Laufersweiler

coat of arms	Germany map
	Coordinates: 49 ° 54 '  N , 7 ° 18'  E
Basic data
State :	Rhineland-Palatinate
County :	Rhein-Hunsrück district
Association municipality :	Kirchberg (Hunsrück)
Height :	425 m above sea level NHN
Area :	6.79 km 2
Residents:	815 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	120 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	55487
Area code :	06543
License plate :	SIM, GOA
Community key :	07 1 40 081
Association administration address:	Marktplatz 5 55481 Kirchberg (Hunsrück)
Website :	www.laufersweiler.de
Local Mayor :	Rudi Schneider
Location of the local community of Laufersweiler in the Rhein-Hunsrück district

Town view from the southeast

Renovated synagogue

Laufersweiler is a municipality in the Rhein-Hunsrück district in Rhineland-Palatinate . It belongs to the Kirchberg (Hunsrück) community .

Local history

Until early modern times

According to prehistoric and early historical finds, the Laufersweiler area could have been inhabited as early as the Bronze and Hallstatt Ages. In Roman times, the Ausoniusstraße ran from Trier to Bingen am Rhein on the boundary between Laufersweiler and Niederweiler . Archaeological finds indicate a settlement in Roman times .

The place was first mentioned in 1283 as "Leuferswilre" owned by the Wildgrafen , the later Wildgraves and Rhine Counts . In the 14th century the ownership changed when part of the village became an Electorate of Trier fiefdom and part was subordinate to the barons of Schmidtburg . Since the late Middle Ages, Laufersweiler has belonged to the high court district of Rhaunen . In 1563 Laufersweiler owned 34 or 35 households, which were subordinate to different landlords .

Ecclesiastical

As the first church building in Laufersweiler, a Marien chapel was mentioned in a document in 1405 . However, it is not known when the St. Laurentius Church, which burned down in 1839, was built. This was initially subject to the parish of Hausen . After the Reformation was finally introduced in the 1560s by the Wild and Rhine Counts, Laufersweiler became an independent Protestant parish by 1602 at the latest. A first rectory was built in 1617. As early as 1645, towards the end of the Thirty Years' War , the Hunsrück was occupied by the French for the first time, also during the wars of conquest of Louis XIV. Around 1685, at the request of the French, the Church of St. Laurentius was converted into a Simultaneum , in which Protestant and Catholic services were celebrated.

Post office

Since the middle of the 16th century there was a post office in Laufersweiler on the Dutch postal route from Brussels to Augsburg , Innsbruck , Trento , Venice , Milan and Rome . This post office was first mentioned in the documents on the postal robbery of 1561, when the mail on horseback was attacked on the way from Laufersweiler to Eckweiler . According to these documents, in 1561 a certain Hans from Wittlich was a postmaster in Laufersweiler. His successor in the late 16th century was Niclas Faust, who founded a post office dynasty. The post office also survived the 18th century. In 1867 Laufersweiler was on the newly established postal route from Kirn to Büchenbeuren . In 1886 the post office was re-established as a post agency of the Deutsche Reichspost and survived until 1994.

After the French Revolution

With the occupation of the western side of the Rhine by French revolutionary troops in 1794, Laufersweiler became French, and in 1815 the place became Prussian at the Congress of Vienna . After the devastating fire of 1839, which also destroyed the church, a new simultaneous church was built in 1842. A separate Protestant church in the neo-Romanesque style was only built in 1892/1893.

A Jewish community had existed in Laufersweiler by the 18th century at the latest . A first synagogue existed before 1832. The synagogue , built in 1910/11, was devastated in the November pogrom on November 9, 1938. In the following years 24 Jews from Laufersweiler became victims of the Holocaust . Because of the close proximity to the neighboring houses, the synagogue was not set on fire during the National Socialist era. From 1955 the synagogue was used as a freezer and laundry and restored in 1986; a support group looks after the facility.

