Undenheim

coat of arms	Germany map
	Coordinates: 49 ° 50 '  N , 8 ° 13'  E
Basic data
State :	Rhineland-Palatinate
County :	Mainz-Bingen
Association municipality :	Rhine-Selz
Height :	140 m above sea level NHN
Area :	9.97 km 2
Residents:	2988 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	300 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	55278
Area code :	06737
License plate :	MZ , BIN
Community key :	07 3 39 060
Association administration address:	Sant 'Ambrogio-Ring 33 55276 Oppenheim
Website :	www.undenheim.de
Local Mayor :	Marcus Becker
Location of the local community Undenheim in the Mainz-Bingen district

Undenheim is a municipality in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate . It belongs to the Rhein-Selz community , which has its administrative headquarters in the city of Oppenheim .

geography

Undenheim is centrally located in Rheinhessen , approx. 20 kilometers south of the Rhineland-Palatinate state capital Mainz . The residential areas Sparrmühle and Kastanienhof belong to the community .

Neighboring communities are Bechtolsheim , Gabsheim , Friesenheim , Köngernheim , Schornsheim and Weinolsheim .

The district of Undenheim lies in an arch of the Selz , which is open to the west and which has sought its course along the eastern foothills of the Wörrstädter Höhe . The lowest point with 124.4 m above sea ​​level is east of the place in the corridor An der Römervilla on the Selz and the highest point west of the place on the Undenheimer Berg towards Schornsheim with 187.7 m above sea level. The topography of the settlement area is slightly wavy and only rises a little more in a westerly direction.

In contrast to many other Rheinhessen communities, viticulture was only of secondary importance. The humus-rich soil, which can be detected in this area to a depth of 110 cm, gave normal arable farming better conditions. It wasn't until the 1960s that Undenheim began to grow wine on a large scale.

A tributary of the Selz, the Goldbach , flows through the village in an east-west direction and flows into the Selz at Köngernheim . In the late Middle Ages, this brook drove three mills in Undenheim. After the straightening and overbuilding in the 1970s, it is mostly just a trickle and only carries significant water in the rainy season. Only the valley ditch that flows through the Undenheim district and flows into the Selz about one kilometer south of the village , has more water again due to a drainage that has been laid on the Gabsheim district .

traffic

In the north, Undenheim is affected by the B 420 , which is considered to be the most important east-west axis in Rheinhessen , starts in Nierstein and thus connects the Rhine with the Nahe region and, in its rough outline, was an important traffic route in ancient times. Undenheim is connected to the A 63 via the B 420 in just five kilometers in the direction of Wörrstadt. A rail link to Mainz and Alzey , opened in 1896, was shut down and dismantled in 1985. Instead, this route, in the directions of Oppenheim and Wörrstadt, is operated for public transport by the Rhein-Nahe local transport network. In addition to this public transport connection, there is a direct bus connection to Mainz or Alzey.

history

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

According to the author from the texts by Curschmann.

In contrast to other settlement areas in Rheinhessen, the underground of Undenheim is less steeped in history and only testifies to a spherical stone made of porphyry found in 1950 , which is considered by experts as a knockstone from the younger Stone Age and can be seen today in the Undenheim local museum. Alleged finds of mammoth bones and stone axes unearthed in the 1950s are also unsecured. The few evidence of an early settlement can also be traced back to the fertile loess soil in this depression, which has been plowed through again and again through centuries of intensive farming and thus stone-age finds have been destroyed.

A trench for an oil pipeline that was dug in 1966, in which six Celtic graves were cut, did not provide reliable information about the settlement of the Undenheim district. A grave of the Latène period with a Celt was found e.g. B. 70 meters south of the fallen village of Nordelsheim, which will be discussed again later. Lance and shield were his grave goods. Nevertheless, there are doubts about continuous settlement of the area up to Roman times.

