Köllertal
The Köllertal is a landscape in the Saarland . It is located northwest of the state capital Saarbrücken and the Saarkohlenwald (Köllertaler Wald).
Geographical location
The Köllertal extends to the right of the Saar in NNE-SSW direction from Eiweiler to Völklingen (air line approx. 15 km). The Köllertal includes the villages along the Köllerbach , which rises in Eiweiler and flows into the Saar in Völklingen: Eiweiler , Heusweiler , Walpershofen , Köllerbach , Püttlingen and Völklingen .
The upper part of the Köllertal is widened (Heusweiler basin), so that the Heusweiler districts Nieder- and Obersalbach (located to the west) as well as Kutzhof , Lummigart , Numborn , Holz and Wahlschied (east of Heusweiler) are also included in the Köllertal. Also Riegelsberg , southeast area of Walpershofen on a ridge, where the Köllertal to Saarkohlenwald and after Saarbrücken is locking out belongs in a broader sense to Köllertal.
Traffic routes
The federal motorway 8 crosses the Köllertal on the northern edge of the town of Heusweiler with a junction to the federal highway 268 , which runs from Eiweiler to Heusweiler-Dilsburg directly in the valley and then leads via Riegelsberg and the A1 to Saarbrücken. From Heusweiler-Dilsburg, state road 136 is the main road from the Köllertal to Völklingen.
The federal motorway 1 touches the eastern edge of the Köllertal from the Saarbrücker Kreuz (= junction with the A8) to the Riegelsberg junction .
In addition to road construction over the last few decades (especially the construction of the A8 across the upper Köllertal in the 1970s), the expansion of the Saarbahn into the middle and upper Köllertal has shaped its transport infrastructure. The Saarbahn line, which reached the southeastern edge of the Köllertal with the Riegelsberg-Süd stop in 2001 , was then continued through Riegelsberg (2009) and Walpershofen to Heusweiler (2011) and finally in 2014 through Eiweiler to Lebach. The route of Saarbahn Line 1 leads to the Spitzeich tunnel north of Eiweiler through the Köllertal.
On its way into and in the Köllertal, the Saarbahn follows two very different historical railway lines that were built at the beginning of the last century - primarily so that miners and ironworkers from the villages of the region could get to work faster:
From Saarbrücken through the Köllertal Forest and Riegelsberg, the Saarbahn to Riegelsberg-Güchenbach initially follows the course of the historic Riegelsberg tram : from 1907, an overland tram line ran from St.Johann / Saarbrücken via Riegelsberg to Heusweiler. The route largely corresponded to that of today's federal highway 268 , so it also led from Güchenbach over the Stumpen directly to Heusweiler. This line was important for the mines in Heusweiler- Dilsburg and Von der Heydt . The tram was replaced by trolleybuses in 1953 , which in turn was replaced by regular buses with diesel engines in 1964. - A small section of the Saarbahn follows between Riegelsberg-Güchenbach and the Walpershofen / Etzenhofen stop , which has no historical precedent. Here the train travels in an east-west direction along the Russenweg (L 267). - Immediately after the Walpershofen / Etzenhofen stop , the Saarbahn swings onto the route of the former Köllertalbahn , on which it now continues north through Walpershofen, Heusweiler and Eiweiler to Lebach. - The Köllertalbahn was built in the years 1909–11, and its 22 km long route from Lebach to Völklingen runs from Eiweiler in the Köllertal. - There are also two mine connection railways as branch lines of the Köllertalbahn: The first railway line in the Köllertal ran from 1872 from Völklingen station to the Viktoria coal mine east of Püttlingen. Together with the construction of the Köllertal Railway and (through Walpershofen) parallel to it, a connecting railway from Etzenhofen station to the Dilsburg mine was also built. - From 1985 the Köllertalbahn was gradually shut down and the southern part of the route (Etzenhofen - Völklingen) has meanwhile been reduced to a cycle path.
The importance of the two traditional main traffic axes of the Köllertal (along the entire valley to Völklingen and - especially for the upper Köllertal - diagonally from the valley from Heusweiler via Riegelsberg to Saarbrücken) has shifted in recent decades: Due to the attraction of the nearby state capital Saarbrücken, Due to the structural change of the 1960s to 1980s (closure of the coal mines and the iron and steel works in Völklingen ), the closure of the Köllertal Railway and the increasing individual traffic, the axis to Völklingen has lost its importance in the last few decades. The expansion of the Saarbahn route into the upper Köllertal should further strengthen the transport axis to Saarbrücken.
history
The Köllertal was dominated by agriculture for centuries and was once considered the "granary" of the princes of Nassau-Saarbrücken . The localities were small farming villages that had little more than fifty inhabitants until the 19th century.
From the middle of the 19th century, the increasing industrialization of the region led to a radical structural change:
Agriculture became more and more a sideline (" miners ' farmers "), because the coal mines in the Köllertal (for example Dilsburg, Güchenbach, Grube Viktoria) or on its edge (such as Göttelborn , Holz , Von der Heydt, Luisenthal ) and the Völklinger Hütte offered work and Wage. From the surrounding areas (up to the Hunsrück, Eifel and Palatinate) people settled in the Köllertal to work in the coal mines or in the Völklingen ironworks. Within a few decades, the number of inhabitants in the Köllertal multiplied and the small farming villages became settlements for miners and industrial workers, some of whose residential areas grew together with those of the neighboring towns.
literature
- Heinrich Gerstner, Josef Gillet, Eugen Meyer, Karl Rug: Village book of the Walpershofen community , ed. 1958 by the municipality of Walpershofen - reprint 1999, revision: Helmut Lange.
- Karl-Heinz Janson: 100 years of the Köllertal Railway. Sutton Publishing 2010.
- Karl-Heinz Janson: The Etzenhofen - Walpershofen - Dilsburg mine railway. In: Verein Jahrbuch Walpershofen eV (Hrsg.): Yearbook Walpershofen 2008. 5th year (published 2009), pp. 82–85.
- Karl-Heinz Janson: The Riegelsberg tram. Sutton Publishing 2011.
Web links
- Literature about the Köllertal in the Saarland bibliography
- Gerhild Krebs: The Köllertal (1850–2000)
- Local history association Köllertal
- Guide to industrial culture in the Köllertal
- The Riegelsberg tram 1907-1953
- SR webcam: current view of the north-eastern Köllertal