Hirschfeld (Hunsrück) is an ''
Ortsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde (; plural Verbandsgemeinden) is a low-level administrative division, administrative unit in the Germany, German States of Germany, federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A Verbandsgemeinde is typically compose ...
'' – a
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
belonging to a ''
Verbandsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde (; plural Verbandsgemeinden) is a low-level administrative unit in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A Verbandsgemeinde is typically composed of a small group of villages or towns.
Rhineland- ...
'', a kind of collective municipality – in the
Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis
Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis is a district (german: Kreis) in the middle of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The neighbouring districts are (from north clockwise) Mayen-Koblenz, Rhein-Lahn, Mainz-Bingen, Bad Kreuznach, Birkenfeld, Bernkastel-Wittlich, Coc ...
(
district
A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...
) in
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. It belongs to the
''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kirchberg, whose seat is in the
like-named town.
Geography
Location
The municipality lies in the central
Hunsrück
The Hunsrück () is a long, triangular, pronounced upland in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the valleys of the Moselle-Saar (north-to-west), the Nahe (south), and the Rhine (east). It is continued by the Taunus mountains, past ...
. South of the village lies the Idarwald (forest), and to the north runs ''
Bundesstraße
''Bundesstraße'' (German for "federal highway"), abbreviated ''B'', is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.
Germany
Germany's ''Bundesstraßen'' network has a total length of about 40,000 km.
German ''Bundesstraßen'' ...
'' 327, also known as the ''Hunsrückhöhenstraße'' (“Hunsrück Heights Road”, a scenic road across the Hunsrück built originally as a military road on
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
’s orders). A few kilometres to the northeast is
Frankfurt-Hahn Airport. Hirschfeld also lies on the ''Hunsrückquerbahn'', now used along this section of the line as a tourist railway.
History
Bearing witness to Hirschfeld's early habitation are several
barrows from
prehistory
Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...
and early history on the
Roman road
Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...
between the Belginum
Archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
Park and
Boppard
Boppard (), formerly also spelled Boppart, is a town and municipality (since the 1976 inclusion of 9 neighbouring villages, ''Ortsbezirken'') in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (Districts of Germany, district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, lying in t ...
(''Hunsrückhöhenstraße''). In 1353, Hirschfeld had its first documentary mention when its church was mentioned in a document. The church itself has an interesting history, having begun life before the
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
as a
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
church, after which it became a
simultaneous church to accommodate both Catholic and
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
worship in Hirschfeld. It underwent expansion in 1748 and 1749. The simultaneum was dissolved in 1921, whereafter the Hirschfeld Catholic congregation built its own church in 1926, and the older building is now purely an
Evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
church. Two bells there date from 1481 and 1545.
Beginning in 1794, Hirschfeld lay under
French rule. In 1815 it was assigned to the
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Re ...
at the
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...
. Since 1946, it has been part of the then newly founded
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
of
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...
.
Population development
What follows is a table of the municipality's population figures for the years 1998 to 2006 (each time at 31 December):
Politics
Municipal council
The council is made up of 8 council members, who were elected at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.
Mayor
Hirschfeld's mayor is Alfred Elz, and his deputies are Guido Schmidt and Joachim Schug.
Coat of arms
The German blazon reads: ''Gespalten von Grün und Blau durch eine eingebogene, silberne Spitze, darin ein roter Balken, begleitet von oben 3 und unten 4 schwarzen Schindeln, vorne ein silbernes Hirschgeweih, hinten ein silberner Kirchturm, wachsend mit schwarzer Tür und schwarzen Fenstern.''
The municipality's
arms
Arms or ARMS may refer to:
*Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body
Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to:
People
* Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader
Coat of arms or weapons
*Armaments or weapons
**Fi ...
might in English
heraldic
Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branc ...
language be described thus: Tierced in mantle vert a stag's attires fixed to the scalp argent, azure issuant from the line of partition a tower with a conical roof of the second with windows and door sable, and in base argent a fess gules between seven billets fesswise in fess, three above and four below, of the fourth.
The
charge
Charge or charged may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Charge, Zero Emissions/Maximum Speed'', a 2011 documentary
Music
* ''Charge'' (David Ford album)
* ''Charge'' (Machel Montano album)
* ''Charge!!'', an album by The Aqua ...
s in base recall the family Kratz von Scharfenstein, once the fiefholders and church lords in Hirschfeld. The hart's antlers (“attires”) are a
canting
' (IPA: , VOS Spelling: ''tjanting'', jv, ꦕꦤ꧀ꦛꦶꦁ, Tjanting) is a pen-like tool used to apply liquid hot wax ( jv, ) in the batik-making process in Indonesia, more precisely '' batik tulis'' (lit. "written batik"). Traditional ''T ...
charge, referring to the municipality's name (''Hirschfeld'' means “Hart’s Field” in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
). The churchtower on the sinister (armsbearer's left, viewer's right) side refers to the church in the village, which is held to have one of the loveliest
Late Romanesque quire towers in the Hunsrück.
The arms shown at the municipality's own website are somewhat different from what appears in this article. The
division of the field
In heraldry, the field (background) of a shield can be divided into more than one area, or subdivision, of different tinctures, usually following the lines of one of the ordinaries and carrying its name (e.g. a shield divided in the shape of a ...
is different, the charges in base are not quite the same, and the
tincture
A tincture is typically an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol (ethyl alcohol). Solvent concentrations of 25–60% are common, but may run as high as 90%.Groot Handboek Geneeskrachtige Planten by Geert Verhelst In chemistr ...
s on the dexter (armsbearer's right, viewer's left) side do not match the ones shown at the source cited above. However, the German blazon clearly describes the arms seen here.
Culture and sightseeing
Buildings
The following are listed buildings or sites in
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...
’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:
Directory of Cultural Monuments in Rhein-Hunsrück district
/ref>
Hirschfeld (main centre)
* Saint Wendelin's Evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
Church (''Kirche St. Wendelin''), Unterdorf 19 – quire tower, 13th or 14th century, aisleless church
An aisleless church (german: Saalkirche) is a single-nave church building that consists of a single hall-like room. While similar to the hall church, the aisleless church lacks aisles or passageways on either side of the nave and separated fro ...
, 1748/1749; whole complex of buildings with old graveyard
* Saint Wendelin's Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
Church (''Kirche St. Wendalinus''), Hauptstraße 14 – aisleless church, 1925/1926; whole complex of buildings with parish hall, 1950s
* Unterdorf 14 – former Catholic school
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...
; timber-frame
Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...
building, partly solid, plastered and slated, half-hipped roof, early 19th century
* Unterdorf 23 – timber-frame ''Quereinhaus'' (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street), 18th century; whole complex of buildings
Hirschfeld-Bahnhof
* Milestone – sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
, first third of the 19th century
References
External links
Municipality’s official webpage
{{Authority control
Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis