly Saleburgiones name, Wolmar and Harduwich, in front of the signed witnesses Wolmar, Adalbert, Liuthard, Warner, Theodo, Thurinbert, in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 962, in the fifth indiction, in the 26th year of the reign of the most illustrious King Otto. "

Wallerfangen had a central local function as the seat of the Count of Wallerfangen (962 comitatus Walderfinga ). At the end of the 10th century a Count Giselbert von Wallerfangen is mentioned.

Thietmar von Merseburg , bishop and historian of the Ottonian period , describes the fate of Giselbert in his chronicle (excerpt from the Dresden manuscript of Thietmar's chronicle, facsimile in the Wallerfangen local history museum with color highlighting of the corresponding text passage)

Already under Giselbert's father Siegfried von Luxemburg , efforts had begun to expand the own area of ​​rule in the direction of the upper Moselle and the central Saar . The power of the Luxembourgers could be extended up the Saar to Wallerfangen. The Wallerfangen rule was occupied by Siegfried's son Giselbert. The county name was "in pago Moselensi, in comitatu Waldelevinga, cui Giselbertus comes preesse videtur" (German: "in the Moselgau, in the county of Wallerfangen, the count Giselbert is the count").

Wallerfangen was not a county, but a personal rulership without fixed boundaries. The place on the Saar was a main base for the spread of power. The county of Wallerfangen is assigned to three districts in the documents: the Rizzagau, the Saargau and the Moselgau. The County of Wallerfangen did not coincide with any of these three districts. Giselbert's County Wallerfangen is only mentioned in the 10th century. Direct evidence of Giselbert's political actions is rare.

Giselbert's younger sister Kunigunde von Luxemburg had married Duke Heinrich von Bayern in the second half of the 90s of the 10th century , who was elected German king on June 7th 1002 in Mainz and was crowned by Archbishop Willigis in Mainz Cathedral . When Heinrich set out on an Italian train in the spring of 1004, his brother-in-law Giselbert von Wallerfangen also accompanied him. During an uprising against the king in Pavia , Giselbert von Wallerfangen was injured and carried away from the fray by helpers. He succumbed to his serious injuries four days later on May 18, 1004.

The Count House of Luxembourg was unable to hold the Wallerfanger area and was ousted here by the House of Lorraine. In the course of its history, Wallerfangen became the official seat of the German Bellistum of the Duchy of Lorraine . It can be assumed that Giselbert's early and heirless death is partly responsible for this development.

A former tower castle in the area of ​​today's Wallerfanger district of Düren from the 10th century, the so-called Humburg , is considered by historians to be Gisilbert's castle. In 1965, the Saarland state curator Reinhard Schindler excavated the foundations of a mighty medieval stone tower on a mountain spur near Wallerfangen . The spur and tower were cordoned off by a section wall with an associated ditch. The roughly two meter thick walls form an irregular rectangle measuring 13/14.50 m by 17/19 m. They have carefully hewn sandstone blocks at the tower corners. The archaeological findings suggest the type of castle " residential tower ". Inside there were sooty remains of columns and Romanesque architectural parts such as column shafts, capitals and round arches. The columns, one of which bears a Roman inscription, are of Roman origin and were reused in the construction of the building. The shape of the capitals found indicates that it was manufactured in the 11th century. An older predecessor cannot be ruled out. The historians Edith Ennen (1953) and Horst Wolfgang Böhme (1992) think it is possible that Count Giselbert had his seat here. The task of the Humburg falls at the time when Count Giselbert dies in 1004 without heirs and from which there is no further written evidence for the County of Wallerfangen.

Catfish catch / Vaudrevange; Plan of Wallerfangen from 1679, so-called Plan of Monville; The building quarter on the lower left edge of the city wall denotes the Augustinian monastery (today the location of the neo-Gothic parish church of St. Katharina); The original parish church of St. Peter and Paul is located near the Saartor (way to Diedenhofen ); the left flowing water is the Lumpenbach / Wallerfanger Bach, the right is the Mühlenbach, both of which flow into the nearby Saar; right the Neutor (way to Saarbrücken ); below the top gate (way to Nancy ); at the bottom right is the damming of the Mühlenbach
Development of the place name

The place named "uualdervinga" for the first time in 962 changed its name to Walderfingen over time. After Wallerfangen became one of the headquarters of the three administrative districts of the Duchy of Lorraine in 1541 ( Deutsches Bellistum ; French: Bailliage d'Allemagne ), correspondence with the other two administrative centers in the ducal Lorraine, the Bailliage de Nancy , based in Nancy and the Bailliage de Vôge with seat in Mirecourt , the place names to "Valdrefanges", "Valdrevange" or "Vaudrevange". The German spelling "Wallerfangen" used today developed from the colloquial German pronunciation of the then official French place name "Vaudrevange". In the time after the Congress of Vienna, when Wallerfangen came under the rule of the Kingdom of Prussia , this spelling was also officially established.

Becoming a city

Wallerfangen, area of ​​the former city wall below the former Augustinian monastery

The exact time when Wallerfang became a town is not documented. In 1276, Wallerfangen is still referred to as a place in a document. The first designation as a city dates from the year 1334. At this time, the settlement must have been expanded with walls, gates and towers. The course of the fortifications has not yet been thoroughly investigated. During excavations in various places in the 20th century, remains of the city wall were uncovered. The walls were presumably up to 1.50 m thick and a fortress moat about 7.50 m wide was in front of them. Traces of a city map have been preserved, which was probably made as part of an expert opinion on the qualification of Wallerfang as a baroque fortress.

The small medieval town was on important trade routes and had a Saar port. The Lorraine Duke Friedrich III. awarded Wallerfangen a letter of freedom to promote trade and commerce. In this way, the citizens of the young city were able to set up an independent administration, organize the city's defense and institutionalize a lower judiciary . In relation to trade and industry, guilds and guilds were formed .

At the end of the Middle Ages, Wallerfangen now had town charter and was the official seat of the German Bellistum , an administrative subdivision of the Duchy of Lorraine , under the name "Walderfingen" . The French name Vaudrevange was also used. From the end of the 13th century until the early modern period, Wallerfangen ("Walderfang", "Walderfingen") was a ducal-Lorraine provincial capital with walls. Their sphere of influence, the German-speaking part of the Duchy of Lorraine called "Baillage d'Allemagne", extended far into what is now France in the early 17th century. Wallerfangen was a city of "blue graves", whose product, the blue color azurite, was extracted from vertical shafts and using the traditional Roman tunnels, and was sold throughout Europe. Albrecht Dürer is said to have painted with "Wallerfanger Blue".

Modern times

Thirty Years' War

Catching catfish on a map by Willem Janszoon Blaeu: Lotharingia Ducatus, vulgo Lorraine, 1645, (map section)
Coat of arms with the Mühleisen coat of arms of the city of Wallerfangen among the representatives of the cities and offices of the Duchy of Lorraine when Duke Henry II entered Nancy in 1610, engraving by Claude de la Ruelle and Matthäus Merian ( Bibliothèque nationale de France , Paris , detail)

Between 1618 and 1648 there was severe devastation in Wallerfangen and its surroundings during the Thirty Years' War , especially in the last phase of the war from 1635. When the Lorraine Duke Charles IV took sides with the German Emperor Ferdinand II , France occupied King Louis XIII. Lorraine. In 1624/1625 the first major military billeting took place on the Saar, years before France officially entered the war in 1635.

End of September 1635, in the area of Wallerfangen fleeing from the imperial army French under La Valette, Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne and Abraham de Fabert and their allies Swedes under Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar in order on a barrel bridge and two fords to cross the Saar and flee to the then fortified town of Wallerfangen. The French Marshal Turenne commanded the Saar crossing. This led to skirmishes and the imperial troops could inflict losses on the enemy. Among others, the Swedish Colonel Bernholf von Crailsheim was killed.

A short time later, the imperial family under Matthias Gallas also succeeded in crossing the Saar near Dillingen. After several skirmishes and five assault attacks, Catfish catch was taken and was looted by Croatian mercenaries. In addition, there were famines and epidemics. The surviving remnants of the population barely had a livelihood.

The abbot Philipp Gretsch of the Wadgassen Abbey reports on a church bill from 1652 that cannibalism even occurred in the area because of the great famine. The area around Wallerfangen lost over 70% of its population as a result of the war (comparison years: 1590/1667). While the Thirty Years' War in other parts of Germany came to an end with the Peace of Westphalia between Münster and Osnabrück in 1648, the conflict in Lorraine continued to smolder. Wallerfangen, as part of Lorraine, was outside the scope of the provisions of the Peace of Westphalia. There were still raids by marauding mercenary armies of the Lorraine or French. The war between France and Lorraine did not end until the Peace of Vincennes near Paris in 1661.

Dutch War

Catching catfish on a section from the Exactissima Lotharingia map by Carel Allardt from the second half of the 17th century

A few years after the peace treaty of Vincennes in 1661, the area around Wallerfangen was again the area of ​​operations for the Dutch War (1672–1678 / 79). In 1670, the French King Louis XIV occupied all of Lorraine. A French army under Marshal François de Créquy (1624–1687) drove out the Lorraine Duke Charles IV (1604–1675) and conquered his fortresses within a short time. As a result of the war, in which the Kurtrier and the Holy Roman Empire were drawn, the area was devastated.

Destruction of catfish catching

Wallerfangen, packing warehouse of the ceramic factory around 1900 in the presumably former market hall for a delivery of chamber pots to the Brazilian state of Pernambuco (archive of the Wallerfangen Local Research Association)

After the city of Saarlouis was founded (1680), the residents of Wallerfangen were forcibly relocated to the new city in 1687/88. In the course of this, most of the buildings in Wallerfangen were demolished in order to obtain building material for the houses in Saarlouis. Wallerfangen developed back into a settlement consisting of a few individual farmsteads.

Wallerfangen's old market hall must have been one of the few buildings that survived the demolition of the houses. The building served as a packing warehouse until the ceramic factory was demolished in the 1930s and was vaulted with a groin.

After Wallerfangen was demolished, Duke Leopold of Lorraine moved the seat of the Bellistum up the Saar to Saargemünd in 1698 .

18th and 19th centuries

Incorporation into the Kingdom of Prussia

After Napoleon Bonaparte had been forced to abdicate, was with the Bourbon Louis XVIII. the first Treaty of Paris concluded on May 31, 1814, according to which France was restricted to the state borders of 1792. The German-speaking catfish catch should therefore remain with France.

After Napoleon's return and his final defeat at Waterloo on June 18, 1815 as well as his exile on the island of St. Helena , Wallerfangen were separated from France in the Second Peace of Paris and transferred to the Kingdom of Prussia ( Rhine Province ).

Several petitions from merchants from Saarbrücken and St. Johann and a signature campaign under the leadership of Saarbrücken Mayor Heinrich Böcking , which aimed to join the Saarorte to the Kingdom of Prussia , played a not insignificant role.

Under Emperor Franz I, Austria preferred an expansion of Prussia to western Germany rather than anywhere else. By gaining territory for Prussia in the west, the aim was to prevent Prussia from expanding to include the Kingdom of Saxony. Austria did not want to take an opposing position against the reinstated rule of the Bourbons in France, as they hoped for a good relationship with the traditional dynasty and shied away from unnecessary burdens.

Thus, with Prussian agreement, an agreement between England, Prussia, Russia and Austria was reached on November 3, 1815, during the peace treaty in Paris, according to which additional territories in the Rhineland were to fall to Prussia. The border correction to the disadvantage of France should take place on the Saar. On November 20, 1815, the Allies signed the second peace treaty with France in Paris, which established the Prussian-French border in the area of ​​the central reaches of the Saar. So the French King Louis XVIII. renounce all sovereignty and property claims for the urban area of ​​today's Wallerfangen.

