Lauterecken

Lauterecken
Town
Coat of arms
Location of Lauterecken within Kusel district
Lauterecken Show map of Germany Lauterecken Show map of Rhineland-Palatinate
Coordinates: 49°38′58″N 7°35′31″E / 49.64944°N 7.59194°E / 49.64944; 7.59194
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Kusel
Municipal assoc.	Lauterecken-Wolfstein
Government
• Mayor (2019–24)	Isabel Steinhauer-Theis[1] (CDU)
Area
• Total	8.91 km2 (3.44 sq mi)
Elevation	169 m (554 ft)
Population  (2022-12-31)[2]
• Total	1,996
• Density	220/km2 (580/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	67742
Dialling codes	06382
Vehicle registration	KUS
Website	www.lauterecken.de

Lauterecken (pronunciation^ⓘ) is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Verbandsgemeinde Lauterecken-Wolfstein, to which it also belongs. Lauterecken bears the nickname Veldenzstadt, after the comital family that once held sway here. It is also a state-recognized tourism resort town, and in terms of state planning is laid out as a lower centre.^[3]

Geography

Location

The town lies in the North Palatine Uplands in a hollow at the mouth of the Lauter, where it empties into the Glan, and likewise at the mouth of the Grumbach, which also empties into the Glan. Lauterecken lies at an elevation of some 170 m above sea level. Elevations on each side of the dales mostly reach some 300 m above sea level, with the highest elevation being found at the peak known as die Platt (322 m above sea level). Lauterecken is found roughly 20 km northeast of Kusel, and 25 km northwest of Kaiserslautern. The municipal area measures 893 ha, of which 307 ha is wooded.^[4]

Neighbouring municipalities

Lauterecken borders in the northeast on the municipality of

Climate

Yearly

In 1157, Lauterecken had its first documentary mention as Tiefburg dem von der Domkirche Verdun abhängigen Hofe St. Medard kirchlich zugehörig ("lowland castle belonging ecclesiastically to the estate of St. Medard, which is independent of Verdun Cathedral"). The Counts held sway in four consecutive lines:

1. The Old Veldenz Line (1140-1259)
2. The Veldenz-Gerolseck Line (1259-1444)
3. The Zweibrücken Line (1444-1543)
4. The Principality of Palatinate-Veldenz (1543-1694)

The last named is taken to be the actual "Lauterecken comital line", which characterized the town with the building of two castles, whose appearance is preserved in Matthäus Merian's engraving from about 1650. Thus, from 1543 to 1694, Lauterecken was the residence town of the sideline of Palatinate-Veldenz-Lauterecken. In 1689, however, the town and castles were destroyed. When Count Gerlach I founded the original County of Veldenz, Lauterecken had evidently outstripped the neighbouring village of Medard. Even before 1350 (likely in 1349), Lauterecken had been raised to town. In the latter half of the 14th century, the fortifications sprang up with three gates (Untertor or "Lower Gate", Bergtor or "Mountain Gate", Obertor or "Upper Gate") and five towers, of which three stood near the gravely endangered Lower Gate and two others at corners in the defensive wall (these two can be seen in the Merian engraving). Any attempt by historians to describe a

None of Leopold Ludwig's sons could claim the succession. Gustav Philipp, the eldest, was, for reasons that are no longer clear today, held prisoner in a tower at the palace in Lauterecken, and in 1679, while fleeing custody, he was shot dead in the Wälderbusch (a wilderness area) near the town. Two other sons fell in the war. Leopold Ludwig himself died in 1694. The "orphaned" county was now actually supposed to pass back to the Counts of Palatine Zweibrücken, and indeed, Zweibrücken did at first take over the provisional administration. However, a years-long dispute arose with Electoral Palatinate, which likewise claimed the right of succession in Palatinate-Veldenz. The dispute was settled in 1733 with the Veldenz Succession Treaty of Mannheim, under whose terms the Ämter of Veldenz and Lauterecken passed wholly to Electoral Palatinate, and the former Palatine-Veldenz Amt of Lauterecken was permanently given the status of an Electoral Palatinate Oberamt, after it had already been occupied by Electoral Palatinate troops in 1697 anyway. In 1744, the Electoral Palatinate administration had Lauterecken's town wall torn down.^[8] Throughout this time, however, there was little in the way of peace. In the Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession), the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, troops of every European nationality marched through the Glan valley, much to the local inhabitants’ chagrin. In 1814, Marshal Blücher headquartered himself in the town. The fountain at the old schoolhouse commemorates this.