Only since Caesar's victory over the Gauls (58–52 BC) can one find evidence of a number of Villae Rusticae in the Undenheim area, which were necessary for the supply of the Roman garrison in Mogontiacum , today's Mainz , and one can do so afterwards ongoing urbanization in a relatively uneventful time in the region. This age, which lasted more than 4 centuries, came to an abrupt end when 406 Germanic tribes crossed the Rhine near Mainz on New Year's Eve during the migration period and ended the last remnants of Roman hegemony. Troubled times began for the area around Undenheim, and indeed for the whole of Rheinhessen. For a century, changing ownership structures characterized the Rhine-Hessian area and indeed all of Western Europe. But especially in Rheinhessen, Burgundy , Alemanni , Franconian and Huns vied for supremacy. Only after the victory of the Frankish king Clovis over the Alemanni in 496 did times calm down a little.

Archaeological finds from the beginning of the 5th century attest to the first roots of today's Undenheim. Not far away from today's cemetery, a Franconian burial ground was found, which is considered to be evidence of continuous settlement since that time. It is assumed that a Frankish nobleman named "Undo" gave Undenheim his name.

The first written mention of Undenheim from the year 767 comes from the Lorsch Codex , which is kept in the Würzburg State Archives. It is a deed of gift from a farm in the neighboring town of Hahnheim an Undenheim. The ownership structure and sovereign rights in Undenheim were in the dark until the end of the 12th century, in contrast to the places in the vicinity. Although the Lords of Bolanden had real estate, they had no sovereign rights. A bailiff of the Counts of Zweibrücken managed the property of the St. Alban Monastery . There are also testimonies from this time about a property owned by the Rheingrafen , but this family could not establish itself as a rulership in Undenheim and later completely disappeared from history in connection with Undenheim. Indirectly, it can be concluded that the Hessian noble family Hohenfels and an Electoral Palatinate area were ruled, as it later shows.

Only a document from 1277 indicates that Undenheim was dependent on the Palatinate County of Alzey, which was established in the 12th century as a remote byland of the Welfs and Wittelsbachers . Far away from the power center of the Electoral Palatinate , the Truchsess von Alzey sought to strengthen their position of power in Rheinhessen. Ludwig II put an end to this and forced the Truchsess on April 12, 1277 in Worms to recognize the rule of the Electoral Palatinate in this area in the cited document and to reimburse the illegally appropriated income. In this document, however, the Alzey officials expressly pointed out that Undenheim and Nordelsheim were excluded from this, as the income from these locations went to the Lords of Hohenfels, who were probably enfeoffed with these villages by the Palatinate as early as the 12th century .

At this point it has to be noted that Undenheim and Nordelsheim were mentioned in the same breath in all medieval documents concerning their political affiliation. In 1349 Ruprecht von der Pfalz concluded a treaty, the Weistum, with the two places, which laid down the legal basis and was renewed again and again in the following decades and centuries. In principle the "Lex Undenheim", the Basic Law. From this point on, the place of jurisdiction was Alzey Castle and was assigned to the Palatinate Oberamt Alzey. Next to a proven village court in Undenheim since 1321.

Apart from the turmoil of the following centuries due to changing ownership and the disputes between the Electoral Palatinate Guelphs and Wittelsbachers on the one hand and the Archdiocese of Mainz and its monasteries on the other, one event stood out in particular. The neighboring community of Nordelsheim, ten minutes' walk west of the outskirts of Undenheim, was hit by a severe storm on Whitsun in 1516 and completely destroyed. The surviving residents sought protection in Undenheim and then settled there as well. It seems that during this time the center of Undenheim shifted somewhat in the east and the beginning of the development of the area around the later Untergasse, today Staatsrat-Schwamb-Straße .

Denomination after the Reformation also had a considerable influence on the life of the Undenheimers, apart from the consequences of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). From Elector Otto-Heinrich , who introduced the Reformation in 1556, to Elector Karl Ludwig after the Peace of Westphalia , the Undenheim confession changed eight times. But then finally to the Reformed (Lutheran) faith.