During a stay in Saarbrücken, on November 27, 1815, State Chancellor Karl August von Hardenberg gave the Appellate Councilor Mathias Simon, who was in the Prussian service and who had previously acted as a judge in Trier, the power to use the new area under the title "Grand Duchy of Lower Rhine" for Prussia to take possession. Wallerfangen was owned by Simon together with the surrounding area of ​​the Saarlouis fortress on December 2, 1815 as part of a celebration in the Saarlouis Church of St. Ludwig in the possession of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. taken:

"I, the undersigned, Königlich-Prussischer Oberappelations-Rath in the Grand Duchy of Lower Rhine, power of the above power of attorney, Royal Prussian Commissioner, to take possession of the areas, places and places ceded by France to Prussia, and until the definitive organization with the upper administration of these areas, Oerter and places, commissioned.

After today, December 2nd, seven o'clock in the morning, the solemnity of the taking of possession was announced by the ringing of the bells, (I) went to the main church at 10 o'clock, where the Lord Mayor of Saarlouis, along with his alderman, and all members of the magistrate, then all other public officials, had gathered.

The Royal Prussian Major General von Steinmetz , the commanding general, in the areas, places and places ceded by the peace treaty of November 20, were also present, along with their general staff.

The Royal Prussian military present in Saarlouis had come under rifle and the celebratory procession was accompanied by the vigilante guard and their music.

I, the undersigned Royal Commissioner, with the consent of the Major General von Steinmetz, High Born, read out the above power of attorney from the State Chancellor, Prince von Hardenberg Your Highness, and informed the assembly of my mission.

Immediately the Lord Mayor and all members of the Magistrate, in their own name and as representatives of the residents, were committed to the new sovereign, Sr. Majesty, King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia and his successors.

A separate written act was drawn up in this regard and signed by all members of the magistrate.

The whole gathering sounded three cheers for the new sovereign.

Accordingly, in my capacity as Royal Commissioner, and with regard to the taking of possession of the Saarlouis fortress in agreement with Major-General von Steinmetz and his presence, I declared that the real taking over of the city and fortress of Saarlouis, and all other places Cantons of Saarlouis and Rehlingen, and Sirck of the Moselle department, which by the peace treaty of November 20, ceded by France, and according to the special agreement reached between Prussia and the other allied powers, the states of Sr. Majesty the King of Prussia, of my most gracious lord, are incorporated, in the name of His Majesty the King of Prussia, be accomplished; decreed that the royal. Prussian coats of arms are placed on all town and community halls; and the inhabitants of the city and fortress of Saarlouis, and of the other ceded areas, places and places, expelled to the subjects of loyalty and duty against the new sovereign.

A Te Deum sung by the Catholic clergy and the Gebät Salvum fac regem for the preservation of His Majesty the King of Prussia, the new sovereign, concluded this solemn act.

The current possession and seizure protocol is to be printed and, instead of the possession and seizure patent, posted in the city and fortress of Saarlouis, and in all ceded communities, places and squares.

This is what happened in Prussian Saarlouis, December 2, 1815. The Royal Commissioner Mathias Simon "

industrialization

In Wallerfangen a naturally occurring azurite mineral, the Wallerfanger blue underground, was mined until the 1860s , which was a popular pigment carrier for applied arts and painting in antiquity and in the Middle Ages . With the increasing availability of lightfast synthetic dyes - such as Berlin blue - the laborious extraction quickly became unprofitable in the age of industrialization and therefore abandoned.

Earthenware factory

In 1791, a stoneware factory founded by Nicolas Villeroy was established in Wallerfangen , which later developed into the ceramic works of Villeroy and Boch . The factory gave the place a new boost. Nicolas Villeroy led the company from its small beginnings into the Prussian era that began in 1815 after the Second Peace of Paris , when Vaudrevange became "Wallerfangen", a municipality on the new border with France.

At first Villeroy could not find enough production workers in small Wallerfangen, which is why he brought the first workers with him from the existing stoneware factory in Frauenberg near Saargemünd . The majority of the Frauenberg workers were recruited from the ceramic factories Attert , Arlon and Septfontaines , Bubenhausen , Zweibrücken , Höchst , Kelsterbach , Gutenbrunn and Dirmstein when it was founded .

In Wallerfangen, technical management was initially placed in the hands of an accomplished employee from Frauenberg, Jakob Heckel. Heckel had previously worked in the Höchst Porcelain Manufactory , which went bankrupt in 1796. Intensive research was carried out in Wallerfangen in the field of decorative printing.

The Faiencerie company in Frauenberg was founded in 1785 by Jean Thibault with the approval of the Comtes de Vergennes . The production rooms were located in the former Frauenberg castle, which the Count of Vergennes and the associated lordship had acquired. Just a few years later, in August 1789, Nicolas Villeroy, from Metz, bought himself a 10% share in Frauenberg.

Villeroy quickly began to take over the business processes of the young company, because shortly after joining the company, he was considering moving the company to Strasbourg , to Clouange Castle near Wallingen near Diedenhofen , to Saarlouis or to the company premises the former paper mill near Dillingen / Saar . The reason for the search for a new production site was that the Frauenberg Castle had been in a desolate state since a fire in 1783. Nicolas Villeroy had completed his commercial training in the administration of the Richard Böcking winery and trading company in Traben-Trarbach on the Moselle , where he married the daughter of Richard Böcking, Therese-Sophie Böcking, in 1786. Thibault and Villeroy had already maintained business contacts in the Lorraine saltworks trade, in which Thibault had been active since 1770 and Villeroy since 1784. Ultimately, the decision was made to use Wallerfangen as the new company location. Here Nicolas Villeroy bought a house with a garden from Theodor Lasalle in 1790, but the young company only moved in the summer of the following year 1791. Villeroy had meanwhile increased its share in the company to 50%. The founder Jean Thibault still owned 25%, as did another partner, the Trier businessman Heinrich (Henry) Kaiser. The so-called "Chateau Warsberg" in the center of Wallerfangen was acquired as an additional property very soon. The building became the original cell of the factory complex, which later comprised over fifty building sections. In Wallerfangen, for the first time, people were the owners and not just tenants of the production buildings like in Frauenberg.

The decision to use Wallerfangen as the production site was made because the Saar could be used as a transport route. The forests in the area offered enough wood for fuel. The location was also an obvious choice , as the nearby coal mines in the blossoming Saar district could provide efficient fuel for the ceramic furnaces. As early as 1780, Villeroy acquired a mining license for the Hostenbacher pit, which was acquired at an auction in 1798 and was then managed by his brother Pierre Villeroy. Around the year 1800, there were already two coal furnaces in Wallerfangen that supplied the raw fire.

Nicolas Villeroy succeeded in 1797 in buying up the shares of the other partners Jean Thibault and Henry Kaiser, so that after paying the purchase price in 1801 he became the sole owner of the Wallerfang factory.

Around 1815, they began to hire special experts for ceramic production in Wallerfangen, who at that time still came mainly from England . The first British guest workers - some of them from the porcelain town of Stoke-on-Trent - were recruited in a POW camp in the neighboring town of Saarlouis. Years later, the English influence in Wallerfangen was considerable. In the years that followed, Nicolas Villeroy often traveled to England to familiarize himself with the local production processes. The English workers were particularly active in the company's copperplate printing studio, which was set up in 1825.

Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the year of his visit to Wallerfangen in 1826, painting by Carl Begas

In 1826 the Prussian master builder Karl Friedrich Schinkel visited the Saar valley. After visiting the Dillinger Hütte , he crossed the Saar to Wallerfangen and reported in his diaries about the ceramics factory there:

"Not far from there (meaning Dillingen) is another earthenware factory in Wallerfangen (Schinkel had previously visited the Bochsche ceramics factory in Mettlach.), Which belongs to a Mr. Villeroy, Beuth had announced his arrival here a day too late, so was not yet expected; Mr. Villeroy was away for a day, his old wife (meaning Thérèse-Sophie Villeroy, née Böcking, 1764-1842), who, like an old noble lady, had half-French customs, was very sad that her husband should not see us, and that we didn't want to stay with her all night. The son-in-law showed us around the factory, which is very large, produces a lot of goods, but is not as sophisticated as Mr Buschmann's. Towards evening we reached Saarbrücken with constant rain. "

In 1836, Nicolas Villeroy combined his company with that of Jean-François Boch to form what would later become the global company Villeroy & Boch . By working in the supply of raw materials it was in 1818 for the first time with the year 1809 in the secularized Benedictine - Abbey of St. Peter in Mettlach come founded Keramikmanufaktur Boch-Buschmann business contacts. Business relationships were intensified from then on, so that on April 14, 1836, the companies in Wallerfangen and Mettlach contractually merged in the Saarmühle in Fremersdorfer . The Villeroy & Boch company was thus born. The background to the merger was the hope to be better armed against the English ceramic imports to the European continent.

With the marriage of Octavie Villeroy (1823–1899), the granddaughter of Nicolas Villeroy, daughter of Charles Villeroy (1789–1843) and sister of the company boss Alfred Villeroy, who was in Wallerfangen from 1842 to 1875, with Eugen Boch , the son of Jean- François Boch, on May 3, 1842 in Fremersdorf, the previously only business relationships between the two families were now raised to a private level.

Eugen Boch and Oktavie Villeroy on the occasion of their golden wedding anniversary in 1892

. The following year, the founder of the Wallerfang company, Nicolas Villeroy, died on December 28, 1843.

A high point in the development of the Wallerfang company was celebrated on July 4, 1891: The almost 1000 employees of the stoneware factory celebrated the 100th anniversary of the company with a pageant, solemn service, concert and dance on a festival site at the location of today's "Haus Sonnental" education center and final fireworks. 1400 people were invited to the banquet. Each employee received a stoneware jug made in Mettlach as a souvenir gift . Senior employees and officials of the company also got a lid assembly made of tin . The anniversary product of the Wallerfang company was a terrine with a base plate.

Wallerfang stoneware from the last quarter of the 19th century; Four plates from a series of twelve depictions of late medieval lovers in the Spiegelfeld by Philipp Müller ; Flag with sky-blue flower tendrils, diameter: 21 cm
Parts of the "Burgenland" service series designed in Wallerfangen (blue version here) by Philipp Müller

One of the most important decor developers from Wallerfang was the engraver Philipp Müller (1811-1893), who also worked as an illustrator and caricaturist. Müller's father had already come to Wallerfangen as a decorator in 1805 and married there in 1836. In 1825, Philipp Müller began an apprenticeship as a copper engraver in the ceramic factory. The "Burgenland motifs" are among his best-known series of motifs to this day.

In the course of the 19th century, the ceramics factory's buildings expanded across the entire center of the Wallerfangen community, now known as the "factory square". At the end of the 19th century, over 1,000 men and women were employed in the plant. The earthenware and porcelain dishes they made were sold all over the world. After 1860, the production consisted mainly of tableware for household use and staple goods that were given to other companies for resale. Since 1900 people began increasingly to produce inexpensive spray decorations. Head of the stoneware factory were:

Head of the stoneware factory were:

  • Nicolas Villeroy: 1789-1820
  • Louis Villeroy: 1820-1830
  • Auguste Jaunez: 1830-1842
  • Alfred Villeroy: 1842–1873
  • Ernest Villeroy: 1873-1891
  • Leon Richard: 1891-1900
  • Heinrich Ruppe: 1900–1907
  • Albert Hoffmann: 1907-1919
  • Josef Peter Lengersdorff: 1919–1925
  • Martin Lengersdorff (technical management): 1926–1929
  • Rudolf Zechel (commercial management): 1926–1928
  • Walter Fiehn: 1929–1931

Management villa

Wallerfangen, former management villa of the stoneware factory, since 1986 "Villa Fayence"

A three-storey building for Auguste Jaunez, who was director of the ceramics factory from 1830 to 1842, was built as a management villa in Wallerfanger Hauptstrasse opposite the farm buildings of today's Papen's estate. Jaunez's successors also lived here. When the factory had to close, the von Papen family bought the house in 1931. In 1939 who lodged here Location elders of Saarlouiser garrison. After the Second World War, the villa temporarily served as the headquarters of the French gendarmerie before it became the German police station . In 1986 a hotel-restaurant was opened in the building under the name "Villa Fayence".

