Dickesbach
Encyclopedia
Dickesbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality
belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde
, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld
district
in Rhineland-Palatinate
, Germany
. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein
, whose seat is in the like-named municipality
.
, in the east on Mittelreidenbach
, in the south on the Baumholder
troop drilling ground and in the west on Idar-Oberstein
.
between Dickesbach and Mittelreidenbach are of Celtic origin and suggest that people were already living in the area sometime between 1100 and 400 BC. According to one report, hewn stones were brought to light while plough
ing was being done in Dickesbach about 1900. These were reckoned to have been used as channelling. At the site of this find, the Scheed (or Scheide), lying between Weierbach (nowadays an outlying centre of Idar-Oberstein) and what is now Dickesbach, it is believed that a settlement of some kind once stood, and that today’s Dickesbach arose only after this old settlement had vanished.
In 1367, Dickesbach had its first documentary mention in a document that contained a list of contributions that the villages of Berschweiler
, Dickesbach, Mittelreidenbach, Mörschied
, Niederhosenbach
, Niederwörresbach
and Oberreidenbach
in the Pflege (literally “care”, but actually a local geopolitical unit) of Niederwörresbach had to make to the Vogtei
– in chicken
s. Dickesbach was in the County of Zweibrücken
in those days. There are, however, doubts as to whether this was truly the village’s first documentary mention. Among others contributing to these doubts was the Gutsvorsteher (head of a Gutsbezirk, or “estate area”) Alfons Hartmann, who wrote in his book Ergänzung der Chronik des Gutsbezirk Baumholder mit den Chroniken der ehemaligen Einzelgehöfte und Mühlen (roughly “Supplement to the Estate Area’s Chronicle With Those From the Former Smallholds and Mills”) – on page 31 – that Dickesbach had already been named as a municipality belonging to the parish of Kirchenbollenbach as early as the 13th century. It could even be that Dickesbach’s first documentary mention came about 200 years earlier than the mention in the chicken tax document, a copy of which is on hand in the municipality of Dickesbach.
In 1526, the parish of Kirchenbollenbach, in which Dickesbach lay, belonged to Duke Ludwig II of Palatinate-Zweibrücken
(reigned 1514-1532), and he yielded that same year to the parish’s and the municipalities’ wish to make the parish of Kirchenbollenbach Evangelical
. In 1557, Duke Wolfgang, Ludwig II’s son, decreed a church system for his country, based on the 1555 Peace of Augsburg
, which saw the parish of Kirchenbollenbach become Lutheran
.
In 1595, the parish of Kirchenbollenbach came under the lordship of the Waldgrave
s and Rhinegraves of Kyrburg, who, after the Peace of Augsburg, had openly joined the Protestant
camp.
By 1681, French
King Louis XIV
had annexed
the Amt of Kyrburg and occupied Kirn
by reason of a ruling by his Chambre des Réunions. The French supported their fellow Catholics in whatever way they could, which eventually led to a Royal order on 21 December 1684, whereby any centre that had two churches had to relinquish the smaller one to the Catholics. However, any centre that had only one church had to share it between the two denominations
.
The patchwork of microstate
s that characterized what is now Germany up until the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War
was particularly fragmenting in the Dickesbach area and resulted in an absurd tangle of boundaries. This sometimes led to rather ridiculous disputes, a case in point being the dispute over the Idarbann, quite a small piece of territory, that erupted in 1766 when the Lord of Oberstein, Count Christian Karl Reinhard, died. The Amtmann
of Birkenfeld, named Fabert, occupied the bridge over the Idarbach with some 400 armed peasants and militia
men. The Saarbrücken Kammerrat advanced with 80 soldiers and the Commissioner of Trier with 90. The whole business was occasioned by Forester Görlitz’s sticking letters patent
of seizure by the Lordship of Nassau-Saarbrücken on Peter Georg Juchem’s house in Idar. In response, Fabert and the court Schöffe (roughly “lay jurist”) Trein hurried there to tear the letters patent off Juchem’s house and there hang the Sponheim
coat of arms
instead.
In early November 1803, Schinderhannes
and his band of brigands were put to death in Mainz
. One of these was a man from Dickesbach, a field ranger named Philipp Klein, nicknamed Husarenphilipp (“Hussar Philipp”). The great trial against Johannes Bückler (Schinderhannes) and his confederates in robbery
had ended that month in death sentences, by guillotine
, for this was Napoleonic times and the region was under French rule, for 19 of the band’s robbers besides Bückler himself. After the sentences were read out, the court reporter in Mainz wrote the following: “When the accused were given refreshments, at which time Bückler behaved extremely calmly, the so-called Husarenphilipp took his breakfast with a coldness, as though nothing concerned him.”
