Krottelbach

Krottelbach
Municipality
Coat of arms
Location of Krottelbach within Kusel district
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Kusel
Municipal assoc.	Glan-Münchweiler
Government
• Mayor	Karlheinz Finkbohner (SPD)
Area
• Total	5.56 km2 (2.15 sq mi)
Elevation	260 m (850 ft)
Population  (2022-12-31)
• Total	646
• Density	120/km2 (300/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	66909
Dialling codes	06386
Vehicle registration	KUS
Website	www.krottelbach.de

Krottelbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Glan-Münchweiler, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.

Geography

Location

The municipality lies in the Western Palatinate near the state boundary with the Saarland. Krottelbach lies on the upper reaches of its namesake brook, the Krottelbach, which rises in the woods west of the village. Several tributary brooks flow from side valleys, forming a radial pattern and emptying into the Krottelbach within the municipality. Almost all these surrounding side valleys are settled, giving the village a somewhat star-shaped built-up area. The lowest houses in Krottelbach stand roughly 270 m above sea level, whereas higher locations reach 280 m. The valley slopes are steep, and in the west reach an elevation of 445 m above sea level at the Kaiserberg.

Neighbouring municipalities

Krottelbach borders in the north and east on the municipality of Herschweiler-Pettersheim, in the southeast on the municipality of Ohmbach, in the southwest on the municipality of Frohnhofen, in the west on the town of Sankt Wendel (Saarland) and in the northwest on the municipality of Langenbach. Krottelbach also meets the municipality of Altenkirchen at a single point in the south.

History

Antiquity

The local area was settled in prehistoric times, as witnessed by the many barrows, mainly in neighbouring municipalities. This is also true of the Gallo-Roman epoch, which also left its traces behind. An extensive Gallo-Roman settlement spread out just across the state boundary in the Heidenbösch in Bubach, an outlying centre of the town of Sankt Wendel.

Middle Ages

Krottelbach lay in the so-called Remigiusland around Kusel. This statement, however, is subject to certain qualifications. When the Remigiusland was donated by a Frankish king in the 5th century to the Bishopric of Reims, the churches in Osterna (Niederkirchen, now an outlying centre of Sankt Wendel) and Ouenbach (Ohmbach) with Krottelbach did not belong to it. Rather, these two parishes remained first Imperial domain and only later, at an unknown time, were they given by a Frankish king as a donation to the Archbishopric of Mainz.

In 976, Archbishop of Mainz Willigis (975-1011) brought about the refounding of the Disibodenberg Monastery, which then stood as the hub of archiepiscopal holdings in the lands on the Rhine’s left bank. To bring home this monastery’s special status, Willigis bequeathed it extensive holdings in the surrounding area, among them the two parishes mentioned above, which were transferred out of the bishopric’s belongings. The original document listing these bequests has not survived. The contents are known, however, from documents issued by Archbishops Ruthard (1108) and Adalbert (1128).

That Osterna and Ohmbach were later still counted as part of the Remigiusland may have owed itself to further historical development. In 1127, Count Gerlach I from the Nahegau founded the County of Veldenz and became Schutzvogt (a lay church official charged with looking after church properties) over various ecclesiastical lordly domains of Mainz, Worms, Verdun and Reims. The result was that the Remigiusland around Kusel and the domains held by the Archbishopric of Mainz in the Ostertal (valley) and on the Ohmbach (river), which lay right next to it, were jointly administered. Thus, no longer was there any distinction between the actual Remigiusland and the domains held by the Archbishopric of Mainz.

Moreover, in the late 12th century, the Disibodenberg Monastery began to decline, leading by the mid 13th century to the Benedictine convent’s dissolution. The monastery’s holdings in the Ostertal and on the Ohmbach were sold to the Counts of Veldenz. Ohmbach, along with the other places in the parish thus passed in 1256 into Count Gerlach V’s ownership; he later bequeathed the two parishes in his will to the Werschweiler Monastery in 1258. This bequest was soon fulfilled: After taking part in a delegation to Spain, which offered King Alfonso X of Castile the German crown, Gerlach died, possibly in 1259, and the two parishes found their way into the Monastery’s hands. Less than 200 years later, the Werschweiler Monastery was dissolved in the Reformation, and the holding passed to the Counts Palatine of Zweibrücken, whose rule had begun in 1444.

