Walschbronn
| Walschbronn | ||
|---|---|---|
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| region | Grand Est | |
| Department | Moselle | |
| Arrondissement | Sarreguemines | |
| Canton | Bitche | |
| Community association | Pays de Bitche | |
| Coordinates | 49 ° 9 ′ N , 7 ° 29 ′ E | |
| height | 247-387 m | |
| surface | 10.11 km 2 | |
| Residents | 497 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 49 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 57720 | |
| INSEE code | 57741 | |
| Website | www.walschbronn.fr | |
 View of Walschbronn |
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Walschbronn is a French commune with 497 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) in the Moselle department in the Grand Est region . It belongs to the Sarreguemines arrondissement and the Bitche canton and is part of the cross-border Palatinate Forest-Northern Vosges biosphere reserve . It was an important seaside resort in the Middle Ages. The inhabitants call themselves Walschbronnois .
geography
The village is located in the northern Vosges as a border town to the Palatinate on the Trualbe , which is also called "Schwarzbach" on this section, a tributary of the Hornbach , and on the D 962 road from Volmunster to Pirmasens .
history
Numerous burial mounds on the Hohe Hübel and directly on the state border in the Stausteinerwald indicate a permanent Celtic settlement of the area as early as around the 5th century BC. Chr.
Gallo-Roman finds are available from the 2nd century. A Roman road is proven. When Stanislaus I. Leszczyński arranged for the damaged baths to be repaired in 1755, a Roman votive stone and many coins came to light. It is assumed that the healing springs of Walschbronn were already known to the Romans.
After the founding of the Hornbach monastery by St. Pirminius in 742, the area around Walschbronn was also urbanized from there.
The first concrete mention of the village took place in 1080 under the name Galesburas ( Gales = jelly , Buras = "well"), which is an indication of the petroleum-containing springs. Walsburn was written as early as 1170 . According to Rohr, this is said to be called Waldbrunnen , according to another opinion it is derived from the Germanic first name Walo . Like the whole of today's canton of Volmunster, Walschbronn belonged to Zweibrücken-Bitsch in the Middle Ages . Count Friedrich bequeathed the property and church rights to the newly founded Sturzelbronn Abbey in 1196 .
Around 1490, Count Simon IV. Wecker von Zweibrücken-Bitsch built a hunting lodge in Walschbronn, now called the "Weckerburg". The castle was later owned by Georg von Zweibrücken-Bitsch and Ochsenstein († 1559) and Jakob von Zweibrücken-Bitsch . After his death in 1570, the building was abandoned and fell into ruin.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, the mineral spring must have enjoyed a wide reputation, because the German Emperor Friedrich III. and Charles V were sponsors of the bath. The bathing business was an important source of income for the Zweibrücken-Bitsch house before the spring dried up in the devastation of the Thirty Years' War .
After the horrors of this war, only 11 inhabitants remained in the village, which had previously had over four hundred houses. In 1713, Duke Leopold Josef von Lothringen ordered the reconstruction of the baths and the construction of houses in the Wasgau style . In 1756 Stanislaus Leszcynski arranged for another renovation, but ten years later the well finally dried up.
With the border location, which Walschbronn increasingly found itself in in the 18th century, the once respectable place lost more and more of its importance. From almost 1,000 inhabitants at the turn of the 19th century, the population has fallen to a good half to this day. However , the downward trend has been halted in recent years by an increasing proportion of Germans who have relocated here because of the lower real estate prices .
Walschbronn once had a great importance in the church. The parish included localities on both sides of today's state border, namely Waldhouse , Hanviller , Roppeviller , Lied Various , Kröppen , Trulben , Hilst , Schweix , Eppenbrunn , Vinningen , Riedelberg , Großsteinhausen , Kleinsteinhausen and Niedersimten at the gates of Pirmasens. After the French Revolution , the diocesan borders changed and Walschbronn lost the communities on the other side of the Lorraine border.
From 1790 to 1801 Walschbronn belonged politically to the canton of Breidenbach , which no longer existed , then from 1801 to 2015 to the canton of Volmunster , which also no longer existed, and since then to the canton of Bitche.
Population development
| year | 1962 | 1968 | 1975 | 1982 | 1990 | 1999 | 2007 | 2017 |
| Residents | 542 | 552 | 539 | 532 | 478 | 525 | 548 | 497 |
Attractions
- Two round defensive towers and remains of walls with loopholes still exist from the hunting lodge .
- Four meter high statue of the Sacred Heart from 1909 on a 10 m high base.
Economy and Infrastructure
- Walschbronn is the border crossing point on the D 962, an important connecting road between Pirmasens and Bitche .
- Agriculture is declining, but there is still some dairy farming. Most of the milk is processed in the local cheese dairy .
- The gastronomy is an important source of income in the village.
Community partnerships
- Hirzweiler , Saarland
Web links
literature
- Theodor Rohr: From Wasgau and Westrich. Volume 1, Kleinsteinhausen 1993, pp. 65-73
Individual evidence
- ↑ Château du Weckersburg à Walschbronn. Retrieved February 16, 2019 .