The three-storey villa on a square floor plan rises above a high basement with a profiled cornice. The design is reminiscent of the Italian palaces of the Renaissance of the 16th century in the architectural cubature and in individual forms . The windows on the ground floor are framed with simply profiled walls. The entrance door is suspected of having a straight cornice. A middle window is suspected to be triangular. The windows on the first floor are connected by a sill cornice and have a straight cornice roofing. The second floor is designed as a mezzanine . As on the ground floor, the windows here have simply profiled walls. A relatively low hipped roof with a Mediterranean style rises above the building.

Rest home

On the corner of Hauptstrasse and Saarstrasse, the stoneware factory built a casino in 1880 under the title "Recreation home for the employees and officials of the stoneware factory Villeroy & Boch". A previous facility had existed in the old mill on Mühlenweg. There was a rest home for ordinary workers near Wallerfang Amalienplatz. The forecourt of the employees and officials casino, which is now used as a parking lot, was originally a parking space for horse-drawn vehicles. The entrance to the casino was on the main street. A two-storey connecting building led to a large dance hall building with arched windows on the gable facade, which has been used as a pharmacy since 1978 after being used as a cinema and textile shop.

Mouget-Lukullus company

The "Vaudrevange" restaurant with an attached butcher's shop in Wallerfanger Hauptstraße developed into a larger meat processing company in Wallerfangen under the leadership of the former earthenware factory worker Karl Mouget. The company expanded at the beginning of the 20th century by supplying barracks and hospitals. Using modern machines, canned meat as well as meat and sausage products were produced on a large scale. In 1989 the Mouget family withdrew from production. After two changes of ownership, production at "Lukullus Fleischwarenfabrik GmbH & Co. KG" was finally stopped in 2008.

NKS-Demmerle

The company was founded in Wallerfangen in 1870 by the master builder Peter Demmerle. After the First World War, an architecture office was added to the construction company. The company was now particularly active in road construction. After the Second World War, the company expanded to include the transportation of people and goods, which was discontinued in 1960. In 1958, stone production began on the site of the waste dump of the Wallerfanger stoneware factory, on which boiler ash and ceramic waste were stored. On the basis of this excavated material, hollow blocks for house construction were produced. In 1964 the company began to manufacture concrete products and precast concrete parts especially for horticulture and outdoor use. In addition, the concrete facade elements typical of the 1960s, which were used in the facade design of department stores , were produced here. Since 1986 the company has specialized in the sale of concrete technology products. Ready-made concrete molds made of polyurethane or silicone are offered for companies, and originals are produced on site as part of the reconstruction of historical components in concrete, and replicas are made. The company also supplies production equipment for production lines.

Nicolas Adolphe de Galhau

Married couple Nicolas Adolphe de Galhau (1814–1889) and Sophie Leonie Elisabeth de Galhau (née Villeroy, 1821–1885), around 1870 (Heimatmuseum Wallerfangen)

In terms of local politics, Wallerfangen was decisively shaped in the second half of the 19th century by a grandson of Nicolas Villeroy, Nicolas Adolphe de Galhau . In 1862 Galhau took over the parental estate in Wallerfangen and expanded it in the following years. The old buildings were demolished and a small country palace was erected in an English-style park (today Schloss von Papen). Galhau was mayor of Wallerfangen from 1851 until his death in 1889. During this time he was particularly responsible for the infrastructural design of the place. So he had a town hall and three school buildings built on a family-owned site, today the Adolpheshöhe named after him. Galhau supported the construction of a water pipe in Wallerfangen, initiated the new construction of the Wallerfanger Katharinenkirche , a workers' rest home and the local slaughterhouse. From 1861 to 1863 Galhau was a member of the Prussian House of Representatives .

Establishment of the Sophienstiftung

Wallerfangen, the
St. Nicholas Hospital named after the patron saint of its founder Nicolas-Adolphe de Galhau
Specialist clinic for psychiatry and psychotherapy with the tower of the Wallerfanger Church of St. Katharina
Specialist clinic for psychiatry and psychotherapy, Partie am Lumpenbach

Nicolas-Adolphe de Galhau left his mark in Wallerfangen as a large landowner, major shareholder of Villeroy & Boch, lord of the castle, patron and founder of a foundation to this day. On June 7, 1857, he founded the Sophienstiftung as a social "foundation for general assistance", which he named after his mother Sophie Villeroy († 1856). Initially, the foundation dealt with orphan care and nursing. As early as 1838 a poor association was founded in Wallerfangen to promote social welfare. Countess Marie Guilleminot (widowed Louis Villeroy, née Ebray, 1794–1879) made the former schoolhouse available to the association in 1841. Three years later, in 1844, a children's institution was built with funds from the heirs of Nicolas Villeroy (1759–1843). Two houses and two gardens also served as asylum for the elderly and those in need of the Wallerfangen community. The kindergarten, which opened in 1844, was owned by the Sophienstiftung until 1974, when the facility was passed into church sponsorship.

On March 20, 1948, three sisters from the Order of St. Charles Borromeo from the mother house in Nancy came to Wallerfangen to care for the elderly and to look after the children . The poor association, which had existed for ten years in 1848, had asked the General Superior in Nancy to send the three sisters so that they could take over the children's institution, the care of the elderly and the sick, and the administration of the facility. Since the establishment of the Borromean Motherhouse in Trier , the nuns of the order, which was founded in 1652, have been sent from there to live in Wallerfangen and to serve the foundation.

On November 11, 1849, permission was given to operate a pharmacy and its own dispensing facility for the distribution of medicines. In the following year 1850 a sewing school was opened. Nicolas-Adolphe de Galhau enlarged the house in 1853. In 1860 Barbe-Céphalie Thierry (born de Lasalle, 1799–1870) donated the "Hallergarten" property to the foundation. The Wallerfanger workers' association was built here in 1888. After the death of Madame Thierry in 1870, she bequeathed her castle in Niederlimberg on the Saarengt with the chapel and inventory as well as 50,000 francs to the hospital. At their request, the house was to be looked after by sisters of St. Charles Borromeo from the mother house in Trier. The Villeroy de Galhau family then bought the Niederlimberg castle. It was planned for the future to leave the so-called "Black Castle" next to today's Wallerfang parish church of St. Katharina to the sisters. The Niederlimberg castle chapel was dismantled, transported by ship to Mettlach and rebuilt there.

On September 30, 1871, Nicolas-Adolphe de Galhau notarized the final deed of foundation and endowed the foundation with a capital of 60,000 thalers. The foundation should benefit the communities of Wallerfangen, Niederlimberg and St. Barbara. On February 19, 1872, the foundation was approved by the very highest cabinet order of the Prussian King and German Emperor Wilhelm I.

On March 2, 1878, the Wallerfanger Poor Association, which had existed since 1838, was integrated into the foundation. Its assets consisted of real estate (poor house, school building, economic building, several residential buildings), movables and outstanding receivables with a total value of around 194,000 marks.

With the death of Countess Marie Guilleminot on April 6, 1879, the so-called "Black Castle" became free. However, it did not go to the foundation as intended, but was rented to the Fabvier family on a long-term basis. As a replacement, Nicolas-Adolphe de Galhau promised to build a new poor house for Catfish.

In 1881 the Borromean women took over the food supply of the workers of the Wallerfanger stoneware factory with the serving of 250 meals a day. The sisters performed this task until 1894.

The makeshift accommodations of the early years were made obsolete by the hospital building that still exists today. The St. Nikolaus Hospital in Wallerfangen with a capacity of 80 beds was built between the years 1882 and 1885 in the park of Countess Guilleminot. The purpose of the “Foundation for General Assistance” was to be - long before the Reich Insurance Code came into force - to support elderly and sick people in need, but care should also be given to children. Nicolas-Adolphe de Galhau donated Mark to the Borromean Sisters to thank his sick wife Sophie-Léonie-Elisabeth de Galhau (née Villeroy), who died on July 15, 1885 for many years of care . In the following period the social facility was expanded spatially. In addition, a park area of ​​several hectares was created near the Wallerfang parish church of St. Katharina to allow the patients to convalesce . The hospital is a large, two-storey, gable-roof-covered building on a T-shaped floor plan with an attached hospital chapel in the wing to the right of the entrance portal. The facade of the hospital building is structured by pilaster strips and has simple, framed, high-rectangular windows and a gabled entrance projectile.

The permanent members of the foundation's board of trustees include the pastor of Wallerfangen and the mayor of Wallerfangen as well as a member of the Villeroy family. During the time of the anti-Catholic Bismarck culture war , the Catholic facility in Wallerfangen was severely restricted. The children's institution and the sewing school had to be closed. Only sick children and old people were allowed to continue to be cared for. Only with the end of the Kulturkampf were the restrictions and bans lifted again.

On October 4, 1882, Nicolas-Adolphe de Galhau bequeathed the new mayor's building with the three school buildings belonging to the ensemble to the foundation. A slaughterhouse with an attached stable was also built. The buildings were rented from the Wallerfangen municipality. The rent fell to the Sophien Foundation by contract.

In 1888 the Wallerfanger workers' association was built in the "Hallergarten", which had been owned by the foundation since 1860. Nicolas-Adolphe de Galhau endowed it with 10,000 marks. In the event that the house would no longer serve its original purpose, the property and the property should be returned to the St. Nicholas Hospital.

Nicolas-Adolphe de Galhau died on November 23, 1889. With the death of Alfred Villeroy in 1896, a sum of 30,000 marks was bequeathed to the hospital so that a household school could be founded. Two years later, in 1898, the hospital was provided with central heating and a morgue was built for the deceased . A cooking school was opened in 1904. In the following year, 1905, the building next to the parish church was demolished and the vacated space was made available to the community.

After its own pharmacy was set up in Wallerfangen, the hospital pharmacy was closed in 1909.

During the First World War , a total of 3944 soldiers were cared for in the hospital.

In 1935 the so-called "Black Castle" was set up as a children's home. In the same year Dechant Hartz (1867-1938) built a house in the hospital garden. With his death in 1938 the property fell to the foundation. With the return of the Saar area to the German Reich in 1935, the NSDAP took power in Wallerfangen. Under pressure from the party, all of the foundation's immovable property had to be transferred free of charge to the civil parish of Wallerfangen on October 4th. Only the hospital, the "Black Castle", the Hartz House and the workers' association house remained for the foundation. On January 13, the new "Constitution of the Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophien-Stiftung zu Wallerfangen" came into force. With the beginning of the Second World War , Wallerfangen was evacuated from 1939 to 1940, like all places in the "Red Zone" .

During an air raid on Saarlouis (1936 to 1945 Saarlautern) the "Black Castle" was hit and burned out in the upper part. When the Allies moved in in 1944, the second evacuation took place. The place suffered severe war damage prior to its capture by the US Army on December 3, 1944. The damage to the foundation buildings could be repaired by May 1950 as part of an expansion and renovation. In 1953 the kindergarten was reopened. In 1955, an extension to the nursing home was set up on the upper floor of the kindergarten.

On June 7, 1957, the "General Assistance Foundation" founded on June 7, 1857, celebrated its centenary. The hospital, the kitchen and the operating area were renovated between 1958 and 1961. The modernization of the children's home in the "Black Castle" took place at the same time. It now offered space for 20 girls and 20 boys.

A new old people's home was built between 1967 and 1970. On February 20, 1971, the one hundredth anniversary of the approval of the Sophienstiftung by the Prussian King and German Emperor Wilhelm I was celebrated. When the Saarland hospital requirements plan was drawn up in 1971, the Nikolaushospital was not taken into account. On March 20, 1973, the 125th anniversary of the arrival of the Borromean Sisters in Wallerfangen in 1848 was celebrated. The kindergarten, which had become the responsibility of the parish of St. Katharina, was able to move into its new building on December 2, 1974. In 1983 the hospital building celebrated its centenary.

