Königsfeld (Upper Franconia)

Basic data
State :	Bavaria
Administrative region :	Upper Franconia
County :	Bamberg
Management Community :	Steinfeld
Height :	460 m above sea level NHN
Area :	42.84 km 2
Residents:	1267 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	30 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	96167
Area code :	09207
License plate :	BA
Community key :	09 4 71 151
Community structure:	7 districts
Address of the ; municipal administration:	Hauptstrasse 21 ; 96167 Königsfeld
Website :	www.koenigsfeld-oberfranken.de
Mayor :	Norbert Grasser (Citizens' Block)
Location of the municipality of Königsfeld (Upper Franconia) in the Bamberg district

Königsfeld is a municipality in the Upper Franconian district of Bamberg . The municipality of Königsfeld, along with the municipalities of Wattendorf and Stadelhofen, belongs to the Steinfeld administrative community .

geography

Geographical location

Königsfeld is located in the Upper Franconia- West region between the cities of Bamberg and Bayreuth on the eastern border of the Bamberg district.

The community lies entirely in the Franconian Jura , on the edge of Franconian Switzerland . The districts have an altitude of about 450 to 480 meters above sea level.

The Aufseß , a 23-kilometer-long stream that flows into the Wiesent at Doos, has its source in Königsfeld . The Wiesent, which flows through Treunitz in a parallel valley, and the Aufseß are the only constantly flowing bodies of water in the municipality. Kotzendorf and Voitmannsdorf are also on the Aufseß. Huppendorf, Laibarös and Poxdorf have no running waters. The lack of water and the permeable karst soil were a reason for occasional water shortages in dry summer months before the water pipes were built.

Neighboring communities

The neighboring municipalities are clockwise:


Litzendorf district of Bamberg	Scheßlitz district of Bamberg	Stadelhofen district of Bamberg	Hollfeld district of Bayreuth	Aufseß district of Bayreuth	Heiligenstadt district of Bamberg

Districts

Königsfeld is divided into 7 districts:

		Before the local government reform, Huppendorf was a separate municipality, but the children went to school in Königsfeld.	140 inhabitants
		Königsfeld has been the center of a Catholic parish for centuries, to which the villages of today's parish belong.	561 inhabitants
		Kotzendorf already formed a community together with Königsfeld before the municipal reform.	106 inhabitants
		Laibarös formed a small community with Poxdorf until the regional reform, but the children went to school in Hohenpölz .	139 inhabitants
		Poxdorf was the seat of the former municipality of Poxdorf / Laibarös and had its own school, which was attended exclusively by Poxdorf school children.	143 inhabitants
		Before the local government reform, Treunitz was an independent municipality and had its own school.	148 inhabitants
		Voitmannsdorf originally formed a community with Drosendorf on the Aufseß . The children went to school there too.	126 inhabitants

(Population figures from 2009)

history

prehistory

An archaeological excavation by the University of Bamberg in 2015 to the south-west of the main town of Königsfeld revealed that there was already around 5000 BC. A settlement of the Bandkeramischen culture and a moat were located.

middle Ages

Parish Church of St. James

As a Carolingian royal court , the place was called in the 8th century "Chunigeshofen in montibus versus Bohemiam" (royal court in the mountains towards Bohemia ) and was first mentioned in 741 in a deed of donation to the diocese of Würzburg . The Carolingians had built a royal court at the Aufseß spring, the fortifications of which served to secure the road network in a border region of the Franconian Empire . In 805, Emperor Charlemagne wanted to control the arms trade with the Slavic territories to the east and to do this he appointed commissioners in Hallstadt and Scheßlitz. In the 16th century, the Reichsforst Hauptsmoorwald extended as far as the Königsfeld district.

The farmyard belonging to the royal estate was on the western outskirts. A second settlement core was located directly on the Aufseß in the eastern local area. Slavic settlement ceramics were found there.

Iron ore deposits around Königsfeld have been mined and smelted since prehistoric times and were probably of economic importance for the royal court. Today, mining pits, slag heaps and field names such as Arzberg (Erzberg) still remind of this.

