Monzingen 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 of Nahe-Glan, whose seat is in the like-named town. Monzingen is a more than 1,200-year-old winegrowing village and a state-recognized recreational resort (Erholungsort).Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz – Regionaldaten
Geography
Location Monzingen lies in a side valley of the Middle Nahe, flowing through which is the Gaulsbach. To the north, east and west, the village is framed by mountains that reach 250 to 300 m above sea level, whereas to the south, the valley opens out towards the River Nahe. The village's centre is formed by the 200 m-high Kirchberg (“Church Hill”) on which stands the 13th-century Martinskirche (Saint Martin's Church). The houses stretch along a mountain slope that gently falls off from west to east. The newest buildings stand mainly on an easterly hill towards Nußbaum, looming above the old village core with its historical buildings. To the south in the Nahe valley, across Bundesstraße 41 and the Nahe Valley Railway, lie the commercial park, sport facilities and one of the Nahe valley's biggest campgrounds. The surrounding mountain slopes are covered with mixed forest or, on the south slopes, are mainly used for winegrowing. A few vineyards that were long ago given up are now covered with bush. On the steep slopes of the well known Monzingen vineyards Frühlingsplätzchen and Halenberg, however, there is still intensive winegrowing.
Neighbouring municipalities Clockwise from the north, Monzingen's neighbours are the municipality of Auen, the town of Bad Sobernheim (although this is in fact the outlying piece of that town's municipal area, a mostly rural swathe of land, not the one containing the actual town) and the municipalities of Nußbaum, Meddersheim, Merxheim, Weiler bei Monzingen and Langenthal, all of which likewise lie within the Bad Kreuznach district.
Constituent communities Also belonging to Monzingen is the outlying homestead of Nahemühle.Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz – Amtliches Verzeichnis der Gemeinden und Gemeindeteile , Seite 17 (PDF; 2,3 MB)
History Monzingen is among the oldest settlements in the Nahe valley. Without a doubt there was already a settlement of farmers and hunters around the mountain spur more than 2,000 years ago. From Celtic and Roman times and later, to the Frankish taking of the land, a wealth of archaeological finds has come to light. The oldest preserved record of Monzingen comes from a directory of holdings kept by Lorsch Abbey (east of Worms), from AD 778. The oldest known forms of the village's name are Monzecha and Munzaher. It is also known from the Lorsch document that there was already winegrowing in Monzingen then. The settlement lay in a favourable spot up a sheltered side valley, around a crag halfway up a slope that also bore a holy sanctuary, as in now does a church, away from any floodwaters that might come up from the Nahe of the Gaulsbach. It can be assumed that during the Middle Ages, a kind of village castle arose around the Kirchberg (“Church Hill”) to afford the villagers greater security. Beginning in 1281, the Archbishop of Mainz held considerable rights and estates in Monzingen. In 1355, Monzingen was granted town rights, thereby also acquiring the right to hold a market, run its own court and, particularly, to fortify itself to protect the villagers and their belongings. In 1430, Monzingen was burnt down in a war between two claimants to the seat of Bishop and Archbishop of Mainz. In 1466, it was pledged along with Böckelheim by Mainz to the Dukes of Palatinate-Zweibrücken. In 1471 it was conquered by Electoral Palatinate troops. The church is, at least in its northwestern parts, a building from the 12th century. Towards 1300, it was thoroughly converted. The Gothic quire comes from 1488. In the 17th and 18th centuries, further building was undertaken, and again in 1860, 1923 and even very recently. In this last round of work, wall paintings from the 15th century were uncovered. The Electoral Palatinate leadership lastingly introduced the Reformation in the years 1550-1560. As in the whole Rhenish region, the Thirty Years' War wrought great damage and loss in Monzingen. In 1636, there were only 25 townsfolk living here; 50 had died. Beginning in 1792, French Revolutionary troops conquered the Nahe country. Thus ended the people's hereditary duty of allegiance to the various princes and landlords. After the end of Napoleonic times in the wars of 1813-1815, this administrative zone of Monzingen was assigned in 1816 to the Kingdom of Prussia at the Congress of Vienna. Monzingen remained the seat of a Bürgermeisterei (“mayoralty”) within the then newly formed Kreuznach district. With the building of the Nahe-Saar Railway in the years 1856-1860 and a few better roads, gradually some new development began. In the course of administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate, the Amtsbürgermeisterei of Monzingen became a Verbandsgemeinde in 1969 but then the following year it was dissolved altogether. Monzingen was then grouped into the Verbandsgemeinde of Sobernheim (which has since become the Verbandsgemeinde of Bad Sobernheim).History
