Dunzweiler 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.
Geography
Location The municipality lies between Kaiserslautern and Saarbrücken in the Kusel Musikantenland (“Minstrels’ Land”) in the Western Palatinate, on the state boundary with the Saarland. Its elevation is 352 m above sea level. The village stretches across several mountain ridges through which the Klingbach and its tributaries cut. The ridges are among the Höcherberg's foothills (although the Höcherberg itself lies within the Saarland). The municipal area's northern reaches, and also an area in the south, are held to be agricultural lands, while other areas in the south are part of the extensive woodlands, which also stretch well beyond the municipality's limits. The greatest elevation within municipal limits is the Eulenkopf (“Owl’s Head”; 469 m above sea level) in the municipality's northwest, while the lowest spot, at roughly 300 m above sea level, can be found in the east where the Klingbach flows out of the municipality downstream from the mill and the sewage treatment plant. The municipal area measures 533 ha, of which roughly 190 ha is settled and 166 ha is wooded.Location
Neighbouring municipalities Dunzweiler borders in the north and northeast on the municipality of Dittweiler, in the east on the municipality of Schönenberg-Kübelberg, in the south on the municipality of Waldmohr, in the southwest on the town of Bexbach, in the west on the town of Ottweiler and in the northwest on the municipality of Breitenbach.
Constituent communities Also belonging to Dunzweiler are the outlying homesteads of Frauenfelderhöfe (two of these, hence the plural name), Lacherwaldhof, Dunzweilermühle with Talstraße (“Dale Road”) and part of the Waldziegelhütte, most of which lies within Waldmohr's limits.Constituent communities
Municipality’s layout The built-up area's main axis is Hauptstraße (“Main Street”), which comes into the village from Schönenberg-Kübelberg, but hardly in a straight line, for there are many bends, some quite broad, both within the village and to the southwest. Sprouting off this road near the Dunzweilermühle is Talstraße. Upstream from this small outlying settlement lies yet another, albeit newer one near the graveyard. Beyond this, one reaches the old village core near the Evangelical church, while the roads leading out of the village, towards both Waldmohr and Breitenbach, feature newer built-up zones. The former schoolhouse stands in the old village core. The new Catholic church likewise stands on Hauptstraße, but higher up than the Evangelical church on a hillock. A forest fairground (Waldfestplatz) lies south of the village on the edge of the woods, while the sporting ground lies outside the village to the west on the road from Breitenbach to Waldmohr.Municipality’s layout
History
Antiquity According to Bantelmann (writing in 1972), there is supposedly a prehistoric barrow to be found on the Hollerkopf in the village's southwest, although apparently, after an archaeological survey, it can no longer be made out. There are, however, richer finds from Roman times. According to Zenglein (although this is based on another writer's information, namely Egon Wagner's), there are the following sites at which archaeological finds have come to light in Dunzweiler: a villa rustica at the Lacherwald (forest), confirmed by trial digging; a further villa rustica in the strip field named Hübschweiler; two Viergöttersteine (“four-god stones”, pedestals on which a Jupiter Column was customarily stood), which were walled into the masonry as spolia at the Dunzweiler Evangelical church on the Heidenkopf, and which were described as early as the 16th century by Tilemann Stella and again by more recent archaeologists (Friedrich Sprater, for one); also spreading onto Waldmohr's municipal area in the Hengstwald (forest), remnants from Gallo-Roman times found long ago by farmers, and described in the 18th century by the Reverend Jodocus Selbach, who even wrote a poem about the finds on the Prince-Elector's behalf; these finds were in the past incorrectly said to be the “Sanctuary of Waldmohr”.Antiquity
Middle Ages It is likely that “Dunzo’s Homestead” (the name's original meaning) arose as early as Frankish times, thus before the 10th century. According to the document from Henry II, Count of Zweibrücken, containing Dunzweiler's first documentary mention (29 April 1247), Wilhelm von Duntzwilre and his wife Panzerte forwent a complaint against the nearby Wörschweiler Abbey over a plot of land, in return for which they were to be buried at the abbey upon their deaths. In 1264, it comes to light from a document from Loretta von Zweibrücken that a priest named Verculo forsook his property “zu Dunzwilr” (“at Dunzweiler”). In the same year Henry II documented that a priest at Dunzweiler named Johannes bequeathed all his holdings to Wörschweiler Abbey. According to this document, Dunzweiler belonged to the County of Zweibrücken, whose counts enfeoffed vassals with holdings in the village, foremost among them the Lords of Bitsch. In the early 15th century, the County of Zweibrücken was pledged, later being redeemed by Stephen of Electoral Palatinate, who out of his own inheritance from Electoral Palatinate, his wife Anna of Veldenz' from the now defunct County of Veldenz and the now redeemed County of Zweibrücken founded the County Palatine of Zweibrücken, which in the fullness of time came to be known as the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken. Nevertheless, lesser nobles had holdings in Dunzweiler that bit by bit were taken over by the Dukes of Zweibrücken. Two 15th-century Weistümer (a Weistum – cognate with English wisdom – was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the Middle Ages and early modern times) from Dunzweiler are still preserved.Middle Ages In 1487, the village burnt to the ground and was not fully restored for 80 years.Dunzweiler’s history