In 1008, the later Emperor Heinrich II gave this royal estate ("his own with all of its members") to the diocese of Bamberg . Bamberg ministerials , i.e. followers of the bishop, can be traced back to 1121.

In 741/742 King Karlmann assigned Königsfeld to the newly established diocese of Würzburg. Würzburg tithe rights still existed after the establishment of the Bamberg diocese in Poxdorf, Brunn and Voitmannsdorf. The Würzburg bishop was patron saint of Kilian's Church in Königsfeld until the 14th century.

In the 14th century Königsfeld came to the Lords of Aufseß .

Pastor Funk memorial at the Aufseßquelle

Furthermore, the lords of Streitberg owned few goods as imperial fiefs.

Modern times

Königsfeld as part of the bishopric of Bamberg belonged to the Franconian Empire from 1500 . In the 17th century, the place had grown to more than a thousand inhabitants. Due to the Thirty Years' War , however, this number decreased sharply and the town could never reach this level. The place was burned down by the Swedes in 1632. During this attack the pastor Funk was murdered at the Aufseß spring. The wayside shrine at the source reminds of him .

Since the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, the place, like large parts of Franconia, has belonged to Bavaria (see also History of Franconia ). On his march to Russia, Napoleon Bonaparte , coming from Bamberg in May 1812, traveled with 300 guards riders through Königsfeld in the direction of Bayreuth, after 8500 guards soldiers with 4500 horses had already taken the same route through Königsfeld at the beginning of April 1812 .

In the course of the administrative reforms in the Kingdom of Bavaria , the municipal edict of 1818 created the following municipalities in today's municipality: Königsfeld (districts of Königsfeld and Kotzendorf), Huppendorf, Poxdorf (districts of Poxdorf and Laibarös), Treunitz, Drosendorf an der Aufseß (districts of Drosendorf and Voitmannsdorf) .

Königsfeld and the surrounding villages survived the First World War without major damage. At the end of the Second World War , Königsfeld was under attack by American soldiers for several hours after Wehrmacht soldiers had previously set fire to an American tank. A wounded American who was brought back to his unit could prevent worse things.

Due to refugees, the population increased after 1945, but the agricultural structure of the economy did not offer enough jobs, so that many people emigrated to urban regions.

The large community of Königsfeld was created on April 1, 1971 as part of the regional reform in Bavaria through the merger of the communities of Huppendorf, Königsfeld, Poxdorf and Treunitz. On July 1, 1971, the Voitmannsdorf district of the former municipality of Drosendorf an der Aufseß was added. As a result, the Jura community reached today's population of around 1400.

Since the territorial reform of May 1978, Königsfeld, together with the municipalities of Stadelhofen and Wattendorf, has formed the Steinfeld administrative community, whose headquarters are in the centrally located town of Steinfeld .

Population development

In the period from 1988 to 2018, the population fell from 1302 to 1269 by 33 or 2.5%. A peak was reached on December 31, 2001 with 1,400 inhabitants.

religion

According to the census, on May 9, 2011, 90.4% of the population were Roman Catholic and 5.1% Evangelical Lutheran. 4.5% had another religion or were non-denominational.

politics

Municipal council elections

The municipal council has twelve members and is composed as follows:

Political party	2002	2008	2014
Civic bloc	4 seats (33.3%)	7 seats (56.9%)	6 seats
CSU / Free Voters	8 seats (66.7%)	5 seats (43.1%)	n / A
Free voters	n / A	n / A	4 seats
CSU	n / A	n / A	2 seats

Mayor

Gisela Hofmann

Mayor since May 1, 2020 is Norbert Grasser from the Citizens' Block, who received 64.57% of the vote without opposing candidates. The predecessor since 2008 was Gisela Hofmann (Bürgerblock). She was not only the first woman in the Königsfeld community to hold this post, but also one of the first two mayors in the Bamberg district (next to Maria Beck in Priesendorf ). In 2014 she was re-elected with 93.94% of the vote and no opponents. Gisela Hofmann was the successor to Albert Dippold (CSU), who no longer ran for election for reasons of age.

