Breitenbach () is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Oberes Glantal. Breitenbach is one of the Kusel district's eight biggest municipalities. It is also the Palatinate's westernmost municipality.
Geography
Location The municipality lies in the Kusel Musikantenland (“Minstrels’ Land”) in the Western Palatinate, on the state boundary with the Saarland. The village stretches over a high hollow some 380 m above sea level, ringed by elevations some of which reach up to 450 m above sea level and with an opening towards the south leading to the neighbouring village of Lautenbach in the Saarland, through which the land falls off to about 350 m above sea level by the time it reaches the boundary. Flowing in this direction, too, is a brook, itself known by the same name as the municipality, the Breitenbach, but it is also known as the Schönbach. The Breitenbach or Schönbach empties within the village of Lautenbach into another brook, this one with the same name as that village, the Lautenbach, which itself flows into the Osterbach. In the municipality's northwest lies the Labach mine, which likewise lies on a brook with the same name, the Labach. This flows into the Oster after only about a kilometre, just north of Dörrenbach. The Labach mine was one of three former coalmines within Breitenbach's municipal limits. Well patronized is the countryside inn that now stands here. Other mines were the Augustusgrube in the north and a gallery in the west on the Dörrenbacher Weg (road). Most of the homesteads named below stretch in an east-west direction north of the village, although the Mühlberghof lies in the southwest and the Bambergerhof and Berghof lie in the southeast. The municipal area measures 889 ha, of which 267 ha is wooded.Location
Neighbouring municipalities Breitenbach borders in the east on the municipalities of Frohnhofen, Altenkirchen and Dittweiler, in the southeast on the municipality of Dunzweiler, in the southwest on the town of Ottweiler and in the northwest on the town of Sankt Wendel. The last two named lie in the Saarland.
Constituent communities Also belonging to Breitenbach are the outlying homesteads of Bambergerhof, Berghof, Felsenbrunnerhof, Kahlenbornerhof, Labach (former mine), Langwieserhof, Mühlberghof, Pfalzrechhof, Römerhof and Schönbornerhof, which together have about 150 inhabitants.Constituent communities
Municipality’s layout The main road axis in the municipality is the combination of Frohnhofer Straße and Lautenbacher Straße, which run through the village from northeast to southwest. From this axis sprout other roads, leading to neighbouring villages: Altenkircher Straße, Waldmohrer Straße, Fürther Straße. Within this arrangement, the built-up area between Lautenbacher Straße and Waldmohrer Straße forms the older part of the village. Friedhofstraße leads to the Evangelical church in the middle of this village core and to the graveyard on the village's southern outskirts. Branching off this old core, the original 1842 cadastral survey shows two further older areas, one on Fürther Straße and the other on Kirchstraße, which leads to the Catholic church on the village's northern outskirts. Among the older houses are many simple farmhouses, but also Bergmannsbauernhäuser (“miner-farmers’ houses”) with limited farmstead facilities, which served miners who also worked farms part-time. New building areas are laid out mainly in the western and southeastern parts of the village. On the street “Auf dem Wilcher”, parallel to Lautenbacher-Straße, lie the fairgrounds with a multipurpose hall (Schönbachtalhalle) and the primary school. A village community centre stands near the Catholic church on Kirchstraße. The Bergmannsbauernmuseum (“Miner-Farmers’ Museum”) was set up in the former southern primary school at the southern end of Waldmohrer Straße. The sporting ground lies on the village's southwestern outskirts near the Mühlberghof.Municipality’s layout
History
Antiquity Even in prehistoric times, the Breitenbach area was inhabited by man, bearing witness to which are various archaeological finds. Recovered from a barrow as early as 1870 were urns, whose whereabouts today is no longer known. More extensive are finds from Roman times. At the former graveyard at the church, a stone sculpture of a lion holding a hare in his paws was found. This sculpture from Gallo-Roman times is today kept at the Historisches Museum der Pfalz (“Historical Museum of the Palatinate”) in Speyer. In 1898, a farmer discovered on his land “Am Trumpelhaus”, north of Breitenbach, not far from the Labach mine, foundations of a Gallo-Roman villa rustica. A report about the subsequent digs with a plan of the foundations is contained in the communications of the Historischer Verein der Pfalz (“Historical Association of the Palatinate”), “Band 23, Speyer 1899”. Unearthed were the following smaller finds: a bridle, a bell, a short piece of lead pipe, nails and chains, a silver coin and a blue pearl. Even some wall plastering was found. At a hill east of Breitenbach (Heidenkeller), remnants of another villa rustica came to light in 1909, one that had already been mentioned by Tilemann Stella. Digs there by Duke Karl II August in 1790 brought to light a few Roman coins. Even today, this estate still has not been systematically explored. While sinking a shaft at the Labach mine in 1956, workers found remnants of a Roman tomb.Antiquity
