Oberkotzau

Basic data
State :	Bavaria
Administrative region :	Upper Franconia
County :	court
Height :	484 m above sea level NHN
Area :	21.51 km 2
Residents:	5362 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	249 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	95145
Area code :	09286
License plate :	HO , MÜB , NAI, REH , SAN
Community key :	09 4 75 158
LOCODE :	DE OKY
Market structure:	8 districts
; Market administration address :	At the town hall 2 ; 95145 Oberkotzau
Website :	www.oberkotzau.de
Mayor :	Stefan Breuer ( CSU )
Location of the Oberkotzau market in the Hof district

Bridge over the Schwesnitz, in the background the Evangelical Church of St. Jakobus with the rectory

Evangelical rectory

Pfeifersbrücke and Oberkotzau Castle

Oberkotzau is a market in the Upper Franconian district of Hof and is located immediately south of the town of Hof .

geography

The market is located at the confluence of the Schwesnitz in the Saale .

Oberkotzau is located in the agglomeration of Hof (Saale) .

Saale near Oberkotzau

Neighboring communities

Döhlau , Rehau , Schwarzenbach an der Saale , Konradsreuth and the independent city of Hof.

The city is located in the Hofer Land .

Districts

The municipality of Oberkotzau is divided into eight districts:

history

Until the 19th century

Oberkotzau is one of the oldest settlements in northeastern Franconia . The place arose at the confluence of the Schwesnitz in the Saxon Saale and originally consisted of three settlements with their own names, whereby the one to the right of the Schwesnitz was called Schwandewitz. According to local history, this is said to have been settled by Wends . The district to the left of the Schwesnitz, formerly Koczaw (with the later conversion to Kotzau ), is related to the emergence of the old knight family von Kotzau . The third district to the left of the Saale was called Saaldorf and, like Kotzau, is a German settlement. The first documentary mention of Kotzau dates from March 26th, 1234. The name Oberkotzau first appeared in 1686 when the Lieutenant General von Holstein Sonderburg and Wiesenburg bought it and lived and died there until 1724. He was the son of the last ruling dynasty of the Silesian Piasts in Silesia. Dukes of Liegnitz, Brigg and Ohlau.

The first lords of Oberkotzau were the original noble family of the von Kotzau, a knightly family who had great wealth and a high reputation and played an important role in the area. Their privileges belonged in the high courts and the imperial sanctuary , a refuge for lawbreakers - except adulterers and murderers - could there unmolested wait for the court's decision. It has not been used since 1760 and it was officially abolished in 1799. Other trade privileges were market rights and permission to settle Jews. A field name provides information about a former Jewish burial place . The von Kotzau were u. a. Officials from court and on the Epprechtstein .

When the von Kotzau family died out in the middle of the 17th century, the Kotzau estates passed to the Margraves of Bayreuth after a few intermediate stops . A relative of the sovereign, Margrave Georg Albrecht from the House of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, acquired it in 1698 through purchase. After marrying a bourgeoisie, the margrave set up his residence in Oberkotzau and became the founder of the baronial von Kotzau family, of royal Brandenburg-Kulmbach descent. The family had today's large, somewhat strange-looking castle built on the site of the old castle that burned down in 1852.

20th century

Town view, middle of the 19th century

In the first half of the 20th century, many of the town's citizens made their living from agriculture, cattle trading, wholesale and retail trade and handicrafts. Jobs were also created by setting up companies (textile dyeing and printing, porcelain manufacturing, porcelain painting, jam, yeast and syrup production, drive belt production, car repair shops, etc.).

Refugees and displaced persons and the function as a suburb of the neighboring farm as well as a clever settlement policy of the community allowed the population and the economic power of the place to rise sharply after the Second World War .

In the following decades, larger companies settled in Oberkotzau.

21st century

After the Fernwehpark in Hof was dismantled in 2017, it was rebuilt in 2018. That's why celebrities keep coming to Oberkotzau to open a star in the Fernwehpark.

In Oberkotzau there is a great need for building plots, and more residential areas are to be created in the future, such as the Schwesnitztalblick residential area.

The Oberkotzau market has completed the development plan for a new retail park in September 2019 . This is to be built on Hofer Strasse and provide space for a supermarket , a bakery , two retailers and two service providers.

After 15 years of discussion about a bypass , the Bavarian Administrative Court decided in 2019 that it could now be built. The project is expected to cost 14.5 million.

Incorporations

On January 1, 1972, the previously independent communities Autengrün and Fattigau were incorporated. On July 1, 1972, a part of the community Martinsreuth was added.

Population development

In the period from 1988 to 2018, the market grew minimally from 5300 to 5357 by 57 inhabitants or 1.1%. On December 31, 2000, the market had 5939 inhabitants.

politics

Municipal council

The municipal council consists of 20 members.

After the 2008 local elections , the seats were distributed as follows:

CSU : 10 seats
SPD : 7 seats
Greens / ÖDP : 2 seats
Oberkotzau citizen list : 1 seat

The local elections on March 16, 2014 led to this composition of the market council:

CSU: 12 seats
SPD and Greens / ÖDP: 8 seats

The local election on March 15, 2020 resulted in the following distribution of seats:

CSU: 11 seats
SPD: 4 seats
UWO: 5 seats

mayor

1972 - 1986: Emil Spröd
1986 - April 2008: Ernst Schrödel
since May 2008: Stefan Breuer ( CSU )

coat of arms

The coat of arms of the market is split in half. On the one hand, it shows half of the Brandenburg eagle in red on a silver background and, on the other hand, a crossing of alternating silver and black fields. Both are emblems of the Hohenzollern family , who had a close relationship with the place through the principality of Bayreuth , as well as the preceding Brandenburg-Kulmbach and the burgraviate of Nuremberg and the newly founded barons of Kotzau . The coat of arms was also awarded by a margrave. As a variant, at the beginning of the 19th century with the transition of the region to Bavaria, there was a coat of arms in which the colors of the Hohenzollern were replaced by the Bavarian state colors (blue-white).