This seemingly hard-bitten man, Phillip Klein, was born in Wickenrodt
and was employed in Dickesbach as a field ranger. He became involved with Johannes Bückler (Schinderhannes), and even worked to wive him. Julie Bläsius (known by the nickname “Julchen”) told the trial judge this story: “A man from Dickesbach, whose name I do not know, came to my birthplace. He met me with my sister Margarethe at the Jakob Fritsch inn. He told me and my sister Margarethe to come with him into the forest, called Dollbach (Dollberg), which lies only a quarter hour from our village, as there would be somebody there who wanted to talk to us, but without telling us his name or the object of his invitation. Although I did not want to betake myself there on this vain suggestion, the man from Dickesbach managed to talk me into going with him. My sister Margarethe went with us. When I came into the forest, I met a handsome young person there, who suggested to me that I leave my parents and follow him. Since I did not want to accept his suggestion, the many lovely promises that he was incessantly making to me notwithstanding, he threatened to kill me and in this way, I was persuaded by violence to follow this stranger. Only much later, when I was also already too far from my parents, did I learn that the man who kidnapped me was the so-called Schinderhannes.”
In 1815, at the time of the Congress of Vienna
, the village had 151 inhabitants. In 1838, the local land register was set up. The village itself had 36 houses. In 1839, there were 42 building owners. The first schoolhouse was built in 1840.
In 1847, the Evangelical
school
at Dickesbach received from His Royal Majesty King Frederick William IV of Prussia
a gift of a Bible
, which is now owned by the Ortsgemeinde.
The graveyard was laid out in 1850. Formerly, the dead had been buried in nearby villages according to denomination: Evangelicals in Kirchenbollenbach (now part of Idar-Oberstein) and Catholics in Mittelreidenbach, since burials could only take place on consecrated ground. Outside the graveyard as it is now, behind the sandstone
cross, was the Catholic section, and before the cross was the Evangelical section. Later, on the former, now removed, Catholic section, a weeping willow was planted, which can still be seen today.
In 1856, a typhus
epidemic claimed 27 lives. On 15 July 1858, the Bingerbrück-Kreuznach railway line came into service, with the extension from Kreuznach to Oberstein following on 15 December 1859. Also that year, several houses in Dickesbach were burnt down in a great fire. On 25 May 1860, the whole railway from the Rhine to the Saar was dedicated.
In 1871, at the time of victory in the Franco-Prussian War
, Dickesbach had 209 inhabitants. In 1892, Hahne Wilhelm opened the village’s first village shop
, but the following year, it burnt down. In 1895, the village hall on Oberdorfstraße was built.
On 15 December 1896, church arrangements in the parish were settled. The simultaneum
at the church in Kirchenbollenbach came to an end with a 13,000-mark payment that transferred ownership to the Protestants alone. In 1898, Wilhelm Hahn opened the village’s first inn. By the end of the 19th century, electricity
was making its presence felt throughout the Nahe region. In 1903, however, the reeve (Ortsvorsteher) refused a proposal to build waterworks. In 1907, the first telephone
line reached Dickesbach, with the first telephone being installed at Julius Jakobi’s house.
That same year, a compulsory fire brigade was established (as of 1953, this became a volunteer fire brigade). In politics, the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Sien was dissolved on 1 December and Dickesbach was grouped with Weierbach.
In 1910, at Whitsun
, the road to Weierbach was opened. It had cost 34,500 marks to build. Until this opening, traffic had had to take a rough road that led along the foot of the Dollberg. In 1915, a road to Zaubach (nowadays an outlying centre of Birkenfeld
) was built as well.
Also in 1914 came the outbreak of hostilities in the First World War.
On the morning of 16 January 1918, between Hochstetten
and Martinstein
, shortly before the fork in the road leading into the Kellenbach valley, furlough
train 843 from Saarbrücken
, bound for Mainz, fully occupied by German soldiers, derailed
. Thirty-four dead were recovered from the river Nahe, and of a further nine, no trace could be found. The cause was determined to have been track that had been undermined by heavy rainfall.
In all, the First World War claimed 13 Dickesbach men’s lives, with some known to have been killed in action, and others to have gone missing in action
.
In 1920, the Restkreis of St. Wendel was formed with its seat at Baumholder. A Restkreis was a “leftover district”, so called when the French-ruled Saarland was established and its border cut through long-established districts. The part left within the zone of German sovereignty was then reconstituted as a Restkreis. Dickesbach was grouped into the Restkreis of St. Wendel.
