Kirrweiler | |
|---|---|
 Coat of arms | |
Location of Kirrweiler within Kusel district  | |
  Kirrweiler  Kirrweiler | |
| Coordinates:49°38′5″N7°30′6″E / 49.63472°N 7.50167°E /49.63472; 7.50167 | |
| Country | Germany |
| State | Rhineland-Palatinate |
| District | Kusel |
| Municipal assoc. | Lauterecken-Wolfstein |
| Government | |
| • Mayor(2019–24) | Ralf Schuster[1] |
| Area | |
• Total | 6.34 km2 (2.45 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 270 m (890 ft) |
| Population (2022-12-31)[2] | |
• Total | 164 |
| • Density | 26/km2 (67/sq mi) |
| Time zone | UTC+01:00 (CET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+02:00 (CEST) |
| Postal codes | 67744 |
| Dialling codes | 06387 |
| Vehicle registration | KUS |
| Website | www.kirrweiler.com |
Kirrweiler is anOrtsgemeinde – amunicipality belonging to aVerbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in theKuseldistrict inRhineland-Palatinate,Germany. It belongs to theVerbandsgemeinde Lauterecken-Wolfstein.
The municipality lies in the WesternPalatinate between thePalatinate Forest and theHunsrück. Kirrweiler lies on a sloped plateau that rises gently from south to north (from 320 to 350 m abovesea level). South of the village rises the Anderbach, which runs for some 3 km down to its mouth into theGlan nearGlanbrücken. The outlying centre of Zollstock lies at an elevation of 360 m above sea level on the heights of amountain saddle that stands between the Anderbach and Rötelbach valleys.[3] The municipal area is 51% wooded.
In 1938, when theBaumholder troop drilling ground was being built, the municipality was stripped of 155.5 ha of woodland by theNazis. In the course of disarmament after theCold War, Kirrweiler received 170.21 ha of the drilling ground in 1993. Although this is now officially part of the municipal area, the landowner is still the German federal government.
Kirrweiler borders in the north on the municipality ofHomberg (and more specifically on the Schönbornerhof, that municipality's historic farm estate), in the northeast on the municipality ofHerren-Sulzbach, in the east on the municipality ofDeimberg, in the south on the municipality ofSankt Julian and in the west on theBaumholder troop drilling ground.
Also belonging to Kirrweiler is the outlying homestead of Zollstock.[4]
Kirrweiler lies on a street that runs through the village, branching off which are three smaller, built-up streets. There are two old village centres, theOberdorf ("Upper Village") and theUnterdorf ("Lower Village"), which, owing to later building in between, have now been joined. A piped well that once stood between these two centres has since disappeared. The village's farmhouses are still mostly of theEinfirsthaus variety ("one-roof-ridge house"). All together, very little new building work is in evidence. The former schoolhouse stands on a sidestreet in the Upper Village and is nowadays used as business premises. The graveyard with its great mortuary lies at the village's upper end.[5]
The broader area around Kirrweiler was settled inprehistoric times, bearing witness to which aregrave goods that have been unearthed. Within Kirrweiler's limits long ago, the foundations of aGallo-Roman estate were discovered.[6]
Kirrweiler lay in theNahegau, having been founded in the 11th or 12th century at achurch, which later vanished. Local rural cadastral toponyms still preserve references to a church. As early as 1259, Kirrweiler had its first documentary mention in a document from the Counts of Zweibrücken. According to historian Wilhelm Fabricius (1857-1942), the village belonged to theGericht auf der Höhe ("Court on the Heights"), which itself was considered part of theHochgericht auf der Heide ("High Court on the Heath"). TheGericht auf der Höhe was named when in 1258,Castle Grumbach with its surrounding lands was given to theWaldgraves and Rhinegraves of Dhaun. The villages in this court region appeared in a 1363 document dealing with the pledging of these lands toSponheim-Starkenburg, with Kirrweiler named among them. Kirrweiler cropped up once again in a 1443 document, according to which the "poor people ofGrumbach" were transferred to Count Friedrich III ofVeldenz and his son-in-lawStephan, who the very next year, on his father-in-law's death, founded the Duchy ofPalatinate-Zweibrücken. Both were to be "lord protectors" of the district. Thus, Kirrweiler originally belonged to the Nahegau, from which arose the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves, then it passed to the Waldgraviate-Rhinegraviate of Dhaun, later passing to theCounty of Veldenz in 1443 and its successors, the Counts Palatine of Zweibrücken. Thereafter, the area was bought back by the Lords of Grumbach. Even later, though, Kirrweiler was now and then the object of exchanges in divisions of holdings or disputes among the various lines of the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves.[7]
