Kirn

Basic data
State :	Rhineland-Palatinate
County :	Bad Kreuznach
Association municipality :	Kirner Land
Height :	190 m above sea level NHN
Area :	16.53 km 2
Residents:	8162 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	494 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	55606
Area code :	06752
License plate :	KH
Community key :	07 1 33 052
Association administration address:	Bahnhofstrasse 31 ; 55606 Kirn
Website :	www.kirn.de
City Mayor :	Frank Ensminger ( FDP )
Location of the city of Kirn in the Bad Kreuznach district

Kirn seen from the Loh

Kirn seen from the Kyrburg

Kirn is a town with 8,162 inhabitants on 16.53 km² on the Nahe in the Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate . Kirn is the seat of the Kirner Land Association . The districts of Kirn-Sulzbach , three and a half kilometers upstream in the Nahe valley, and Kallenfels , at the foot of the castle ruins of the same name, have been part of the town of Kirn since 1969. Kirn is the middle center for an area on the Nahe and in the Hunsrück .

landscape

The landscape is dominated by the Nahe Valley and deep into the Lützelsoon cut valley of Hahn Bach . The valley floors are partially densely populated, while the steep slopes in the upper area are largely undeveloped and wooded. In several places, free-standing, up to 30 meters high, quartzite rocks protrude above the treetops ("Kirner Dolomites"). The Oberhauser Felsen, the Kallenfels and the Wehlenfelsen north of the city are particularly striking. The tranquil city center is traversed by the Hahnenbach, which rises in the Hunsrück and flows into the Nahe a little later . The cityscape is shaped by the quarry above the center , which extends to the eastern city limits.

climate

The annual precipitation is about 540 mm. The precipitation in the lee of the surrounding mountainous region is below the mean values recorded in Germany. The driest months are February and March, with most rainfall in August. Overall, the rainfall is distributed fairly evenly over the year.

history

The city located at the intersection of important old trade routes ( Keltenweg Nahe – Mosel Naheschifffahrt and Höhenweg Soonwaldsteig ) on the middle Nahe has developed from a prehistoric settlement. The name is probably derived from the Kyrbach (upper course of the Hahnenbach) and the Celtic word Kyr (" water "), but could also be parallel to the ahd./mhd. Synonymous with mill (Kere, Kire → Kern, Kirn). Due to its location on the Hahnenbach and the Nahe rivers, Kirn has always been richly blessed with water and water-powered grain mills. Both waters were also important as a means of transport, for tanning the leather , for fishing , but also for animal husbandry and agriculture and for brewing beer.

The first documentary mention of Kirn as Chira (similar to Kirchberg as Chiriperg) goes back to the year 841 and can be found in documents from the Fulda monastery . In the 10th century the Salians, as counts in the Nahegau, installed the Emichons as their subgraves: officials who exercised jurisdiction, led the army , had police powers and administered the royal estates. A line of this family named itself after a castle built on the Kyrberg in the years after 1100 Wildgrafen von Kyrburg . From here they managed their extensive estates between the Moselle and Pfrimm .

After the Wildgraves died out, the county passed completely to the Rheingrafen, who called themselves Wildgraves and Rheingrafen since then . On the first day of the 17th century, the serfdom of the Kirner family was lifted by their masters, the Rhine Counts Otto and Adolph Heinrich, in return for compensation of 4,000 guilders. This made Kirn the first place of a free middle class in the Rhine County. Up until the annexation by France in 1794, Kirn was the capital of the Wild and Rhine Counts who, in the last decades of their rule, had several splendid buildings erected in the center of the city.

Johannes Bückler , known as Schinderhannes , was up to mischief in the Kirner area . He was arrested in Kirn in 1796 and given a flogging sentence , but was able to escape on the first night. A year later, Bückler maintained his contacts with the Moselle gang in Kirn. From spring to winter 1797, Philipp Ludwig Ernst Mosebach , the leader, Bückler, Hannjörg von Lanscheid, Jakob Fink, Johann Niklas Nagel and Johann Niklas Nau committed numerous cattle theft. The butcher Franz Andres from Kirn alone bought 47 mutton from these cattle thefts.