Middle Ages When Breitenbach arose as a settlement is not known. According to the first documentary mention in 1303, Henelo, called Mula von Saarbrücken, sold his lord, Count Walram I of Zweibrücken (1269-1309), rights to yearly income from the village of Breidenbach worth 20 pounds in Metz pennies (Pfennige), namely one pig worth 12 shillings (Schillinge), five Viertel of average wine, eight capons and 30 penny loaves (Pfennigbrote). Also according to this document, the village belonged at the turn of the 14th century to the County of Zweibrücken, which arose from the Bliesgau. Walram I was a son of Heinrich II of Zweibrücken (1228-1282), knowledge of whom springs from the history of the County of Veldenz in which he was guardian of the hereditary daughter Agnes von Veldenz and also the builder of several castles within the Remigiusland. In the same year, Mula also sold Walram a further share of his income rights in Breitenbach, this time worth one pound in Metz pennies. It is clear from the document that the income from Breitenbach owed Mula amounted to seven pounds ten shillings in Metz pennies, which had to be raised by the estate manager. It is to be understood that Mula forwent the payments in kind owed him in return for a fee that the count paid. From a 1337 document, the reader learns that Walram II (1312-1366) sold Breitenbach and a few other villages (Dirmingen, Kleinottweiler and Jägersburg) to Jakob Daniels von Trier and Aron von Wittlich, who were both Jews, for a price of 1,700 pounds in Heller. At first, the right to buy them back was reserved for a period of eight years, but later that same year, Walram and his wife Jeneta gave the two buyers approval to sell the villages again, this time to Archbishop Baldwin of Trier. The holding must soon have passed back to the Counts of Zweibrücken, though, for in 1382, Breitenbach was pledged by Count Eberhard of Zweibrücken (1357-1394) together with the village of Lautenbach for 300 Gulden to the related Counts Heinrich and Friedrich of Veldenz. Eberhard surely soon redeemed the two villages, for in 1388, Eberhard II pledged one third of Breitenbach to Anselm Lamperter von Bitsch.
In the early 15th century, as a result of debts, the County of Zweibrücken was pledged, with the Palatinate holding the rights of redemption. Stephen, Count Palatine of Simmern-Zweibrücken, found these rights useful when he married Anna of Veldenz in 1406, daughter of Frederick III, Count of Veldenz, the last count in the younger line of Veldenz. In 1444, after Friedrich's death, Stephan founded a new principality out of the County of Veldenz and the redeemed County of Zweibrücken, which came to be known as the Duchy of Palatine Zweibrücken. Breitenbach now lay within this new state.Middle Ages
Modern times Now that Breitenbach belonged to the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, the village shared a history with this state, until Palatinate-Zweibrücken met its end when all former feudal states were swept away in the French Revolution. The village first belonged to the Oberamt of Zweibrücken and was the seat of its own Schultheißerei, but then in 1768 passed to the Oberamt of Homburg and the Schultheißerei of Waldmohr. Although Breitenbach lay within Palatinate-Zweibrücken, it also lay right at the border with the Oberamt of Lichtenberg, which lay within the County of Nassau-Saarbrücken. In his 1564 Beschreibung der Ämter Zweibrücken und Kirkel (“Description of the Ämter of Zweibrücken and Kirkel”), Tilemann Stella outlined the path taken by the border, beginning with a Markstein, or “marchstone”, which apparently marked a tripoint. His account is written in very archaic spelling, but is still perfectly intelligible, if a bit dry, dealing mostly with a number of borderstones and the number of paces between each and the next.
In 1570, during Duke Wolfgang's reign, the government in Zweibrücken set forth the so-called Breitenbacher Abschied, a law that laid down measures for the subjects’ rights and duties. It dealt with, among other things, direct taxation rights at Breitenbach, a serf in the village and others at Werschweiler, swine-grazing rights in the woods at Limbach, the use of the Vorbacher Wald (forest) by Limbach's inhabitants and tolls in Mittelbexbach.
The village was struck hard by the events of the Thirty Years' War, not only by the warfare waged then, but also by the Plague. On several occasions it was reported that Breitenbach had been destroyed and that only a few people there had survived the war. Slowly, the village was built up again. In 1675, there were once more nine families living in the village, who then faced further warfare with King Louis XIV's wars of conquest. What can be assumed, though, is that the repopulation efforts were promoted by the French, who saw to it that the newcomers were mainly Catholic. Clearly, many came, for in the late 17th century, the village's population rose fivefold. In 1765, the Bamberger Hof on the road to Waldmohr came into being, at first a small settlement with two houses, but which grew over time into a village within the village, especially once the road was expanded. As a result of the French Revolution, the rule of the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken came to an end. In 1793, the first French Revolutionary troops showed up. In 1801, France annexed the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank. During the short period of French rule leading up to 1814, Breitenbach lay in the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Waldmohr and the Canton of Waldmohr as well as the Arrondissement of Saarbrücken and the Department of Sarre, whose seat was at Trier.Modern times
Recent times