In the 16th century and the earlier half of the 17th, Kirrweiler was a rather big village. In 1642, towards the war's end, there were still many households (23 according to one source; 32 according to another), whereas the villages in the broader surrounding area had for the most part been wiped right out by the effects of theThirty Years' War. Among these households was theKirrweiler Hof (estate), which belonged to theWaldgraves and Rhinegraves of Grumbach. If Kirrweiler had withstood the horror of that war relatively well, things did not go quite as well in 1677 in theFranco-Dutch War whenFrenchKing Louis XIV's troops burnt the village right down to the ground; not even one house was left standing. A century later, in 1778, yet another catastrophe befell the village when eleven houses along with their outbuildings (more than half the village's houses) burnt down; many other houses had their roofs burnt off. Only through great sacrifices could the village be restored.
Until theFrench Revolution broke out, Kirrweiler remained in Rhinegravial hands. Otto Karsch wrote "Various things are reported to us in old writings about Kirrweiler and its inhabitants. The documents tell of the village’s buildings, of the municipal centre that stood in the upper village next to theblacksmith’s shop, of thetithe barn and the old herdsman’s house, and also of sale and exchange deals, mill and water rights, and of a woman whose name and fate have remained alive through the centuries." This woman that Karsch referred to was named Barbara Weiß, who in 1612 at the age of 86 was, as an accusedwitch,tortured and as a result of this and other grievous treatment, died.[8]
During the time of theFrench Revolution and theNapoleonic era that followed, the German lands on theRhine’s left bank wereannexed byFrance. Kirrweiler belonged to theMairie ("Mayoralty") of Grumbach, theCanton of Grumbach, theArrondissement of Birkenfeld and theDepartment ofSarre. Several young men from the village served in the French army.
Above Kirrweiler, on the hill known as the "Husarenpötsch" or "Husarenbusch", theFrench built a rather odd-looking building in 1813, towards the end of the time of French rule, a tall wooden or iron tower with several movable vanes at the top. A string of such towers stood, each about 10 to 15 km from its two neighbours, running fromParis toMainz (orMayence, as the region'sNapoleonic rulers called it). It was asemaphore station, one in a chain designed to transmit information quickly over great distances, encoding messages in the positions of the aforesaid vanes. Each of the possible positions of the vanes could stand for a letter, a figure, a whole word, or even a whole sentence. As the French withdrew in 1814, they destroyed each semaphore station as they went.[9]
In 1816, Kirrweiler passed as part of theAmt of Grumbach and under the terms of theCongress of Vienna to thePrincipality of Lichtenberg, a newly createdexclave of the Duchy ofSaxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, which as of 1826 became the Duchy ofSaxe-Coburg and Gotha. As part of this state, it passed in 1834 to the Kingdom ofPrussia, which made this area into the Sankt Wendel district. Later, after theFirst World War, theTreaty of Versailles stipulated, among other things, that 26 of the Sankt Wendel district's 94 municipalities had to be ceded to theBritish- andFrench-occupiedSaar. The remaining 68 municipalities then bore the designation "Restkreis St. Wendel-Baumholder", with the first syllable ofRestkreis having the same meaning as in English, in the sense of "left over". Kirrweiler belonged to this district until 1937, when it was transferred to theBirkenfeld district, which was created by uniting theRestkreis with a formerOldenburg district, also called Birkenfeld. This now lay within theRegierungsbezirk of Koblenz, and still in Prussia, although sincethe Kaiser hadabdicated in 1917, it was no longer a kingdom. After theSecond World War, Kirrweiler first lay still within theRegierungsbezirk of Koblenz, but now in the then newly foundedstate ofRhineland-Palatinate. In the course of administrative restructuring in the state in 1968, theAmt of Grumbach was dissolved, and in 1972, Kirrweiler was grouped into the then newly formedVerbandsgemeinde of Lauterecken, and at the same time it was transferred from theRegierungsbezirk of Koblenz to the newly formedRegierungsbezirk ofRheinhessen-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate has since abolished all itsRegierungsbezirke).[10]
The village of Kirrweiler has remained rurally structured to this day. Until a few decades ago, most people earned their livelihoods mainly atagriculture. Besides farmers, there were farmhands and foresters as well as craftsmen. There were hardly any other kinds of jobs to be had. Now that farming employs only a few people, most workers must now seek a living elsewhere. As early as 1955, of the 75 people in the workforce at that time, 55 had tocommute to jobs elsewhere. This trend became more pronounced, to the point of a drop in population. The 32 households in 1642 would have comprised some 150 people. The outlying centre of Zollstock today has roughly seven inhabitants.
The following table shows population development over the centuries for Kirrweiler:[11]
| Year | 1815 | 1860 | 1900 | 1925 | 1958 | 2000 | 2007 |
| Total | 168 | 269 | 274 | 305 | 297 | 219 | 177 |
Names that Kirrweiler has borne over time areKirwilre (1259),Kylwilre (1319),Kylenwilre (1324),Kyrweiler (1367),Kirwilre (1411) andKerwiller (about 1500). Even today, the dialectal form of the name isKerrwiller. Places with names ending in—weiler, which as a standalone word means "hamlet" (originally "homestead"), might theoretically have been settled as early as the time when theFranks took over the land by way of the oldRoman roads. That would seem to be the case here, as an old road that runs by Kirrweiler is still described as theRömerstraße ("Roman road"). What is likelier, though, is that even Kirrweiler is one of the later settlements with names ending in—weiler that were founded on into the 12th century. One attempt to explain the village's name, with its prefixKirr—, is that it came fromkirichvilare, meaning a hamlet at achurch (Kirche inGerman). It is indeed quite likely that a church once stood in Kirrweiler. After all, a 1746 Grumbach court protocol dealt with a meadow that lay "behind the church", and to this day there is a part of the village called "an der Kirche" ("at the Church"). The village may have sprung up around the church. Researcher Otto Karsch, nevertheless, held the view that the village's name did not go back to the church, but rather thatkar orkir was a word meaning "membership in a kindred group" or "kin". Thus, Kirrweiler might have been a family-group settlement. Furthermore, according to Karsch, the name already existed when the church was built, that is, the village arose first, and then later the church, and therefore, the name has nothing to do with the church.[12][13]
Kirrweiler might have arisen in theEarly Middle Ages at a church, which would have been the hub of a parish. This arrangement, however, changed. The parish's hub was laterHerren-Sulzbach. The village belonged to theDiocese of Mainz. With the introduction of theReformation into the Waldgravial-Rhinegravial House of Grumbach, theProtestant parish of Herren-Sulzbach was founded in 1556. Then, as now, the village of Kirrweiler belonged to it. Until theThirty Years' War, all the villagers were Protestant. Later, other denominations were tolerated, although none ever earned any special significance. To this day, the overwhelming majority isEvangelical.[14]
The council is made up of 6 council members, who were elected bymajority vote at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.[15]
Kirrweiler's mayor is Ralf Schuster.[1]
The municipality'sarms might be described thus: Per bend sinister Or a lion rampant sinister gules armed and langued azure and sable an oak sprig palewise couped foiled of two and fructed of one of the first.