French Revolutionary and Napoleonic times

Lauterecken remained with Electoral Palatinate until the region was politically thoroughly restructured in the course of the French Revolution. In the newly established administrative entities that arose after the dissolution of the old feudal structure, Lauterecken lay in the Department of Mont-Tonnerre (or Donnersberg in German) and the Arrondissement of Kaiserslautern, while the town itself became the seat of both a canton and a mairie ("mayoralty") bearing its name. Also belonging to this mairie were the villages of Cronenberg, Heinzenhausen, Hohenöllen and Lohnweiler, while the other mairies in the canton were those of Becherbach, Hundheim and Odenbach. The boundary between the Departments of Mont-Tonnerre and Sarre ran through the Lauterecken area along the river Glan. Places that stood mostly on the river's right bank belonged to Mont-Tonnerre, while those standing mostly on the left bank belonged to Sarre.

Bavarian times

After the French had withdrawn from the German lands on the

Imperial times

In 1883, the Lautertalbahn (

The following table shows population development over the centuries for Lauterecken, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:[10]

Town’s name

About the roots of the name Lauterecken, there has been disagreement among the locally based regional historians. The two sides can be roughly broken down as follows:

1. The town arose next to a valley castle between the Glan and the Lauter;
2. The town lay at the foot of a hill castle named Lautereck.

The former, which relates the name ending to the town's geographical location, has thus far been held to be the right one and it was even supported by earlier placename researchers and compilers of town descriptions (Widder, Pöhlmann, Christmann and nowadays Karl Pfleger). Quite recently, researcher Martin Dolch has had slight doubts about the name, noting that where the Glan meets the Lauter, it does not form an Ecke (the last element in the town's name, and also German for "corner"), that is to say, a wedge-shaped point of land (for a well known German example of one of these, see Deutsches Eck). Those who propound the latter theory point to the hill castles that bear names ending in —eck (Schlosseck, Sponeck, etc.). The name itself does not crop up in documents before the 14th century. Older names that the town has borne are iuxtra Luterecke (later edition of Prüm Abbey’s directory of holdings, the Prümer Urbar), die burge und dorffe zu Lutrecken (copy from 1343), in die borg zu Lutereckin oder in die stad dar vor (1350) and Luterecken burg vnd stat (1387, first mention in an original document).^[11] Neither of those theories, though, explains the origin of the prefix Lauter—; however, another source deals with that by saying that the town is named after the little river, the Lauter, which rises at the northern edge of the Palatinate Forest southeast of Kaiserslautern and flows 35 km down to Lauterecken, where its water – which according to the name was once lauter (meaning "clean", although the word is now obsolete in this sense) – flows into the Glan, coming down from Altenglan, near the middle of town. Here at these forks arose the town of Lauterecken, which was once called Lautereck.^[12]

Vanished villages

Within what are now Lauterecken's town limits once lay two villages named Bilstein and Nirthausen, and also an estate called the Liebfrauenhof. For a time, another estate called the Windhof (despite the name, not a

The council is made up of 16 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:^[15]

"FWG" is a voters’ group.

Mayor

Lauterecken's mayor is Isabel Steinhauer-Theis.^[1]

Coat of arms

The town's arms might be described thus: Argent a lion passant azure armed and langued gules upon a triangle reversed voided inside which a triangle voided, its angles conjoined with the sides of the other, both of the third.

The lion appearing in Lauterecken's current arms is drawn from arms once borne by the House of Wittelsbach.

