Hessian hinterland

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Hessian hinterland (excluding the Vöhl exclave ) 1815–1866
Hessen-Darmstadt 1815–1866

The area of ​​the Hessian hinterland lies in the Central Hesse region and is concentrated around the western part of today's Marburg-Biedenkopf district , the old Biedenkopf district , which also includes areas of today's Lahn-Dill district and the Waldeck-Frankenberg district . It used to stretch like a hose from Bromskirchen in the north to Rodheim (near Gießen), municipality of Biebertal .

The Hessian hinterland belonged as the district of Biedenkopf to the Hesse-Darmstadt territory until 1866 and from 1867 to the Kingdom of Prussia , province of Hesse-Nassau , administrative district of Wiesbaden . In 1918 the Kingdom of Prussia became the Free State of Prussia , the province of Hessen-Nassau was divided into Kurhessen and Nassau on April 1, 1944, the administrative district of Wiesbaden became the province of Nassau ; 1945 American occupation zone , from September 19, 1945 Greater Hesse and from 1949 State of Hesse , administrative district Wiesbaden.

On July 1, 1974, the hinterland was combined with the Marburg district to form the new Marburg-Biedenkopf district. It belongs to the Gießen administrative district in Central Hesse.

The hinterland was originally the area of ​​the Blankenstein (Gladenbach) offices with the Breidenbacher Grund, Biedenkopf and Battenberg (Eder) that belonged to the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt and was almost completely isolated from it . The name later stuck to the former Biedenkopf district .

Today the term is popularly used for the parts of the former Biedenkopf district that have grown into the Marburg-Biedenkopf district. The special purpose association for inter-municipal cooperation in the hinterland , founded in 2006, has raised the name for this narrower area to a public-institutional meaning again.

In the hinterland, Hinterländer Platt is spoken - but mostly only by older local residents with a decreasing tendency.

Geographical classification

The following cities and municipalities (arranged from north to south) are part of the hinterland:

Origin - history

The "hinterland" arose from the succession dispute after the death of Philip I the Magnanimous, when in 1567 Hesse was divided into four counties among Philip's sons. The area around Battenberg , Biedenkopf and Gladenbach (more precisely the offices of Königsberg, Blankenstein, Biedenkopf, Battenberg and Hatzfeld as well as the enclave Vöhl ) came first to Hessen-Marburg . The former area of ​​the Palatinate, the Rodheim (Bieber) office, passed to the Counts of Nassau via the Lords of Merenberg and was bought by Hessen-Marburg in 1585. After the first generation of the Marburg Landgrave Line had died out in 1604, the area of ​​the hinterland (later the Biedenkopf district) came first to Hessen-Kassel , but then to Hessen-Darmstadt in 1627 . Even after the lengthy and bitter disputes during the Thirty Years' War , it remained with Hessen-Darmstadt after 1648 (from 1806 Grand Duchy of Hessen ). The hinterland lay as a long, narrow strip between Hessen-Kassel on the one hand and Wittgenstein-Berleburg and Nassau-Dillenburg on the other. It reached from Bromskirchen in the north, on the border with the Sauerland , across river sections ( Eder , Lahn and Salzböde ) and watersheds to Naunheim in the south - an area that lacked a uniform, continuous and connecting road.

Seen from the residential city of Darmstadt , the area was “very far back” and so came to be known as the hinterland . It belonged to the Hesse-Darmstadt province of Upper Hesse with the provincial capital Gießen .

As contemporary sources report, officials who had made themselves unpopular in Darmstadt, z. B. by too brisk action and independent thinking, often moved to the hinterland. Around 1850 z. B. a writer: "An improper servant is banished from the residence on the intestine to the hinterland, where the fox and owl say good night to each other." This is how the most characterful officials and pastors came to the hinterland, which got along very well with the national character there .

For centuries, the area has retained its character as a closed farming country until the times of the world wars. Valleys and villages are separated from each other by mountains and forests. Each forest valley is a small district in itself. Until the middle of the 20th century, nowhere in Hesse could the local peculiarities in traditional costumes ( Hinterland costumes ), customs and dialect ( Hinterländer Platt ) be preserved as well as in the hinterland.

Ore mining and iron extraction once had great importance and a long tradition in the hinterland. In the course of time (around the 15th century) there were a total of 556 mines from which iron (297 alone), copper , zinc , nickel , manganese , silver and mercury ores were extracted. The hinterland shares this tradition with the neighboring region in the Dill Valley and the entire Lahn-Dill area .

