Lindheim

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Lindheim
Community Old city
Lindheim coat of arms
Coordinates: 50 ° 17 ′ 22 ″  N , 8 ° 59 ′ 7 ″  E
Height : 123 m above sea level NHN
Area : 6.62 km²
Residents : 1844  (Dec. 31, 2015)
Population density : 279 inhabitants / km²
Incorporation : December 31, 1971
Postal code : 63674
Area code : 06047

Lindheim is a district of the Altenstadt community in the Wetterau district of Hesse , around 30 km northeast of Frankfurt am Main .

geography

Lindheim is on the edge of the Wetterau at the confluence between the Nidder and Seemenbach . The last basalt foothills of the Vogelsberg , Glauberg and the Enzheimer Köpfchen reach up to the place. After Frankfurt are km to the southwest about 25, according Hanau km south about 20 and after pouring km north approx 60th

history

The place Lindheim was first mentioned in a document on March 20, 930 as Lintheim . It was probably founded by free Franconian farmers in the 7th century. On the right bank of the Nidder there was a moated castle ( Rundling ), from which the name of the central village square "Alte Burg" comes. Remains of the complex could still be seen around 1840 (see Lindheim Castle ).

Neu-Lindheim was founded on the left bank of the Nidder at the beginning of the 14th century. Protected by two ditches, a rampart and a stone wall, only two towers of this complex are preserved today, the witch's tower and the church tower, which is separate from the church.

Inheritance

From the beginning, the new Lindheim had a special legal position, as it was an imperial free court and was therefore regarded as a city. The place was ruled as an inheritance by members of knightly families, the so-called " Ganerbe ". Lindheim became an independent parish in 1358. Today's church was built much earlier. It originally served as a kind of meeting room for the Ganerbe and was considered a knight's hall for many years .

In 1415, a Lindheim mayor is mentioned for the first time and a city seal is mentioned, which carried the stepped linden tree as a symbol.

Church in Lindheim, on the right the church tower with key notches, the nave contains the remains of Lindheim Castle .
Lindheim Castle from the east, copper engraving by an unknown artist, 1755

Robbery of the Ganerbe

In the 15th century, the knightly nobility became impoverished and the heirs began to attack the wealthy trade fair merchants from Frankfurt. The city of Frankfurt then tried to destroy Lindheim in 1470, 1485 and 1491, but failed because of the town's walls. The German Kaiser twice reached a peace treaty. However, the power of the knightly nobility did not end until 1523, when Landgrave Philipp von Hessen defeated the leader of the West German noble association, Franz von Sickingen . This finally made the streets in the Wetterau safe.

reformation

In the 16th century, Lindheim joined the Reformation . From 1562 Protestant pastors were officially active here.

Before the Thirty Years War there were between 450 and 500 inhabitants. There were about 70 middle-class families, members of the Jewish community, which was one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Wetterau , and members of the nobility. There were both Catholic and Protestant families, so that neither side spared the place during the war. It was largely destroyed by fires in 1623 and 1627. In the so-called " Hessenkrieg " Lindheim was captured by troops from Hesse-Darmstadt and so suppressed that in April 1645 the place had almost no inhabitants.

Witch hunt

Altenstadt Lindheim Hexenturm: Names of the victims of the witch trials

In Lindheim there were 24 witch trials from 1598 to 1664. Most of the victims of the witch hunt died in 1663 and 1664. In 1598 Anna Mausaug (Asmus) was executed as a supposed witch . In 1634 Anna Kraft , known as “Pompanna”, was charged with alleged witchcraft and sentenced to death. Under torture, she gave the names of other alleged witches, so that Elsa Reunick and Anna Schmied were also executed with her in the same year. The bodies were then cremated.

Massive persecution for witchcraft took place after 1662, after Georg Ludwig Geis was appointed head of the school . Pastor Hölcker made it clear through his notes what kind of person Geis was. a. Hanged a Catholic priest personally during the war, tried to rape a Lindheim woman and committed adultery. Now this man was responsible for the arrest of the witchcraft suspect and followed this task conscientiously. Anyone who reported such a person received a reward, but if the report was false, he had to pay a fine of 20 thalers, which was rarely the case, since suspicious persons were usually made to confess through torture. Suspects were entered in the dreaded witch book, which meant that non-Lindheimers could also be prosecuted. Geis enriched himself with the condemned because they were expropriated and he withheld a large part of the property. One of Geis' henchmen was a weaver named Andreas Krieger , who cruelly investigated all accusations and carried out the torture. Even in front of the bodies of those who were judged , he did not stop and drove an additional stake through the body of the beheaded Heinrich Leschier , according to a lawsuit dated September 26, 1665. In the years 1663 and 1664 the witch hunts in Lindheim reached their climax with at least 20 executions.