After the end of French rule, Kirn became part of the Prussian Rhine Province in 1815 . It only received city rights in 1857. On June 7, 1969, the two previously independent communities of Kallenfels and Kirnsulzbach were incorporated.

politics

City council

City council election 2019

Turnout: 48.4% (2014: 50.2%)
Weighted result

%

50

40

30th

20th

10

0

42.5%

26.3%

19.2%

12.0%

Gains and losses

compared to 2014

% p

6th

4th

2

0

-2

-4

-6

-8th

-10

-12

-11.3 % p

+ 0.4 % p

+ 5.3 % p

+ 5.6 % p

The city council in Kirn consists of 24 honorary council members, who were elected in a personalized proportional representation in the local elections on May 26, 2019 , and the full-time mayor as chairman.

The distribution of seats in the city council:

choice	SPD	CDU	FDP	FWG	total
2019	10	6th	5	3	24 seats
2014	13	6th	3	2	24 seats
2009	11	6th	6th	1	24 seats
2004	11	9	2	2	24 seats

FWG = Free Voting Community Kirner Land e. V.

Town twinning

Fontaine-lès-Dijon , France (since May 10, 1986)
Marange-Silvange , France (since November 7, 2010)

Attractions

Kyrburg

View from the right bank of the Nahe to the Catholic Church of Kirns; in front of it (right) the train station

Protestant church

View from the Kyrburg to the town hall (left) and the Protestant church (right)

The neo-Gothic evangelical hall church , originally consecrated to St. Pancras , with a late-Gothic choir and Romanesque tower from the 11th and 12th centuries was restored to its original shape and interior in 1992/1993. Inside there are several interesting tombs of the Wild and Rhine Counts . Between 1681 and 1892 the church served both denominations as a simultaneous church . During this phase, a wall separated the front Protestant part from the rear choir, which was reserved for the Catholic community. After the devastating floods of 1875, the church had to be partially rebuilt; On this occasion, the Catholic community decided to build its own church on Halmer Weg.

Princely winery

The princely cellar building was built around 1771 on behalf of Prince Dominik von Salm- Kyrburg. The horseshoe-shaped building, the front of which is decorated with the original coat of arms of the royal family, was built by the master builder Johann Thomas Petri from Schneppenbach . After the Second World War until 1990, the building housed a fruit juice press. After several years of vacancy, the left wing of the building with the main portal was converted into a hotel with a restaurant in 2005. The remaining parts of the building are used for residential purposes.

Kyrburg

The landmark of Kirn is the Kyrburg above the city .

town hall

Today's town hall was built between 1752 and 1771. The master builder Johann Thomas Petri again built a Piarist college here on behalf of Prince Johann Dominik , which was only used as such for a few years. The building later served as a Progymnasium or Realschule for over a century before the city administration moved into it in 1938. The former monastery chapel is now home to the conference room. The building has a pavilion that originally stood in the extensive gardens. Today the octagonal building is on the right side of the Hahnenbach on the market square.

More Attractions

Bismarckian column on the Gauskopf from 1901
Castle ruins in Kallenfels (→ Steinkallenfels )
Half-timbered houses, especially the former tanner's houses in the city center
Hellberg (largest rubble dump north of the Alps)
Catholic parish church of St. Pankratius from the late 19th century (consecrated in 1894), with sacrament house from 1482 and winged altar from 1892
Amalienlust Castle on the "Kiesel"
Wartenstein Castle , north of the Kallenfels district
Gauskopf lookout tower , 14 m high quarry stone building erected in 1896 on the Gauskopf

See also :

List of cultural monuments in Kirn

Touristic

Kirn is the starting point of the Hunsrück Slate and Castle Road , Soonwaldsteig , Keltenweg Nahe – Mosel and Lützelsoon cycle path as well as a stage of the Nahe-Hunsrück-Mosel cycle path .

economy

traffic

Kirn is connected to Saarbrücken and Mainz via the B 41 . The state road 184 leads over the Hunsrück and the Moselle. From Kirn via the railway line Bingen-Saarbrücken with the hourly regional express trains running west to Saarbrücken and east to Frankfurt via Mainz be driven at Frankfurt Airport . The Frankfurt-Hahn airport is about 30 km or less than half an hour's drive from Kirn removed.