Before the Federal Social Court in Kassel and the Saarland State Social Court, a settlement was made in 1991 between the Saarland government and the payers. New specialist departments should ensure the continued existence of the hospital. That is why psychiatry and geriatric rehabilitation were established. The children's home in the "Black Castle" was renovated again by February 1992. The attending doctor's hospital closed on March 31, 1992.

This was accompanied by a renovation and a fundamental renovation of the hospital building. The Nikolaushospital was expanded into a specialist clinic for geriatric rehabilitation with 60 full inpatient beds and ten day clinic places. In addition, there are 20 attending doctor beds in the fields of internal medicine and orthopedics . The start-up took place on October 4, 1993, and the geriatric clinic opened on December 10, 1993. The Borromean women had already moved into the new retreat in the former retirement home in July 1992. On March 8, 1995, the foundation work began to build the psychiatric specialist clinic. In 1996 the administration was able to move into the newly renovated rooms of the former kindergarten and old people's home. On May 5, 1997, the first admission from the Merzig State Psychiatric Hospital took place, as this house was to be completely dissolved by 1998 as part of a decentralization plan. The inauguration of the specialist clinic for psychiatry and psychotherapy was celebrated on June 20, 1997. The opening of a psychiatric day clinic in Lebach took place on November 27, 1997. In the following year, 1998, on March 20, the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Borromean women in Waller was caught to celebrate.

The foundation currently operates a nursing home , a children's home , a specialist clinic for geriatrics and a specialist clinic for psychiatry and psychotherapy . The Sophienstiftung is the largest employer in Wallerfangen today.

Hospital chapel
Wallerfangen, hospital chapel in neo-Romanesque style with building-time painting
Wallerfangen, St. Nikolaus Hospital Church, oil painting with the martyrdom of St. Catherine by M. Villeroy (1887/1888)

The neo-Romanesque chapel of the hospital, inaugurated on May 1, 1885, with its historic interior has four window axes and a round window in the choir, which is closed on three sides. An entrance hall leads into the sacred space. Above that there is a gallery that opens into a basket arch to the chapel room. The yokes are formed by ribbed vaults that rest on services . Below the services are in high rectangular unframed fields the reliefs of terracotta - Cross . The reliefs are colored, but their setting has suffered from overpainting and subsequent exposure. In the hospital chapel there is a rich, high-quality interior painting from 1907 with depictions of the life of Mary . It had been painted over white in the post-war "wave of purification" and could be exposed again during a restoration. The apse carpet painting made of cross medallions and the initials of Mary shows in a frame of standing quatrefoils with points of a square v. l. No. the School of Mary (St. Anna instructs little Mary), the wedding of Mary and Joseph, the Pietà scene (Mary holds the crucified Jesus on her lap), the Annunciation, the birth of Jesus in the stable of Bethlehem and the Assumption of Mary. In the vaults of the nave, banners contain Marian invocations of the Lauretan litany :

From the entrance on the left to the apse:

  • Regina Angelorum (Queen of Angels)
  • Consolatrix Afflictorum ( Comforter of the Afflicted )
  • Salus Infirmorum (salvation of the sick)
  • Mater Salvatoris (Mother of the Savior)

From the entrance on the right to the apse:

  • Regina Patriarcharum (Queen of the Patriarchs)
  • Refugium Pecatorum (sic!) (Refuge of sinners)
  • Regina Virginum (Queen of the Virgins)
  • Mater Creatoris (Mother of the Creator)

The banderoles of the apse are dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity (from left to right):

  • Fili Redemptor Mundi Deus (Son of God, Redeemer of the World)
  • Pater de Coelis Deus (God, Heavenly Father)
  • Spiritus Sancte Deus (God, Holy Spirit)

The base zone of the interior is paneled with wood. A large-format oil painting by M. Villeroy from 1887/1888, which thematizes the martyrdom of the Wallerfang parish and former monastery patroness Catherine of Alexandria , adorns the entrance wall of the hospital church below the gallery. The background of the depicted scenes is depicted as a cloud, indicating a heavenly sphere. On the right you can see Saint Catherine seated in dark, nun-like robes. While she leans on the torture wheel with sharp blades with her left arm and seems to look down at it with contempt for suffering, she holds up a splendid chalice with her right hand over which a radiant host appears. A narrow circlet hovers over Katharina's head as a sign of holiness. The symbolic representation can be interpreted as a sign of the victory of Christian values ​​over the godless violence of paganism. A floating putto holds the crown of thorns at the feet of the saints as a sign of Christ's following in suffering through Katharina's martyrdom.

In the middle and in the left part of the painting, hovering angels with large wings, whose bodies are only wrapped in flowing strips of fabric, carry the lifeless body of Katharina, martyred to death. The body of the young saint is wrapped in red cloth as a sign of her bloody execution, and her wrists are still tied with ropes. A gold-colored disc nimbus shines around Katharina's head. The scene depicts the transfer of the mortal shell of Catherine to Mount Sinai by angels .

The first two bays seen from the entrance have simple post-war glazing in yellowish tones with purple accents in their arched windows. The first window on the left of the entrance bears the inscription "Holy Family". In the center it shows the Christogram as a symbol of Jesus, two lilies as a sign of the chastity of Joseph and Mary as well as a spindle as an indication of the manual work of the mother of Jesus and an ax as an indication of the carpenter's profession. The next window to the left of the entrance contains a golden crown ring in the center and below it the Latin inscription "humilitas" (Eng. Humility), the motto of the Borromean women. In the center of the window to the right of the entrance is the inscription "St. Nikolaus", above it in gold a vat, a bishop's miter and a crook as symbols of the holy bishop Nikolaus von Myra , who is the patron saint of the hospital. In the neighboring window, vine tendrils, bread basket and teapot illustrate the charitable attitude of St. Elisabeth of Thuringia , which is also indicated by the inscription "St. Elisabeth".

The historicist glazing has been preserved in the next two bays towards the apse. On the right-hand side, seen from the entrance, is the proclamation of the birth of Jesus by the Archangel Gabriel to Mary and the Holy Family . On the left-hand side as seen from the entrance, the artist depicts the miraculous multiplication of bread by Jesus and Jesus' turning to the children in two windows . All the scenes shown are set in Romanising frames that culminate in a picturesque domed tower architecture.

The interior is no longer original. During the restoration, historicist altar parts from other churches were repositioned. The front of the celebration altar is divided by an arched gallery with four arches on five pillars. The neo-Romanesque high altar shows a relief with the famous Milanese Last Supper scene after Leonardo da Vinci from the end of the 15th century in the refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie . The altarpiece is designed in three parts and cites reliquary shrines from the Romanesque period. All three niches have frames with circular services. The middle part contains the tabernacle with two double doors in the lower area . Above this there is a high rectangular exposition niche for the installation of the altar cross or the monstrance . The depiction of the apocalyptic lamb with a victory flag rises above it in a round arch. The archivolt is adorned with putti. Another putto is positioned in the triangular field above the arch, further puttos in the spandrels of the flank niches. The side niches contain the statues of the hospital patron Nikolaus von Myra (left) and St. Elisabeth of Thuringia (right). The figures in the altar niches and another figure of Mary, which was placed on a pedestal in the apse area, are modern and can be assigned to the historicizing alpine art carver.

Superiors in the St. Nicholas Hospital

The following Borromean women worked as superiors in the Wallerfanger Hospital:

  • S. Maria Hildegard Meyer: March 20, 1848 - 1854
  • S. Maria Laurentine Altenkirch: April 26, 1854 - May 4, 1880
  • S. Maria Eligia Deimel: July 30, 1880 - October 20, 1914
  • S. Maria Anna Surges: October 21, 1914 - June 13, 1924
  • S. Maria Martha Felberg: June 23, 1924 - October 15, 1930
  • S. Maria Emmanuel Krebs: October 23, 1930 - December 28, 1932
  • S. Maria Servatia Brewer: December 28, 1932 - December 7, 1935
  • S. Maria Carola Niehsen: March 25, 1936 - August 30, 1939

Closure of the house due to the evacuation of the Red Zone on August 30, 1939 / Gradual resumption of operations from August 1940

  • S. Maria Giswalda Schuler: September 18, 1940 - November 9, 1943
  • S. Maria Aloysia Grewe: November 11, 1943 - January 31, 1950
  • S. Maria Elisabeth von Kesselstatt: January 31, 1950 - April 23, 1956
  • S. Maria Elfriede Schneiders: May 2, 1956 - April 30, 1962
  • S. Maria Rosa Munkes: May 9, 1962 to June 20, 1970
  • S. Maria Irmine Krütten: August 3, 1970 - October 21, 1976
  • S. Maria Theresina Stilz: October 30, 1976 - November 7, 1983
  • S. Maria Andrea Horsch: November 11, 1983 - January 7, 1985
  • S. Maria Gerlindis Bank: January 18, 1985 - January 5, 1988
  • S. Maria Leontia Hermanns: January 13, 1988 - August 22, 1993
  • S. Maria Astrid Meyer: August 23, 1993 - ad multos annos

Castle buildings in the 19th century

Several small castles were built in and near Wallerfangen:

Villeroy de Galhau Castle

The castle at the Wallerfanger entrance (coming from Dillingen) is a two-storey building built in the style of French country castles of classicism. The property in the Niederlimberg district consists of a five-axis central building with a bulging entrance axis and three-axis projecting side projections. Above the entrance is a console-supported balcony with a wrought-iron railing. The upright rectangular windows are separated by colored wall surfaces. Wide corner pilasters emphasize the dimensions of the building. A wide eaves cornice closes off the structure at the top, a high basement floor was created below. Cassettes separate the windows vertically. The northern extension dates from the middle of the 19th century. The property is enclosed by a wall with a gate. There is a single-storey outbuilding with a high hipped roof on the street.

The Wallerfang Capuchin monastery was located on the site of the current Villeroy Castle until the village was destroyed in 1691 . The monks then had to move to the Lisdorfer Au (Kapuzinerschanze on a Saarfurt). The monastery in Wallerfangen was founded during the Thirty Years' War in 1628 with the economic support of Duke Charles IV of Lorraine . The monks were mainly active in nursing. As early as 1635, the still young founding of the monastery suffered considerable damage during the conquest of Wallerfangen by the imperial lieutenant general and Feldzeugmeister Matthias Gallas . Reconstruction was slow, so the financially supported relocation to Saarlouis offered an opportunity. In 1741, Georges Theodore Lasalle (* October 11, 1689 in Saarlouis, † May 19, 1765 ibid.) And his wife Ursule Catherine (née Thiercet, * 1699, † 1749, married on November 14, 1718 in Saarlouis) acquired the ruinous property, of which only the vaulted cellar remained.

Georges Theodore Lasalle was a tax farmer under King Louis XV. to the wealthy of the area. He had acquired several lands with sovereign rights, including in Bettingen and Limbach , through purchase . In 1737 he had a town house built for his family in Saarlouis (today Haus Koch). From 1743 to 1753 Lasalle was the tenant of the Dillinger Hütte .

From 1753 a mansion was built on the ruins of the Wallerfang Monastery, which is now owned by the Villeroy family. The cellar vaults of the Capuchin monastery from the 17th century have been preserved to this day.

The Lasalle family came to Lorraine from the French Languedoc-Roussillon in connection with the construction of the fortress town of Saarlouis . Jean Lasalle (* 1649 in Castelnaudary / today in the Aude department , † December 4, 1727 in Saarlouis) came to the young town around 1680 as a tailor and in 1683 had Elisabeth Deimer (or Dimmer, 1657–1739 ) married. In addition to tailoring, Jean Lasalle also worked as an innkeeper in Saarlouis. One of the six sons, Georges Theodore, became the progenitor of the family branch on the Saar.