Modern times Dunzweiler, as part of the Schultheißerei of Waldmohr, now shared a history with the County Palatine of Zweibrücken right up until that state's dissolution at the time of the French Revolution. In 1547, the first detailed information about Dunzweiler and its environs was to be found in the so-called Oberamtsbuch kept by the Oberamt of Zweibrücken, which was compiled on Duke Wolfgang's orders, and by way of the archaeological listings, the village appears repeatedly in Tilemann Stella's (a surveyor and cartographer from Siegen) 1564 Beschreibung der Ämter Zweibrücken und Kirkel (“Description of the Ämter of Zweibrücken and Kirkel”, a territory also known as the Dunzweiler Bann). It says, for instance, on page 28, in archaic German: “Fortan gehet die grenitz berguber biß zu einem Ort, im Hohen Teich genannt. Dieser Ort schaidet Duntzweiller und Ditweiller. Von dan gehet die oberkait gemach bergin bis zu einem marckstein. Dieser marckstein wirt genannt oben am Hundthauser teich bei der Krelesaichen. Er hatt ein creutz unnd schaidet Duntzweiller und Diweiller, diß ist Pfältzisch unndt höret inns Reich.” (“Henceforth the border goes over the mountain to a place named ‘im Hohen Teich’. This place divides Duntzweiller and Ditweiller. Thence, the authority goes into the mountains to a borderstone. This borderstone is named up above at the Hundthaus pond near the Krelesaichen. It has a cross and divides Duntzweiller and Ditweiller, this is Palatine and belongs in the Empire.”). During the course of the 16th century, Count (Duke) John I of Zweibrücken finally managed to acquire all foreign lordly rights in Dunzweiler, completing the acquisition on 27 April 1577. In 1609 came the first complete list of Dunzweiler’s inhabitants in the form of a directory of parishioners belonging to the parish branch of Dunzweiler. It was compiled by the Reverend Simon Metzler, the parish priest at Ohmbach, to which Dunzweiler was parochially attached. This list may well also represent the village’s population figure – roughly 120 persons – just before the Thirty Years' War, which brought great hardship, misery and sickness (foremost, the Plague) along with it. Dunzweiler was not spared in the Conquest of Kaiserslautern, either, falling victim to plundering and being set on fire. Most of the village’s farmers and craftsmen likely died in this time. The war was brought to an end in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. After great fluctuations in the population in the years that followed, the first population figures known from the years after the Thirty Years’ War were 7 families in 1675 and 14 in 1704, whereas some villages in the broader area had died right out in the war. Some inhabitants had fled and were now staying in faraway places. On 12 February 1673, the municipality, which had been settled once again, enacted its own municipal code (Gemeindeordnung), which prescribed a police force. The code, which was read aloud every year, was officially confirmed by the Amt of Zweibrücken.
In the early 18th century there was a serious dispute with the neighbouring village of Dittweiler. The land that was the subject of this dispute is still known today as Streitgewann (roughly “Dispute Strip”). This comes from a hitherto unknown entry in a church book. Closer examination of this source has also brought to light that during the Inquisition in the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken under Heinrich Kramer (c. 1430-c. 1505), Dunzweiler was the scene of local violent crimes. A “stock book” has survived from 1756 or 1759. It was compiled by the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken and used information gathered by land surveyors to determine who owned how much land, and in which fields. Also listed in this book was a figure of 30 to 35 houses in Dunzweiler.
Following in 1776 were the Huldigungslisten (“homage lists”), a list of Dunzweiler subjects at that time in homage to Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, who had just (on 5 November 1775) assumed the Duchy's leadership after his predecessor's death. This list, which came into being shortly before the French Revolution, counted 48 fathers heading families, 16 fully grown, unwed young men and two older inhabitants who, owing to age or infirmity, could not show up for the counting.
In 1793, the Duchy was conquered by invading French troops, putting Charles II August to flight, shortly whereafter his palace was burnt down. By 1805, Dunzweiler, along with the rest of the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank, had been annexed to Napoleon’s empire, within which the Commune de Dunzweiler found itself until 1814 in the Canton of Waldmohr, the Arrondissement of Sarrebruck (Saarbrücken) and the Department of Sarre, whose seat was at Trèves (Trier). In 1805, the French administration had a plan géometrique of Dunzweiler laid out, that is, a map with building areas and divisions of farm fields drawn in. This makes it clear that there was a great upswing in the village’s population in the 19th century. While there had been only 50 houses in Dunzweiler in 1805, there were 96 in 1845.Modern timesDunzweiler’s history
Recent times In 1814, the French withdrew from the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank, and after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna in 1816, after a transitional period, awarded the Baierische Rheinkreis (“Bavarian Rhenish District”), which was later known as the Bayerische Rheinpfalz (“Bavarian Rhenish Palatinate”), to the Kingdom of Bavaria, whose kings were descended from Charles II August, effectively Zweibrücken's last duke (the territory was occupied by the French when the last duke, his brother Maximilian, inherited the duchy). Dunzweiler thus became Bavarian.