From 1815 to 1866 the hinterland was wedged between the Prussian province of Westphalia (formerly the district of Siegen), the Duchy of Nassau (formerly the Dill district) in the west and the electorate of Hesse-Kassel (formerly the district of Marburg) in the east. In the south, the Prussian district of Wetzlar, between its main part in the west and its exclave around Krofdorf-Gleiberg in the east, left only an approximately 500 m wide Hessian area corridor between the Prussian districts of Kinzenbach and Vetzberg near Heuchelheim open. The only direct north-south road, the old Westphalia route , led through this “tube” to the provincial capital of Giessen. (This route is now followed by the L 3047 from the customs book.) Until 1854, when the customs barriers with Prussia were lifted, this was the only duty-free connection between the Hessian hinterland and the provincial capital of Giessen and the other parts of the Hesse-Darmstadt region, including the state capital Darmstadt.

Prehistory and early history

From an archaeological point of view, the area of ​​the Hessian hinterland is a “blank spot”. As a result of the political / administrative affiliations and the associated responsibilities of the offices and institutions (Darmstadt, Wiesbaden, Marburg), which changed after 1866, the area has hardly been archaeologically investigated for whatever reasons (research gap).

The hinterland as "Must-Prussia"

After Prussia's victory in the German War in 1866, the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, as an ally of Austria under Article 14 of the peace treaty of September 3, 1866, had to inter alia the two districts of Biedenkopf (the offices of Battenberg, Biedenkopf, Blankenstein and Königsberg ) and Vöhl (the offices of Vöhl and Itter) cede to Prussia. Grand Duke Ludwig dismissed the parts of the country that had previously belonged to the province of Upper Hesse, u. a. the "Hessian Hinterland", on September 27, 1866 from the Hessian State Association. On February 2, 1867, the hinterland was formally incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia . The "Hinterländer" then also called themselves " Musspreußen ". In 1868 the eight communities of the former "Office Rodheim" near Gießen were also attached to the district; however, its inhabitants never considered themselves to be hinterlands.

Economic conditions

Making a living in the past

In the past, the poor soils in the hinterland forced the residents to lead a life of hardship. Reports from around 1800 speak of a “poor life” for the population. The yield of agriculture in the hinterland was about half lower than z. B. in the Wetterau. Only constant hard work could secure the daily bread on the barren soil and the harsh climate, and only with a good harvest was it possible for a family to meet the annual need for food. Additional sources of income were urgently needed. Therefore, was Sideline agriculture the predominant operating form of agriculture, still well into the second half of the 20th century. Only a few were allowed to live exclusively from their own agriculture.

For the children of these families, from a certain age onwards, this meant helping with all agricultural work in the house, yard and in the fields. This was especially true for crops such as hay, grain and potato. The school holidays in the country used to be so that the children could help the parents. That was the original reason for the introduction of these school holidays. They were also called hay vacation , grain vacation and potato vacation . That was child labor . Vacation was a foreign word for these families and their children. Townspeople went on vacation.

The professor of mineralogy in Gießen, Philipp E. Klippstein , who came from Gladenbach and was very well-known at the time , wrote in his mineralogical letters (1779) about the economic circumstances, customs and traditions of his compatriots :

“The noblest simplicity, temperance and hard work prevail among the local farmer. Agriculture doesn't mean that much, because the soil is mostly mountainous, slatey and the weather is rough. The better is livestock breeding, especially sheep breeding. The higher court [today the municipality of Bad Endbach , formerly the parish of Hartenrod] in the Blankenstein office , which is particularly the roughest, could hardly feed its residents if they didn't know how to generate additional income. Everything here knits woolen stockings with an indescribable speed and a hard work that cannot be matched. In every place there are stocking-wearers, they carry this product to the Klevische, Kölnische, Bergische, Palatinate and other countries. For this they bring back around 1200 to 1500 guilders annually. "

Stocking knitter, watercolor by Ferdinand Justi

In the statistical-topographical-historical description of the Grand Duchy of Hesse in 1830 z. B. reports on Wommelshausen:

" Wommelshausen (L. Bez. Gladenbach) evangel. Branch village; is in a rough area, 1 1 ⁄ 2  St. from Gladenbach, has 45 houses and 269 inhabitants, all of whom are Protestant. There are 3 grinding mills, with which 1 oil mill is connected, and the inhabitants are very busy with knitting and selling stockings. This branch of industry, which is carried on here as well as in Römershausen , Dernbach , Schlierbach , Hartenrod , Endbach and Günterod , and which adds a lot of money to the poor area there, is truly important; for the goods created by the constant industry of the residents are bought up by local traders, immediately brought to the fairs and markets in Frankfurt, Offenbach, Aschaffenburg, Mainz, Darmstadt, Worms, Manheim, etc., but mostly at annual fairs, such as through domestic trade in Inland, in the Prussian, Bavarian and Baden states. This important branch of industry deserves to be recommended to the special care of the state all the more, as the stoppage of it would make the inhabitants of the places mentioned impoverished. The so-called hut belongs to Wommelshausen, which is 5 minutes away. Iron stones were broken here in 1660. Copper ores were also extracted here in the past. In the 15th century the place belonged to the Gladenbach church area. "

Wandering traders, known as "stocking men", bought the knitwear in autumn and sold them from house to house ( peddler trade ). The knitwear dealers from the hinterland also sent their products (stockings, gloves, camisoles (vests)) to the wool markets in Mainz, Worms, Mannheim, Speyer and Heidelberg. The basis of knitting was the very cultivated and extensive sheep breeding in the hinterland in the 18th and 19th centuries. A list of the district administration Biedenkopf from the years 1850 to 1865 leads under the non-guild trade u. a. up: 15 stockingists and 117 peddlers . As a result, the tradition of peddling was preserved in some places in the hinterland, especially in the southwestern part, until after the Second World War .

In a memorandum from 1847 on the construction of a railway from the Lahn valley to the Ruhr area, it says:

“The barren area in the high mountain region offers its residents, a hardworking, frugal group of people, not their daily bread, hardly enough potatoes to lead a miserable life. The existing hardship is exacerbated by the growing population and rising food prices. Only with the help of the railway could the natural sources of the hinterland (mining and the new iron and steel works) be developed and the poverty of the population countered. "

The hinterlands have therefore gone away and moved away at all times. There was and is a lack of demanding workplaces in the vicinity. In the pre-industrial age, the younger generation went to the southern parts of the country as seasonal and migrant workers (e.g. servants, maids, seasonal as harvest workers and threshers, servants, bricklayers, carpenters or migrant traders). a. to Wetterau and the urban centers on the Main and Rhine, or later in the up-and-coming industrial centers on Sieg and Ruhr.

The Aurora Hut 2014, Erdhausen

Only after, in addition to the "Ludwigshütte" (blast furnace since 1608) near Biedenkopf , which can be traced back to 1521 , the new ironworks “Wilhelmshütte” with blast furnace near Dautphe (1832–34), “Justushütte” in Weidenhausen (Gladenbach) with blast furnace (1835–37 ), "Karlshütte" near Buchenau with blast furnace (1844) and the "Auroraütte" near Erdhausen (1849) and other smaller businesses (including two copper smelters, a mercury works, a soap mill, a wool spinning mill, a cigar factory) had started production the employment opportunities something. (See: Main article: Lahn-Dill area .)

Worker-farmer family with nine children, 1913, Weidenhausen (Gladenbach) , former Blankenstein office

With so many children - often five to ten children per family - and the low income opportunities in the area, every family was happy if they had one less “eater” at the table. At the age of 14, immediately after confirmation, many boys were taken to the bricklaying columns working abroad ( Siegerland and Ruhrgebiet ). Immediately after Easter they set off and only came back once for the summer harvest and early autumn until the end of October / November. Immediately after confirmation, the girls also had to hire themselves out as maids for a foreign farmer or as servants in the cities (e.g. Gießen, Marburg, Wetzlar, Dillenburg, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden). As a rule, their consent was not asked for. Preferred jobs as maidservants were the Marburg area, the Gießen area and the Wetterau and especially the large estates. What some girls experienced or had to endure with their bosses was mostly kept in shame in silence.

Since the next train stations were in Marburg, Fronhausen and Dillenburg at the end of the 19th century, long walks (approx. 18 to 22 km) were necessary.

Due to the relatively small agricultural areas of the farmers due to the real division, a modest life for the families could only be made possible with additional work in the industrial and craft enterprises. This gave rise to the type of worker-farmer, the "after-work farmer". Until the 1950s and 1960s, the villages in the hinterland, especially west of the Buchenau - Herzhausen - Mornshausen aS line, were characterized by the so-called "cow farmers" with their part-time farming.