The son of Georges Theodore and Ursule Catherine de Lasalle, Albert de Lasalle (born May 11, 1722 in Saarlouis, † June 26, 1769 in Niederlimberg, buried in the old parish church in Dillingen), took over together with his wife Charlotte (née d ' Osquet, 1733–1786) owned his parents' estates in Bettingen, Limbach and Saarlouis, served as councilor and alderman in Saarlouis and increased his fortune as an army supplier. In 1755 he is mentioned as "avocat en Parlement" and as a fiefdom holder in Berus, Berweiler, Edelingen and a Schmittenburg Unterlehens. From 1757 he was Inspector General of the Three Bishoprics ( Trois-Évêchés et de la Lorraine). At an auction in Metz on May 27, 1763 he had succeeded in acquiring the Dillingen rule , so that on July 11, 1763, on the recommendation of the Trier Elector Johann IX. Philipp von Walderdorff was raised to the German nobility by the German Emperor Franz I. Stephan as a baron . This title was recognized as a hereditary title of nobility after Lorraine was annexed to France in 1766. In the same year, the imperial city of Cologne granted him its council and citizenship rights. When he died in the castle in Niederlimberg in 1769, he was buried at his own request in the old Luzienkirche in Dillingen.

A Latin inscription in the tower hall of the successor to the Luzienkirche, today's Dillingen parish church of St. Johann , reminds of him. Albert de Lasalle's wife Charlotte sold the barony of Dillingen to Baron Phillipp Wilhelm Justus von Mandell on April 3, 1787 . Both son Nicolas Theodore Antoine Adolphe de Lasalle (born November 12, 1762 in Saarlouis, † March 9, 1803 in Paris) was able to further expand the family's position. He took over all of his parents' goods (excluding the Dillingen estate, which was sold in 1787) in Saarlouis, Wallerfangen, Berus and Limbach and became co-owner of the glassworks in Neuforweiler . Already at the age of 22, in 1784 he was appointed "President lieutenant general civil et criminel et de la police au bailliage et siège présidial de Sarrelouis" and two years later he was appointed royal French council. In 1789, the year of the revolution, the twenty-six-year-old Lasalle was sent as a member of the Bailliage Saarlouis for the third estate to the meeting of the Estates General in Versailles and Paris. After the end of his mandate he returned to Wallerfangen, where he lived with his wife Emilie (née Proa, † 1794). Here Nicolas Theodore Antoine Adolphe de Lasalle was appointed Mayor of Wallerfangen in 1793. Due to a stay in Cologne, he was put on the notorious list of emigrants. Lasalle claimed, however, that he was only in Cologne for business reasons. After renewed conflicts with the French government, Lasalle had to flee Wallerfangen to Cologne. Here there were conflicts with other emigrants who denounced him to the Cologne magistrate as a Jacobin in disguise . Finally, on August 5, 1797, Lasalle was deleted from the list of emigrants and was allowed to return to Wallerfangen. He turned down a position as chief administrator of the finances of the French army in the Egypt campaign in December 1799. He died a few years later on March 3, 1803 in Paris.

With his death, the Niederlimberg property came to the Lasalle-Louisenthal family branch. The founder of this line, Jean Baptiste François de Lasalle de Louisenthal (born February 21, 1726 in Saarlouis, † March 14, 1803 in Merten), had married Gertrud Schmitt (1740-1808) from Saarlouis on October 28, 1765 in the Dillinger castle chapel . The third son from this marriage, François Albert (1769-1858), married Sophie Elise de Galhau in 1795. Sophie Elise was the daughter of Christophe de Galhau and Saarlouiserin Barbara Schmitt, sister of Gertrud Schmitt. Thus the couple were cousin and cousin. At first the young couple lived in Fremersdorf. After the death of Nicolas Theodore Antoine Adolphe de Lasalle in 1803, the two of them moved from Fremersdorf to his castle in Wallerfangen-Niederlimberg.

The youngest daughter of Sophie Elise and François Albert, Barbe Céphalie de Lasalle de Louisenthal (1799-1870) married the Metzger Henry Thierry († 1850). Both moved to Niederlimberg Castle. Barbe Céphalie was supposed to outlive her husband by 20 years.

St. Joseph Chapel, Mettlach
Neo-Gothic chapel at Villeroy Castle before it was demolished in 1878/1879 (Archive of the Wallerfangen Museum)

The neo-Gothic St. Joseph Chapel, which is now in Mettlach , was built in 1864 by the architect of Wallerfang's Katharinenkirche, Franz Georg Himpler, as an extension of the left wing of the palace.

The four-axis, cross-rib vaulted sacred building with a polygonal choir closure on three sides was only approximately five meters wide and was constructed relatively high and with a steep gable roof. The exterior of the building, which is made of stone-faced sandstone blocks, was given an inner lining made of rubble stones. The entrance facade was lavishly decorated with rich architectural decorations, sculptures and inscriptions. The architect Himpler, who was trained at the Royal Building Academy in Berlin , designed the hall church based on the high-Gothic Sainte-Chapelle in Paris by Louis IX. from the 13th century designed in simplified neo-Gothic forms.

The chapel at the family seat in Wallerfangen-Niederlimberg was to serve as a memorial to Barbe Céphalie's husband Henry Thierry after the death. The chapel , however, was removed in the years 1878/1879 in Wallerfangen and by boat on the Saar to Mettlach translocated where it was rebuilt with enriching changes. Since the spring of 2013 it has been accessible again after ten years of renovation.

The background to this unusual relocation was that Barbe Céphalie Thierry had bequeathed the castle to the Borromean Sisters in his will for the establishment of a hospital in Wallerfangen. Since the premises did not seem suitable, the Wallerfanger Honorary Mayor Nicolas Adolphe de Galhau had the St. Nicholas Hospital built in the park of Countess Guilleminot in the "Im Seitert" estate between 1883 and 1885. The neo-Gothic chapel remained unused after the construction of the St. Nikolaus Hospital, located away from the castle. In Mettlach, too, nursing in the hospital founded by Eugen von Boch and his wife Octavie, née Villeroy, was the responsibility of the Borromean Order, but there was no chapel, so the heir to the Wallerfanger Schloss, Ernest Villeroy, his uncle and Head of the family business Villeroy & Boch, Eugen Anton von Boch made the building available. This left it to resign by piece and by 1878 piece Treidelschiff Saar downward transport to Mettlach. Here the chapel in Bahnhofstrasse was rebuilt from 1879 onwards. The newly created crypt should serve as a family tomb.

In the following period, the Wallerfanger castle building was extensively redesigned by Ernest Villeroy (April 2, 1843 - November 6, 1908, manager of the Wallerfanger stoneware factory from 1873 to 1891) and his wife Maria Gaetana Gabriele (née Onofrio, married on August 31, 1871) . On the opposite corner plot (corner of Hauptstrasse / Sonnenstrasse) a rent office with farm buildings and stables was built. At the castle, the central projection was moved forward, the upper floor raised, the roof re-erected and the windows evenly rearranged. Extensive renovations were also carried out inside the building.

After Ernest Villeroy's death in 1908, the castle in the Saarengt passed to his son Emanuel Villeroy, who was married to Marie Pauline Elisabeth Mathieu de Vienne. After him, their eldest son Henry Villeroy de Galhau (married to Jeanne de Jessy) became the new lord of the castle.

When Henry Villeroy de Galhau died in 1981, his son Claude Villeroy de Galhau (born December 18, 1931 - June 13, 2017, married on April 30 to Odile de la Lande de Calan) took over the inheritance. One of Odile and Claude Villeroy de Galhau's sons, François Villeroy de Galhau , has been Governor of the Banque de France since November 2015 .

During the Second World War there was considerable damage to the castle, which the castle owner Henry Villeroy had repaired in the post-war period. In addition, the preserved gate entrance of the destroyed Beaumarais Castle at Villeroy Castle in Wallerfangen was rebuilt during these measures.

The elaborate baroque paneling of the interior of the castle comes from the Fraulautern Abbey . The background was that the extensive Fraulauterner monastery properties had been confiscated during the French Revolution . The entire monastery property was publicly auctioned on September 1, 1796 (15th Fructidor of year IV). The buyer was the dealer Andreas Rouply from Oberlimberg and his wife Margarethe (née Fourmann), who then sold individual goods and the valuable church inventory piece by piece. The lavish baroque paneling of the church stalls from 1787 and the paintings of the four evangelists were acquired by Ernest Villeroy, which means that they are now in Villeroy de Galhau Castle in Wallerfangen. Today they adorn the dining room in the north wing of the ground floor. The walls are clad up to a height of about three meters.

Wallerfangen, the former Villeroy tax office

The listed Villeroysche Rentamt on the corner of the property between Hauptstrasse and Sonnenstrasse (Zillkens Eck), which was built before 1900 on the opposite side of the road from the castle, stands on the site of the former Wallerfang Capuchin cemetery. After the cemetery was closed, several farmhouses were built here on the ascent to the Limberg, near the Saarengt, in the style of the south-west German Quereinhaus . Before that, the Wallerfanger wash house stood until 1900 , where the local women could clean the family's laundry. The cross houses were demolished in favor of the rent office built in the historicist style. The communal wash house was also relocated further up on Sonnenstrasse.

The rent office with its brick facade , sandstone walls and mansard roof originally had two window axes on the side facing Sonnenstrasse, but one axis was later added. The main entrance is on the main street. The building is the parents' house of the sisters Elisabeth Zillken , Nora Scheitgen (née Zillken) and Anna Zillken , the daughters of the rent master and teacher Engelbert Zillken (1858–1944).

In the immediate vicinity of the Rentamt in Wallerfanger Saarengt in the direction of Dillingen, there was a row of houses belonging to Wallerfanger Saarschiffer and Fischer until the end of the 19th century. The houses at the former Wallerfanger Saarhafen (now Saaraltarm) were built on the rocks of the Limberg and had rock cellars. Other rock cellars in the direction of Dillingen were inhabited by poor Wallerfang families. In order to remedy their precarious living conditions, small houses were created in Klostergartenweg for the rock cellar residents in the second half of the 19th century. The rock dwellings were later used as storage rooms and served as an air raid shelter for the Wallerfang population during the bombardment by the US artillery in the winter of 1944/1945 . The residential development in the Engt was demolished between 1870 and 1900 with the exception of two buildings. The last houses were removed in the Second World War.

Catfish catch, Salmshaus

The so-called Salmshaus, a five-axis, two-storey plastered building, also belongs to the palace area. The listed building, now used as a residential building, was built in the first half of the 19th century as a Halfenhaus at the former Saar port of Wallerfangen.

Fabvier Castle

The old Fabvier'sche Schloss in Villeroystraße (formerly Hertzengasse) was built in 1825 for Nicolas Villeroy in the immediate vicinity of the stoneware factory and is now named after its last owner, Marie Fabvier. The manor house of the director of the Wallerfang stoneware factory Nicolas Villeroy originally had farm buildings and stables as well as a small park. Nicolas Villeroy lived in the building with his wife Therese Sophie (née Böcking; 1764–1842; marriage 1786; sister of Adolf Böcking, Heinrich Böcking's father ) until his death in 1843. Before that, he had lived in the factory building himself . In 1843, his grandson Gaspard-Alfred Villeroy (1818–1896, factory director of the Wallerfanger stoneware factory from 1841–1873) took over the property. The son of Nicolas Villeroy, Louis Villeroy, had an estate (Hof Limberg) built on the Limberg in 1825. Under the leadership of Gaspard-Alfred Villeroy, the Wallerfang company experienced an unexpected boom from 1842. Gaspard-Alfred's daughter Oktavie-Sophie (1823–1899) married Eugen von Boch on May 3, 1842 , the son of the founder of the Mettlacher Fayencerie, Jean-François Boch .

When Gaspard-Alfred Villeroy died in 1896, his daughter Marie (married Fabvier) took over the property. After her death on October 1, 1919, her son Gerard Fabvier lived in the house for about 10 years. The property then became the property of the stoneware factory. After its closure in the Great Depression, they sold the property to the county Saarlouis, it "Obergau-leaders school" of during the Nazi period to a BDM for the Gau Saarpfalz had it rebuilt.

