Hochstetten-Dhaun 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 Kirner Land, whose seat is in the town of Kirn. Hochstetten-Dhaun is a state-recognized recreational community.Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz – Regionaldaten
Geography
Location Hochstetten-Dhaun lies in the Nahe valley between the Hunsrück to the north and the Palatinate to the south. By both land area and population, Hochstetten-Dhaun is the second biggest Ortsgemeinde in Kirn-Land.Size
Neighbouring municipalities Clockwise from the north, Hochstetten-Dhaun's neighbours are the municipalities of Brauweiler, Simmertal, Merxheim and Meckenbach, the town of Kirn and the municipalities of Oberhausen bei Kirn and Heinzenberg, all of which likewise lie within the Bad Kreuznach district.
Constituent communities Hochstetten-Dhaun's Ortsteile are Hochstetten (north of the Nahe) with the outlying hamlets and homesteads of Karlshof, St. Johannisberg, Waldeck and Waldhof (the Karlshof is one of the last of the old Dhaun estates on the heights north of the Nahe), Hochstädten (south of the Nahe), which until the late 18th century formed a single unit together with Hochstetten (the names are pronounced alike) and Schloss Dhaun, a castle and a hamlet, with the outlying homestead of Heinzenberger Gesellschaftsmühle.Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz – Amtliches Verzeichnis der Gemeinden und Gemeindeteile, Seite 15 (PDF; 2,16 MB)
History The great many barrows within Hochstetten-Dhaun's limits bear witness to settlers in the area even in prehistoric times. About 1100, Hochstetten/Hochstädten had its first documentary mention in a document from the Archbishopric of Mainz to Disibodenberg Abbey, which named a Ludovicus de Hosteden (“Ludwig/Louis of Hochstetten”), who donated holdings to the Abbey that he owned in Merxheim. The name prefix Hoch— seen in both “Hochstetten” and “Hochstädten” has nothing to do with those constituent communities’ geographical locations (hoch means “high” in German) for both Hochstetten and Hochstädten lie on rather low land down near the River Nahe. Far likelier is that the name is a corruption of what would be rendered Hofstätte in modern German, something with a perfectly transparent meaning, namely “estate place”. Clearly, this would describe a place where a landowner once held an estate. Nowadays, the two names Hochstetten and Hochstädten are pronounced alike, meaning that a distinction must be made in speech between them (to say nothing of Hochstätten, a self-administering municipality some 23 km to the east, also in the Bad Kreuznach district, and also with a name pronounced the same way). They did, however, once have official names that allowed easy distinction between the two. Hochstetten on the Nahe's left bank was known as Nächsthochstetten, whereas Hochstädten over on the right bank was known as Überhochstetten. These usages lasted centuries, and referred to the two centres’ positions relative to Castle Dhaun. Nächsthochstetten lay nearer the castle (its prefix means “next” or “nearest”), while Überhochstetten lay beyond it, across the river (its prefix means “across”, “over” or perhaps even “the one after the next”). Both villages were part of the Waldgravial-Rhinegravial Amt of Dhaun and formed the court district (Gericht) or Schultheißerei of Hochstetten. After the so-called “Dhaun Feud” (Dhauner Fehde) between Waldgrave Johann von Dhaun and Prince-Archbishop-Elector Baldwin of Trier had ended in defeat for the former, he had to cede his village in 1342 to the Electorate of Trier, whereupon Baldwin then enfeoffed the Waldgraves with the very holding that they had just forsaken, thus ensuring the Waldgraves’ allegiance to their former foe.Wilhelm Schneegans: Geschichtliche Bilder und Sagen aus dem Nahethal, Kreuznach: Schmithals, 1878, S. 282(Online bei dilibri) The Counts of Veldenz, too, had certain landholds and rights that they had granted to vassals. In 1426, the Vogt Johann von Simmern held a half share in the village and court at Überhochstetten (Hochstädten) as a fief from the Waldgraves of Dhaun. In 1515, the Waldgravial Amt of Dhaun was made up of the castle, the village and the Vogtei of Simmern unter Dhaun, the villages of Nächsthochstetten and Überhochstetten and the Dhaun shares of Kirn, Bergen, Rhaunen and Hausen. In 1794, during the War of the First Coalition, French Revolutionary troops overran and occupied the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank, whereafter, in 1798, the region was administratively reorganized by the Directory according to the French Revolutionary model. The Nahe formed the boundary between two departments. The villages of Nächsthochstetten (Hochstetten) and Dhaun were grouped into the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Kirn, the Canton of Kirn, the Arrondissement of Simmern and the Department of Rhin-et-Moselle, whereas Überhochstetten – whose name was at this time changed to Hochstädten – belonged to the Mairie of Merxheim, the Canton of Meisenheim, the Arrondissement of Birkenfeld and the Department of Sarre. The Protestant parish of St. Johannisberg lost its autonomy and was made subject to the parish of Meckenbach. Once French rule had ended in the Rhineland in 1814, the Congress of Vienna awarded the region to the Kingdom of Prussia, which took possession of it in April 1815. The municipalities of Hochstetten and Dhaun passed in 1816 to the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Kirn (later named the Amt of Kirn-Land in 1927) in the Kreuznach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Koblenz. The