In the upper Perftal (municipality of Steffenberg), traveling traders specialized in trading butter, eggs and poultry. They bought their goods in the surrounding area and in the neighboring Marburger Land and carried them in boxes and baskets to Siegen. They were on the road for two days for this. Later they bought dogs or horses as draft animals for the transport with small carts.

From the same region as well as from the upper Gansbach and the upper Salzbödetal, many male residents went to the emerging industrial regions of the Ruhr and Sieg as bricklayers after 1830 and stayed there for up to several months. They only saw their families at Pentecost, during the main harvest season and in late autumn. Only after the construction of the railways from Marburg, Biedenkopf via Laasphe to Siegen and the construction of the Aar-Salzböde Railway and the Schelden Valley Railway (Dillenburg-Wallau railway line) did the migrant workers come home more often.

The women had to do the work in the often small farm at home together with the younger children and, if there were any, with the grandparents. Senior teacher Flach from Biedenkopf remarks in 1903:

“A remarkable peculiarity of the hinterland is that in some areas the cultivation of the field is almost exclusively the responsibility of the women, as with the Teutons, while the men pursue their earnings either in the ironworks and mines or in Westphalia (Siegerland). In the places it feels as if you are in a women's state. You can see strong peasant women with steady hands leading the team of cattle while plowing; The other agricultural work is also carried out by women as best they can. Incidentally, the industriousness of women from the hinterland is proverbial. When driving on the hay or wooden wagon, when walking in the fields, they have the knitting in their hands; Yes, women with baskets on their heads can be seen handling the knitting needle with diligence. "

Threshers and reapers

A reaper in summery Sunday dress, watercolor by Ferdinand Justi

On June 3, 2007, the monument of the "Hessedrescher" was unveiled on the market square in Groß-Gerau, which is dedicated to the former migrant workers, the threshers from the hinterland. From the middle of the 17th to the end of the 19th century and also at the beginning of the 20th century, young women and girls from the hinterland moved to the southern Hesse-Darmstadt regions and hired themselves as harvest workers, known as reapers . The young men did the same and went as reapers and in autumn as thresher in the same area and beyond to the Palatinate. When the first mechanical threshing machines appeared around 1860, the harvest workers and the Hessian threshers from the hinterland largely lost their extra income , they were only needed for the sugar beet harvest. After that, the girls increasingly went to the cities as servants; the men became bricklayers and / or moved as unskilled workers to the emerging industrial regions of Sieg and Ruhr.

On this, too, Philipp E. Klippstein wrote in his Mineralogical Letters published in 1779 about the hinterland a. a .:

“In autumn they emigrate, like many other mountain peoples, and get harvest and threshing in the Upper County of Katzenellenbogen, the Palatinate, the Wetterau and other blessed areas. Apart from cheese they have brought with them, they enjoy nothing more than bread and water.

Here a boy often works for a farmer who does not have a fortieth part as much wealth as he does. Because these hikes are not just emergency hikes, also a thirst for honor to show that there is hard work, temperance, fearlessness, and curiosity to see the world are the mainsprings.

The peasant beauties also mix in this matter. Every traveling lad receives his bouquet, but it is decent for the richest to have a bride if he has never been in the threshing. Girls also sometimes wander abroad with a sickle, and the servants, when hiring, hold out permission to thresh. "

The emigrating boys and girls were tearfully bid farewell at the "Heul-Eiche", a mighty border sign south of the municipality of Wommelshausen, near the customs beech - hence their name.

Historical inheritance

In the hinterland (Biedenkopf district) there were formerly three hereditary areas. West of a line Katzenbach, Eckelshausen, Wolfgruben, Silberg, Hommertshausen, Mornshausen a. D. and Holzhausen, the inheritance of houses and land was subject to the "free divisibility", i.e. H. Sole heir or real division. This also applied to Bischoffen, Ober- and Niederweidbach, Roßbach and Wilsbach. To the east of the aforementioned line, the inheritance law was in use, as was the "lower court" of the former Blankenstein office (today the municipality of Gladenbach ). The former "higher court" of the Blankenstein office (today the municipality of Bad Endbach ), the old parish of Hartenrod, was a "mixed area", here the inheritance law was applied to property over 5 hectares, including mostly the real division . This inheritance custom was also common in the villages of Dexbach and Engelbach.