Culture and sights

Leisure and Tourism

Oberkotzau Castle
St. James Church
St. Anthony Church
Christ Church
Burgstall Haideck
Three-arched Pfeifersbrücke over the Schwesnitz
Fernwehpark - former Fernwehpark Hof, now relocated to Oberkotzau
Saaleradweg
Bible path
Terrace outdoor pool
Meadow festival
Lake of Infidelity

St. James

Catholic Church of St. Anthony

Fernwehpark Oberkotzau

The Oberkotzau market is the starting point for excursions to the Fichtel Mountains and the Franconian Forest, as well as to the town of Hof.

societies

Volunteer Fire Brigade Oberkotzau e. V.
General gymnastics and sports club 1858 e. V. (ATSV)
Fichtelgebirgsverein , Oberkotzau local group
Gesangverein Liederkranz 1862 e. V.
SpVgg Oberkotzau
Association for Evangelical Community Diakonie Oberkotzau e. V.
Tennis Club Oberkotzau e. V. (TCO)
Oak Cross Oberkotzau e. V.
Shooting Society 1864 e. V.
DLRG local association Oberkotzau e. V.
Bergwacht Oberkotzau

Foundations

Zeidler-von Kotzau Evangelical Foundation Oberkotzau
Foundation for culture in Oberkotzau

Soil monuments

See: List of soil monuments in Oberkotzau

Economy and Infrastructure

traffic

Rail transport

Station side of the Bamberg – Hof and Regensburg – Hof railway lines, 1986

The Oberkotzau railway station lies on the railway lines Weiden-Oberkotzau and Bamberg-Hof . The Cheb – Oberkotzau railway branches off in the facility, which is designed as a wedge station . Its location on three routes was the reason that Oberkotzau gained greater importance as a transshipment point for goods and passenger traffic at the end of the Second World War, when Hof's main train station was bombed.

Road traffic

The highways 9 , 93 and 72 are nearby .

Currently, the through-road in Oberkotzau is the busiest state road in Bavaria with up to 17,000 vehicles per day.

Public transport

In Oberkotzau, a citizen's bus runs at regular intervals.

Several regional bus routes run through the village from Hof in the north to the Fichtel Mountains in the south.

Companies

Gealan Window Systems GmbH
GEALAN Formteile GmbH
Siebenstern, Jackstädt & Co. KG, canning factory
Gemeinhardt AG, heating, solar, bathroom
Fattigau Castle Brewery
Solartechnik Kropf GmbH
Prozesstechnik Kropf GmbH
Dachser GmbH

Facilities

Oberkotzau has a primary and secondary school and a Protestant, Catholic and municipal kindergarten. The social institutions include a retirement home and a residential group from Diakonie Hochfranken .

Personalities

Sons and Daughters of the Market

Christian Endemann (1885–1950), born in Fattigau, politician
Johann Georg Hager (1709–1777), educator and geographer
Johann Erhard Kapp (1696–1756), rhetorician and historian
Karl Bernhard von Reitzenstein (1809–1885), Württemberg Lieutenant General
Anna Schmidt (1897–1931) was famous throughout Europe as the 540 pound showwoman “Rosa Debela”.

Persons connected to Oberkotzau

Lorenz Summa (1833–1889), company founder

literature

Hans Bucka , Oskar Heland : boundary stones, hallway and small monuments in the district of Hof . Hof 1991. ISBN 3-88267-040-1 . P. 89 f.

Johann Kaspar Bundschuh : Oberkotzau . In: Geographical Statistical-Topographical Lexicon of Franconia . tape 4 : Ni-R . Verlag der Stettinische Buchhandlung, Ulm 1801, DNB 790364301 , OCLC 833753101 , Sp. 180 ( digitized version ).

August Gebeßler : City and District of Hof . The Art Monuments of Bavaria , Brief Inventories , Volume VII . German art publisher . Munich 1960. p. 54 ff.

Dietmar Herrmann, Helmut Süssmann: Fichtel Mountains, Bavarian Vogtland, Steinwald, Bayreuther Land. Lexicon . Ackermannverlag, Hof (Saale) 2000, ISBN 3-929364-18-2 , p. 478-483 .

Hans-Michael Körner , Alois Schmid (ed.), Martin Ott: Handbook of historical sites . Volume 7: Bavaria II. Volume 2: Franconia (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 325). Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-32501-2 , pp. 400-401.

Markt Oberkotzau (Hrsg.): Illustrated history (s) . Hof 2013.

Pleikard Joseph Stumpf : Oberkotzau . In: Bavaria: a geographical-statistical-historical handbook of the kingdom; for the Bavarian people . Second part. Munich 1853, p. 628 ( digitized version ).

Hans-Ulrich Zeidler: The Oberkotzau market - a foray into local history . In: 750 years of Oberkotzau market - Festschrift of the Oberkotzau market for the 750th anniversary . Oberkotzau 1984.