After the Second World War, homeless families were quartered in the building for a short time. In 1947 the Raiffeisenkasse temporarily moved into the building. In the winter of the same year there were lessons at the Agricultural Winter School Saarlouis. In 1954 the Caritasverband für Saarbrücken und Umgebung e. V. the property to look after handicapped children. In 1963 the "Haus Christophorus" was founded here as a home for girls with learning disabilities. At the same time, a special school for learning disabled people with behavioral disorders was set up. The facility provided accommodation for 90 young people. In 1974, the first steps towards decentralization were taken by adding and relocating three residential groups, and the total number of home places was reduced to 70. Assisted living was established in 1981. Coeducational education began in 1984. When the last residential group moved out of the main building in 2001, the goal of complete decentralization of the fully inpatient area was implemented.

The nine-axis, axially symmetrical plastered building with two storeys, a half-hipped roof and a three-axis gable with an iron balcony and ocular window was severely deprived of its historical character in the 1970s. So the lattice windows and folding shutters on the facade were dismantled in favor of large insulating glass panes and aluminum blinds. Creepers have been removed from the building. A large baroque gate system with pilasters, which originally stood in front of the main entrance to the stoneware factory and had been transferred from there, was torn down and replaced with a metal grille. Old trees were felled. The gardens were largely covered with composite stone paving and exposed aggregate concrete slabs to create parking spaces.

Galhau-Papen Castle

Another aristocratic residence was the Galhau Castle (later called Papen Castle ), which was built in 1862 by Nicolas Adolphe de Galhau , grandson of Nicolas Villeroy and husband of his cousin Sophie Villeroy, as a classicist building from the first half of the 19th century in place of the former Niederhofen estate in front of the new gate. The last owners of the castle were Martha von Papen , b. von Boch-Galhau , and her husband, Chancellor Franz von Papen . The two-storey building with nine axes and two side wings was badly damaged in the period 1944/1945. The ruin was later demolished. The commercial buildings were preserved.

The listed ensemble in Hauptstraße consists of a large stable and coach house, a porter's house, a smokehouse, a chicken coop and a nursery with greenhouse and is located in a large park with a surrounding park wall. Gut Niederhoffen was located here as early as the 15th century. The large property has changed hands several times over the centuries and has undergone several expansion and renovation phases. In 1830 Niederhoffen went to the de Galhau family. Nicolas Adolph de Galhau took over the property from his father Louis-Henry-Fulbert de Galhau in 1862 and immediately began a profound architectural redesign. All existing buildings were demolished and the current facility was erected. At the end of the 19th century, smaller buildings were added after the property was transferred to his nephew René Franz von Boch (1843–1908, from 1907 René Franz von Boch-Galhau) from Mettlach after the death of Nicolas-Adolphe de Galhau in 1889 . In 1896, Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden visited Wallerfangen and stayed in Boch Castle. When René's wife Marie (née Pescatore, 1847–1929) died in 1929, the entire property passed to her daughter Martha Oktavia Marie , who was married to Franz von Papen from 1905.

The property came into the possession of the later Chancellor Franz von Papen through marriage in 1905. The actual residential palace was badly damaged by US artillery bombardment and burned down to the outer walls on December 22, 1944 as a result of US arson - presumably as a deliberate act of revenge against the so-called "stirrup holder of Hitler". The middle section, of which only the rear wall remained, was particularly badly damaged. After the end of the war, the castle ruins, which could have been restored by drawing in ceilings and building a roof structure, were removed above ground. The ruins of the castle and the cellar are now under an overgrown rubble hill.

However, the large stable and Remisentrakt, a three-winged complex with post-classical forms, such as Palladio motifs or lunette windows, has been preserved . The building wing was built in the first construction phase from 1862, as was the three-wing chicken house and the nursery in today's Schlachthausweg. The porter's house, the smokehouse behind the stables, the nursery with greenhouse in the northern part of the park and an associated residential building (now Wallstrasse 2) are likely to be a little younger.

From 1864 the garden architect and royal Bavarian court garden director Karl Ludwig Seitz was commissioned to create a large park in the English style. Seitz also designed the park of Saareck Castle in Mettlach . With around 25 hectares of garden area, the Wallerfanger Park is one of the most important parks in the English horticultural style in Saarland.

The former Gut Niederhofen was built in the Middle Ages and today, as Gut Papen, it is the only contiguous historical property in the district of Wallerfangen, which has been handed down in its entirety from the time it was built up to the present day. The estate, first mentioned in a document in 1430, was located in front of the southern city wall of Wallerfang. On the eve of the commemoration day of St. Remigius of Reims in 1430, the aristocrat Peter von Hausen sold the outworks of the town fortifications in the area of ​​the Niederhofen estate to the Siersburg bailiff Friedrich von Dalem. The noble family von Hausen had already been enfeoffed with goods in Wallerfangen by the Trier imperial abbey of St. Maximin around 1050 and owned a noble house in the city, with Cläsgen von Hausen, the father of Peter von Hausen, in 1416 by the Lorraine Duke Karl II. Was enfeoffed. Cläsgen von Hausen was also Lord von Rehlingen and Ihn , Vogt and Captain von Sierck , and owned several agricultural holdings in Hemmersdorf as well as the named Gut Niederhofen in front of the walls of Wallerfangen.

In the following years, Friedrich von Dalem and his wife Margarethe von Nasweiler managed to purchase further parts of the Niederhofen estate. When the heir Oranna von Dalheim married Jakob d'Haraucourt, the estate came into the possession of the dynasty d'Haraucourt , one of the great knight families of Lorraine , at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century . Jakob d'Haraucourt officiated from 1519 to 1526 as Bailli of the German Bellistum of Lorraine with its seat in Wallerfangen and belonged to the closest government of Duke Anton II of Lorraine . D'Haraucourt succeeded in expanding the Niederhofen estate by purchasing land, which Wilhelm von Wilhelm was able to do von Eltz and his wife Philippine von Hausen acquired the ferry rights across the Saar and brought numerous other pensions, interest and income into his possession in the area around Wallerfang. As part of the German Peasant War , Jakob d'Haraucourt marched up the Saar to Zabern on behalf of Duke Anton II of Lorraine , where a cruel massacre of the rebellious peasants took place.

Gut Niederhofen remained in the possession of the d'Haraucourt family until 1664. That year, Bailli Charles d'Haraucourt sold the estate, which had been damaged in the Thirty Years' War, for 7,000 Lorraine Francs to the General Procurator of the German Bellism, Franz Ernst de Koeller and his wife Margarethe Brem. The de Koeller family came from the Luxembourg area. Franz Ernst de Koeller's father, Nikolaus Koeller, who had previously been an advocate for the Luxembourg Provincial Council, had already settled in Wallerfangen at the end of his life. His son Franz Ernst (François Ernest), who had been raised to the nobility by Duke Charles IV of Lorraine , did not manage Gut Niederhofen himself, but leased it to various tenants from the Wallerfang area since 1671. In the year Franz Ernst de Koeller's death, 1717, Gut Niederhofen fell as heir to his eldest daughter Maria Magdalena, who was married to Damian Hatard d'Hame. When Damian Hatard d'Hame also died in the same year, his wife Maria Magdalena leased the estate to the Saarlouis wine merchant Poncelet. Heirs of the estate were Anna Ursula (Anne Ursule) d'Hame and her husband Charles François Nicolas de Requin.

After her husband died in 1738 at the age of only twenty-four, Anna Ursula and her daughters Barbara Therese, Maria Elisabeth and Margarethe Scholastika ran the estate themselves. In the run-up to the French Revolution, there were increased legal disputes with farmers in the surrounding towns St. Barbara, Niederlimberg and Felsberg, who opposed the feudal right. According to documents, they were even able to save the property through the turmoil of the French Revolution. The family mansion stood on the site of the castle destroyed by arson in the war winter of 1944. In the immediate vicinity there were horse stables, wagon sheds, granaries and stables.

Around 1830, Jacques Remy de Requin sold the approximately 2.8 hectare castle estate with the other associated lands to Louis Henry Fulbert de Galhau. He was the youngest and sixth child of Christophe de Galhau, Herr zu Fremersdorf, and his wife Barbara Schmitt from Saarlouis and was born in 1785. Christophe de Galhau had already died when Louis Henry Fulbert de Galhau was less than three years old. Barbara Schmitt, married de Galhau, and her father Wilhelm Schmitt had been tried before the Paris Revolutionary Tribunal for supporting French emigrants and persecuted priests. On February 25, 1794, father and daughter were beheaded on the guillotine .

The new owner of Gut Niederhofen, Louis Henry Fulbert de Galhau, was married to Sophie Villeroy, who, like her husband, came from Fremersdorf. Both son Nicolas Adolphe de Galhau built the manor buildings that exist today from 1862.

"Black Castle"
Armand Charles Guilleminot around 1823, painting by Louise Adélaïde Desnos in the Musée de l'Armée in Paris

The founder of the Wallerfanger stoneware factory Nicolas Villeroy had two sons: Charles and Louis. While Charles Villeroy married Georgette Elise de Renaud and moved to the baroque Fremersdorfer Schlösschen, Louis initially stayed with his parents. Louis Villeroy, born on June 30, 1790, married Jeanne Julie Sophie Spol from Metz in 1820. In the same year he took over the management of the Wallerfanger stoneware factory. After his wife died, Louis Villeroy married the Swiss Protestant pastor's daughter Henriette-Aimée "Marie" Ebray. The couple lived in the newly built manor on the Limberg in 1825. Their son Charles was born here in 1828. Louis Villeroy died on October 19, 1830 at the age of 40, leaving his wife and child behind on the lonely estate.

The young widow remarried in 1838 to the French general and diplomat Count Armand Charles Guilleminot . The count died on March 14, 1840 in Baden-Baden and was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris . Countess Marie Guilleminot built a castle-like property as a widow's residence three years later in 1843 in the immediate vicinity of the Katharinenkirche. To remedy the housing shortage in Wallerfangen, she had houses built on Amalienplatz ("Auf der Hall").

In the Protestant church in Saarlouis , there is still a baptismal font with the inscription: “On the occasion of the confirmation of Carl Villeroy from Wallerfangen from his mother Maria Countess Guilleminot, née. Ebray, the Protestant community in Saarlouis, 1841, dedicated on September 25th. “Her son Charles (Carl) Villeroy, described as fun-loving and artistically gifted, from her first marriage to Louis Villeroy, died at the age of 31 on June 12, 1859. Marie Guilleminot had her son buried in the park of their estate in Wallerfangen.

As a token of mourning over the early death of her beloved son, the Countess ordered the building to be painted black with tar , whereupon the property was soon known by the population as the "Black Castle". Nicolas Adolphe de Galhau acquired the building in 1879 after the Countess's death and had the black tar paint removed as part of a renovation. Charles-Dominique Fabvier lived in the house until 1896 and his son Urban Fabvier until 1930. After that Alfred Graf von Oberndorff , who as diplomatic representative of the German Reich government had signed the Armistice of Compiègne on November 11, 1918 , temporarily lived here. The property passed into the possession of the Wallerfanger Sophienstiftung through a will. In 1935 she established a children's home here. During a night air raid on Saarlautern (Saarlouis) on September 2, 1942, the building was hit and burned out in the upper part.

The two-storey villa property in Hospitalstrasse was built on a square floor plan. Each side has five window axes. Large, three-axis dormers with hipped roofs emerge from the pyramid roof on each side. The current shape of the building has been changed by a uniaxial extension at the rear of the building. The windows have lattice structure, but the large shutters that shape the facade are missing. The original vegetation has been removed.

Franco-German War

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1871 led to the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to the German Empire . Wallerfangen lost its border position.

Wolf extinction

Since the beginning of the 19th century, the authorities had stepped up efforts to exterminate the wolf in the area. Until 1885, for example, premiums were paid for killing predators. The killing of a pregnant wolf brought in more than that of a male wolf. In the 1880s, as a result of these measures, the wolf was considered almost extinct in the region. Only males who carried out long-distance hikes from the Vosges were spotted in the area around the Wallerfanger district of Oberlimberg. The last wolf in the area was provided by the assistant forester Nikolaus Heffinger in the winter of 1888 when the animal wanted to dig up the carcass of a horse buried in the forest in search of food. The place was fenced in with iron bars so that the wolf's head was caught in the bars while trying to get to the dead horse. The assistant forester shot the animal, which was then carried through the town as a trophy and then photographed several times in a photo studio as a souvenir.