1984	1990	1996	2002	2008	2014	2020
Josef Stadter (CSU)	Albert Dippold (CSU)	Albert Dippold (CSU)	Albert Dippold (CSU)	Gisela Hofmann (Citizens' Block)	Gisela Hofmann (Citizens' Block)	Norbert Grasser (Citizens' Block)

coat of arms

Description of the coat of arms: "In red two diagonally crossed silver battle flails, above a golden crown, underneath a golden pilgrim shell."

The municipality of Königsfeld has had the current coat of arms since the territorial reform in 1973. The royal crown stands for the place name. The two flail come from the coat of arms of the former Lords of Königsfeld, Bamberg ministerials in the service of the Counts of Truhendingen. The pilgrim's shell refers to the patron saint of the Catholic parish church of St. James the Elder .

Architectural monuments

Infrastructure

Farm around 1949

There are a total of 220 jobs in the municipality, including agriculture. The number of full-time farmers is small, but there are still a larger number of part-time and part-time farmers. The climate in the Franconian Jura is relatively cool, the stony soils are not very productive and rainfall is low.

Most of the working people commute to Bamberg, Scheßlitz and Heiligenstadt.

traffic

The federal highway 70 is seven kilometers away from Königsfeld. The federal road 22 leads through Treunitz from Bamberg to Bayreuth.

There are daily bus connections to Bamberg and back. In the 19th century the farmers resisted a railway line from Scheßlitz to Bayreuth, so that the community did not get a rail connection.

school

In the area of the municipality there were formerly three school houses in Königsfeld, Poxdorf and Treunitz, in which classes 1 to 8 of the elementary school were taught. In 1969, the Königsfeld School Association was founded with the neighboring community of Hollfeld . From then on, all children from the Königsfeld parts of the municipality and the Hollfeld part of the municipality Drosendorf an der Aufseß attended the Königsfeld elementary school in the schools in Königsfeld and Drosendorf. In 1996, the Königsfeld school building , which was built before the First World War , was expanded with an auxiliary building as the central elementary school for the Königsfeld School Association, and the Drosendorf branch was closed. Secondary schools are the Staatliche Gesamtschule Hollfeld and grammar schools in Bamberg and Ebermannstadt .

kindergarten

The Catholic parish runs the St. Jakobus kindergarten in Königsfeld, which has also had a crèche with twelve places since summer 2009.

Breweries

In the area of the municipality there is only the Grasser brewery in Huppendorf, which, with an output of around 12,000 hectoliters per year, is one of the largest in the Bamberg district. The Thein Brewery brewed until 1975, the Post Brewery until 1971, both in Königsfeld, and the Dorsch Brewery in Poxdorf until 1964. There are ten inns in the community, four of them in the Königsfeld district.

societies

old fire engine in Laibarös

There are 19 clubs in the municipality. These include the brass band, the choir, the Franconian Switzerland Association, the DJK Königsfeld and two rifle clubs . Each district has its own volunteer fire brigade.

Parish of Königsfeld

history

Already from 1340 to 1350 Königsfeld was an independent parish of the diocese of Würzburg and therefore had the diocese saint of Würzburg, Kilian , as church patron. The defensive walls of the Catholic fortified church St. Jakobus and Katharina are still partially preserved. Today the Catholic parish of Königsfeld belongs to the diocese of Bamberg and to the dean's office in Hallstadt / Scheßlitz.

Churches

In addition to the parish church, the parish of Königsfeld includes the following branch churches or chapels:

place	Patronage	Parish fair
Koenigsfeld	James and Catherine	July 25th and November 25th
Hohenpölz	Laurentius and Heinrich	August 10th and July 15th
Laibous	Mary Queen of Peace	Sunday after May 1st
Poxdorf	Peter and Paul	June 29th
Treunitz	Sebastian	January 20th