Within these none too fathomable development phases arose Krottelbach, but only during the 14th century, according to author Fritz Kleinschmidt’s theory, at the forks of various brooks, and as a branch settlement of the Cheiz Estate, and thus after Count Gerlach V’s 1258 bequest. The village’s name appears for the first time in a 1355 boundary description, in which the Imperial domain’s original boundary was transcribed. The relevant part reads:

…weiter durch das Dorf Ohmbach hinauf bis zu dem Steine, an dem sich die Krottelbacher und die Altenkirchener Hube scheiden…
(…farther through the village of Ohmbach up to the stone at which the Krottelbach and Altenkirchen Huben are divided from each other…)

Modern times

Krottelbach shared history in early modern times with the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken up until it was brought to an end by the French Revolution. In 1575, a man named Hans Müller zu Croftelbach (that is, Krottelbach), was named as the Schultheiß in Pettersheim. He is the forefather of several houses of Schultheißen. At this time, the Krottelbach formed the boundary between the parishes of Ohmbach and Konken. This has caused some difficulty in ascertaining what the village’s population was then, for in the so-called Konker Protokollen, the 12 hearths (for this, read “households”) with 65 inhabitants listed for Krottelbach were actually only the ones on the north side of the brook, in the parish of Konken. Corresponding statistics for the part of the village on the south bank are not available.

Like all villages in the region around Kusel, Krottelbach suffered under the twin blows of the Plague and the Thirty Years' War. After that war, there were for a while only four people living in the village. The Schultheiß family, too, survived; they had sought refuge during the onslaught at Castle Lichtenberg. In the years after the war, these families brought the greater part of the land under their ownership. There were newcomers, too, but more lives were lost towards the end of the 17th century in King Louis XIV’s wars. Only in the 18th century did the population steadily rise.

The French Revolution put an end to the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken. France annexed the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank. Krottelbach now found itself in the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Konken, the canton of Kusel, the arrondissement of Birkenfeld and the Department of Sarre. After Napoleonic times, beginning in 1816, Krottelbach was in Bavaria’s Rheinkreis in the Landkommissariat (later Bezirksamt; later still district) of Kusel and the canton of Kusel, as well as the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Konken. This administrative structure was to last up to administrative and territorial reform in 1968. Since 1972, Krottelbach has belonged as a self-administering Ortsgemeinde to the Verbandsgemeinde of Glan-Münchweiler.

Towards the end of Weimar times, the Nazis’ popularity grew steadily. Indeed, the last row in this table of Reichstag election results shows results for an election after Adolf Hitler seized power. Even so, the Nazis were apparently still not quite as popular locally as the Communists (KPD). By the following year, though, the Nazis had dispensed with elections and banned their archrival, the Communist Party of Germany.

	SPD	KPD	DVP	NSDAP	Bauern
1924 (May)	37.9	15.4	54.6	—	—
1928 (May)	15.0	49.2	2.1	4.8	25.7
1930 (September)	10.3	19.5	1.1	35.1	3.8
1933 (March)	3.6	45.7	—	44.3	—

Vanished villages

In the Krottelbach area once lay two other villages, Bontweiler and Reisweiler, which vanished in the Middle Ages. Bontweiler was mentioned in 1460 as Bontwillr and again in 1462 as Bontweiler in the Remigiusberg Monastery’s taxation rolls. The name refers to a settler named Bondo (Weiler means hamlet in German). The name nowadays only appears in rural cadastral names (Bodweilerweg, Bodenweiler Garten). Reisweiler was obviously of greater importance. Its name refers to another settler named Riso. In 1292, a man named Baldemarus von Resvilre was mentioned, a lesser nobleman. All that remained of the village’s name up until the 19th century, after the village was forsaken – which happened even before the Thirty Years' War – was the name Reisweiler Mühle, a mill on the Ohmbach within Krottelbach’s limits, now known as the Reismühle. In a few reports, an estate called Cheiz, which was mentioned in 1238 in a document from the Wörschweiler Monastery, is named as the origin of the village of Krottelbach. By this theory, the name Kaiserberg (mountain) also goes back to this estate. The name appears in a 1233 document from the Werschweiler Monastery, according to which a Count Heinrich von Castel and his wife Agnese transferred their estate of Cheiz near Ovenbach (Ohmbach) to the Werschweiler Monastery.