traffic

Because of the mostly transverse mountain ranges and valleys, there was no continuous, supraregional connecting road. The hinterland could therefore never grow together into a real unit. In contrast to numerous west-east routes, there was only an imperfect north-south route with the following course: Perftal, Bottenhorn , Wommelshausen , "Heul-Eiche", Zollbuche and on to Gießen , the provincial capital of the Hesse-Darmstadt province of Upper Hesse. From the customs beech, the route followed the route of the Westfalenweg (today L 3047), as this probably very old route in the Gießen area was called. The Alte Schneeberger Landstrasse , which came from the direction of Runzhausen, Gladenbach, Erdhausen and Weidenhausen, joins this path south of Weidenhausen near Oberweidbach .

The first artificial road in the hinterland was only built between 1817 and 1825, namely the road from Biedenkopf via Dautphe, Gladenbach, Weidenhausen to the Zollbuche. From Weidenhausen it replaced the route via the Alte Schneeberger Landstrasse . The route from the Zollbuche to Giessen was expanded in the following years; it had already been chauffeured in parts during the Napoleonic period (roughly between 1806 and 1810). At the level of the former rest house / inn Eiserne Hand , the path ran for about 1 km in what was once Solmsian territory.

Historic streets

Leipzig-Kölner-Fernhandelsstraße (see main article: Brabanter Straße )

One of the most important medieval east-west trade routes on the longer watershed through the hinterland was the “Leipzig-Kölner Messe-Strasse”, also known as Brabanter Strasse , Siegener Landstrasse and Hohe Strasse , which appeared in documents as early as 1255 as “strata publica”. It connected the former Duchy of Brabant in what is now Belgium via the trade fair city of Cologne , Siegen , Angelburg (Berg) , Bottenhorn plateau , Rachelshausen , Marburg , Erfurt with the trade fair city of Leipzig . A large part of the east-west trade, mainly with iron goods from the northern Lahn-Dill area and from Siegerland as well as with cloths from Brabant, was carried out on this medieval trunk road (heyday 14th to the beginning of the 15th century) .

Heerstraße , Herborner Hohe Straße and Thief's Path

Above Rachelshausen , on the house , branched off from Cologne-Leipziger Strasse (Brabanter Strasse) on the watershed between Perf and Dautphe to the north, "Heerstrasse". It united between Quotshausen and Silberg with the "Herborner Hohen Straße" coming from the intersection at the Angelburg in the Schelder Forest on the watershed between Perf and Gansbach and continued west of Eckelshausen past Eckelshausen towards the bagpipe and on to Paderborn. The highway to the legend, the Franks have served as Aufmarsch- and retreat road in their campaigns against the Saxons early as the 8th century.

The Herborner High Street was until the early 1870s in use. It was only after the new road from Niederscheld via Lixfeld to Breidenbach was completed from 1871 to 1875 that it lost its centuries-old importance. Today it is used as a forest road.

At the bagpipe, the Heerstraße crossed with the “Salzweg”, also known as the thief's path . The Salzweg / thief path was an important medieval trade route (cross travel) of about Lützlergebirge moved, the watershed between the Lahn and Eder.

Westfalen-Weg (see main article Westfalenweg )

Almost forgotten today is the so-called Westfalenweg, which came from the Gießen area and passed the Dünsberg , following the current L 3047 to the customs beech , and then via Günterod west past Hartenrod and Schlierbach to the junction of the old highways at the Angelburg in the Schelder Merge forest . It is believed that this high-altitude trail was important in prehistoric times. The route of the Westfalenweg once connected the Celtic oppidum on the Dünsberg directly with the presumed supra-regional pre-Christian natural sanctuary Wilhelmsteine in the Scheldt Forest near the Angelburg.

The path has a typical medieval route. Its route runs far from settlement on the Lahn-Dill- or Aar-Salzböde watershed. From the customs beech, only the village of Frankenbach is crossed today on the approx. 35 km long stretch to Gießen. You could get to Bremen via Paderborn via the northern continuation of the Westfalen-Weg . For centuries (until 1854) this route offered the only way to bring goods duty-free from the hinterland to the provincial capital of Gießen or to Darmstadt . With the exception of a short distance at today's “Eiserne Hand” inn, which belonged to the county of Solms, with which Hesse had a customs agreement, the route ran exclusively on the Hessian-Darmstadt area.

This route was also used by stocking traders, threshers, reapers and harvest workers when they went to their customers or their workplaces in the southern parts of the country.