Market place

Due to its central geographical location, Kirn has always been a lively market location. To date, in addition to the junk markets on the first Monday of each month, two outstanding markets have survived: the Andreasmarkt - it celebrated its 300th birthday in 2000 - on the last weekend in November and the Thomasmarkt on the second Saturday in December. The markets are a great attraction in and for Kirn and attract many visitors from the region. At the craftsmen and farmers' market in October, small businesses from Kirner Land present their handmade goods and offer them for sale. The people of Kirner meet at the weekly market on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Companies

Kirn is known throughout Germany as the “City of Leather”. Today, most of the formerly large leather factories only have the company headquarters on site. As a result of the relocation of production to low-wage countries, only a few workers are still employed in leather production and processing in Kirn. Known from the leather goods factories still in existence are Müller & Meirer Lederwarenfabrik GmbH and Braun GmbH & Co. KG .

The city is also known throughout Rhineland-Palatinate for the local brewery and its beer: Kirner Pils . The largest employer in Kirn is Simona AG , a global manufacturer and distributor of thermoplastic semi-finished products, which originally also came from the leather industry. Müller & Meirer and Braun Büffel are still active in the leather goods industry and are known worldwide. Other important branches of industry are wood processing, plant construction, the hard stone, packaging and automotive supply industries. There are also numerous small and medium-sized craft and trading companies. Tourism has grown in importance in recent years .

media

The local newspaper in Kirn is the Oeffliche Anzeiger ( Kirner Zeitung , local edition of the Rhein-Zeitung , Koblenz until 2014 ). The Allgemeine Zeitung (Bad Kreuznach edition) ( Verlagsgruppe Rhein Main , Mainz) also reports from Kirn, although it is no longer represented by a local editorial team.

Public facilities

education

Measured against the number of inhabitants in Kirn, the educational offers are very extensive. In addition to five day-care centers and two primary schools, there is a municipal secondary school , which was converted into an integrative Realschule plus from August 1, 2011 , a state high school ( Gymnasium Kirn ), a cooperative Realschule plus and the "Wilhelm-Dröscher-Schule" for pupils Students with special needs. The vocational schools of the Bad Kreuznach district are represented in Kirn with the branches mechanics, trade, housekeeping, economy and administration. The range of courses offered by the adult education center and the music school , both housed in the town hall, round off the educational offer.

Culture and leisure

In the society house, built in 1879 by the leather company Carl Simon & Söhne in the classical style, concerts, cabaret and theater events of the Kirn cultural initiative take place all year round. Twice a year, the hall, which can hold up to 500 people, is transformed into an exhibition hall, in which paintings and sculptures, mostly by local artists, are shown for two weeks.

After intensive renovations, the family leisure pool “Jahnbad” was reopened in spring 2002. In addition to the 50 m long main pool, there has since been a leisure pool with a slide, lazy river and massage beds, as well as a children's pool with shallow water and a small slide.

The Kirner City Library has been located in the Wilhelm Dröscher House on the left bank of the Hahnenbach since January 2002 . About 5,800 books are available to readers in an area of 145 square meters. In addition to fiction, the main focus is on children's and youth literature.

Medical supplies

Medical care is guaranteed by the deficit, but essential, hospital of the “ kreuznacher diakonie ”, numerous general practitioners and specialists, and five pharmacies. There are two church-sponsored old people's homes for senior citizens.

dialect

The local dialect is called "Kirner Platt". The commonly accepted language border between the Rhine and Moselle-Franconian dialects , the so-called dat-das-line , runs directly north and west of Kirn, which is why there are numerous transition phenomena. In the only linguistic monograph on Kirner dialect, it is assigned to Rhine Franconian with reference not only to the dat-das-line, but also to other phonetic features (e.g. a predominance of monophthong over diphthong ). The author of a comparative account, on the other hand, with reference to the "quantitative development of the vocals", comes to the conclusion that the dialect should be counted as part of the Moselle Franconian.

