Kleinwelsbach

Kleinwelsbach Rural community town of Nottertal-Heilinger Heights
	Coordinates: 51 ° 10 ′ 25 ″ N , 10 ° 40 ′ 1 ″ E
Height :	197 m above sea level NHN
Area :	3.46 km²
Residents :	126 (December 31, 2018)
Population density :	36 inhabitants / km²
Incorporation :	December 31, 2019
Postal code :	99947
Area code :	036043
Location of Kleinwelsbach in Thuringia

Church of St. Mauritii in Kleinwelsbach

Kleinwelsbach is a district of the city and rural community of Nottertal-Heilinger Höhen in the Unstrut-Hainich district in Thuringia .

geography

Kleinwelsbach is located in the north-western Thuringian Basin south of the Heilinger Heights on the Welsbach that rises there and flows into the Unstrut at Thamsbrück .

history

The place was first mentioned in a document in 1195. Earlier names were Urbirwelsbach, Welspech, Oberwelsbach and from 1816 Klein Welsbach. Kleinwelsbach is a clustered village in the valley of the Welsbach. The church of St. Mauritii dates from the late Middle Ages. The patronage had from 1555 the Lords of Heilingen, from 1714 the Counts von Werthern and from 1846 the manor owner Limpert. A school had been built since the end of the 16th century. Kleinwelsbach was a craft village in which agriculture was operated as a sideline. The village had four watermills . In 1811 the forced labor for the manor was ended. In 1817 the place had 190 inhabitants.

The place belonged to the Electoral Saxon Office Langensalza until 1815 and after its assignment in the Congress of Vienna to Prussia from 1816 to 1944 to the district of Langensalza in the province of Saxony . The current church tower was built in 1894. In 1913 the place was connected to the Langensalzaer Kleinbahn . During the First World War , Kleinwelsbach, which had 190 inhabitants at the time, had 13 fallen and missing people. In 1921 a donation-financed memorial was erected in the churchyard for them. From 1926 the place had electricity. In 1936 Kleinwelsbach had to endure a plague of cockchafer . On November 2, 1944, Allied aircraft bombed the small train near the town. There were dead (3 of them from Kleinwelsbach) and seriously injured. Towards the end of the war and afterwards, Kleinwelsbach had to take in many expellees from the eastern regions. As a result, it had 293 inhabitants in 1948, compared to 186 before the Second World War . In this war, the village lost seven fallen and missing soldiers.

Kleinwelsbach was occupied by US troops around April 8, 1945 and passed on to the Red Army at the beginning of July . This made it part of the Soviet Zone and, from 1949, of the GDR . In 1953 the LPG "United Force" was founded as part of the forced collectivization and in 1960 the LPG "Am Welsbacher Grund". There were large potato beetle infestations in the 1950s and 1960s . Kleinwelsbach suffered very often from floods and hail storms. From 1959/60 the development of neighboring sources for the drinking water supply of eight surrounding villages took place, from Kleinwelsbach itself from 1974. In 1969 the small train station was closed, the former embankment became the Panzerstraße of the NVA . In 1986 the church tower was slated and in 2001 it was overhauled. In 1998 a new fire station was built.

On December 31, 2019, the municipality of Kleinwelsbach merged with other municipalities to form the town and country municipality of Nottertal-Heilinger Höhen. The communities were previously united in the Schlotheim administrative community, which was dissolved at the same time.