The unrealized "Hinterlandbahn"

For the first time in 1847 the Hessian chief engineer Splingard justified the construction of a railway from the Lahn valley to the Ruhr area in a memorandum. A branch line should run from Gießen via Gladenbach to Biedenkopf.

In 1850 the "Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahngesellschaft" planned a railway construction from Altenhundem (Westphalia) via Laasphe and Bottenhorn to Giessen . The execution probably failed mainly due to the massive resistance of the Bottenhorn community fathers. Among other things, they feared that “a lot of foreign people would come” on the train.

Since 1866 there were new plans of the Grand Ducal Hessian and Prussian governments to build a connection between the south and the north of the hinterland. In 1912 a memorandum was written which emphasized the importance of such a connection. The first section from Wetzlar to the Aar-Salzböde-Bahn was to extend to Weidenhausen (Gladenbach) . In the middle section, a branch was planned from this in Gladenbach in order to get to Friedensdorf on the Kreuztal – Cölbe railway line (“Obere Lahntalbahn”) and along to Biedenkopf , where the northern section in the direction of the Bad Berleburg – Allendorf railway line (“Obere Edertalbahn ") should branch off. This connection would have been of great importance for the entire hinterland and for the development of the Biedenkopf district. However, the implementation of the plan failed due to the beginning of the First World War .

Preparatory work for a route from Giessen via Rodheim and Fellingshausen to Gladenbach was also carried out in 1911 by a civilian railway engineer on behalf of the Giessen mayor. Beyond this preliminary stage, the planning was not pursued further because there were not enough supporters. The communities on the planned route were also hesitant or even negative. The opponents of this railway line had already argued irrelevantly in advance, "... that the goods transported by the hinterland railway will mainly include gorse, blackthorn and thistles."

In addition to this route, there were plans for a cross-connection from the Salzbödetal to the Perftal (connection Aar-Salzböde-Bahn / Scheldenbahn ) from Hartenrod via Wommelshausen - Dernbach - Bottenhorn - Steinperf - Obereisenhausen - Niedereisenhausen before 1912 . The land acquisition phase had already started. The First World War made this planning obsolete.

Another variant provided for a junction, which from Hartenrod train station north past Wommelshausen in the direction of Dernbach (as before) and then on via Holzhausen aH and Mornshausen a. D. led to Friedensdorf to the Upper Lahn Valley Railway. A tunnel was planned between Dernbach and Holzhausen . The route had already been marked out for surveying work. This variant was taken up again after the First World War, but was not implemented either.

Hinterland costumes

Fair dress from Steinperf , watercolor by Ferdinand Justi

→ Main article: Hinterland costumes

For a long time the hinterland was characterized by women wearing traditional costumes . Until well into the 1980 / 1990s, some older women in the individual towns still wore the Hinterland women's costume, which came in five different forms. Within these forms, the individual costumes differed from village to village. The old Hinterland women's costume has now died out. On the other hand, you can still find the younger form of the Protestant Marburg costume in the villages with older women. Coming from the east, from the Marburg area, this costume with its colorful, lighter fabrics and more modern shapes became more and more popular from the end of the 19th century and replaced the traditional black costume in the eastern villages of the hinterland. The old Hinterland costume is one of the oldest costumes in Germany. It is exhibited , for example, in the Biedenkopf Castle Hinterland Museum.

The men's costumes were almost identical to those of the Marburg area. The standard item of clothing was the “Hessenkittel”, although it was not so darkly colored in the hinterland and had different embroidery patterns than the smocks in the Marburg area. In the hinterland, the smocks were light blue and the embroidery small and tight on the shoulders and cuffs, in Marburg, on the other hand, a wide-ranging open embroidery on dark blue fabrics. In the Buchenau area, the smocks were mixed in color and embroidery. At the fair, the men mostly wore white traditional costumes with colorfully embroidered suspenders and trousers with rows of brass buttons on the sides of their legs. The younger men took off their traditional costumes at the end of the 19th century - the last pictures date from the 1930s (e.g. Herzhausen). Since then, the traditional costumes can only be found at traditional events.

Folk singing

Among the German landscapes, Upper Hesse is particularly rich in songs. Besides the Vogelsberg, the hinterland has a special position because a particularly large number of songs have been recorded here, so that the number of known songs is greatest here. The last time folk songs were collected in the hinterland was in 1926. They and the songs previously collected are now stored in the German Folk Song Archive in Freiburg. The district committee of the then Biedenkopf district published part of this collection (76 songs) in 1964 as a small book entitled Old Songs from the Hinterland .

