Katzweiler

coat of arms	Germany map
	Coordinates: 49 ° 30 '  N , 7 ° 42'  E
Basic data
State :	Rhineland-Palatinate
County :	Kaiserslautern
Association municipality :	Otterbach-Otterberg
Height :	226 m above sea level NHN
Area :	9.42 km 2
Residents:	1909 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	203 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	67734
Area code :	06301
License plate :	KL
Community key :	07 3 35 017
Association administration address:	Hauptstrasse 27 67697 Otterberg
Website :	www.otterbach-otterberg.de
Local Mayor :	Sven Rheinheimer (FWG)
Location of the local community of Katzweiler in the Kaiserslautern district

Katzweiler is a municipality in the Rhineland-Palatinate district of Kaiserslautern . It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Otterbach-Otterberg .

geography

location

Katzweiler is located ten kilometers north of Kaiserslautern in the North Palatinate Bergland . The hamlets and residential areas Forellenwoog, Hirschhornerhof, Karlshof, Kühbörncheshof, Schafmühle and Sonnenhof also belong to Katzweiler .

Neighboring communities are - clockwise - Hirschhorn / Pfalz , Mehlbach , Otterberg , Otterbach , Kaiserslautern, Rodenbach , Eulenbis and Sulzbachtal .

Waters

The community is located on the Lauter . This takes on several tributaries on site. In the south, the Eimerbach partially forms the boundary with Kaiserslautern. In the middle of the development, the Becherbach flows from the right and the Mehlbach flows into the Lauter at the northern edge of the settlement . The Lauterbach and the Mooslauter coming from the left form the border to Hirschhorn.

history

In 1190 the community was first mentioned as Cazwilere . Until the end of the 18th century it was part of the Electoral Palatinate and was subordinate to the Lautern Oberamt .

From 1798 to 1814, when the Palatinate was part of the French Republic (until 1804) and then part of the Napoleonic Empire , Otterbach was incorporated into the Canton of Otterberg . In 1815 the place first belonged to Austria . A year later he moved to the Kingdom of Bavaria . From 1818 to 1862 he was a member of the Land Commissioner in Kaiserslautern ; from this the district office of Kaiserslautern emerged.

From 1939 the place was part of the district of Kaiserslautern . After the Second World War , Otterbach became part of the then newly formed state of Rhineland-Palatinate within the French occupation zone .

In the course of the first administrative reform in Rhineland-Palatinate , the municipality became part of the newly formed Verbandsgemeinde Otterbach in 1971 . Since July 1, 2014, Katzweiler has been part of the Otterbach-Otterberg Association .

religion

Mennonite Church Kühbörncheshof - view from the gallery

In 2012, 56.6 percent of the population were Protestant and 20.7 percent Catholic. The rest belonged to another religion or were non-denominational. The Catholics belong to the Diocese of Speyer , the Evangelicals to the Protestant Church of the Palatinate .

The first Mennonites settled on the Kühbörncheshof in 1715. The services were held in private homes. After a Mennonite church had been built in Sembach in 1777 , baptismal and communion services were oriented there until 1832. Since then, the Kühbörncheshof has had its own church building, initially called Lehr , which was built, among other things, with support from neighboring Protestant communities. At that time, the Mennonites already had their own cemetery there.

In 1845 there were 144 souls in the church, 91 of them baptized and 93 unbaptized. Of these, 36 lived directly on the Kühbörncheshof, about the same number in Stockborn and the rest of the others in places in the area. For 1940 a number of souls was given as 122, of which 37 were entitled to vote, 67 were not entitled to vote, and 18 were children .

In 1976 the parish numbered 131 people, 117 of whom were baptized.

At present - as of 2016 - it has 75 members. The congregation forms a congregation group with the Mennonite congregations in Sembach and Kaiserslautern, where they also run a day-care center in the “Elim Center” there. At the regional level it belongs to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Südwestdeutscher Mennonitengemeinden (ASM) , at the federal level to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mennonitischer Gemeinde - AMG for short - in Germany.

politics

Municipal council

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

The distribution of seats in the municipal council:

choice	SPD	CDU	FWG	total
2019	6th	-	10	16 seats
2014	6th	-	10	16 seats
2009	9	-	7th	16 seats
2004	7th	3	6th	16 seats

• FWG = Free Voting Group Katzweiler e. V.

