Daxweiler is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Langenlonsheim-Stromberg, whose seat is in Langenlonsheim.
Geography
Location The municipality of Daxweiler lies in the Soonwald part of the Northern Upper Rhine Plain. Daxweiler's municipal area lies on a small salient of the Bad Kreuznach district, wedged between two neighbouring districts, the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis and the Mainz-Bingen district. More than 85% of the municipal area, measuring 16.65 km², is made up of extensive woodlands. Daxweiler can easily be reached through the nearby links to the Autobahn A 61.
Land use As at 31 December 2007, land use in Daxweiler broke down as follows:Land use Agriculture: 5.8% Woodland: 85.4% Open water: 0.2% Residential and transport: 8.6% Other: 0.0%
Neighbouring municipalities Clockwise from the north, Daxweiler's neighbours are the municipality of Dichtelbach, the municipality of Weiler bei Bingen, the municipality of Waldalgesheim, the municipality of Warmsroth, the town of Stromberg, the municipality of Seibersbach and the town of Rheinböllen. The first and last of these places lie within the neighbouring Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis, while the second and third lie within the neighbouring Mainz-Bingen district.
Constituent communities Also belonging to Daxweiler are the outlying homesteads of Eichhof, Eichmühle (a chicken farm, despite its name meaning “Oakmill”), Forsthaus Emmerichshütte, Forsthaus Tiefenbach (Forsthaus means "forester’s house"), Soonfried (hunting lodge) and Stromberger Neuhütte.Constituent communities
Climate The region's climatic conditions are characterized by the location within the extratropical Westerlies. The region is furthermore also favoured by the Gulf Stream, which flows along Europe’s west coast. This explains why the prevailing local climate is rather milder than would usually be expected at these latitudes. Prevailing throughout most of the Naturpark Soonwald-Nahe is a suboceanic climate marked by rather mild winters and cool summers (yearly average temperature: 7 to 8 °C) as well as a rather high amount of precipitation, namely between 1 000 and 1 100 mm. In winter, the wealth of precipitation in higher parts of the Hunsrück makes winter sports possible. It could be described as a bracing climate whose qualitative recreational worth is heightened by the low levels of contaminants in the air. In the river valleys, the suboceanic climate is overlaid by continental influences. The precipitation is lower than it is in the heights, between 700 and 800 mm, and the temperatures are higher (yearly average: 9 to 10 °C).
History In 1190, Daxweiler had its first documentary mention in a directory of fiefs kept by the knight Sir Werner II of Bolanden. In 1281, a great landhold hitherto held by a knightly order was donated to Otterberg Abbey, who in turn sold it to Electoral Palatinate in 1441. Electoral Palatinate had already taken Daxweiler from the Archbishop of Mainz in 1375 as a pledge, and then acquired full ownership in 1419. Electoral Palatinate then put the estate into Erbbestand (a uniquely German landhold arrangement in which ownership rights and usage rights are separated; this is forbidden by law in modern Germany), and for three generations it was a pledged holding. A 1419 Weistum (cognate with English wisdom, this was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the Middle Ages and early modern times) describes the dwellers of the municipality of Daxweiler as “serfs of Ingelheim” (whether the town or the comital family of that name was meant is not clear in the source), a term that hardly applied at any time. The villagers did not feel like slaves, they could go to other villages and even marry someone from elsewhere, and they could even leave the land without having to buy such freedom, as was customary for serfs. Daxweiler belonged then to the Reichsschultheißerei (Imperial Schultheißerei) of Ingelheim. After the Thirty Years' War, the lessees forwent any further use of the landhold because they felt themselves in no position to put the estate buildings and the fields, which had been laid waste, back in order. The lord of the ironworks, Jean Marioth, who built the foundries in Stromberg and later the Rheinböllerhütte (ironworks in Rheinböllen) back up again from their wartime destruction, and whose palace stood in Wald-Erbach, leased the Cameralhof (state financial authority for estate income) in Daxweiler in 1650, holding it until 1733. The next lessee was Peter Assmann, who was from Kirchberg and had a wife from Daxweiler whose maiden name was Piroth. Peter Assmann sought to secure a longer leasehold and bid one thousand Rhenish guilders more than the Lords Sahler of the Stromberger Neuhütte (ironworks). Nevertheless, these lords found themselves able to use their connections in the Electoral Palatinate government to get their bid accepted over Assmann's. In 