On 29 December 1922, electric light
burnt for the first time in Dickesbach, and candlelight, at least as an everyday means of lighting, was consigned to history.
In 1923 came the hyperinflation for which the Weimar Republic
was so notorious. It had ended by November that same year, but not before a US dollar
could be bought for nothing less than 1,000,000,000,000 marks.
In 1927, Dickesbach had 268 inhabitants, 224 Evangelical and 44 Catholic. The municipal area measured 418 ha, of which 160 ha was wooded; the municipality owned 149 ha of these woodlands.
In Niederhausen
, the electrical substation
came into service in 1927, linking the whole Nahe region to the RWE
grid and the great coal
-fired power station
s. Gas lanterns
and kerosene lamp
s were thus also consigned to history.
It was not until 17 April 1929 that work finished on the new waterworks, 26 years after the reeve had refused the original proposal. Until this time, water had had to be drawn from well
s.
On 13 August 1938, in the time of the Third Reich
, the first building firms came. On the heights, 11 Siegfried Line
bunkers were built. On both sides of Oberdorfstraße, buildings went up: two buildings to lodge non-commissioned officer
s, and a Flakhalle – literally “anti-aircraft
hall” – with personnel
rooms. As part of these measures, a new drainage ditch reinforced with quarrystones was built along the road, and the road itself was also fortified. Dickesbach thus became a community on the edge of the newly laid out Baumholder
troop drilling ground. In 1939, the municipality had 256 inhabitants.
An army field hospital
was set up at the nearby Niederreidenbacher Hof in 1939. In 1940, Wehrmacht
personnel were quartered at the Schwenk inn. That same year, an incendiary bomb attack on the Colony Building at the Niederreidenbacher Hof claimed 63 lives.
On 8 May 1945, Field Marshal
Wilhelm Keitel
signed the surrender
document at Karlshorst
, ending the war in Europe
.
In all, the Second World War claimed 25 Dickesbach men’s lives, with some known to have been killed in action, and others to have gone missing in action.
By war’s end, the number of houses in the village was 53 and by 1950 the village’s population was 321. That same year, the first new building development zone (Schulstraße) was opened. In 1953, the volunteer fire brigade was established, and two years later, the brigade’s equipment house was built.
In 1956, the municipality acquired from a citizen, Anna Hahn, a building lot to make more room for building a new school
building. It cost 1,300 marks. Also that year, during Flurbereinigung
, the municipality made available some municipal land for widening the road to Zaubach. Some cropland in outlying areas that was no longer cultivated was allowed to revert to woodland. In June 1956, a survey was done in preparation for the establishment of outlying farmsteads (Aussiedlerhöfe). The municipality gave the farmstead group 23 ha of land at a price of 1,000 marks for each hectare to set up the Sonnhöfe (actually one homestead, even though the name is grammatically plural). Some woods had to be cleared to make way for cropfields.
On 22 December 1956, municipal council decided to build a new schoolhouse in line with planning by the Birkenfeld Building Office because the older building, and the teacher’s house, too, had fallen into such disrepair.
In 1958, the monument to the fallen and missing in both world wars was festively dedicated on Whitsun
day. Also in 1958, the first tractor
bought by a local farmer appeared in the municipality. It was owned by Heinrich Jakobi.
at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.
might be described thus: Per bend gules three lozenges conjoined in bend argent, each charged with a roundle sable, and Or a lion rampant of the first armed and langued azure.
The charge
on the sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side is the lion from the arms formerly borne by the Waldgrave
s and Rhinegraves, who once held the village. The lozenges (diamond shapes) on the dexter (armsbearer’s right, viewer’s left) side recall another former feudal lordship, namely the Lords of Boos. The black roundles are likewise a reference to a former allegiance, this one to the Lords of Sickingen.
The arms have been borne since 27 April 1964.
41, and to the east Bundesstraße 270. Nearby Fischbach
has a station on the Nahe Valley Railway (Bingen
–Saarbrücken
).
Municipalities of Germany
Municipalities are the lowest level of territorial division in Germany. This may be the fourth level of territorial division in Germany, apart from those states which include Regierungsbezirke , where municipalities then become the fifth level.-Overview:With more than 3,400,000 inhabitants, the...
belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde
Verbandsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde is an administrative unit in the German Bundesländer of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt.-Rhineland-Palatinate:...
, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld
Birkenfeld (district)
Birkenfeld is a district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Sankt Wendel , Trier-Saarburg, Bernkastel-Wittlich, Rhein-Hunsrück, Bad Kreuznach and Kusel.- History :...
district
Districts of Germany
The districts of Germany are known as , except in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein where they are known simply as ....
in Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein
Herrstein (Verbandsgemeinde)
Herrstein is a Verbandsgemeinde in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The seat of the Verbandsgemeinde is in Herrstein....
, whose seat is in the like-named municipality
Herrstein
Herrstein is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
.
Neighbouring municipalities
Dickesbach borders in the north on FischbachFischbach, Birkenfeld
Fischbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
, in the east on Mittelreidenbach
Mittelreidenbach
Mittelreidenbach is a municipality in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....
, in the south on the Baumholder
Baumholder
Baumholder is a town in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, in the Westrich, an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France...
troop drilling ground and in the west on Idar-Oberstein
Idar-Oberstein
Idar-Oberstein is a town in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. As a Große kreisangehörige Stadt , it assumes some of the responsibilities that for smaller municipalities in the district are assumed by the district administration...
.
Constituent communities
Also belonging to Dickesbach are the outlying homesteads of Katzenrech and Sonnenhöfe.History
BarrowsTumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
between Dickesbach and Mittelreidenbach are of Celtic origin and suggest that people were already living in the area sometime between 1100 and 400 BC. According to one report, hewn stones were brought to light while plough
Plough
The plough or plow is a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances in agriculture...
ing was being done in Dickesbach about 1900. These were reckoned to have been used as channelling. At the site of this find, the Scheed (or Scheide), lying between Weierbach (nowadays an outlying centre of Idar-Oberstein) and what is now Dickesbach, it is believed that a settlement of some kind once stood, and that today’s Dickesbach arose only after this old settlement had vanished.
In 1367, Dickesbach had its first documentary mention in a document that contained a list of contributions that the villages of Berschweiler
Berschweiler bei Kirn
Berschweiler bei Kirn is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein, whose seat is in the like-named municipality. Berschweiler bei...
, Dickesbach, Mittelreidenbach, Mörschied
Mörschied
Mörschied is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.-Location:The municipality...
, Niederhosenbach
Niederhosenbach
Niederhosenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.-Location:The...
, Niederwörresbach
Niederwörresbach
Niederwörresbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.Niederwörresbach was...
and Oberreidenbach
Oberreidenbach
Oberreidenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
in the Pflege (literally “care”, but actually a local geopolitical unit) of Niederwörresbach had to make to the Vogtei
Vogt
A Vogt ; plural Vögte; Dutch voogd; Danish foged; ; ultimately from Latin [ad]vocatus) in the Holy Roman Empire was the German title of a reeve or advocate, an overlord exerting guardianship or military protection as well as secular justice...
– in chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
s. Dickesbach was in the County of Zweibrücken
County of Zweibrücken
The County of Zweibrücken was a territory in the Holy Roman Empire named for Zweibrücken in the contemporary Land Rhineland-Palatinate...
in those days. There are, however, doubts as to whether this was truly the village’s first documentary mention. Among others contributing to these doubts was the Gutsvorsteher (head of a Gutsbezirk, or “estate area”) Alfons Hartmann, who wrote in his book Ergänzung der Chronik des Gutsbezirk Baumholder mit den Chroniken der ehemaligen Einzelgehöfte und Mühlen (roughly “Supplement to the Estate Area’s Chronicle With Those From the Former Smallholds and Mills”) – on page 31 – that Dickesbach had already been named as a municipality belonging to the parish of Kirchenbollenbach as early as the 13th century. It could even be that Dickesbach’s first documentary mention came about 200 years earlier than the mention in the chicken tax document, a copy of which is on hand in the municipality of Dickesbach.
In 1526, the parish of Kirchenbollenbach, in which Dickesbach lay, belonged to Duke Ludwig II of Palatinate-Zweibrücken
Louis II, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken
Louis II of Zweibrücken was Count Palatine and Duke of Zweibrücken from 1514 to 1532.He was the son of Alexander, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken and his wife Margarete of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein. He was married in 1525 to Elisabeth of Hesse, daughter of William I, Landgrave of Lower Hesse, and they...
(reigned 1514-1532), and he yielded that same year to the parish’s and the municipalities’ wish to make the parish of Kirchenbollenbach Evangelical
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
. In 1557, Duke Wolfgang, Ludwig II’s son, decreed a church system for his country, based on the 1555 Peace of Augsburg
Peace of Augsburg
The Peace of Augsburg, also called the Augsburg Settlement, was a treaty between Charles V and the forces of the Schmalkaldic League, an alliance of Lutheran princes, on September 25, 1555, at the imperial city of Augsburg, now in present-day Bavaria, Germany.It officially ended the religious...