area south of the Nahe was ceded in 1816 to the Landgraves of Hesse-Homburg. Hochstädten became part of the Oberamt of Meisenheim, which existed until 1866, then being absorbed into the Prussian Meisenheim district. Hochstädten belonged to the Bürgermeisterei of Meddersheim (later named the Amt of Meddersheim in 1927). The Meisenheim district was merged into the Kreuznach district in 1932, thus ending the division of the three municipalities of Dhaun, Hochstädten and Hochstetten into different districts. After the Amt of Meddersheim was dissolved in 1940, Hochstädten likewise passed to the Amt of Kirn-Land, out of which today's Verbandsgemeinde of Kirn-Land was formed in 1968. Today's Ortsgemeinde of Hochstetten-Dhaun arose within the framework of municipal restructuring and administrative reform through a voluntary merger of the hitherto three self-administering municipalities of Dhaun (then with 208 inhabitants), Hochstädten (322) and Hochstetten bei Kirn (835) on 7 June 1969.Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz – Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis 2006, Seiten 179 und 180 (PDF; 2,5 MB)History
Religion As at 30 September 2013, there are 1,655 full-time residents in Hochstetten-Dhaun, and of those, 1,062 are Evangelical (64.169%), 314 are Catholic (18.973%), 1 is Greek Orthodox (0.06%), 1 is Lutheran (0.06%), 1 is Russian Orthodox (0.06%), 37 (2.236%) belong to other religious groups and 239 (14.441%) either have no religion or will not reveal their religious affiliation.Religion
Politics
Municipal council 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:Kommunalwahl Rheinland-Pfalz 2009, Gemeinderat Year SPD CDU FWG Total 2009 10 2 4 16 seats 2004 7 2 7 16 seats
Mayor Hochstetten-Dhaun's mayor is Hans Helmut Döbell (SPD).
Coat of arms The German blazon reads: Schild gespalten, vorne in Grün zwei goldene gekreuzte Hämmer, hinten in Gold ein roter blaubewehrter und -gezungter Löwe.
The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Per pale vert a hammer and pick per saltire Or and Or a lion rampant gules armed and langued azure.
The charge on the dexter (armsbearer's right, viewer's left) side, the hammer and pick, is the mark of the stone industry in the municipality. The charge on the sinister (armsbearer's left, viewer's right) side, the lion, is a reference to the village's former allegiance to the Waldgraviate-Rhinegraviate. Before their dissolution on 6 June 1969, the former municipalities of Dhaun, Hochstädten and Hochstetten bei Kirn bore their own arms. The council of the newly formed municipality of Hochstetten-Dhaun decided on 8 August 1969 to bear Hochstetten's former arms as the new municipality's heraldic emblem. At a Hochstetten council meeting on 6 July 1964, council had adopted the design that had been put forth by the graphic artist Brust from Kirn-Sulzbach. The Ministry of the Interior in Mainz had then granted approval for Hochstetten to bear its own arms on 15 February 1965. The approval for Hochstetten-Dhaun to bear these same arms was granted on 2 October 1969.Statistische Mappen, Verbandsgemeinde Kirn-Land, 2009Description and explanation of Hochstetten-Dhaun’s arms The municipal banner also bears this coat of arms in the centre.Municipal banner
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
Hochstädten Evangelical church, Kirchstraße 3 – sandstone-block building, Rundbogen framing, marked 1866/1867 At Hauptstraße 39 – Renaissance portal with skylight, about 1600 At Hauptstraße 41 – Renaissance portal, marked 1567
Hochstetten Evangelical church, Brunnengasse – sandstone-block building, 1864
Schloß Dhaun Evangelical church, Kirner Straße 12 – former comital brewing house, essentially Baroque, 18th century, given Classicist makeover in the early 19th century Castle (monumental zone) – mentioned in 1215 as a castle, expanded in 1729 into a residential castle, torn down in 1804 and years that followed, conversion of outer bailey into an English garden; inner ward complex, ruin of Saint George’s Chapel (Georgskapelle; 1608), upper gateway (1526), north wing (1729, expansion in 1971–1977); reconstructed and altered great hall; two gun turrets; on the ward wall an heraldic lion, 18th century Im Hahn – village fountain, hewn stone, 17th or 18th century Im Hahn 1 – Baroque house with single roof ridge, partly slated, 18th century Im Hahn 17 – Late Baroque timber-frame bungalow, marked 1776 Kirner Straße (no number) – communal bakehouse; possibly from the latter half of the 19th century Kirner Straße 2 – Baroque building with half-hip roof, marked 1731; set at a corner across from the castle gateway Neuweg 13 – former Amtshaus (Amt seat); Baroque building with mansard roof, 1738
St. Johannisberg St. Johannisberg – Evangelical parish church; formerly Saint John the Baptist’s Collegiate Church (Stiftskirche St. Johannes der Täufer), Gothic aisleless church, 1318, tower 1465, quire 1595; old churchyard wall with gateway arch Village core (monumental zone), St. Johannisberg 11, 13 among others – former collegiate church with churchyard, former Protestant rectory from 1743, village inn and farmhouse across the street, essentially Baroque as well as an estate complex along the street, no. 11, abutting the churchyard; in the middle of the street a well; bakehouse, possibly from the latter half of the 19th century On Kreisstraße 10 north of the church – bakehouse, possibly from the latter half of the 19th century St. Johannisberg 13 – former Evangelical rectory; Baroque solid building in style of house with single roof ridge, marked 1743
More about the castle