Lauterecken has had other arms. The arms shown in the Coffee Hag albums about 1925 are sable a triangle reversed voided argent, that is, a black shield bearing only one charge, a silver, hollow triangle standing on one point. Very similar arms were apparently borne in 1841, but the triangle was gules (red).^[16][17]

Town partnerships

Lauterecken fosters partnerships with the following places:^[18]

• Sombernon, Côte-d'Or, France since 1974

There are regular school exchanges and citizen visits between Lauterecken and Sombernon, along with friendships between various clubs and families. The Sombernon Stone, placed on the Roseninsel (island), reminds everyone of this contribution to peace in Europe.

Culture and sightseeing

Buildings

The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:^[19]

• Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Parish Church (Pfarrkirche St. Franziskus Xaverius), Hauptstraße 67 – sandstone-framed aisleless church, belltower with tent roof, Rundbogenstil, 1848–1853, architect Building Inspector Purreiner, Kaiserslautern
• crow-stepped gables
  , belltower, 1865/1866; characterizes square’s appearance
• Near Bahnhofstraße 1 – signal box; triaxial stone-block building, upper floor brick structure with iron framework; technical equipment
• Bahnhofstraße 16 – post office; plastered building with steep gabled roof, 1928, architects Heinrich Müller and König und Zellner, Speyer
• Near Bergstraße 1 – Blücher memorial, fountain with stele crowned with a lion, 1936
• Bergstraße 1 – former schoolhouse; three-floor stone-block building, 1836/1837, architect Johann Schmeisser, Kusel
• Hauptstraße 19 – former financial administration office; sandstone-framed stone-block building with hipped mansard roof, 1897/1898
• Hauptstraße 43 – Baroque building with mansard roof, 18th century; characterizes town’s appearance
• Hauptstraße 49 – Town Hall (Rathaus); Classicist building with hipped roof, 1829, architect Heinrich Ernst, Kaiserslautern, ridge turret 1837, fire station addition 1857/1858
• Rheingrafenstraße 1 – former Rheingrafenmühle ("Rhinegrave’s Mill"); building with half-hipped roof, before 1738, conversion marked 1808
• Rheingrafenstraße 10 – old
  railway station
  ; hewn-stone-framed sandstone-block building, goods shed, 1890
• Schillerstraße – so-called Schillerbrücke over the Lauter; one-arch sandstone-block bridge, 1890
• Schloßgasse 1 – building with half-hipped roof, in the façade Renaissance spolia, about 1780
• Schulstraße 10 – former Amtsgericht; three-floor sandstone-framed building with hipped roof with staircase risalto, 1856/1857, extra floor 1899
• Schulstraße 14 – school; three-floor Baroque Revival sandstone-block building, 1901
• Schulstraße 29 – Protestant rectory; sophisticated cube-shaped building with tent roof, 1933, architect Leonhard Schork, Pirmasens
• Überlauterecker Straße – bridge over the Lauter; five-arch quarrystone bridge with flood dykes, before the middle of the 17th century
• Near Überlauterecker Straße 2 – cast-iron hand pump, latter half of the 19th century
• Near Überlauterecker Straße 34 – Saint Joseph's Chapel (St.-Josefs-Kapelle); Gothic Revival sandstone-block building, 1903, architect Joseph Walter, Lauterecken
• Veldenzplatz – warriors’ memorial 1866 and 1870/1871, sandstone, 1911/1912
• Veldenzplatz 1 – former Altes Schloss (castle) with Veldenzturm (tower); first mentioned in 1343, newly built in the earlier half of the 16th century, "Neuer Bau" expansion (Schloßgasse 1) from late 16th century; administration building and barn newly built 1803/1804; preserved: Late Gothic cellar, part of the ringwall, so-called Veldenzturm
• Chapel on Saarbrücker Straße – building with hipped roof, 1845
• Warriors’ memorial on the Igelskopf – sandstone-block tower with hall of honour, 1929, architects H. and F. Seeberger, Kaiserslautern