, which saw the parish of Kirchenbollenbach become Lutheran
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
.
In 1595, the parish of Kirchenbollenbach came under the lordship of the Waldgrave
Waldgrave
The noble family of the Waldgraves or Wildgraves descended of a division of the House of the Counts of Nahegau in the year 1113....
s and Rhinegraves of Kyrburg, who, after the Peace of Augsburg, had openly joined the Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
camp.
By 1681, French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
King Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
had annexed
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
the Amt of Kyrburg and occupied Kirn
Kirn
Kirn is a town in the district of Bad Kreuznach, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the river Nahe, roughly 10 km north-east of Idar-Oberstein and 30 km west of Bad Kreuznach....
by reason of a ruling by his Chambre des Réunions. The French supported their fellow Catholics in whatever way they could, which eventually led to a Royal order on 21 December 1684, whereby any centre that had two churches had to relinquish the smaller one to the Catholics. However, any centre that had only one church had to share it between the two denominations
Simultaneum
A shared church, or Simultankirche, Simultaneum or, more fully, simultaneum mixtum, a term first coined in 16th century Germany, is a church in which public worship is conducted by adherents of two or more religious groups. Such churches became common in Europe in the wake of the Reformation...
.
The patchwork of microstate
Microstate
A microstate or ministate is a sovereign state having a very small population or very small land area, but usually both. Some examples include Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Nauru, Singapore, and Vatican City....
s that characterized what is now Germany up until the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
was particularly fragmenting in the Dickesbach area and resulted in an absurd tangle of boundaries. This sometimes led to rather ridiculous disputes, a case in point being the dispute over the Idarbann, quite a small piece of territory, that erupted in 1766 when the Lord of Oberstein, Count Christian Karl Reinhard, died. The Amtmann
Amtmann
Amtmann can be :*a feudal, administrative and/or gubernatorial title, such as Bezirksamtmann . Amtmann, ammann and amman were a kind of bailiff in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and in Brussels....
of Birkenfeld, named Fabert, occupied the bridge over the Idarbach with some 400 armed peasants and militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
men. The Saarbrücken Kammerrat advanced with 80 soldiers and the Commissioner of Trier with 90. The whole business was occasioned by Forester Görlitz’s sticking letters patent
Letters patent
Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...
of seizure by the Lordship of Nassau-Saarbrücken on Peter Georg Juchem’s house in Idar. In response, Fabert and the court Schöffe (roughly “lay jurist”) Trein hurried there to tear the letters patent off Juchem’s house and there hang the Sponheim
County of Sponheim
The County of Sponheim was an independent territory in the Holy Roman Empire which lasted from the 11th century until the early 19th century...
coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
instead.
In early November 1803, Schinderhannes
Schinderhannes
Johannes Bückler , nicknamed Schinderhannes, was a German outlaw who orchestrated one of the most fascinating crime sprees in German history. He was born at Miehlen, the son of Johann and Anna Maria Bückler. He began an apprenticeship to a tanner, but turned to petty theft. At 16 he was arrested...
and his band of brigands were put to death in Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
. One of these was a man from Dickesbach, a field ranger named Philipp Klein, nicknamed Husarenphilipp (“Hussar Philipp”). The great trial against Johannes Bückler (Schinderhannes) and his confederates in robbery
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
had ended that month in death sentences, by guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
, for this was Napoleonic times and the region was under French rule, for 19 of the band’s robbers besides Bückler himself. After the sentences were read out, the court reporter in Mainz wrote the following: “When the accused were given refreshments, at which time Bückler behaved extremely calmly, the so-called Husarenphilipp took his breakfast with a coldness, as though nothing concerned him.”
This seemingly hard-bitten man, Phillip Klein, was born in Wickenrodt
Wickenrodt
Wickenrodt is a municipality in the district of Birkenfeld, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....
and was employed in Dickesbach as a field ranger. He became involved with Johannes Bückler (Schinderhannes), and even worked to wive him. Julie Bläsius (known by the nickname “Julchen”) told the trial judge this story: “A man from Dickesbach, whose name I do not know, came to my birthplace. He met me with my sister Margarethe at the Jakob Fritsch inn. He told me and my sister Margarethe to come with him into the forest, called Dollbach (Dollberg), which lies only a quarter hour from our village, as there would be somebody there who wanted to talk to us, but without telling us his name or the object of his invitation. Although I did not want to betake myself there on this vain suggestion, the man from Dickesbach managed to talk me into going with him. My sister Margarethe went with us. When I came into the forest, I met a handsome young person there, who suggested to me that I leave my parents and follow him. Since I did not want to accept his suggestion, the many lovely promises that he was incessantly making to me notwithstanding, he threatened to kill me and in this way, I was persuaded by violence to follow this stranger. Only much later, when I was also already too far from my parents, did I learn that the man who kidnapped me was the so-called Schinderhannes.”