Wolfgang Adolf von Carben put an end to the murder by, in his capacity as chairman of the knight council of the Wetterau Imperial Knighthood and Friedberger Burggraf , ordered the Lindheim Ganerbe to depose Geis , which happened in March 1664. Legend has it that Geis fell from his horse in the Devil's Trench, broke his neck and has been haunted there since then as a mastiff with a glowing chain. It is assumed, however, that he apparently returned to his home town of Selters (Ortenberg) unharmed .

On the renovated Witches Tower , a plaque with the names of the victims commemorates the "Horror Years of Lindheim".

Church and Education in Modern Times

After the church had suffered a lot from the Thirty Years' War, a period of reflection began in which the church was restored and decorated and a new organ was purchased in 1670. An organist had to be employed who also took over the teaching position. A new instrument was purchased as early as 1712, which was bigger and better. Further organs followed in 1802 and 1878. The current and meanwhile sixth organ dates from 1973. The church tower received its current baroque dome from 1764–1766 instead of the old Gothic spire.

After the first school was founded in 1563, it had two school buildings in the 18th century, so that an additional teacher was necessary. The Jewish community also had a school. In 1788 a special girls' school was added, which can be seen as the forerunner of the housekeeping school founded in 1888.

In 1744 the “ Seminarium Theologicum ” of the Moravian Brethren was moved from Marienborn to the Lindheim Castle, which at that time belonged to the von Schrautenbach family.

19th and 20th centuries

In 1806 Lindheim was owned by the von Specht family . In that year, Lindheim fell to the Grand Duchy of Hesse as a result of the Rhine Confederation Act , which incorporated the town into the Principality of Upper Hesse (from 1816: Province of Upper Hesse ). The von Specht family's patrimonial jurisdiction initially continued to exist.

Between 1820 and 1822 there was an administrative reform in the Grand Duchy. With it, jurisdiction and administration were separated at the lower level . District districts were created for administrative tasks , and district courts for the first instance jurisdiction. In 1821, Lindheim was incorporated into the Vilbel district administrative district in terms of administration , but "with the reservation of the patrimonial police rights". With regard to the jurisprudence, Lindheim was now assigned to the Großkarben district court .

At the end of the 19th century the place expanded more and more along the road to Altenstadt and returned to the old settlement that had been abandoned in the 14th century.

Technical progress also found its way into Lindheim:

Lindheim Castle burned down to the ground in 1928, as the fire brigade had no way of putting out the fire at the time.

In the Third Reich , Lindheim was also ruled by the National Socialists . The Jewish community dissolved, and only one Jewish cemetery between Lindheim and Heegheim still reminds of the long tradition of the Jewish community.

After the collapse of the Third Reich , the Social Democrats regained a majority.

On December 31, 1971, Lindheim was incorporated into the Altenstadt community. A local district with a local advisory board and mayor was set up for Lindheim .

The population increased from around 630 in 1910 to around 1,800 inhabitants. After the Second World War , many refugees came from the former eastern regions who found a new home in Lindheim.

coat of arms

On November 10, 1967, the municipality of Lindheim in what was then the district of Büdingen was given a coat of arms with the following blazon : In silver, a stepped green linden tree over a red battlement wall on both sides with a tower.

Volcano cycle path

The volcano cycle path begins in Höchst and continues via Altenstadt, Lindheim and Enzheim on the former railway line from Stockheim to Lauterbach (Hesse) . Today the Vulkanradweg is part of the BahnRadweg Hessen , which runs on former railway lines for approx. 250 km through the Vogelsberg and the Rhön.

Personalities

Around 1800 two pastors from Lindheim made a name for themselves: father and son Horst . As a connoisseur of the oriental languages ​​and author of a number of Latin and Hebrew treatises, Kaspar Horst never received the hoped-for professorship at the Giessen State University . It was not until his son and successor Georg Konrad Horst , from 1788 in the parish office, was awarded an honorary doctorate in theology at the University of Giessen in 1824 . In 1817 he left the pastor's office to devote himself more intensively to his scientific work. Among his numerous writings, his two-volume Demonomagie from 1817/18 should be mentioned in particular , to which a history of the Lindheim witch tower and the witch trials there is added as an appendix .

Another Lindheim writer was Rudolf Oeser , who worked as a pastor in Lindheim from 1835 to 1859 and is commemorated by a plaque on the Lindheim rectory today. In 1842, under the pseudonym O. Glaubrecht ("Oeser, Glaubrecht !") He published the popular short story Die Schreckensjahre von Lindheim , in which he combines Horst's research with his own experiences. In Das Volk und seinefahrer (1859) he describes the history of a Lindheim farm and describes the influence that a Jewish family had on it. This book gave a significant boost to anti-Semitism in the rural population.

But there was also a fighter against anti-Semitism living in Lindheim in the 19th century: Leopold von Sacher-Masoch . Through his second wife Hulda Meister , Lindheim became his home. He attributed anti-Semitism primarily to the ignorance of the people, which is why he founded the "Upper Hessian Association for Popular Education" in 1893. He died in 1895, so that his project could not be completed. Because of his pessimistic works, the psychiatrist Krafft-Ebing coined the term “ masochism ”.

In 1981, Karl Ernst Demandt finally re-published Oeser's “Terrible Years” and vividly presented the history of this place in his “Lindheim Chronicle”. Demandt became an honorary citizen of the community in 1988 .

The Grand Ducal Hessian state parliament member Richard Westernacher ( National Liberal Party ) died in Lindheim and the Hessian state parliament member Richard Westernacher ( CDU ) was born here and also died in Lindheim.

literature

Web links

Commons : Lindheim  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lindheim, Wetteraukreis. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. (As of December 15, 2014). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  2. ↑ Altenstadt municipal administration - residents by district , accessed in April 2016.
  3. ↑ Ernst Friedrich Johann Dronke , Cod. Dipl. Fuld., P. 313, no. 677.
  4. ↑ Names of the victims of the witch trials / witch persecution from Lindheim (PDF; 121 kB), accessed on May 9, 2016.
  5. ↑ Gottlieb Korschelt : History of Herrnhut . Eduard Kummer, Leipzig 1853, p. 75.
  6. ^ L. Ewald: Contributions to regional studies . In: Grand Ducal Central Office for State Statistics (ed.): Contributions to the statistics of the Grand Duchy of Hesse . Jonghaus, Darmstadt 1862, p. 56.
  7. ↑ Art. 25 Federal Act on the Rhine .
  8. ^ Ordinance on the division of the country into districts and district courts of July 14, 1821 . In: Hessisches Regierungsblatt dated July 20, 1821, p. 403ff.
  9. ^ Ordinance on the division of the country into districts and district courts of July 14, 1821 . In: Hessian Government Gazette of July 20, 1821, p. 410f.
  10. ^ Lindheim, Wetteraukreis . In: LAGIS : Historical local dictionary ; As of October 16, 2018.
  11. ^ Federal Statistical Office (ed.): Historical municipality directory for the Federal Republic of Germany. Name, border and key number changes in municipalities, counties and administrative districts from May 27, 1970 to December 31, 1982 . W. Kohlhammer GmbH, Stuttgart and Mainz 1983, ISBN 3-17-003263-1 , p. 352 .
  12. ^ Altenstadt: residents by districts ( memento from October 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ^ Approval of a coat of arms of the municipality of Lindheim in the district of Büdingen, administrative district of Darmstadt from November 10, 1967 . In: The Hessian Minister of the Interior (ed.): State Gazette for the State of Hesse. 1967 No. 48 , p. 1477 , item 1189 ( online at the information system of the Hessian state parliament [PDF; 4,9 MB ]).
  14. ^ Georg Conrad Horst: The witch tower in Lindheim in the Wetterau. A historical monument from the past. In: Demonomagy or History of Belief in Sorcery and Demonic Miracles. Frankfurt a. M., Gebr. Wilmans, 1818. Footnote p. 364.