Saar area

Catfish catch on the panorama map "The German Saar" for the Saar vote in 1935, approx. 1934, ed. from the Rheinisches Verkehrsverein e. V. Bad Godesberg and the Palatinate Tourist Association e. V. Ludwigshafen, approx. 100,000, 72 cm × 46 cm, Saarlouis City Archives, map excerpt
Ballot for the Saar vote in 1935

Consequences of the Versailles Treaty

As a result of the First World War and the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, Wallerfangen became a place near the border again. In 1920 Wallerfangen became part of the Saar area agreed in the Versailles Treaty . The products of the Wallerfanger factory now have the addition "Made in Saar-Basin" on their stamp.

Closure of the earthenware factory

In 1931, the Wallerfanger ceramics factory had to be closed after 140 years of existence in the wake of the stock market crash on New York Wall Street on Black Thursday (October 24, 1929) and the subsequent global economic crisis . The majority of the last 631 employees were thereby unemployed. With Leon Richard, a director who did not come from the Villeroy family came to Wallerfangen for the first time in 1891. Artistically there was a decline in production in the period that followed. In addition, goods traffic from the Wallerfangen small station to the factory was stopped in 1930. Due to the location of the factory in the center of the village, modernization and expansion were difficult.

Between 1935 and 1937, the machines were dismantled, the remaining goods and raw materials were removed, the factory buildings were torn down and the area in the center of the village was then planted with greenery. The historic buildings of the old catfish catching area, which had survived the destruction of Louis XIV, were also demolished.

The only buildings that survived the demolition of the production halls are now on the outskirts of the former factory area. In 1932, the "Saarlouiser Senf- und Sauerkrautfabrik Carl Gräff", which was founded in 1861 in Saarlouiser Silberherzstrasse, was located in this so-called "New Magazine". The company ran for 121 years until production was shut down on August 4, 1982. Then a grocery store moved into the stoneware factory's "New Magazine". The grocery store is currently operated by the Auditing Association of West Purchase Cooperatives .

A monument by the artist Andreas-Josef Kutsche, erected in 1991 on the former factory site, commemorates the ceramic history of Wallerfang.

Organ manufacture in Reimsbach

Julius Reimsbach (born August 30, 1895 in Niederlimberg; † July 12, 1970 in Wallerfangen), after completing his apprenticeship with the organ building companies Franzen in Trier, Stahlhut in Aachen, Klais in Bonn and Hock in Saarlouis in 1934 in Wallerfangen, was self-employed as an organ builder made. In the period before the Second World War, he rebuilt or expanded organs in the Saar area. After military service and imprisonment in World War II, he restored a number of Saarland organs or built new ones in the post-war period. At the end of the 1960s, he gave up his Wallerfang company for health reasons.

Saar vote

In the referendum established by the Versailles Treaty on January 13, 1935 after 15 years, 90.5% voted in favor of annexation to the German Reich in the Saar area and 91.19% in the Saarlouis district. In the mayor's office of Wallerfangen, to which the towns of Wallerfangen, Niederlimberg, St. Barbara, Beaumarais and Picard belonged, the vote gave the following result:

  • Voted for joining the French Republic: 57 eligible voters (= 13.0%)
  • Voted for the status quo: 559 eligible voters (= 1.3%)
  • Voting for the return to the German Reich: 3,681 eligible voters (= 85.7%)

In the run-up to the vote there had been massive pro-German election campaigns from the supporters of the " German Front " (bourgeois parties, center, NSDAP) who fought for unconditional affiliation with the German Reich. The former Chancellor Franz von Papen , who was a citizen of Wallerfang and at that time, as Adolf Hitler's representative in Vienna, was preparing the connection of Austria to the German Empire, had also participated in the vote in his home town in Saarland. In Wallerfangen, the gables of numerous houses were painted with German or National Socialist propaganda slogans. The Wallerfangen near the border was supposed to visually show the visitor the purely German character of the place. The supporters of the status quo operated their own election campaign office at Hauptstrasse 35, the side gable of which, however, had been painted with a large imperial eagle with a swastika by members of the NSDAP. After the results of the Saar referendum had been announced, the political activists of the "German Front" symbolically buried the "Status quo" in a ceremony on January 15, 1935, as in other places in the Saar region. The annexation to the German Reich was completed on March 1, 1935.

Westwall construction and visit by Adolf Hitler

On the occasion of the tour of the Westwall bunker in 1938, Adolf Hitler visited Wallerfangen and was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd with healing cries and a Hitler salute .

post war period

Katharinenkirche Wallerfangen , wooden memorial plaques for the dead of the world wars of the 20th century, above a glass window with the Resurrection Christ
Wallerfangen, official sign of the place in French from the post-war period, enamel on sheet metal (Heimatmuseum Wallerfangen)
Wallerfangen, Papen Castle, built in 1862 on the Niederhoffen estate, destroyed by arson by American soldiers looting on December 22, 1944, demolition of the above-ground parts of the building after 1945, the other farm buildings have been preserved

After the Second World War, around 10% of the residents of Wallerfang were missing or killed; their whereabouts are largely clarified today. Stone memorials in the Wallerfanger Pestfriedhof, the community cemetery and a memorial plaque in the tower hall of the Wallerfanger Katharinenkirche remind of the dead of the two world wars of the 20th century.

On March 26, 1946, after hearing the provisional community committee of the Wallerfangen community, it was decreed that, with effect from April 1, 1946, the Wallerfangen community would again use the earlier, historically established name of Vaudrevange . By resolution of January 12, 1953, after hearing the Vaudrevange municipal council, the previous municipality name Vaudrevange was changed back to Wallerfangen .

In 1945 Franz von Papen got caught up in the vortex of Nazi Germany's military defeat. Before the advancing Allies he fled first to his farm in Wallerfangen and then to the property of his son-in-law Max von Stockhausen in Stockhausen near Meschede . On April 10, 1945, Papen was arrested by US soldiers near the property.

Papen at the Nuremberg trials , sixth from the left in the back row of the defendants

In 1946 he was acquitted in the Nuremberg trial of the major war criminals . On February 24, 1947, he was classified as the "main culprit" in a ruling chamber procedure in the context of denazification and sentenced to eight years in a labor camp; the years spent in detention since 1945 counted towards his sentence.

Grave of Franz von Papen in Wallerfangen-Niederlimberg

As early as 1949, however, he was released early and the ordered property confiscation was reversed. In the following years he lived in Benzenhofen Castle in the Upper Swabian community of Berg . His long-term efforts to get pension payments in recognition of his diplomatic and military service failed because of his close connection to National Socialism (Foreign Office) and because of culpable violations of the rule of law (Administrative Court of Baden-Württemberg).

In the Saar state, the government of Prime Minister Johannes Hoffmann had imposed a residence ban on him, so that he could only see Wallerfangen again in 1955 on the occasion of the Saar referendum on October 23, 1955. However, he was only allowed to stay in Wallerfangen permanently in 1957 after the political annexation of the Saarland to the Federal Republic of Germany, where he was buried in the cemetery after his death in 1969.

Referendum on the Saar Statute 1955

With the entry into force of the Saarland constitution on December 15, 1947, Wallerfangen became part of the Saar state . On October 23, 1954, the agreement between the governments of the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the Saar Statute was negotiated between the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the French Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France . Until the conclusion of a peace treaty with Germany, the agreement provided for the Saarland to be subordinate to a commissioner from the Western European Union . This should represent the country externally. However, the Saarland government should continue to be responsible for internal affairs and the economic connection to France should be maintained. However, closer economic networking with the Federal Republic was also planned.

In the referendum on the agreement on October 23, 1955 on the European Statute of the Saarland , Wallerfangen voted as follows:

  • Wallerfangen: 1012 eligible voters voted yes; In 1917 eligible voters voted no.
  • Bedersdorf: 49 eligible voters voted yes; 55 eligible voters voted no.
  • Düren: 41 eligible voters voted yes; 93 eligible voters voted no.
  • Gisingen: 97 eligible voters voted yes; 225 eligible voters voted no.
  • Him: 116 eligible voters voted yes; 130 eligible voters voted no.
  • Ittersdorf: 211 eligible voters voted yes; 239 eligible voters voted no.
  • Kerlingen: 81 eligible voters voted yes; 174 eligible voters voted no.
  • Leidingen: 48 eligible voters voted yes; 64 eligible voters voted no.
  • Rammelfangen: 36 eligible voters voted yes; 76 eligible voters voted no.
  • St. Barbara: 58 eligible voters voted yes; 324 eligible voters voted no.

(The Saarland national average of the no-sayers was 67.7%.) As a result of the negotiations that followed and the Luxembourg Treaty of October 27, 1956, in which France agreed to the reintegration of the Saarland under West German sovereignty , the municipality of Wallerfangen became the first Politically affiliated to the Federal Republic of Germany on January 6, 1957 and economically on July 6, 1959 (“Day X”) .

1000 year celebration

In 1962, the community of Wallerfangen celebrated its first documented mention in 962. For the 1000th anniversary, an extensive festival program was held from August 31 to September 2, 1962. The kick-off event was a serenade evening in Papen's Park. A festive service in Wallerfang's Katharinenkirche as well as a pageant with groups representing historical situations from the local history formed the highlight of the anniversary on the last day of the celebrations. Around 20,000 people attended the historical costume spectacle. A color film that was shot on behalf of the community was supposed to document the jubilee.

Incorporations

On January 1, 1974, the previously independent communities of Bedersdorf, Düren, Gisingen, Ihn, Ittersdorf, Kerlingen, Leidingen, Rammelfangen and Sankt Barbara were incorporated.