Name

Krottelbach’s name is taken to mean the settlement on the like-named brook, which goes back to the Germanic word Kruftala, and from the beginning has meant “Toadbrook” (this would be Krötenbach in German). Nevertheless, writer Ernst Christmann tried to trace the name back to a crypt (Gruft in German) or a cave (Höhle). In the 1355 document that first mentions Krottelbach, the village is called Crofftelbach, in which the Germanic root can still clearly be recognized, whereas in the centuries that followed, the double F disappeared. In 1458, the name appeared as Kroftelbach and at the same time Krotelbach. Later, other forms cropped up, among others: Crafftelbach (1505), Krottelbach (1565 and 1824) and Grottelbach (1731).

Religious history

Krottelbach belonged from its founding to the village church in Ohmbach, which Count Gerlach V of Veldenz had bequeathed to the Werschweiler Monastery in 1258. During the Reformation, the monastery was dissolved, whereafter some of the now Lutheran villagers still belonged to the parish of Ohmbach, while others belonged to the parish of Konken. In 1588, on Count Palatine Johannes I’s orders, the villagers converted to John Calvin’s Reformed teachings. After the Thirty Years’ War, there was supposedly freedom of religion, but on into the 19th century, the inhabitants of Krottelbach remained solidly Reformed, a faith that united with the Lutherans in 1817 in the Protestant Union. Meanwhile, the whole village once again belonged to the parish of Ohmbach. In 1954, the new parish of Herschweiler-Pettersheim was founded within the Deaconry of Kusel, and grouped into this were also Ohmbach, Krottelbach and Langenbach. The village’s Catholic minority nowadays belongs to the church at Brücken. There are also small numbers of people in Krottelbach who are adherents of other faiths, or profess none.

Politics

Municipal council

The council is made up of 12 council members, who were elected by proportional representation at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.

The municipal election held on 7 June 2009 yielded the following results:

	SPD	WGr	GFK	Total
2009	2	5	5	12 seats

“WGr” and “GFK” are voters’ groups.

Mayor

Krottelbach’s mayor is Karlheinz Finkbohner (SPD), and his deputies are Thomas Schramm (GFK) and Thomas Schneider (GFK).

Coat of arms

The municipality’s arms might be described thus: Argent on ground vert an ox passant guardant gules horned and unguled Or.

Culture and sightseeing

Buildings

The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:

• Friedhofstraße 7 – Quereinhaus (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street), essentially from the 18th century, separate vaulted cellar

Regular events

• Kappensitzungen – stage shows held at Carnival (known locally as Fasching) on the two Saturdays before Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday at the sport club house
• Rosenmontagsumzug – a Carnival parade on Shrove Monday
• Feuerwehrfest – fire brigade festival
• Dorffest – village festival held on the third weekend in August
• Kermis – church consecration festival, locally known as the Kerwe, held on the last weekend in October
• Martinsumzug – a parade
• Sportfest

Sport and leisure

In the nearby woods are seven marked hiking trails.

Economy and infrastructure

Krottelbach has a village community centre, and also a hiking clubhouse called Zum Hohen Fels (“At the High Crag”). This stands somewhat outside the village in the woods and is connected to the hiking trails.

Transport

To the northeast runs the Autobahn A 62 (Kaiserslautern–Trier). Serving Glan-Münchweiler is a railway station on the Glantalbahn.

External links

• Municipality’s official webpage Template:De icon