In 1815, at the time of the Congress of Vienna
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
, the village had 151 inhabitants. In 1838, the local land register was set up. The village itself had 36 houses. In 1839, there were 42 building owners. The first schoolhouse was built in 1840.
In 1847, the Evangelical
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
at Dickesbach received from His Royal Majesty King Frederick William IV of Prussia
Frederick William IV of Prussia
|align=right|Upon his accession, he toned down the reactionary policies enacted by his father, easing press censorship and promising to enact a constitution at some point, but he refused to enact a popular legislative assembly, preferring to work with the aristocracy through "united committees" of...
a gift of a Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, which is now owned by the Ortsgemeinde.
The graveyard was laid out in 1850. Formerly, the dead had been buried in nearby villages according to denomination: Evangelicals in Kirchenbollenbach (now part of Idar-Oberstein) and Catholics in Mittelreidenbach, since burials could only take place on consecrated ground. Outside the graveyard as it is now, behind the sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
cross, was the Catholic section, and before the cross was the Evangelical section. Later, on the former, now removed, Catholic section, a weeping willow was planted, which can still be seen today.
In 1856, a typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
epidemic claimed 27 lives. On 15 July 1858, the Bingerbrück-Kreuznach railway line came into service, with the extension from Kreuznach to Oberstein following on 15 December 1859. Also that year, several houses in Dickesbach were burnt down in a great fire. On 25 May 1860, the whole railway from the Rhine to the Saar was dedicated.
In 1871, at the time of victory in the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
, Dickesbach had 209 inhabitants. In 1892, Hahne Wilhelm opened the village’s first village shop
General store
A general store, general merchandise store, or village shop is a rural or small town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, sometimes in a small space, where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general...
, but the following year, it burnt down. In 1895, the village hall on Oberdorfstraße was built.
On 15 December 1896, church arrangements in the parish were settled. The simultaneum
Simultaneum
A shared church, or Simultankirche, Simultaneum or, more fully, simultaneum mixtum, a term first coined in 16th century Germany, is a church in which public worship is conducted by adherents of two or more religious groups. Such churches became common in Europe in the wake of the Reformation...
at the church in Kirchenbollenbach came to an end with a 13,000-mark payment that transferred ownership to the Protestants alone. In 1898, Wilhelm Hahn opened the village’s first inn. By the end of the 19th century, electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
was making its presence felt throughout the Nahe region. In 1903, however, the reeve (Ortsvorsteher) refused a proposal to build waterworks. In 1907, the first telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
line reached Dickesbach, with the first telephone being installed at Julius Jakobi’s house.
That same year, a compulsory fire brigade was established (as of 1953, this became a volunteer fire brigade). In politics, the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Sien was dissolved on 1 December and Dickesbach was grouped with Weierbach.
In 1910, at Whitsun
Whitsun
Whitsun is the name used in the UK for the Christian festival of Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after Easter, which commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ's disciples...
, the road to Weierbach was opened. It had cost 34,500 marks to build. Until this opening, traffic had had to take a rough road that led along the foot of the Dollberg. In 1915, a road to Zaubach (nowadays an outlying centre of Birkenfeld
Birkenfeld
Birkenfeld is a town and the district seat of the Birkenfeld district in southwest Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is also the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde.-Location:...
) was built as well.
Also in 1914 came the outbreak of hostilities in the First World War.
On the morning of 16 January 1918, between Hochstetten
Hochstetten-Dhaun
Hochstetten-Dhaun is a municipality in the district of Bad Kreuznach in Rhineland-Palatinate, in western Germany....
and Martinstein
Martinstein
Martinstein is a municipality in the district of Bad Kreuznach in Rhineland-Palatinate, in western Germany. With an area of 0.39 km² it is the smallest Gemeinde in Germany....
, shortly before the fork in the road leading into the Kellenbach valley, furlough
Furlough
In the United States a furlough is a temporary unpaid leave of some employees due to special needs of a company, which may be due to economic conditions at the specific employer or in the economy as a whole...
train 843 from Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken is the capital of the state of Saarland in Germany. The city is situated at the heart of a metropolitan area that borders on the west on Dillingen and to the north-east on Neunkirchen, where most of the people of the Saarland live....