literature

  • Beatrix Adler: Wallerfanger earthenware - history and products of the Villeroy Vaudrevange manufactory (1791–1836) and the earthenware factory Villeroy & Boch Wallerfangen (1836–1931), 2 volumes, Saarbrücken 1995.
  • Wolfgang Adler, Gerd WeisgerberCatfish catch. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 33, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2006, ISBN 3-11-018388-9 , pp. 143-149.
  • Wolfgang Adler : Excavations in the center of the medieval town of Wallerfangen, Preservation of Monuments in Saarland, Annual Report 2011 (2012), pp. 78–80.
  • Wolfgang Adler: King lets the city tear down, Archeology Germany 2012, issue 2, p. 53f.
  • Wolfgang Adler: On the roots of the medieval town of Wallerfangen, emergency excavation at the corner of Hauptstrasse and Villeroystrasse, preservation of monuments in Saarland, annual report 2012 (2013), pp. 72–74.
  • Wolfgang Adler: Old explored - new built, The excavations during the construction of the Wallerfangen branch of the Kreissparkasse Saarlouis 2011 and 2012, with contributions by B. Fecht, S. Klapdohr, J. Naumann and R. Schreiber (exhibition catalog), Saarlouis 2013.
  • Wolfgang Adler: A sacrifice for Saarlouis. During excavations in Wallerfangen, remnants of the parish church and the old cemetery were found, in: Saargeschichten 4/2013, pp. 25–29.
  • Wolfgang Adler: Insights into the center of the medieval town of Walderfingen, excavations on the occasion of the new building of the Wallerfangen Sparkasse branch in 2001 and 2012, in: Archäologietage Otzenhausen, Volume 1, Archeology in the Greater Region, International Symposium on Archeology in the Greater Region at the European Academy Otzenhausen, 7 . – 9. March 2014, ed. Michael Koch, Nonnweiler 2015, pp. 275-278.
  • Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012.
  • Rudolf Echt : Landfilling of the late Urnfield period, heights fortifications and magnificent grave of the Hallstatt period in Wallerfangen, Saarlouis district, in: R. Echt (Ed.): Contributions to the Iron Age and the Gallo-Roman period in the Saar-Moselle region, Saarbrücken studies and materials for Altertumskunde 9, Bonn 2003, pp. 29–73.
  • Rudolf Echt: The grave decorations of the Celtic princess von Wallerfangen - from the pond into the treasury, booklet accompanying the exhibition from April 27 to July 8, 2001 in the Wallerfangen Museum of Local History, Wallerfangen 2001.
  • Rudolf Echt: From Wallerfangen to Waldalgesheim, a contribution to late Hallstatt and early La Tène goldsmith work, Saarbrücker Studies and Materials for Antiquity 3 (Bonn 1994) (with W.-R. Thiele).
  • Rainer Glatigny: In memory of the dead - the living as a warning: The fallen from Catfish in the Second World War 1939–1945 , 2010.
  • Henri Hiegel: Le Baillage d´Allemagne de 1600 à 1636, 2 volumes, Saargemünd 1961/1968.
  • Gernot Karge: Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophienstiftung, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the sisters of St. Karl Borromeo, a report on the poor and nursing in Wallerfangen, St. Nikolaus-Hospital Wallerfangen, 150 years of Borromean women in Wallerfangen, ed. from the Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophienstiftung, Dillingen o. J. (1998).
  • Gernot Karge: Catfish catching in old views, Zaltbommel 1982.
  • Hans Peter Klauck: The inhabitants of the old town Wallerfangen before 1687, ed. by Gernot Karge on behalf of the Association for Local Studies in the District of Saarlouis eV, Saarlouis 2004.
  • Hans-Peter Klauck: The residents of Wallerfangen, Niederlimberg and St. Barbara, 1800–1900, Saarlouis 2008.
  • Theodor Liebertz: Wallerfangen and its history , Wallerfangen 1953.
  • Hermann Maisant: The Saarlouis district in prehistoric times, Saarlouis 1971.
  • Katharina Milkovic: Wallerfangen, Canal Construction and Urban Archeology, in: Preservation of Monuments in Saarland, Annual Report 2014, ed. from the State Monuments Office in the Ministry of Education and Culture, Saarbrücken 2015, pp. 80–82.
  • Guido Müller: The Villeroy and de Galhau families in Saarland, reports from the Association for Local Studies in the Saarlouis District. V., 6th special volume, Saarlouis 1991.
  • Hilarion Rieck: The Oberlimberg near Wallerfangen and its pilgrimage, Saarlouis 1935.
  • Saarforschungsgemeinschaft (ed.): The art monuments of the Ottweiler and Saarlouis districts, edited by Walter Zimmermann, 2nd, unchanged edition from 1934, Saarbrücken 1976, pp. 294–297.
  • Eckard Sander: Villeroy de Galhau Castle, in: The most beautiful palaces and castles in Saarland, Gudensberg-Gleichen 1999, pp. 80–81.
  • Edith Thissen: Wallerfangen, Niederhoffen Castle, Villeroy de Galhau Castle, The "Black Castle", Hofgut von Papen, in: Castles and Palaces on the Saar, ed. v. Joachim Conrad and Stefan Flesch, 3rd edition, Saarbrücken 1993, p. 261ff.
  • Alfred Weyhmann: Mining on copper glaze (azure) at Wallerfangen ad Saar under the Lorraine dukes (1492 to 1669), Wirtschaftsgeschichtliche Studien, No. 1, Saarbrücken 1911.
  • Peter Winter: New plan of the city Wallerfangen (Vaudrevange) from the year 1679 surfaced, in: Our home - bulletin of the district Saarlouis for culture u. Landschaft, 38, 2013, issue 2, pp. 45–50.

Web links

Commons : Catfishcatching  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. Hermann Lehne; Horst Kohler: Coat of Arms of the Saarland (Saarbrücken 1981; ISBN 3-922807-06-2 ), p. 166.
  2. Theodor Liebertz: Wallerfangen and his story, Wallerfangen 1953, pp. 14-15.
  3. Constanze Höpken, Nicholas Conard: The hand ax from Wallerfangen. In: From the Stone Age to the Present - Research on Wallerfang History, published in honor of Theodor Liebertz on his 150th birthday. Ed .: Verein für Heimatforschung Wallerfangen eV 1st edition. Self-published, Wallerfangen November 22, 2019, p. 83-90 .
  4. Herbert Liedtke, Karl-Heinz-Hepp, Christoph Jentsch: The Saarland in map and aerial photo, A contribution to regional studies, ed. from the Land Survey Office of the Saarland, Neumünster 1974, p. 73.
  5. http://wallerfangen.slc-technik.de/startseite/chronik/ , accessed on December 29, 2016.
  6. ^ Robert Seyler: The prehistoric fortification on the Limberg, in: Theodor Liebertz: Wallerfangen und seine Geschichte, Wallerfangen 1953, p. 362-370.
  7. Wolfgang Adler: excavations 2014 on the Königsberg near Itzbach, district Saarlouis, in: Denkmalpflege im Saarland, annual report 2014, ed. from the State Monuments Office in the Ministry of Education and Culture, Saarbrücken, pp. 26–28.
  8. Wallerfangen - Das Imperium macht Blau Article on the website of the German Mining Museum
  9. Herbert Liedtke, Karl-Heinz-Hepp, Christoph Jentsch: The Saarland in map and aerial photo, A contribution to regional studies, ed. from the Land Surveying Office of the Saarland, Neumünster 1974, pp. 70–73.
  10. http://wallerfangen.slc-technik.de/startseite/chronik/ , accessed on December 29, 2016.
  11. Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012, pp. 183–189.
  12. ^ Heidelberg University Library, No. 321.
  13. Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012, p. 10.
  14. ^ Heinz Renn: The first Luxemburger Grafenhaus (963–1136), Bonn 1941, p. 74ff.
  15. ^ Camille Wampach: Documents and source book of the old Luxembourg territories up to the Burgundian period, I, Luxembourg 1935, No. 207, p. 207.
  16. ^ Camille Wampach: Documents and source book of the old Luxembourg territories up to the Burgundian period, I, Luxembourg 1935, No. 207, p. 357f.
  17. Roland WL Puhl: The districts and counties of the early Middle Ages in the Saar-Mosel area , philological-onomastic studies on early medieval spatial organization based on the room names and the place names specified with them (contributions to the language in the Saar-Mosel area, 13), dissertation , Saarbrücken 1999, pp. 457-463.
  18. ^ Camille Wampach: Documents and source book of the old Luxembourg territories up to the Burgundian period, I, Luxembourg 1935, No. 207, p. 219.
  19. The Chronicle of Bishop Thietmar von Merseburg and their Korveier revision, Thietmari Merseburgensis episcopi chronicon, ed. by Robert Holtzmann, Berlin, 1935, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 6, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, Nova Series, 9, Chapter 8, p. 282.
  20. Reinhard Schindler: Studies on the prehistoric settlement and fortification system of the Saarland, Trier 1968.
  21. ^ Information on the exhibition at the Wallerfangen Historical Museum
  22. Beatrix Adler: Wallerfanger earthenware - history and products of the Villeroy Vaudrevange manufactory (1791–1836) and the earthenware factory Villeroy & Boch Wallerfangen (1836–1931), 2 volumes, Saarbrücken 1995, volume 1, p. 23.
  23. Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012, pp. 10–13.
  24. http://wallerfangen.slc-technik.de/startseite/chronik/ , accessed on December 29, 2016.
  25. Lehnert, Aloys: Geschichte der Stadt Dillingen / Saar, Dillingen 1968, pp. 138-143.
  26. ^ Tritz, Michael: History of the Wadgassen Abbey at the same time a cultural and war history of the Saar area, Wadgassen 1901, p. 103.
  27. ^ Anton Jakob: The Thirty Years' War and its consequences for the lower Saargau . In: 3rd yearbook of the Verein für Heimatkunde im Kreis Merzig, Merzig 1934, pp. 55–74, here p. 69.
  28. ^ Wentzcke, Paul: Feldherr des Kaiser - Leben und Daten Duke Karl V von Lothringen , Leipzig 1943, p. 79 ff.
  29. Christiane Schönberger: The old market hall of Wallerfangen, in: Our homeland, bulletin of the Saarlouis district for culture and landscape, 41st year, issue 1, 2016, pp. 39-40.
  30. State Main Archives Koblenz 442 - 6346, sheet 51
  31. State Main Archives Koblenz 442 - 6346, sheet 51
  32. Saar calendar vol. 5, 1827, p.106.
  33. ^ Intelligence Gazette Saarbrücken No. 1, 1815.
  34. ^ Alois Prediger: Geschichte des Landkreis Saarlouis, Vol. 1, French heritage and Prussian formation (1815–1848), Saarbrücken 1997, pp. 55–72.
  35. Beatrix Adler: Wallerfanger earthenware - history and products of the Villeroy Vaudrevange manufactory (1791-1836) and the earthenware factory Villeroy & Boch Wallerfangen (1836-1931), 2 volumes, Saarbrücken 1995, volume 1, pp. 29-35.
  36. Karl Friedrich Schinkel's diary notes about a trip from Mettlach to Saarbrücken from April 23 to 25, 1826, printed by: Peter Keuth: Schinkel als Retter des “Alten Turm” in Mettlach, in: Saarheimat 4, 1957, p. 24.
  37. ^ Friend of Schinkel and Boch-Buschmann from Mettlach; made a contribution to the promotion of Prussian industry.
  38. Beatrix Adler: Wallerfanger earthenware, history and products of the Villeroy Vaudrevange manufactory (1791–1836) and the earthenware factory Villeroy & Boch Wallerfangen (1836–1931), 2 volumes, Saarbrücken 1995.
  39. Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012, pp. 213-221.
  40. Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012, pp. 202–211.
  41. Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012, p. 202.
  42. Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012, p. 99.
  43. Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012, pp. 180–181.
  44. Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012, pp. 193–195.
  45. Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012, pp. 200–201.
  46. Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012, pp. 35–37.
  47. Gernot Karge: Adolph von Galhau'sche Sophienstiftung on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the sisters of St. Karl Borromäus, Wallerfangen 1998.
  48. Gernot Karge: Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophienstiftung, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the sisters of St. Karl Borromeo, a report on the poor and nursing in Wallerfangen, St. Nikolaus-Hospital Wallerfangen, 150 years of Borromean women in Wallerfangen, ed. from the Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophienstiftung, Dillingen o. J. (1998), p. 91.
  49. Markus Battard: Wallerfangen - A journey through time in pictures, 2nd revised edition, Dillingen / Saar 2012, pp. 62–68.
  50. Gernot Karge: Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophienstiftung, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the sisters of St. Karl Borromeo, a report on the poor and nursing in Wallerfangen, St. Nikolaus-Hospital Wallerfangen, 150 years of Borromean women in Wallerfangen, ed. from the Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophienstiftung, Dillingen o. J. (1998), p. 92.
  51. Gernot Karge: Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophienstiftung, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the sisters of St. Karl Borromeo, a report on the poor and nursing in Wallerfangen, St. Nikolaus-Hospital Wallerfangen, 150 years of Borromean women in Wallerfangen, ed. from the Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophienstiftung, Dillingen o. J. (1998), p. 92.
  52. Gernot Karge: Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophienstiftung, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the sisters of St. Karl Borromeo, a report on the poor and nursing in Wallerfangen, St. Nikolaus-Hospital Wallerfangen, 150 years of Borromean women in Wallerfangen, ed. from the Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophienstiftung, Dillingen o. J. (1998), p. 93.
  53. Self-presentation of the Sankt-Nikolaus-Hospital ( Memento from January 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) in Wallerfangen
  54. http://www.saarlandbilder.net/orte/wallerfangen/index.htm , accessed on January 7, 2016.
  55. Gernot Karge: Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophienstiftung, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the sisters of St. Karl Borromeo, a report on the poor and nursing in Wallerfangen, St. Nikolaus-Hospital Wallerfangen, 150 years of Borromean women in Wallerfangen, ed. from the Adolf von Galhau'schen Sophienstiftung, Dillingen o. J. (1998), p. 90.
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