Breitenthal (; Hunsrückisch: Bränel) is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein-Rhaunen, whose seat is in Herrstein.
Geography
Location The municipality lies on the slope down from the Hunsrück into the Nahe valley south of the Idar Forest in an area facing east inside a bend in the river Hosenbach. In the southwest, the land slopes off steeply near the municipal limits into the Fischbach valley. Breitenthal's range of elevations is 187 m, from its lowest point of 330 m above sea level at the foot of the Schielenbach (), to its highest of 517 m above sea level in the Sangwald/Jungenwald (forest; ).
Land use Breitenthal's total area measures 368 ha (3.68 km2), which breaks down thus: Woodlands – 44.9% Farmland – 43.3% Residential and transport – 11.1% Open water – 0.3% Other – 0.4%
Neighbouring municipalities Breitenthal borders on Oberhosenbach, Wickenrodt, Niederhosenbach, Herrstein, Mörschied and Weiden. The nearest major town is Idar-Oberstein on the Deutsche Edelsteinstraße ("German Gem Road").
Geology Geologically, the Breitenthal area is characterized by slate (stratigraphy: Hunsrück slate; petrography: claystone and siltstone with traces of sandstone). This arose from clayey/sandy depositions from great rivers on the Old Red Continent that were submerged in a deep sea, sinking to the sea floor in the Upper Devonian and the Lower Carboniferous. These deposits were later folded and, as part of the Variscan orogeny, once more lifted up. The tectonic forces along a southeast–northwest axis during this folding were what gave rise to the almost upright-standing slate areas, which were also thereby given the fissility that allowed them to be split into thin sheets that would be so important much later on to the local economy.
The fossils in Breitenthal slate are either encrusted with a thin layer of pyrite or formed of fine crystals (<20 μm).D. E. G. Briggs, Peter R. Crowther: Palaeobiology II: A Synthesis; Blackwell Publishing, 2001; , ; Seite 347
The municipal area's northwesternmost corner in the Rhaunen State Forest (Sangwald and Jungenwald) is part of a Taunus quartzite block, whose continuation can also be seen in the higher elevations to the west, namely the Sandkopf, the Wildenburger Kopf and the Mörschieder Burr (stratigraphy: Taunus quartzite; petrography: quartz sandstone and quartzitic sandstone with traces of claystone and siltstone).
Geological risks arise from abandoned mines in the Schielenbach. Not only are their shafts in the ground formerly affording access to underground slatemines, but also the dangers inherent in old slate heaps at the mines.
Climate
Breitenthal lies in a zone characterized mainly by an oceanic climate with a prevailing wind direction from southwest to northwest. The topographically favourable location of the municipality's main centre in a hollow sloping gently towards the east confers a somewhat more favourable climate than that which prevails in nearby places. Very seldom is there hot and humid weather here.
Because Breitenthal lies alee of the Wildenburg mountain ridge to the west and the Idar Forest to the north, showers and storms, as well as mean and absolute wind speed, are significantly less intense than would be expected given the synoptic structure.
In the odd case when Breitenthal finds itself on the windward side of the Idar Forest, there can be prolonged rainfall and low cloud ceilings ahead of warm fronts as long as the wind is out of the south (between 150° and 210°) and the dew point spread is only slight.
The village is practically fog-free; only radiation fog is seen now and then, as well as the odd advection fog inflow from the Hosenbach valley within the framework of a local atmospheric circulation that forms with low-gradient anticyclonic weather systems.
When there is a slight westerly wind, it can sometimes bring about an advection-induced hill fog on the saddle south of the village (in the training ground area) if moist air flowing from the Schielenbach condenses once it is lifted up. The village itself is not usually affected by this.
Extreme weather in the form of summertime hot-weather thunderstorms arising in the Nahe valley can in times of overlying southeasterly upper air flows be swept over the Hosenbach valley to Breitenthal. These storms are made all the more intense by lifting processes with orographically induced increased strength, leading to unusually great amounts of precipitation within a short time. It was on the occasion of one such event that the lower-lying sections of the village's new development area experienced flooded basements, prompting improvements in surface-water removal systems through changes to the drainage ditches.
History This timeline shows the holders of the territory in which Breitenthal has lain over the centuries, from the time of its first documentary mention:
The village, which had its first documentary mention in 1282 as Breydendale, sprang from an estate established to supply the lordly family, and together with the neighbouring village of Oberhosenbach formed a Rhinegravial and Waldgravial high court in the Rhinegravial-Waldgravial Amt of Wildenburg. Once the French had auctioned off the lordly holdings to private owners as national property (bien national), Breitenthal could develop itself as a free village.Hugo Klar: Ortsnamen und Siedlungsgeschichte an der Oberen Nahe; in: Aufsätze zur Heimatkunde des Landkreises Birkenfeld, Band 2
Archaeological finds from the Bronze Age have led to the assumption that there was human settlement then within what are now the municipality's limits. In the cadastral area known as Hirtenbösch and in the Hardtwald (forest), traces of settlement and gravesites from early Hallstatt times and La Tène times have been unearthed. Furthermore, in the area of the now vanished village of Battenhofen, clear signs of a Roman presence have been found in several spots right near the Roman road.