Hinterland songs were widespread by the servants, maidservants and servants as well as the reapers and threshers who worked in the cities, in the Wetterau to the Darmstadt area and beyond to the Palatinate. This also brought many new songs to the hinterland. In the Wetterau a pastor noted in his chronicle that some employers there particularly liked to hire maids and servants from the hinterland, not only because of their hard work, but also because they sang so beautifully. Also from Dreieich (near Darmstadt) it is said: "The Hinterland reapers and threshers are very popular, not least because of their singing."

A report from 1903 states:

“The songs are mostly sung in two parts, some in three parts. Most of the songs are love songs in which the mood and heart of the youth are expressed. The soldiers' songs are equally numerous, followed by the hunter's songs.

The Hinterland songs generally have a solemn solemnity, which sometimes borders on melancholy. All melodies are voiced high because the lower octave is often used for accompaniment. The final tone is paused for a long time as a resting and gathering point. "

Former local noble families

The aristocratic families named below once had their residence in the hinterland, who have died out except for the lords of Breidenbach zu Breidenstein, von Biedenfeld and von Hatzfeld (documented mention).

  • von Battenberg (1150-1310)
  • von Biedenfeld (1215 - today)
  • from Breidenbach to Breidenstein (1213 – today)
  • von Breidenbach called Breidenstein or von Breidenstein (early 15th century - 1865)
  • von Buchenau (1215–1404)
  • von und zu Dernbach (1226–1748), Barons von Dernbach (until 1965)
  • from Döring
  • from Eisenhausen
  • from Gladenbach (1226,1249)
  • von Hatzfeld (1138 - today)
  • von Hohenfels (1174 - 16th century)
  • from Hulspach?
  • by Linne (Lynne)
  • von Lixfeld (1346–1555)
  • von Rachelshausen (1354–?)