, bound for Mainz, fully occupied by German soldiers, derailed
Derailment
A derailment is an accident on a railway or tramway in which a rail vehicle, or part or all of a train, leaves the tracks on which it is travelling, with consequent damage and in many cases injury and/or death....
. Thirty-four dead were recovered from the river Nahe, and of a further nine, no trace could be found. The cause was determined to have been track that had been undermined by heavy rainfall.
In all, the First World War claimed 13 Dickesbach men’s lives, with some known to have been killed in action, and others to have gone missing in action
Missing in action
Missing in action is a casualty Category assigned under the Status of Missing to armed services personnel who are reported missing during active service. They may have been killed, wounded, become a prisoner of war, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave can be positively...
.
In 1920, the Restkreis of St. Wendel was formed with its seat at Baumholder. A Restkreis was a “leftover district”, so called when the French-ruled Saarland was established and its border cut through long-established districts. The part left within the zone of German sovereignty was then reconstituted as a Restkreis. Dickesbach was grouped into the Restkreis of St. Wendel.
On 29 December 1922, electric light
Electric light
Electric lights are a convenient and economic form of artificial lighting which provide increased comfort, safety and efficiency. Most electric lighting is powered by centrally-generated electric power, but lighting may also be powered by mobile or standby electric generators or battery systems...
burnt for the first time in Dickesbach, and candlelight, at least as an everyday means of lighting, was consigned to history.
In 1923 came the hyperinflation for which the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
was so notorious. It had ended by November that same year, but not before a US dollar
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
could be bought for nothing less than 1,000,000,000,000 marks.
In 1927, Dickesbach had 268 inhabitants, 224 Evangelical and 44 Catholic. The municipal area measured 418 ha, of which 160 ha was wooded; the municipality owned 149 ha of these woodlands.
In Niederhausen
Niederhausen
Niederhausen is a municipality in the district of Bad Kreuznach in Rhineland-Palatinate, in western Germany. It has a reputation for producing some of the finest riesling wines in the Nahe region....
, the electrical substation
Electrical substation
A substation is a part of an electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. Substations transform voltage from high to low, or the reverse, or perform any of several other important functions...
came into service in 1927, linking the whole Nahe region to the RWE
RWE
RWE AG , is a German electric power and natural gas public utility company based in Essen. Through its various subsidiaries, the energy company contributes electricity and gas to more than 20 million electricity customers and 10 million gas customers, principally in Europe...
grid and the great coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
-fired power station
Power station
A power station is an industrial facility for the generation of electric energy....
s. Gas lanterns
Gas lighting
Gas lighting is production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, including hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, or natural gas. Before electricity became sufficiently widespread and economical to allow for general public use, gas was the most...
and kerosene lamp
Kerosene lamp
The kerosene lamp is a type of lighting device that uses kerosene as a fuel. This article refers to kerosene lamps that have a wick and a tall glass chimney. Kerosene lanterns that have a wick and a glass globe are related to kerosene lamps and are included here as well...
s were thus also consigned to history.
It was not until 17 April 1929 that work finished on the new waterworks, 26 years after the reeve had refused the original proposal. Until this time, water had had to be drawn from well
Water well
A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a trash pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
s.
On 13 August 1938, in the time of the Third Reich
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, the first building firms came. On the heights, 11 Siegfried Line
Siegfried Line
The original Siegfried line was a line of defensive forts and tank defences built by Germany as a section of the Hindenburg Line 1916–1917 in northern France during World War I...
bunkers were built. On both sides of Oberdorfstraße, buildings went up: two buildings to lodge non-commissioned officer
Non-commissioned officer
A non-commissioned officer , called a sub-officer in some countries, is a military officer who has not been given a commission...
s, and a Flakhalle – literally “anti-aircraft
Anti-aircraft warfare
NATO defines air defence as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action." They include ground and air based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and passive measures. It may be to protect naval, ground and air forces...
hall” – with personnel
Military personnel
Military personnel is a blanket term used to refer to members of any armed force. Usually, military personnel are divided into branches of service roughly defined by certain circumstances of the deployment of the personnel. Those who serve in a typical large land force are soldiers, making up an...
rooms. As part of these measures, a new drainage ditch reinforced with quarrystones was built along the road, and the road itself was also fortified. Dickesbach thus became a community on the edge of the newly laid out Baumholder
Baumholder
Baumholder is a town in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, in the Westrich, an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France...
troop drilling ground. In 1939, the municipality had 256 inhabitants.
