Witzleben (Thuringia)

coat of arms	Germany map
	Coordinates: 50 ° 49 '  N , 11 ° 7'  E
Basic data
State :	Thuringia
County :	Ilm district
Management Community :	Riechheimer Berg
Height :	365 m above sea level NHN
Area :	22.61 km 2
Residents:	612 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	27 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	99310
Area code :	036200
License plate :	IK, ARN, IL
Community key :	16 0 70 054
Community structure:	3 districts
Address of the municipal administration:	Zimmergasse 42 99310 Witzleben (Thuringia)
Website :	vg-riechheimer-berg.de
Mayor :	Uwe Leuthardt ( CDU )
Location of the municipality of Witzleben (Thuringia) in the Ilm district

Witzleben is a municipality in the Ilm district in Thuringia in Germany . The entire community (with Ellichleben and Achelstädt ) has 707 inhabitants (as of June 1, 2010).

geography

Geographical location

Witzleben is 14 kilometers east of Arnstadt . The community belongs to the administrative community Riechheimer Berg .

Neighboring communities

Clockwise, starting in the north: Osthausen-Wülfershausen - Kranichfeld - Stadtilm - Bösleben-Wüllersleben

Districts

Community structure

• Achelstädt (184 inhabitants)
• Ellichleben (242 inhabitants)
• Witzleben (281 inhabitants)

history

Witzleben was first mentioned in a document between 822 and 842, in a list of donations to the Fulda monastery , in the Codex Eberhardi .

Witzleben is the place of origin of the once powerful knight family von Witzleben . Their castle , now a desert , was about a kilometer south of the village, on the "planer" on the other side of the Upper Wolfstal trench. A large manor belonged to the castle . At the western end of the Witzleben district was the high medieval manor house Gommerstedt .

In the 19th century, horseshoes from smaller horses were found in the village pond. Mounted Huns are said to have sunk in the swampy terrain. But it is also believed that there was a blacksmith's shop near the pond. In 1923, the manor with 144 hectares was managed by the tenant E. Köllner.

The church tower was built at the end of the 12th century and the nave in the 13th century. In the late Middle Ages the cultivation of the dye plant woad played a major role, there was also a woad mill in Witzleben. The place suffered a lot during the Thirty Years' War . In 1797 a devastating fire destroyed a large part of the village, including the church, rectory (the parish registers were also destroyed) and the estate. Until 1918 Witzleben belonged to the Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen ( suzerainty ).

Towards the end of the Second World War , a death march by prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp touched the area around the town. Twenty victims of SS terror rest in the cemetery .

On April 11, 1945, five villagers and one Ukrainian woman were killed under heavy American artillery fire and fighter-bomber attacks with high explosive and incendiary bombs. Of 300 residential and commercial buildings, 140 were destroyed and 70 badly damaged. Wehrmacht units had tried to stop the American advance with some anti-tank cannons and tanks on the edge of the village and on Großer Holz. At least seven German soldiers fell. The memorial stone shared with the civilians in the cemetery (from the GDR era) does not contain the names of all the victims and the soldiers among them can only be identified from the year 1925.

The reconstruction of the destroyed village was carried out by the residents themselves under the difficult conditions of the post-war period during the Soviet Zone and the early GDR . There was also material and financial aid from neighboring communities.

In autumn 1945 the land reform came with expropriations, especially of the property, and the establishment of new farmer positions. The manor house (residents were two brothers with their families) was demolished, as were numerous other manor buildings over time. In 1952 a type 3 LPG was founded, and in 1960 the last farmers were forced to collect. In 1967 a large pig fattening facility for LPG animal production was founded. In 1979 there was a devastating hurricane that covered a large part of the roofs in the village.

In the Volkskammer election in March 1990 at the time of political change , the CDU received 77% and the PDS 4% of the vote.

Population development

Development of the population:

1843-874 1939-799 1989 - 779 2005 - 716 2010 - 703 2015 - 639

Data source: from 1994 Thuringian State Office for Statistics - values ​​from December 31st

Attractions

Church of St. Magdalenen in Witzleben

• Village church : The church , built at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century, has some architectural features. Around 1500 late Gothic windows and a portal were built into the south wall of the nave. At the end of the Thirty Years War the church was restored. In 1820 she received an organ from master organ builder Witzmann from Stadtilm . The anteroom on the tower ground floor is separated from the church by built-in glass. In the chancel there is a narrow pulpit in which two black twisted columns with gilded capitals dominate. The interior was renovated in 1936 and in the 1970s. The re-inauguration was celebrated in 1977.
• Memorial to the participants and fallen soldiers of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 . It was donated by Captain von Witzleben.
• Memorial of the community for their soldiers who fell and went missing in the First World War .
• Memorial stone for the dead of April 11, 1945 in the cemetery.
• Waidmühlstein and former bell house on the main street. In 1840, the bell house temporarily picked up the bells from the dilapidated church tower.

politics

Municipal council

The council of the municipality of Witzleben consists of 8 councilors and councilors. After the local elections on May 26, 2019 , the following composition results:

• CDU : 6 seats
• The left : 2 seats

mayor

The honorary mayor Uwe Leuthardt (CDU) has been in office since 2010 and was last re-elected on June 5, 2016.

Personalities

• Witzleben was the ancestral seat of the von Witzleben family .

literature

• Witzleben , community chronicle , published in 1992 by the community administration on the occasion of the town's 1150th anniversary.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Population of the municipalities from the Thuringian State Office for Statistics  ( help on this ).
2. ^ Wolfgang Kahl : First mention of Thuringian towns and villages. Rockstuhl Verlag, Bad Langensalza, 2010, ISBN 978-3-86777-202-0 , p. 317.
3. ↑ Hansjürgen Müllerott: Legends, fables and romantic stories from the central Thuringian Forest and its foreland. Arnstadt 1995/1996, ISBN 3-910132-54-5 , p. 140.
4. ↑ Jürgen Gruhle: Black Book of Land Reform - Thuringia. Retrieved June 20, 2011 ( Memento July 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Thuringian Association of the Persecuted of the Nazi Regime - Association of Antifascists and Study Group of German Resistance 1933-1945 (ed.): Heimatgeschichtlicher Wegweiser to places of resistance and persecution 1933-1945, series: Heimatgeschichtliche Wegweiser Volume 8 Thüringen, Erfurt 2003, p. 150 , ISBN 3-88864-343-0
6. ^ Source for Schwarzburgische and Saxon places: Johann Friedrich Kratzsch : Lexicon of all localities of the German federal states . Naumburg, 1843. Available online from Google Books . Source for Prussian places: Handbook of the Province of Saxony. Magdeburg, 1843. Available online at Google Books
7. ^ Michael Rademacher: German administrative history from the unification of the empire in 1871 to the reunification in 1990. Population figures. (Online material for the dissertation, Osnabrück 2006). 
8. ↑ Population development since 1989 (TLUG) ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 18 kB) 
9. ^ Thuringian State Office for Statistics: Elections in Thuringia, City Council Election 2019 in Thuringia, Witzleben. Retrieved August 17, 2019 . 
10. ^ Thuringian State Office for Statistics: Elections in Thuringia, Mayor election 2016 in Thuringia, Witzleben. Retrieved August 17, 2019 . 

Web links

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

• Page about the municipality of Witzleben on the homepage of the administrative association Riechheimer Berg