Personalities

sons and daughters of the town

Peter Siegel (1485–1560), Lutheran pastor
Bernhard Stroh (1822–1882), founder of the third largest brewery in the USA ( Stroh's Brewery in Detroit, Michigan)
Friedrich Niebergall (1866–1932), Protestant theologian
Karl Andres (1876–1935), landowner, viticulture lobbyist and politician ( NLP )
Fritz Oswald Bilse (1878–1951), Prussian officer and writer
Julius Zerfaß (1886–1956), journalist and writer
Peter Kraus (1898–1954), German detective, SS leader and Gestapo employee
Heinrich Schneider (1902–1972), politician and mayor of Kirn
Berno Wischmann (1910–2001), athlete, university professor and functionary in the German Athletics Association
Wilhelm Dröscher (1920–1977), politician ( SPD ), Member of the Bundestag , Member of the Bundestag ( Rhineland-Palatinate ), from 1975 Federal Treasurer of the SPD
Werner Schoop (1924–2011), angiologist, specialist book author and holder of the Federal Cross of Merit
Karl-Georg Faber (1925–1982), historian
Rudolf Gümbel (1930–2008), economist
Volker Bierbrauer (* 1940), prehistorian and medieval archaeologist
Frank Farian (* 1941 as Frank Reuther), music producer ( Milli Vanilli , Boney M. )
Peter Wilhelm Dröscher (* 1946), politician (SPD), Member of the State Parliament (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Michael Groß (* 1963), science journalist and book author
Gerhard Wöllstein (* 1963), pianist
Denis Alt (* 1980), politician (SPD), MdL (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Fabian Schönheim (* 1987), soccer player

Associated with Kirn

Rainer Furch (* 1964), actor

Schinderhannes

The robber captain Schinderhannes alias Johannes Bückler, who is legendary in Germany , often stayed in Kirn and the surrounding area. In 1796, he and Kirn's accomplices stole mutton several times , which they sold to a Kirn butcher's shop. For other offenses he was punished with 25 lashes with the cane on the market square. On December 10, 1796, he was caught and locked in the dungeon of the Kirner town hall, but escaped over the roof that same night. On December 22nd, 1797 he enjoyed himself at the Kirner Christkindchen market and a little later committed his first murder in Hundheim .

literature

Bernd Brinken, Gerd Danco: Kirn. 3rd edition, Weidlich, Frankfurt am Main 1983.
Ulrich Hauth: The city of Kirn and its surroundings. (= Local history publication series of the Bad Kreuznach district. Volume 34). 2006.

Web links

Commons : Kirn - collection of images

City of Kirn
History of the city of Kirn (PDF) (22 kB)
Literature about Kirn in the Rhineland-Palatinate State Bibliography

Individual evidence

↑ State Statistical Office of Rhineland-Palatinate - population status 2019, districts, communities, association communities ( help on this ).

↑ The picturesque and romantic Nahe-Thal and the Rhine-Nahe Railway. 2nd edition, Verlag R. Voigtländer, Kreuznach 1872.

↑ Udo Fleck: Thief-Robber-Murderer. Study on the collective delinquency of Rhenish robber gangs at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century. Diss. Trier 2003, p. 53 f.

↑ Official municipality directory 2006 ( Memento from December 22, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (= State Statistical Office Rhineland-Palatinate [Hrsg.]: Statistical volumes . Volume 393 ). Bad Ems March 2006, p. 182 (PDF; 2.6 MB). Info: An up-to-date directory ( 2016 ) is available, but in the section "Territorial changes - Territorial administrative reform" it does not give any population figures.
↑ ^a ^b The Regional Returning Officer RLP: Municipal Council Election 2019 Kirn Retrieved August 16, 2019 .
↑ Another partnership with a French city. In: Rheinzeitung. November 8, 2010.
↑ Armin Seibert: Kirner Steinbruch is a magnet for visitors. (No longer available online.) In: Rhein-Zeitung. February 12, 2013, archived from the original on May 9, 2013 ; accessed on March 27, 2013 .
↑ Economy. City of Kirn. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
↑ Ärzteblatt of November 22, 2019
↑ SHI clinic Simulator
^ Carl Kirchberg: Phonology and inflection theory of the dialect of Kirn ad Nahe with consideration of the surrounding area. Strasbourg 1906, pp. 1-4.
^ Roland Martin: Investigations on the Rhine-Moselle-Franconian dialect border. Marburg 1914, pp. 2, 98-100.
↑ From the court files of Schinderhannes ( Memento of December 11, 2000 in the Internet Archive )

[Metadaten_Einwohnerzahl_DE-RP-1] State Statistical Office of Rhineland-Palatinate - population status 2019, districts, communities, association communities ( help on this ).

[2] The picturesque and romantic Nahe-Thal and the Rhine-Nahe Railway. 2nd edition, Verlag R. Voigtländer, Kreuznach 1872.

[3] Udo Fleck: Thief-Robber-Murderer. Study on the collective delinquency of Rhenish robber gangs at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century. Diss. Trier 2003, p. 53 f.