literature

  • Elsa Blöcher : The hinterland. A home book. Stephani, Biedenkopf 1981.
  • Elsa Blöcher, Hinterland History Association (Hrsg.): Contributions to the history of the hinterland. Biedenkopf 1985.
  • Hans Friebertshäuser : Dialect and folk life in the old district of Biedenkopf. Volksbank and Raiffeisenbank, Biedenkopf-Gladenbach 1998.
  • Jens Friedhoff : Hesse versus Mainz, founding castles and cities as an instrument of Hessian and Mainz territorial policy in the hinterland . Region and history, commemorative publication for the 100th anniversary of the Hinterländer Geschichtsverein e. V., Contributions to the history of the hinterland, Volume IX, Biedenkopf 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-024569-5 , pp. 108-132.
  • Jens Friedhoff: Castles, palaces and noble residences in the Hessian hinterland (= contributions to the history of the hinterland, volume XII). Edited by Hinterländer Geschichtsverein eV, Bad Endbach-Hartenrod 2018, ISBN 978-3-00-059480-9 .
  • Karl Huth , district committee of the Biedenkopf district (ed.): Economic and social history of the Biedenkopf district 1800–1866. Wetzlar 1962.
  • Christoph Kaiser: The costume as changeable clothing. Described based on the costumes of the Hessian hinterland, especially the costumes of the lower court of the Breidenbacher Grund. Grin, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-640-18857-4 .
  • Regina Klein: In the meantime. In-depth hermeneutic case studies on female positioning in the modernization process 1900–2000. Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2003, ISBN 3-89806-194-9 (life story of three women from the hinterland).
  • Ulrich Lennarz: The territorial history of the Hessian hinterland. Elwert, Marburg 1973, ISBN 3-7708-0491-0 .
  • Bernhard Martin, district committee of the Biedenkopf district (ed.): Old songs from the hinterland. Wetzlarer Verlagsdruckerei, Wetzlar 1964 (song book).
  • Horst W. Müller: Living conditions in the hinterland - the southwestern hinterland at the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century . Hinterland history sheets, Biedenkopf, No. 1, March 2016, pp. 97-101.
  • Kerstin Werner: Wandering between two worlds - the history of the hinterland / labor migration in the Wetterau. In: Michael Keller, Herfried Münkler (Ed.): The Wetterau. Sparkasse Wetterau, Friedberg 1990, ISBN 3-924103-06-2 .
  • Hinterland History Association V. (Ed.): Images of life from the hinterland, history, landscape and dialect as condition factors for existence and ways of life in the hinterland (=  contributions to the history of the hinterland. Volume V). Biedenkopf 1996.
  • Karl Scheld: Against forgetting. Kempkes, Gladenbach 2005, ISBN 3-88343-039-0 (including a detailed description of the Aurora hut and iron smelting history in the Hessian hinterland).
  • Hinterland history sheets , since 1907, ISSN  0018-196X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Günter Bäumner : Sketches from the hinterland. Hinterländer Geschichtsblätter, No. 4 (December 1990), history supplement to the Hinterländer Anzeiger , Biedenkopf, pp. 51–53.
  2. ↑ The Hessisches Hinterland eV association takes care of maintaining and maintaining the dialect.
  3. ↑ a b Grand Ducal Central Office for State Statistics (ed.): Contributions to the statistics of the Grand Duchy of Hesse . tape 13 . G. Jonghause's Hofbuchhandlung, Darmstadt 1872, DNB  013163434 , OCLC 162730471 , p. 13 f ., § 26 ( online at google books ).
  4. ^ Grand Ducal Central Office for State Statistics (ed.): Contributions to the statistics of the Grand Duchy of Hesse . tape 13 . G. Jonghause's Hofbuchhandlung, Darmstadt 1872, DNB  013163434 , OCLC 162730471 , p. 27 ff ., § 40 points 6a – f) ( online at google books ).
  5. ↑ Ph. E. Klippstein: Mineralogical letters. Giessen 1779/1781.
  6. ^ Georg Wilhelm Justin Wagner : Statistical-topographical-historical description of the Grand Duchy of Hesse: Province of Upper Hesse . tape 3 . Carl Wilhelm Leske, Darmstadt August 1830, OCLC 312528126 , p. 330 f . ( Online at google books ).
  7. ↑ Kerstin Werner: Spinning, weaving and knitting, stories from the Hessian hinterland. Hinterländer Geschichtsblätter, No. 4, December 2006, history supplement Hinterländer Azeiger, Biedenkopf, pp. 179–184.
  8. ^ Karl Huth: Economic and social history of the district of Biedenkopf 1800–1866. Edited by the district committee of the Biedenkopf district, Wetzlar 1962, p. 82.
  9. ↑ Horst W. Müller: Living conditions in the hinterland - The southwestern hinterland at the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century . Hinterland history sheets, Biedenkopf, No. 1, March 2016, pp. 97-101.
  10. ^ Horst W. Müller: Village life 50 years ago . In: Hinterländer Geschichtsblätter , No. 3 (October 2004), history supplement to the Hinterländer Anzeiger, Biedenkopf, pp. 105–111.
  11. ↑ MJ Flach: The hinterland. In: Carl Heßler: Hessian folklore. Verlag NG Elwert, Marburg 1904, Section VII, pp. 191, 192.
  12. ↑ Migrant workers help with the harvest - a monument is set up in Groß-Gerau for the Hessendreschern. Hinterländer Geschichtsblätter, No. 1 (March 2008), history supplement to the Hinterländer Anzeiger, Biedenkopf, pp. 38, 39.
  13. ^ Kerstin Werner: The history of the hinterland labor migration to the Wetterau. Hinterländer Geschichtsblätter, No. 4 (December 1991), history supplement to the Hinterländer Anzeiger, Biedenkopf, pp. 74–79.
  14. ↑ Horst W. Müller: Heul-Eiche and Thick Oak. Hinterländer Geschichtsblätter, No. 3 (October 2002), history supplement to the Hinterländer Anzeiger, Biedenkopf, pp. 49–51.
  15. ↑ Home in the picture . In: Gießener Anzeiger , supplement 19/20. Week May 2009.
  16. ↑ Protocol book of the community Obereisenhausen 1912
  17. ^ Bernhard Martin: Old songs from the hinterland. Edited by the district committee of the Biedenkopf district, Wetzlarer Verlagsdruckerei GmbH, Wetzlar 1964.
  18. ^ Carl Heßler: Hessian folklore. Verlag NG Elwert, Marburg 1904, Section XV, Das Volkslied. Pp. 587-599 (list of songs, pp. 594-599).
  19. ↑ Horst W. Müller: Dernbach and the 'von Dernbach'. In: Hinterland history sheets. Biedenkopf, No. 3, October 2005, No. 4, December 2005, No. 1, March 2006 and No. 2, June 2006.