Jewish history Monzingen had a small Jewish community until the early 20th century. Its beginnings might have gone back at least to the 18th century. Beginning in the 1770s, the widower Isaak bar Veis, or Isaak Sohn des Veis – a German translation of his name (it would be “Isaac Veis’s Son” in English) – was being named. He was from Monzingen (b. 1742) and married Sophie Moses David in Becherbach. The couple had three sons, Peter (b. 1789), Simon (b. 1792) and Michael (b. 1795). In the 19th century, the number of Jewish inhabitants developed as follows: in 1858, there were 64 (5.1% of all together 1,267 inhabitants, 1,128 Evangelical, 75 Catholic); in 1895, 23 (1.8% of all together 1,258 inhabitants, 1,195 Evangelical, 40 Catholic). From the 1870s onwards, the numbers of Jewish inhabitants shrank sharply: between 1872 and 1890, seven Jewish families left Monzingen. Particularly common surnames among Monzingen's Jewish families were Fried, Mayer and Ullmann; these names can be read on the Jewish gravestones from Monzingen preserved in Bad Sobernheim. In the way of institutions, there were a prayer room (known in the village as the Judenschule, or “Jewish school” or the “synagogue” – see Synagogue below), a mikveh (which was in the same building as the “synagogue”, itself wedged between the houses now at Hauptstraße 58 and Franziskastraße 1) and a graveyard (see Jewish graveyard below). Jewish schoolchildren attended the Evangelical public school, which was the village's only school; Catholic schoolchildren attended this as well. Each group, though, received religious education separately. About 1920, almost every Jewish inhabitant had already moved out of Monzingen, leaving only one, Jettchen Ullmann, known as the Ullmanns-Bas – the last part of the nickname is apparently an archaic word for “cousin” – who was born in 1856). The building that contained the Jewish prayer room was no longer used and in the time that followed it fell into disrepair. Until about 1950, there was still a heap of rubble at that spot. About 1960-1964, remnants of the former mikveh could still be made out. Today (2012), the site is in a thoroughly run-down state. In the time of the Third Reich, the Jewish graveyard was eliminated and the gravestones were removed to Bad Sobernheim. According to the Gedenkbuch – Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945 ("Memorial Book – Victims of the Persecution of the Jews under National Socialist Tyranny") and Yad Vashem, of all Jews who either were born in Monzingen or lived there for a long time, three were victims of Nazi persecution (birthdates and other information in brackets): Else Ermann (b. 1903 in Monzingen) Rosalie (Rosa) Jakob (b. 1860 in Monzingen) Penas Paul Wolff (b. 1878 in Wawern, married in 1908 and moved to Monzingen with Bertha née Ullmann, lived until 1920 at house no. 207, later in Frankfurt, deported thence)Jewish history
Municipality’s name Early forms of Monzingen's name such as Monzecha, Munzaher and Monzaha derived from a Frankish settler's name (Munt/Mund) with the suffix —aha or —ach, which meant “(flowing) water”. Over the ages, the name evolved into its modern form. The following spellings, among others, are known: Year Spelling Remarks 1061 Munzecha 1074 villa Munzichum 1197 Munziche 1283 Monzecho 1297 Moncichen 1355 Muntziche in deed conferring town rights 1380 Montzingen 1421 Muntzingen 1494 Montzingen
Population development Monzingen's population development since Napoleonic times is shown in the table below. The figures for the years from 1871 to 1987 are drawn from census data: Year Inhabitants 1815 962 1835 1,201 1871 1,168 1905 1,167 1939 1,133 Year Inhabitants 1950 1,245 1961 1,381 1970 1,496 1987 1,545 2005 1,731
Religion As at 30 November 2013, there are 1,607 full-time residents in Monzingen, and of those, 1,072 are Evangelical (66.708%), 206 are Catholic (12.819%), 4 are Lutheran (0.249%), 2 belong to the Palatinate State Free Religious Community (0.124%), 1 is Russian Orthodox (0.062%), 44 (2.738%) belong to other religious groups and 278 (17.299%) 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 personalized proportional representation at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman. However, owing to a formal defect that was detected in the electoral oversight, this election was in fact invalidated and then held again on 25 October 2009.Bericht in der Allgemeinen Zeitung vom 26. Oktober 2009 That vote yielded the following results:Der Landeswahlleiter Rheinland-Pfalz: Kommunalwahl 2009, Stadt- und Gemeinderatswahlen Date SPD CDU FDP FWG Total 25-10-2009 8 2 4 2 16 seats 07-06-2009 7 2 4 3 16 seats 13-06-2004 7 2 3 4 16 seats
Mayors 1948–1962: Karl Thöne 1962–1972: Hugo Dämgen (FWG) 1972–1986: Erich Schauß (FDP) 1986–1990: Willi Böttcher (SPD) 1990–2009: Adolf Geib (SPD) 2009–2014: Norbert Alt (SPD) 2014-2019: Hans-Jürgen Eckert (independent) 2019-: Klaus Stein
Hugo Dämgen was actually the head of the Amt (Amtsbürgermeister) under the old system before 1972, as Monzingen still was a growing city.
Monzingen's current mayor is Klaus Stein, elected in 2019.
Coat of arms The German blazon reads: .
The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Per fess sable a lion passant Or tail forked langued gules, and gules a wheel spoked of six argent.
Monzingen's arms originally had only a single, undivided field with one charge, the wheel still seen now; the field was gules (red). This wheel was the heraldic device borne by the Archbishopric of Mainz, the Wheel of Mainz. The arms, however, eventually became party per fess (that is, divided into two fields horizontally), and the former composition was assigned to the lower field, while the new upper field bore its own charge, a lion. This is the Palatine Lion. The two charges refer to Monzingen's former overlords, the Electorate of Mainz and Electoral Palatinate.Description and explanation of Monzingen’s arms
Town partnerships Monzingen fosters partnerships with the following places:Partnership with Monzingen Entrains-sur-Nohain, Nièvre, France