Local mayor

Sven Rheinheimer ( FWG ) is the local mayor of Katzweiler . In the direct election on May 26, 2019, he was elected with a share of 71.92% of the vote, making him the successor to Otto Hach (FWG).

coat of arms

	Blazon : "In gold, a black forest hook ( wolf tang )." It was approved by the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior in 1927 .

Culture and sights

theatre

Katzweiler open-air theater

The Katzweiler open-air theater is one of the largest open-air theaters in southwest Germany with more than 10,000 visitors a year. The grandstand offers space for almost 1,000 visitors.

In addition to performances of one play for adults and one play for children on the forest stage, there is a comedy in a room theater every winter.

Cultural monuments

Mennonite Church

There are a total of 15 objects on site that are listed , including the following structures:

The Protestant church, which was built in the period from 1822 to 1826, is a late classicist rectangular hall complex with an organ case with a carving from the first half of the 18th century (1747). The Mennonite Church on the Kührbörncheshof is a hall building that is dated to 1832.

Regular events

In September the Kerwe takes place regularly in the community.

Economy and Infrastructure

traffic

With the opening of the Lautertalbahn Kaiserslautern - Lauterecken in 1883, the community was connected to the railway network. The local train station has now been dismantled to become a stop. The public transport in the transport association Rhein-Neckar integrated.

The federal highway 270 runs directly through the community in a north-south direction and leads from Kaiserslautern via Wolfstein and Lauterecken to Idar-Oberstein . State road 388 branches off from here and leads to Schallodenbach . The district road 23 connects the Kühbörncheshof to the road network and the district road 24 establishes a connection to the Stockborn settlement belonging to Kaiserslautern .

tourism

The Lautertal-Radweg and Pfälzer-Land-Radweg run right through the village .

Personalities

Sons and daughters of the place

• Karl Motz (1893–1963), politician (DVP, FDP)

People who worked on site

• Paul Thalheimer (1884–1948), painter and graphic artist, created the altarpiece in the Catholic Church of the Assumption in 1936

Web links

Commons : Katzweiler  - Collection of Images

• Local community Katzweiler on the website of the Verbandsgemeinde Otterbach-Otterberg
• Website of the open-air theater in Katzweiler
• Literature about Katzweiler in the Rhineland-Palatinate state bibliography

Individual evidence

1. ↑ State Statistical Office of Rhineland-Palatinate - population status 2019, districts, communities, association communities ( help on this ).
2. ↑ State Statistical Office Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Official directory of the municipalities and parts of the municipality. Status: January 2019 ^{[ Version 2020 is available. ]} . S. 152 (PDF; 3 MB).
3. ↑ KommWis, as of December 31, 2012
4. ↑ Since Mennonites do not baptize underage children, they should be children.
5. ↑ Roland Paul : 300 years of the Mennonite community Kühbörncheshof. In: Heimatjahrbuch 2016 of the district of Kaiserslautern. ISSN  0946-1361 , pp. 131-138, here p. 133 and 135.
6. ↑ Christian Congregation Calendar 49 (1940), p. 125.
7. ↑ Mennonite Yearbook 1977, p. 145.
8. ↑ Manfred Weber: Portrait of the Kühbörncheshof and the Mennonite community Kühbörncheshof - Kaiserslautern. (No longer available online.) In: Mennonitisches Jahrbuch 2018. January 2015, p. 169 , archived from the original on June 1, 2016 ; Retrieved March 26, 2018 (private website). 
9. ^ The Regional Returning Officer Rhineland-Palatinate: City Council Election 2019 Katzweiler. Retrieved October 27, 2019 . 
10. ^ The Regional Returning Officer Rhineland-Palatinate: Municipal elections 2014, city and municipal council elections.
11. ↑ The Regional Returning Officer Rhineland-Palatinate: direct elections 2019. Accessed on October 27, 2019 (see Otterbach-Otterberg, Verbandsgemeinde, fourth row of results). 
12. ^ Karl Heinz Debus: The great book of arms of the Palatinate. Neustadt an der Weinstrasse 1988, ISBN 3-9801574-2-3 .