Culture

The town's cultural life was once borne by the school, and then later by the folk high school and the corresponding clubs. There is also a company for training and continuing training. In earlier centuries, Lauterecken was also said to be a publishing centre for various newspapers. There were the Boten für das Lauter- und Glantal with the enclosure Blätter für Geschichte und Heimatkunde für die Glan- und Lautergegend ("Pages for History and Local Studies for the Glan and Lauter Area"), founded in the 19th century and shut down in 1937, and the Nordwestpfälzische Zeitung ("Northwest Palatine Newspaper"; 1900-1938). The newspaper was taken over by the Allgemeine Zeitung, which still appears as a regional offshoot of a major newspaper in Meisenheim. A further widespread daily newspaper is the Rheinpfalz, Westricher Rundschau appearing in Ludwigshafen and Kusel.^[20]

Regular events

Major events on the town's calendar are the Spring Market (Frühjahrsmarkt) on the first weekend in May, the great Folk Festival (Heimatfest) on the second weekend in August, the Autumn Market (Herbstmarkt) on the second weekend in October, the Christmas Market (Weihnachtsmarkt) on the first weekend in December and the Tower Festival (Turmfest), although this last event is held only every other year. Any special old customs that may once have been observed in Lauterecken are now unknown.^[21]

Clubs

As of 2005, the following clubs are active in Lauterecken:^[22]

• Angelsportverein — angling club
• Blaskapelle 1972 — wind orchestra
• BSW Eisenbahner — BSW* railwaymen
• Café Kultur
• DRK-Tennisclub — German Red Cross tennis club
• Eisstockclub — ice stock club
• Evangelischer Frauenbund — league of
  Evangelical
  women
• Evangelischer Kirchenchor — Evangelical church choir
• Fanfarenzug — fanfare band
• Förderkreis der Jugendfeuerwehr — promotional "circle" for the youth
  fire brigade
• Förderverein der Janus-Korczak-Schule — promotional club for the Janusz Korczak School
• Förderverein des Gymnasiums — promotional club for the Gymnasium
• FWG Lauterecken — Free Voters’ Group
• Gesangverein — singing club
• Heimat- und Kulturverein — homeland and cultural club
• Hundeverein — dog club
• Katholische Frauengemeinschaft — Catholic women’s association
• Katholischer Kirchenchor — Catholic church choir
• Landfrauenverein — countrywomen’s club
• Musikverein — music club
• Pfälzerwaldverein — hiking club
• Reiterverein — riding club
• Sportfahrerkreis Glan-Lauter — motorsport club
• Sportverein —
  sport club
• Tauchsportverein — diving club

* BSW (Stiftung Bahn-Sozialwerk) is a social assistance agency run by railwaymen for railwaymen and their families.^[23]

Economy and infrastructure

Economic structure

It goes without saying that in days of yore in this former residence town, not only was

Because of its central location in the northern part of the district, Lauterecken is home to three medium-size businesses and various shops. One business of national standing is the fruit juice producer Niehoffs-Vaihinger, a plant of the Cellpack Group (food packaging), which since 2003 has belonged to the industrial concern Behr Bircher Cellpack BBC (no relation to the British Broadcasting Corporation).

Energy

Part of the town's heating energy comes from an environmentally friendly high-performance heat pump from the firm in Freital named Thermea. It draws heat from the river Lauter, whose water has a yearly average temperature of 10 °C.^[25] Only in freezing temperatures does the alternative, a condensing boiler, spring into action.^[26]

Public institutions

Lauterecken is the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde, and also hosts its administration. Moreover, a branch of the Bundesagentur für Arbeit is located here, one of three in the Kusel district. Lauterecken has a "Pro Seniore" home for the elderly, housing both those who can live independently and those in need of assistance or care. The town hall houses a small town library.