Thecharge on the dexter (armsbearer's right, viewer's left) side is a reference to the village's former allegiance to the Waldgraviate-Rhinegraviate. The charge on the sinister (armsbearer's left, viewer's right) side, the oak sprig, refers to theKreuz- und Elendseiche ("Cross and Wretchedness Oak") that once stood near Kirrweiler. The arms have been borne since 1964 when they were approved by theRhineland-Palatinate Ministry of the Interior.[16]
Kirrweiler fosters partnerships with the following places
Kirrweiler,Südliche Weinstraße,Rhineland-Palatinate
Kirrwiller,Bas-Rhin,FranceKirviller,Moselle, FranceAll partnerships have existed since 1975.
The following are listed buildings or sites inRhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[17]
Kirrweiler’skermis (church consecration festival) is held on the second weekend in September. Regularly held even now is also theKirrweilertreffen ("Kirrweiler Meeting") at which people from this Kirrweiler,the one near Landau andthe one in Alsace (all called "Kirrweiler" inGerman). Old customs such as were once kept in all villages in theGlan area are today hardly ever observed.[18]
Until a short time ago, Kirrweiler had a singing club (founded in 1883), a countrywomen's club (founded in 1977), anSPD local chapter (founded in 1987) and a youth club (founded in 1995). Of these, only the countrywomen's club remains.[19]
In the time after theSecond World War, the number of farms shrank markedly, and those that were left thereby became bigger. Farms run as primary businesses became secondary businesses. In very recent years, farms have been being given up one by one. Kirrweiler now has a business thatrecycles paper.[20]
As in the other villages in theAmt of Grumbach, in Kirrweiler in the late 16th century, owing to changes wrought by theReformation, efforts arose to teach children toread and write. People were to be put in a position to be able to read theBible for themselves, thereby raising the general level of education. Attendance was at first voluntary, and school was offered in the parish seat ofHerren-Sulzbach. It is likely that regular schooling in Kirrweiler itself only began in the earlier half of the 18th century. The year 1748 borne by the former bell of the school at Kirrweiler leads to the conclusion that about then, school was being taught. Since the village had its own parish hall, this would also have been used as the school. There was not very much room in the house. An 1816 description of the building reads: "The house was built and is maintained by the municipality, has two floors, downstairs lives the field watchman, upstairs the schoolteacher, has a parlour that is spacious, in which however he must hold classes (number of pupils 30) and at the same time live with his family." Beginning in 1817, Kirrweiler had school the year round. Hitherto, classes had only been held in the winter. In 1841-1842, a newone-room schoolhouse was built, which was used as such until 1968. This schoolhouse also housed a bigger dwelling for the teacher. The building has since passed into private ownership. The last schoolteacher in Kirrweiler was Theo Menke. Beginning in 1968, theprimary school pupils at first attended the primary school inOffenbach and theHauptschule students attended theHauptschule Offenbach-St. Julian. There were also later changes. The primary school pupils were taught inSankt Julian and the Hauptschule students at theHauptschule Lauterecken, although for a while, a few classes were housed at the Offenbach schoolhouse. Given over to the teachers’ families who made their home in Kirrweiler over 200 years is a sizeable section in the bookSalisso (writers Karl Theodor Grashof and Albrecht Guischard; published inCologne in 2000), about the parish of Herren-Sulzbach. There were opportunities forvocational training at one time Offenbach andIdar-Oberstein. Young farmers could attend agricultural schools inMeisenheim andBaumholder, and after regional reform in 1968, inKusel, too. Vocational training is now handled by vocational schools in Kusel.Gymnasien can be found in Lauterecken, Meisenheim and Kusel.[21]
Kirrweiler lies onLandesstraße 373, which leads fromBundesstraße 420, running to the south of Kirrweiler, from a point nearGlanbrücken across the upland at the side of theGlan toBundesstraße 270 nearLangweiler. The nearestAutobahninterchange is some 20 km away nearKusel.Lauterecken-Grumbach station, 7 km away, is on theLauter Valley Railway (Lautertalbahn), andAltenglan station, 12 km away, is on theLandstuhl–Kusel railway. Formerly,Offenbach andNiedereisenbach stations each lay only about 3 km away from Kirrweiler, but these are now closed.[22]
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