Hohenfels-Essingen

Hohenfels-Essingen
Municipality
Coat of arms
Location of Hohenfels-Essingen within Vulkaneifel district Vulkaneifel
Municipal assoc.	Gerolstein
Government
• Mayor (2019–24)	Josef Simons[1]
Area
• Total	5.02 km2 (1.94 sq mi)
Elevation	440 m (1,440 ft)
Population  (2022-12-31)[2]
• Total	332
• Density	66/km2 (170/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	54570
Dialling codes	06595
Vehicle registration	DAU

Hohenfels-Essingen is an

.

Geography

The municipality lies in the

known for its volcanic history, geographical and geological features, and even ongoing activity today, including gases that sometimes well up from the earth. Hohenfels-Essingen lies in the Hangelsbach valley framed by the Feuerberg (588 m), the Alter Voß (588 m, with “Liberation Beech”) and the Mühlenberg (585 m, with its well-known millstone quarries).

History

As witnessed by archaeological finds, Hohenfels was already settled in Roman and Frankish times and in 948, it had its first documentary mention. Essingen was first mentioned in a document in 1193 as an estate belonging to the Sankt Thomas Monastery.

Romans and Franks

In the late 2nd century, the Romans came into the west Eifel. Roman troops found natives who worked at cropraising, but who were so small in number that they only occupied a relatively small area. With the systematic opening of the land with military roads and the attendant onset of regional and even national trade opportunities, land clearing was begun in these lands, which were particularly good for cropraising. The land each side of the roads was overlaid with a network of estates that were run both as state and private enterprises. Some of the most important Roman roads ran over the northern heights of Hohenfels and through the Kyll valley north of Trier.

In the district Im Keller (“In the Cellar”) in Hohenfels, the remnants of a portico villa were found during building excavations in 1957. Only about 200 metres away in 1914 in the rural cadastral area Auf Grafenfeld in Hohenfels, two Roman graves were unearthed and salvaged for the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier.

The great Germanic taking of the land between 400 and 600 destroyed Roman culture and brought the area into the “army kings’” (Heerkönige) hands. The people who had lived here until now – Romanized Celts and Romans – either fled or were subdued. The Frankish kings dealt the formerly Roman estates out to their warriors. In Hohenfels, an old settlement founded by the Franks can be found right near the Roman portico villa. In Auf Grafenfeld, a great burying ground from Frankish times was unearthed and explored in 1912: 125 Frankish graves from the 4th to 8th centuries.

15th to 17th centuries

Even before the

outlet on the mountain’s south slope.

After the Thirty Years’ War, the land had been laid waste and the people impoverished. Moreover, there were sicknesses like the Plague and cholera. From this time come seven wayside crosses hewn from basalt in the vicinity of Hohenfels. Each Sunday, the whole village would make a pilgrimage by the crosses, asking for an end to the Plague. In the 1960s, the crosses were put up by the municipality along the way to the grotto on the Mühlberg. Further destruction was brought in 1688 by the Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession), in which castles, churches and monasteries were destroyed.

18th and 19th centuries

As a result of the

, who was stripped of his holdings in 1808. The Hohenfels mill, which also belonged to the Count, was sold for 1,200 francs (then equivalent to 380 Taler). Likewise, each one of the Count's landholdings was auctioned off one by one.

In November 1817, the Eifel was annexed to the state of

.

In 1860, the Eifel's biggest

building.

20th century to present

After the First World War, in November 1918, American troops were in the village. Later on came French occupational troops as part of the Allied occupation of the Rhineland.

In the 1920s,

and shipping them worldwide. In 1928 above the cadastral area of “Wahlend”, a gravelworks was built, remaining in operation until 1974. For a time, more than 100 people were employed here.

In the course of administrative reform, the two self-administering municipalities of Hohenfels and Essingen were merged on 1 January 1968 into a single municipality.

Politics

Municipal council

The council is made up of 8 council members, who were elected by

Coat of arms

The German blazon reads: In Silber ein schräglinkes, rotes Schwert, begleitet oben von einer blauen Urne, unten von einem grünen Mühlstein.

The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Argent a sword bendwise sinister gules, the point to chief, between an urn azure and a millstone vert.

The red sword stands for the execution place of the

, and further for the landscape in both constituent centres, which is characterized by volcanism, and where there is even today lava and basalt quarrying.

Culture and sightseeing

• The grotto at the Mühlenberg
• Millstone caves
• Basalt deposits
• Hiking trails

Buildings

Essingen

• Catholic Church (branch church; Filialkirche St. Hubertus), Bergstraße 10, biaxial aisleless church
  , 1886.
• Bergstraße 1 – Quereinhaus (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street), from 1783, old cobbles in yard.
• Bergstraße 2 – house from 1816, commercial building, some old cobbles in yard, whole complex.
• Wayside cross, southwest of the village on the road to Rockeskyll, cast-iron crucifix, about 1900.
• Wayside cross, west of the village at a hairpin bend in the road, a basalt beam cross from 1749 (?).

Hohenfels

• Catholic church, Gerolsteiner Straße 6, four-axis Gothic Revival aisleless church from 1894.
• Before Am Mühlenberg 6 – wayside cross, basalt shaft cross from 1687.
• Schulstraße, graveyard, warriors’ memorial 1914–1918, Crucifixion group, praying soldier, from 1922.
• Wayside cross, north of the village at the Mühlenberg at the lower hairpin bend, basalt shaft cross from 1719.^[4]

Clubs

• Freizeit- und Sportverein Hohenfels-Essingen e.V. (sport and leisure)
• Verschönerungsverein Hohenfels-Essingen 1895 e.V. (beautification)
• Riding club
• Möhnenclub (Carnival group)

References

External links

• Brief portrait of Hohenfels-Essingen with film at SWR Fernsehen (in German)
• Tourist information
• Hohenfels-Essingen’s millstone quarries (in German)