Großwelsbach () is a village and an ''Ortsteil'' (part) of the town of Bad Langensalza in

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

, central Germany, with about 250 inhabitants.

Geography

Großwelsbach is situated north of Bad Langensalza on the Landesstraße (state road) 1031 near the

Unstrut The Unstrut () is a river in Germany and a left tributary of the Saale. The Unstrut originates in northern Thuringia near Dingelstädt (west of Kefferhausen in the Eichsfeld area) and its catchment area is the whole of the Thuringian Basin. It ...

river in an agricultural area. There is hardly any forest in the intensively used flat-wavy landscape. The climate is mild and has low precipitation, with soils mostly close to groundwater. The village is crossed by the eponymous ''Welsbach'' stream, which comes from

Kleinwelsbach Kleinwelsbach is a village and a former municipality in the Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis district of Thuringia, Germany. Since December 2019, it is part of the town Nottertal-Heilinger Höhen Nottertal-Heilinger Höhen is a town in the Unstrut-Hainich- ...

and flows into the mill-operating ''Alte Unstrut'' further south of the village near Thamsbrück.

History

The village was first mentioned in a document in 1195 or 1216. The settlement is a church village of a former knight's estate. The

Gernrode Abbey Gernrode Abbey (german: Stift Gernrode) was a house of secular canonesses ''( Frauenstift)'' in Gernrode in what is now Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Gernrode was founded in 959 and was disestablished in the seventeenth century. In the Middle Ages the ...

once had a nunnery here, which is why there were already large agricultural areas in the village in past centuries. Hans (von) Berlepsch acquired the nunnery estate at that time, and the family owned the property for a long period. The manor, long owned by the von Berlepsch family, was badly damaged by fire in 1655. The subsequent reconstruction dragged on until 1820. In 1910, Karl Wilhelm Schmidt acquired the estate and it remained in his family's possession until expropriation in 1945. The manor house was a simple Neoclassical building. It was almost completely demolished in 1945 in the course of Order 209 of the

Soviet Military Administration in Germany The Soviet Military Administration in Germany (russian: Советская военная администрация в Германии, СВАГ; ''Sovyetskaya Voyennaya Administratsiya v Germanii'', SVAG; german: Sowjetische Militäradministrat ...

. The last evidence of the former estate is the

Late-Gothic Gothic architecture (or pointed architecture) is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It e ...

squat round tower on the road to Kleinwelsbach. Until 1815, Großwelsbach belonged to the ''Amt'' (district of) Langensalza in the

Electorate of Saxony The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony (German: or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356–1806. It was centered around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. In the Golden Bull of 1356, Emperor Charles ...

and, after its cession to

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

, from 1816 to 1944 to the ''Landkreis'' (district of) Langensalza in the

Province of Saxony The Province of Saxony (german: link=no, Provinz Sachsen), also known as Prussian Saxony () was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the Free State of Prussia from 1816 until 1944. Its capital was Magdeburg. It was formed by the merge ...

. Großwelsbach was incorporated into Bad Langensalza on 1 January 1994.

Culture and sights

St Blaise's Church (german: St. Blasii, link=no) was built of '' Grenzdolomit''; the massive tower, which was also erected as a fortified tower, bears the year 1503 written in Gothic

majuscule Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grosswelsbach Bad Langensalza Former municipalities in Thuringia