Education

The end of the

• Ursula von Pfalz-Veldenz-Lützelstein (b. 24 February 1572; d. 5 March 1635 Nürtingen), later Duchess Ursula of Württemberg
• Gustav Philipp von Pfalz-Veldenz (b. 17 July 1651; d. 18 August 1679 Lauterecken), hereditary prince of the
  County of Veldenz
• Elisabeth Johanna von Pfalz-Veldenz (b. 22 February 1653; d. 5 February 1718 Mörchingen), Countess Palatine of Veldenz
• Johann Carl Falciola (1759–1841), originally a theologian, then ardent follower of the French Revolution and admirer of Napoleon; largely defined town politics during the time of French rule; became well known for speculative businesses.
• Carl Theodor Barth (b. 2 October 1805; d. 19 November 1837 Liechtenstein), jurist and democratic journalist.
• Leopold Dippel (b. 4 August 1827; d. 4 March 1914 Darmstadt), botanist.
• Carl Christian Brenner (b. 1 August 1838; d. 22 July 1888 Louisville, Kentucky, USA), painter.
• Carl Friedrich Hildebrand (b. 1837; d. 1913 Kaiserslautern), docent at the Kaiserslautern teachers’ seminary, chairman of the Palatine Teachers’ Association.
• Karl Gebhart (b. 6 January 1859; d. 28 April 1921 Lauterecken), politician (DVP), countryman and economic adviser, on the board of the Landwirtschaftlicher Verein der Pfalz ("Agricultural Association of the Palatinate") and the Bund der Landwirte ("League of Countrymen"), lead writer for the magazine Pfälzer Bauer ("Palatine Farmer").
• Max Hartmann (b. 1876; d. 1962
  natural scientist, professor of biology at the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and philosopher, recipient of the order Pour le Mérite
  (civil class) and the gold medal of the Palatine Society for the Advancement of the Sciences.
• Ludwig Steinhauer (b. 1885; d. 1957 Lauterecken), president of the Agricultural Chamber of the Palatinate, chairman of the Palatine Farmers’ and Winemakers’ Association, economic adviser and mayor in Lauterecken.
• Cläre Weitzel (b. 1889; d. 1945 Bad Dürkheim), writer, a Lauterecken tax collector's daughter (her father was transferred to Klingenmünster); she was later married to a schoolteacher; author of the novels Armer Hans (1919) and Heimat (1920), as well as many, some award-winning, narratives; died in an air raid.
• Emil Nesseler (b. 1891; d. 1952 Ludwigshafen), city archivist in Ludwigshafen, compiler of many writings relating to local history, foremost from the Ludwigshafen area.
• Alois Geiger (b. 1892; d. 1973 Kaiserslautern), president of the Handicraft Chamber of the Palatinate and holder of high positions in many offices of the Professional Union; recipient of the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
• Walter Weizel (b. 1 August 1901; d. 6 August 1982), physicist and politician (SPD).
• Edwin Steinhauer (b. 1916; d. 1996 buried in Lauterecken), president of the Agricultural Chamber of Rhineland-Palatinate, member of the board of the Farmers’ and Winemakers’ Association of the Palatinate, Member of the Landtag, mayor in Lauterecken, decorated with many awards.
• Hans Otto Streuber (1949–0000), politician (SPD).
• Kurt Wallat (b. 24 April 1960), archaeologist.
• Uwe Hartenberger (b. 1 February 1968), footballer.

Famous people associated with the town

• Philipp Oberheim (b. 1680 Wiesbaden, d. 1745 Lauterecken), clergyman in, among other places, Lauterecken and compiler of a songbook with a Catechism appendix.
• Friedrich Schüler (1791–1873), was in 1848/1849 member of the Frankfurt Parliament for Lauterecken.
• Jacob Theodor Gümbel (b. 1859 Landau, d. 1920 Landau), clergyman and deacon, among other places 1897–1910 in Lauterecken, compiler of books about church history, and also an important book about Palatinate-Veldenz.
• Bruno Eckhardt (b. 1960
  Theoretical Physics at the University of Marburg
  , attended the Gymnasium in Lauterecken.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lauterecken.

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Lautereck in der Topographia Palatinatus Rheni (Matthäus Merian)

• Town’s official webpage (in English)
• Town’s official webpage (in German)
• Verbandsgemeinde of Lauterecken (in German)