Laufersweiler has belonged to the state of Rhineland-Palatinate since 1946 and to the Kirchberg community since the administrative reform in 1970.

religion

47% of the residents of Laufersweiler are Protestant, 36% Catholic. The local Protestant church belongs to the parish of Büchenbeuren -Laufersweiler- Gösenroth in the parish of Simmern-Trarbach of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland . The Catholic parish of St. Laurentius is assigned to the deanery Simmern-Kastellaun in the diocese of Trier .

politics

Municipal council

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

The distribution of seats in the municipal council:

choice	SPD	WGS	FWG	total
2019	-	8th	4th	12 seats
2014	2	6th	4th	12 seats
2009	3	5	4th	12 seats
2004	3	5	4th	12 seats

• WGS = Schneider voter group
• FWG = Free Voter Group Laufersweiler e. V.

mayor

The local mayor of Laufersweiler is Rudi Schneider. In the local elections on May 26, 2019, he was confirmed in office with 77.41% of the votes.

coat of arms

	Blazon : “Divided; a red cross in silver above, a silver buckle below in black. "
	Justification of the coat of arms: The upper half of the shield refers to the former affiliation to Kurtrier , the lower half of the shield refers to the coat of arms of the Barons Schenk von Schmidtburg .

Worth seeing

In the former synagogue there is a museum for the Jewish history of the Hunsrück . A collection of documents as part of a permanent exhibition can be viewed here.

In the Unterdorf and in the Kirchgasse there are interesting half-timbered buildings with carved front doors.

The former town hall dates from the 17th century. The superstructure with the former accommodation for the traveling people is particularly worth mentioning.

See also:

• List of cultural monuments in Laufersweiler
• List of natural monuments in Laufersweiler

Clubs and events

There are several clubs in Laufersweiler:

• Theater friends Laufersweiler
• SG Gösenroth - Laufersweiler
• Accordion Orchestra & Musikfreunde Hunsrück
• Local and hiking association
• TV 1911 Laufersweiler
• Mixed choir of joy
• Fire Brigade Association Laufersweiler

Sons and daughters of the local church

• Ludwig Alsdorf (1904–1978), Indologist
• Aloys Felke (1927–1997), entrepreneur and politician in Rhineland-Palatinate
• Franz Felke (1902–1990), carpenter and entrepreneur (furniture manufacturer)
• Günter Felke (1929–2005), entrepreneur, numismatist and cultural patron
• Michael Felke (1895–1977), entrepreneur and industrial pioneer
• Walter Felke (1928–2017), entrepreneur and local politician
• Bernhard Mayer (1866–1946), fur trader, anarchist, patron and art collector
• Werner Meurer (1911–1986), sculptor and painter
• Catherine Wirth (1931–2006), writer

literature

• Fritz Schellack: Laufersweiler, history and everyday life of a Hunsrück village ; Argenthal, 1994
• Ernst-Otto Simon: The postal course from Rheinhausen to Brussels over the centuries ; in: Archive for German Postal History 1/1990, pp. 14–41

Web links

Commons : Laufersweiler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Homepage of the local community of Laufersweiler
• Local community Laufersweiler on the website of the association community Kirchberg (Hunsrück)
• Report from Henry Joseph, a former Jewish resident (in English) of the Holocaust Resource Center of Buffalo, accessed April 5, 2015
• Literature about Laufersweiler 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. ↑ Shellac, p. 16 f.
3. ↑ Shellac, p. 26
4. ↑ Data according to shellac, p. 133.136 f.
5. ↑ Shellac, pp. 168-180
6. ↑ Simon, p. 26 with further literature, as well as shellac, p. 274.
7. ↑ Simon, p. 26, as well as Fürst Thurn- und Taxis Zentralarchiv Regensburg, FZA PA 814, fol. 130.
8. ↑ Shellac, p. 277.
9. ↑ Shellac, pp. 181-196.
10. ↑ Shellac, p. 196.
11. ↑ Kirchgasse in Laufersweiler, SWR Landesschau Rheinland-Pfalz , accessed on July 29, 2014.
12. ↑ 2011 census
13. ^ The Regional Returning Officer RLP: City Council Election 2019 Laufersweiler. Retrieved October 8, 2019 . 
14. ^ The Regional Returning Officer Rhineland-Palatinate: Municipal elections 2014, city and municipal council elections
15. ^ The Regional Returning Officer RLP: direct elections 2019. see Kirchberg, Verbandsgemeinde, 17th line of results. Retrieved October 8, 2019 . 
16. ^ Description of the coat of arms in Laufersweiler