The end of the Thirty Years' War was not followed by a very long period of peace for Undenheim, as for all of Rheinhessen. The Palatinate War of Succession (1688–1697) brought renewed suffering for the people. So in 1689, with the exception of the Undenheim village church, the village was completely destroyed, from which one can conclude that there was no building or farmstead in Undenheim before this time, with the exception of a preserved cellar vault in the Staatsrat-Schwamb-Straße from 1549 is to be referred.

In the further course of this troubled century Undenheim suffered from the armed conflicts and their consequences such as the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War . It was common for the residents of the community to regularly pay for board and lodging for the troops passing through or billeted.

Undenheim was not spared the consequences of the first coalition war (1792–1797). Despite the devastation and costs suffered by the Undenheimers from the Napoleonic occupants, which led to the creation of a petition for unification with France in 1798. From then on, Undenheim was part of the French canton of Wörrstadt in the Département du Mont-Tonnerre , which has nothing in common with the boundaries of today's Donnersberg district . Mayence was the capital of the department . In Undenheim's chronicle it can be read that 25 young people from Undenheim were drafted into the Napoleonic army, 9 of whom lost their lives in the Russian campaign.

These troubled times came to an end when Rheinhessen was annexed to the Grand Duchy of Hesse as a result of the resolutions of the Congress of Vienna .

Another, far less disastrous, turning point in local history was the introduction of the simultaneous school in 1876, against the resistance of clergymen of both faiths. Until then there were two denominational schools in Undenheim. From then on, the 137 Protestant and 48 Catholic students were taught by two Protestant and one Catholic teacher. There is no tradition of the numerical ratio of boys to girls.

Population development

The development of the population of Undenheim, the values ​​from 1871 to 1987 are based on censuses:

year Residents 1815 838 1835 1,188 1871 1,159 1905 1,300 1939 1,467 1950 1,870

year Residents 1961 1,677 1970 1,702 1987 1,567 1997 2.152 2005 2,532 2019 2,988

politics

Municipal council

Local government

The municipal council in Undenheim consists of 20 council members, who were elected in the local elections on May 26, 2019 in a personalized proportional representation, and the honorary local mayor as chairman. Up to 2009 there were 16 council members on the local council, the increase was made according to local electoral law due to the increased population of Undenheim.

The distribution of seats in the municipal council:

choice	SPD	CDU	BfU	WLU	UFL	total
2019	3	2	7th	3	5	20 seats
2014	6th	1	10	3	-	20 seats
2009	6th	-	14th	-	-	20 seats

• BfU = Citizens for Undenheim e. V.
• WLU = Livable Undenheim e. V.
• UFL = Undenheimer Free List

Local mayor

Landmark

• The local mayor is Marcus Becker from the Undenheimer Free List (UFL) voter group. He prevailed against Jochen Grosch (BfU) in a runoff election in the 2019 local elections.

Coat of arms and seal

Local coat of arms 1948–1955

	Blazon : "In the obliquely left divided shield at the top in black a growing golden, red crowned and armored lion and in the back in gold a red bird's claw with a bow." The coat of arms was awarded in 1955 by the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of the Interior .

Historic court seal

Court seal from the 18th century.

The SIGILLVM VNDENHEIM (printed from 1528 to 1611) and a cut seal with the same legend show the Palatinate lion shield and above it Mary with child . Since the patroness is not to be used as a shield holder in this typical representation as a coat of arms, and the simple Palatinate lion shield cannot be issued as the local coat of arms, the coat of arms officially awarded in 1955 unites the Palatinate lion with a place symbol in the form of a bird's claw, as it is from the community has been running since the previous century. This symbol, which comes from a border stone walled up in the village, was used by the municipality in the seal from around 1880–1954 and has only since been brought back into the connection with the old national emblem, which is typical for Palatinate places.