An army field hospital
Field hospital
A field hospital is a large mobile medical unit that temporarily takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent hospital facilities...
was set up at the nearby Niederreidenbacher Hof in 1939. In 1940, Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
personnel were quartered at the Schwenk inn. That same year, an incendiary bomb attack on the Colony Building at the Niederreidenbacher Hof claimed 63 lives.
On 8 May 1945, Field Marshal
Field Marshal
Field Marshal is a military rank. Traditionally, it is the highest military rank in an army.-Etymology:The origin of the rank of field marshal dates to the early Middle Ages, originally meaning the keeper of the king's horses , from the time of the early Frankish kings.-Usage and hierarchical...
Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Bodewin Gustav Keitel was a German field marshal . As head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht and de facto war minister, he was one of Germany's most senior military leaders during World War II...
signed the surrender
Surrender (military)
Surrender is when soldiers, nations or other combatants stop fighting and eventually become prisoners of war, either as individuals or when ordered to by their officers. A white flag is a common symbol of surrender, as is the gesture of raising one's hands empty and open above one's head.When the...
document at Karlshorst
Karlshorst
Karlshorst is a locality in the borough of Lichtenberg in Berlin. It houses a harness racing track and the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin , the largest University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, and the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst.-History:Established in 1895 as the...
, ending the war in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
In all, the Second World War claimed 25 Dickesbach men’s lives, with some known to have been killed in action, and others to have gone missing in action.
By war’s end, the number of houses in the village was 53 and by 1950 the village’s population was 321. That same year, the first new building development zone (Schulstraße) was opened. In 1953, the volunteer fire brigade was established, and two years later, the brigade’s equipment house was built.
In 1956, the municipality acquired from a citizen, Anna Hahn, a building lot to make more room for building a new school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
building. It cost 1,300 marks. Also that year, during Flurbereinigung
Flurbereinigung
Flurbereinigung is the German word used to describe land reforms in various countries, especially Germany and Austria. The term can best be translated as land consolidation. Another European country where those land reforms have been carried out is France...
, the municipality made available some municipal land for widening the road to Zaubach. Some cropland in outlying areas that was no longer cultivated was allowed to revert to woodland. In June 1956, a survey was done in preparation for the establishment of outlying farmsteads (Aussiedlerhöfe). The municipality gave the farmstead group 23 ha of land at a price of 1,000 marks for each hectare to set up the Sonnhöfe (actually one homestead, even though the name is grammatically plural). Some woods had to be cleared to make way for cropfields.
On 22 December 1956, municipal council decided to build a new schoolhouse in line with planning by the Birkenfeld Building Office because the older building, and the teacher’s house, too, had fallen into such disrepair.
In 1958, the monument to the fallen and missing in both world wars was festively dedicated on Whitsun
Whitsun
Whitsun is the name used in the UK for the Christian festival of Pentecost, the seventh Sunday after Easter, which commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ's disciples...
day. Also in 1958, the first tractor
Tractor
A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...
bought by a local farmer appeared in the municipality. It was owned by Heinrich Jakobi.
Municipal council
The council is made up of 8 council members, who were elected by majority votePlurality voting system
The plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member constituencies...
at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.
Coat of arms
The municipality’s armsCoat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
might be described thus: Per bend gules three lozenges conjoined in bend argent, each charged with a roundle sable, and Or a lion rampant of the first armed and langued azure.
The charge
Charge (heraldry)
In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon . This may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object or other device...
on the sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side is the lion from the arms formerly borne by the Waldgrave
Waldgrave
The noble family of the Waldgraves or Wildgraves descended of a division of the House of the Counts of Nahegau in the year 1113....
s and Rhinegraves, who once held the village. The lozenges (diamond shapes) on the dexter (armsbearer’s right, viewer’s left) side recall another former feudal lordship, namely the Lords of Boos. The black roundles are likewise a reference to a former allegiance, this one to the Lords of Sickingen.
The arms have been borne since 27 April 1964.
Transport
To the northwest runs BundesstraßeBundesstraße
Bundesstraße , abbreviated B, is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.-Germany:...
41, and to the east Bundesstraße 270. Nearby Fischbach
Fischbach, Birkenfeld
Fischbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
has a station on the Nahe Valley Railway (Bingen
Bingen am Rhein
Bingen am Rhein is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.The settlement’s original name was Bingium, a Celtic word that may have meant “hole in the rock”, a description of the shoal behind the Mäuseturm, known as the Binger Loch. Bingen was the starting point for the...
–Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken is the capital of the state of Saarland in Germany. The city is situated at the heart of a metropolitan area that borders on the west on Dillingen and to the north-east on Neunkirchen, where most of the people of the Saarland live....
).