The estate of Breitenthal (Breidendale) was mentioned in a 1282 document with which Konrad von Schmidtburg transferred the estate to his brother Gottfried von Kyrburg. In 1318, the Dinghof (lordly estate with lower jurisdiction) of Breidindeil was transferred by the Waldgrave Friedrich zu Kyrburg to Archbishop of Trier Baldwin, who at once enfeoffed the Waldgrave with his own former holding as an Electoral-Trier fief. Beginning in 1409, Breitenthal belonged to the Amt of Wildenburg with which it passed in 1515 to the Rhinegrave and Waldgrave of Kyrburg. After the Old Kyrburg line had died out, it passed to the Old Dhaun line of the Rhinegraves and Waldgraves. After this line split, a three-fourths share of the ownership went to the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves of Grumbach, while each of the Salm-Salms and the Salm-Kyrburgs got a one-eighth share.
The Waldgraviate and Rhinegraviate of Salm-Kyrburg – as of 1743 the Principality of Salm-Kyrburg – stood as an Imperially immediate territory from 1499 until the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801. The capital was Kirn. After the Principality of Salm-Kyrburg was conquered in 1794 and 1795 by French Revolutionary troops and annexed by France in 1798, the Holy Roman Empire ceded the country to France in the Treaty of Lunéville. The Princes lived mainly in Paris, where Prince Friedrich III of Salm-Kyburg was put to death by guillotine in the Reign of Terror in 1794.
In the Thirty Years' War, the region was occupied by Spanish troops after the Catholic League's victory over the Protestant Union at the Battles of Wimpfen and Höchst in 1620, whereafter it bore a heavy burden as Spain's unwilling host. No documents about Breitenthal from this time are known, but according to oral history, a number of people from both Breitenthal and Niederhosenbach who had tried to flee were surrounded by Spanish (Brabantish) soldiers in the area of the Jammerseiche ("Moaning Oak") on the boundary between these two municipalities and horribly killed.Beispielsweise: G. Bergen: An der Jammerseiche, in: Blätter für Mosel, Hochwald und Hunsrück, Ausgabe Oktober 1911 (2. Jahrgang, No. 1), Seite 6
After the Thirty Years' War came Lorrainian invasions and French king Louis XIV's War of the Reunions with the Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession). In the face of the Lorrainian troops, the local lords (the Rhinegraves, the Duke of Palatinate-Zweibrücken and the Lords of Oberstein) joined forces in 1651 and, for their small population, fielded quite a large army of 1,700 infantrymen and 300 cavalrymen, who were stationed at the Wildenburg (castle) and in Herrstein, and who were under Rhinegrave Johann Ludwig's overall command. Already in December 1651, and again in 1652, there were two battles between Herrstein and the Wildenburg, which was destroyed as a result of the encounters. The Lorrainians were, however, defeated in both battles, and driven away. A focal point in the struggle was the ridge between the Fischbach and Oberwörresbach, which is visible across the Schielenbach from Breitenthal. Only in 1713, though, with the Treaty of Utrecht, did the area get a chance to regenerate after 93 years of fighting.
With its splintered territory, the Rhinegravial-Waldgravial domain was rather backward, even for its time. Until the French Revolutionary occupation in 1795, the people were unfree serfs who were subject to their lord's ill codified justice system.
The Hunsrück robber and outlaw Johannes Bückler, known as Schinderhannes, was suspected of having committed an offence in Breitenthal. During an interrogation that included 565 questions,Verhör des Johannes Bückler, Schinderhannes genannt. Veröffentlicht bei genealog.de he was asked in Question 297 whether he "also [knew] nothing about the theft of beehives that happened to Philipp Dörr of Breitenthal, in the month of Vendémiaire last in the garden abutting his house". Schinderhannes denied any knowledge.
Between 15 and 17 December 1795, there were clashes between French and Austrian troops on a line from Hennweiler through Wickenrodt to Asbach, and therefore in the Breitenthal area, too.Heinrich Baldes: Geschichtliche Heimatkunde der Birkenfelder Landschaft; 1923; Seite 292 The Austrians were overwhelmed and retreated. The neighbouring, Sponheim village, Niederhosenbach, was sternly punished by the French for supporting the Austrians. On 30 December 1795, a ceasefire went into effect, after which Breitenthal, along with the rest of the region, came into French hands.
Under Napoleonic administration after the conquest of the lands on the Rhine's left bank in 1795, Breitenthal was a commune in the Mairie ("Mayoralty") of Hottenbach in the canton of Herrstein in the arrondissement of Birkenfeld in the Department of Sarre, established in 1798 as part of the French First Republic, becoming in 1804 the First French Empire. This, at least, spelt the end of serfdom for the local inhabitants; the Rhinegraves and Waldgraves lost their privileges over the peasants, who could now fish and hunt more or less unhindered. Tithes were abolished, and equality before the law and the freedom to settle were enacted. The local inhabitants became free French citizens, with all attendant rights and obligations, after the Treaty of Lunéville of 9 February 1801. The Code civil was introduced. Disadvantageous, though, were the taxes, which were quite high, and the compulsory military service.