For local explorers, the bird's claw in the coat of arms remains a mystery to this day. After the end of National Socialism, the council members looked for a new coat of arms for their community. One remembered two boundary stones found around the beginning of the 19th century , on each of which a bird's claw is depicted and on the back the year 1601 is written. There is no explanation for this bird's claw, as there was no gender or rule in Undenheim's history that bore such a mark in its coat of arms. The coats of arms of Gonsenheim and Gundheim have a bird's foot in their coat of arms, but this can be explained by the long rule of the Barons von Greifenklau in these places, as a griffin claw appears in their coat of arms as a helmet ornament.

Another ambiguity is the explanation of how and when these two stones, found around 1800 on the edges of a former Undenheim village ditch, got there. The only thing that is certain is that 200 years earlier they must have served as marking stones or for a similar use. Despite all these open questions, the Undenheim town council decided in 1948 to wear the griffin claw in its coat of arms, which was unofficially valid until 1955.

Community partnerships

Partner communities:

• Blaisy-Bas ( France )
• Dolcè ( Italy )

Culture and sights

The Protestant parish hall in Undenheim

Evangelical Church in Undenheim

In 2003, Undenheim was voted “the most beautiful village in Rheinhessen ”.

See also:

• List of cultural monuments in Undenheim
• List of natural monuments in Undenheim

Personalities

Sons and daughters of the church

• Josef Becker (1883–1949), librarian
• Ludwig Schwamb (1890–1945), lawyer, resistance fighter and politician (SPD), member of the " Kreisau Circle ". The “Staatsrat-Schwamb-Straße”, the main street of Undenheim, was named after him

Honorary citizen

• Reinhold Sittel (1936–2017), Mayor of Undenheim from 1979 to 2004

literature

• Literature about Undenheim in the Rhineland-Palatinate State Bibliography
• Dieter Curschmann: Undenheim, the story of a village in Rhine-Hesse . Alzey 1988, ISBN 3-87854-066-3 .

Web links

Commons : Undenheim  - collection of images

• Internet presence of the local community Undenheim
• History of Undenheim at www.regionalgeschichte.net

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} State Statistical Office of Rhineland-Palatinate - population status 2019, districts, municipalities, association communities ( help on this ).
2. ↑ State Statistical Office Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Official directory of the municipalities and parts of the municipality. Status: January 2018 ^{[ Version 2020 is available. ]} . S. 107 (PDF; 2.2 MB).
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Dieter Curschmann: Undenheim, history of a Rhine-Hessian village . 1st edition. Alzey, Erfurt 1988, ISBN 3-87854-066-3 . ; See also the Undenheim website: History of Undenheim
4. ^ Dieter Curschmann: Nordelsheim. Monograph of a desert . 1st edition. tape 2 . Alzeyer Geschichtsblätter, Alzey 1965, p. 27-83 .
5. ↑ State Statistical Office Rhineland-Palatinate - regional data
6. ^ The Regional Returning Officer Rhineland-Palatinate: Local elections 2019, city and municipal council elections
7. ^ The Regional Returning Officer Rhineland-Palatinate: Municipal elections 2014, city and municipal council elections
8. ↑ Result of the local mayor election in Undenheim 2019
9. ^ ^{A b} Karl Ernst Demandt and Otto Renkhoff : Hessisches Ortswappenbuch. C. A. Starke Verlag, Glücksburg / Ostsee 1956, p. 151.
10. ^ Commemorative publication of the Undenheim volunteer fire brigade for the 75th anniversary in 1955
11. ↑ Former Undenheim mayor Reinhold Sittel turns 80 , general newspaper Mainz, January 9, 2016
12. ↑ Undenheim mourns Reinhold Sittel. Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz, April 12, 2017, accessed on October 25, 2017 . 
13. ↑ Reinhold Sittel becomes an honorary citizen of Undenheim , Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz, December 17, 2016