1773, the Brothers Sahler of the Stromberger Neuhütte sought to secure an hereditary lease on the estate, citing the lack of fodder for their draught animals that would be necessary if the ironworks were to stay in business. In 1802, by which time the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank had been overrun and occupied by French Revolutionary troops, the Brothers Sahler bought the estate at a low price at auction after the French authorities had seized it. In 1912, the Hüttenwerke Sahler – Wandesleben (the Stromberger Neuhütte), together with the estate’s lands, was facing financial hardship and was thus bought up by Kirsch Puricelli from the Rheinböller Hütte. The estate encompassed what are today the Puricelli lands in Daxweiler and the Guldenbach valley, hardly differing in their extent from that time, with the exception of about 13 Morgen (roughly 3.3 ha) of church field in the Guldenbach valley which was exchanged for smaller parcels in the village. The Hütter Weiher (“ironworks pond”) up from the Stromberger Neuhütte was a meadow owned by the Catholic parish of Daxweiler before the Brothers Sahler turned it into a water reservoir for the ironworks sometime before 1800. The parish derived a yearly rental income therefrom. Daxweiler's history is also very tightly bound to the Family Puricelli's, for their entrepreneurial endeavours at the Stromberger Neuhütte and the Rheinböller Hütte have supplied the region with jobs for more than 150 years. On these grounds, the Puricelli family heraldic device appears in the municipality's coat of arms.History
Religion As at 31 August 2013, there are 784 full-time residents in Daxweiler, and of those, 210 are Evangelical (26.786%), 408 are Catholic (52.041%), 1 belongs to the Bad Kreuznach-Koblenz Jewish worship community (0.128%), 8 (1.02%) belong to other religious groups and 157 (20.026%) either have no religion or will not reveal their religious affiliation.Religion
Politics
Municipal council The council is made up of 12 council members, who were elected by proportional representation at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman. No parties vied for seats in the municipal election, but rather three voters’ groups. The municipal election held on 7 June 2009 yielded the following results:Kommunalwahl Rheinland-Pfalz 2009, Gemeinderat Group Share (%) +/– Seats +/– WG Pörsch 22.1 = 3 = WG Gerlach 40.0 = 5 = WG Rienecker 37.9 = 4 =
The official figures for the 2004 municipal election rather unhelpfully lumped all voters’ groups’ results together into a single sum. Since they were the only bodies that fielded candidates in Daxweiler, the results simply show an uninformative figure of 100% and a seat count of 12.
Mayor Daxweiler's mayor is Horst Rienecker.
Coat of arms The municipality's arms might be described thus: Per fess sable a cross countercompony Or and gules and argent three pallets of the third.
Given the Family Puricelli's prominent role in Daxweiler's history over the last 150 years and more, their family heraldic device appears in the municipality's arms. This device can be seen in the lower field in the escutcheon. The other device, to be seen in the upper field, is one formerly borne by the local feudal lords, the Counts of Ingelheim.Description and explanation of Daxweiler’s arms
Culture and sightseeing
Buildings The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:Directory of Cultural Monuments in Bad Kreuznach district Nativity of Mary Catholic Parish Church (Pfarrkirche Maria Geburt), Stromberger Straße – three-naved Late Gothic Revival pseudobasilica, 1894/1895, architects Carl Rüdell and Richard Odenthal, Late Gothic quire, 1484, tower essentially Romanesque, 12th/13th century, Late Gothic alterations, Gothic Revival extra floors (see also below) Near Binger Straße 8 – cast-iron fountain, marked 1900, Stromberger Neuhütte (ironworks – see below) Heimbacher Straße, at the graveyard – tombs, Gothic Revival sandstone Crucifix, late 19th century; two priests’ tombs, 1922 and 1926
Near Ingelheimer Straße 15 – cast-iron fountain, marked Stromberger Neuhütte 1871 Ingelheimer Straße 15 – three-sided estate; timber-frame house, plastered, barn, buildings with half-hip roof, about 1800 Stromberger Straße 14 – Catholic chapel; Gothic Revival clinker brick building, cross roof, marked 1892 Stromberger Straße 14 – Catholic rectory; Gründerzeit clinker brick building, wall niche figure of Mary, late 19th century Stromberger Straße 18 – Baroque timber-frame house, partly solid, earlier half of the 18th century, barn, partly timber-frame, essentially from the 18th or early 19th century Border stone, at the municipal limit with Warmsroth – 1781 Stromberger Neuhütte – former ironworks; Baroque manor house, essentially from the 18th century; Classicist production, storage and administration buildings, quarrystone, between 1830 and 1860; manufacturer's villa, about 1900
More about the church