Auen () is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a , a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Bad Sobernheim, whose seat is in the like-named town. Auen is a tourism-oriented community and a state-recognized recreational area.Recognized recreational areaStatistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz – Regionaldaten
Geography
Location Auen lies in the southern Hunsrück between the Soonwald’s heights and the river Nahe. The municipal area measures 271 ha and the countryside is characterized by woodland and vineyards.Municipal area
Neighbouring municipalities Auen borders in the north on the town of Bad Sobernheim, in the south on the municipality of Monzingen and in the west on the municipality of Langenthal.
Constituent communities Also belonging to Auen is the outlying homestead of Gosenhof.Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz – Amtliches Verzeichnis der Gemeinden und Gemeindeteile , Seite 17 (PDF; 2,3 MB)
Geology It is rather easy even for those outside the field of geology to make out the geological composition in Auen and its outlying countryside. The Saar-Saale Depression runs almost down the middle of the Auener Tal (dale) from northeast to southwest, forming a clear boundary between the Rotliegend geology lying to the south and the Devonian geology lying to the north, which began in the framework of the Variscan orogeny and continued through the Pennsylvanian and into the Cisuralian. During this time, the depression was filled with thick sediments of terrestrial-limnic facies, which today can be seen as thrust sheets and streams. The bores (5 × 50 m deep) drilled to supply the municipal hall with geothermal heat showed the same mix of minerals. The groundwater that feeds the Kneipp wading basin in the village has a constant temperature in both summer and winter, with almost the same rate of flow, of 110 °C. There is no danger of volcanic eruption. The sandstone layers that formed in the Rotliegend were formerly important to employment in Auen. From the roughly eight sandstone quarries opened here, dressed stones and capitals were delivered to Cologne between 1842 and 1863 for cathedral building. Also unearthed at some of these quarries (Triftweg, Duschied, Bohnebruch) was petrified wood from the Permian. From the Devonian came fossilized plants here and there (Cordaitales leaves) and also small, fossilized creatures. These once existed in a collection, but this has unfortunately disappeared. A coal seam has also been observed north of Auen, but this has never been exploited because it is too thin to be commercially recoverable.Geology
History
Archaeology Auen was until after the Second World War a blank on the map of archaeological finds in the Bad Kreuznach district. A few find sites were already known, but there were still no digs or listings available. Through constant observation and subsequent digs, however, 22 find sites have now been identified. All digs were carried out under supervision of the Office for the Care of Buried Monuments (Amt für Bodendenkmalpflege) in Mainz. Listed here are some of the finds that have been brought to light in Auen, or locations where finds have turned up:Archaeology Stone hatchets and ceramics from roughly 3500 to 2000 BC Two burnt-out wooden wells from Celtic times Millstone from Celtic times Grape seeds, wheat and barley corns from La Tène times Great clay vessel from Hallstatt times Finds near Saint Willigis’s Chapel from Gallo-Roman times Four Roman watermains Top of a Roman amphora Roman house with sewerpipe Roman coin from roughly AD 200 Various places with Roman potsherds Ivory cross from roughly 1300 Two places with Roman vessels Eight sandstone quarries Two limekilns One coal pit and further prospecting
Middle Ages Auen's history, which is marked by an unusual wealth of documentary material for a place of its size, thus seeming almost exaggerated, can be explained by the village's time as a landhold of Sponheim Abbey and Saint Willigis’s Chapel’s time as a landhold of Disibodenberg Abbey. The formerly held assumption that Auen arose in the time of the Frankish taking of the land about AD 900 no longer bears up against the latest knowledge that has come to light. Archaeological finds now show that there had been human habitation here, some of it permanent, in earlier times. Furthermore, all digs undertaken at Roman sites have yielded Celtic finds as well, leading to the conclusion that the dale was settled as far back as the New Stone Age. In 1128, Auen had its first documentary mention in a confirmation document issued by Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz in connection with the building of Saint Willigis's Chapel, itself having been mentioned about 980 or 990. As early as 1044 and 1048, the village was listed in donation documents from Count Eberhard of Sponheim kept at the church at Sponheim (in Auen, the landhold in question amounted to four Huben). In 1203, Auen, along with its land and people, was donated as a payment to Sponheim Abbey, as the abbot had kept such good watch over the County of Sponheim during the Count's crusade. Auen's long allegiance to Sponheim Abbey is confirmed by the 1488 Auener Weistum (a Weistum – cognate with English wisdom – was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the Middle Ages and early modern times) and by Abbot Johannes Trithemius’s homage about 1500; it might have lasted until 1570.Middle Ages
Modern times This allegiance brought Auen into the Oberamt of Kreuznach. This was mentioned in a 1601 description of the Amt, which said that, among other things, the lordship of Sponheim Abbey and the outlying village of Auen both belonged to the Oberamt of Kreuznach. By this time, Auen was already an exclave between the other Ämter. Also mentioned was that Auen lay within the range of the Amt of Böckelheim but was nonetheless otherwise strictly subject to the Oberamt of Kreuznach. At the same time, the inhabitants of Auen were subject ecclesiastically to the parish of Geh in Kirche, which was in turn subject to Disibodenberg Abbey. This arrangement worked out quite well for the inhabitants of Auen. About 1550, the Reformation was introduced. The last priest left the parish of Getzbach and became the first Protestant minister in Pferdsfeld (a now vanished village). In 1575, the Getzbacher Wald (forest) was sold, thus stripping Auen of lands that had hitherto reached up to the Hummerstuhl, which amounted to almost half the municipal area. In 1707, Auen passed to Electoral Palatinate while remaining in the Oberamt of Kreuznach until Napoleonic times.Modern times
Recent times After belonging for some years under French rule to the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Monzingen, Auen passed under the terms of the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the Prussian Amt of Monzingen, which governed it for 154 years. Although Auen is a very old village, it was only in the 19th century that it blossomed into one of the Nahe region's agricultural and winegrowing hubs. The planting of vineyards promised a good secondary income earner, although a grape seed from about 1500 BC had already been found in the municipality along with some grain. The stonemason's craft, too, flourished at the quarries around Auen. In the mid 19th century, finished capitals and stones were delivered from these to Cologne Cathedral. Thirty-nine small farms grew what was needed. New farm lanes that afforded readier access were laid to make farmwork easier. A few farmers received certificates about 1900 for good yields. Beginning in 1770, 31 inhabitants emigrated. Out of 180 inhabitants, eight fell in the First World War and two went missing in action. In the Second World War, of the 56 soldiers from Auen, 23 fell and 4 went missing. In the course of the 1969 administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate, Auen was grouped into the Verbandsgemeinde of Bad Sobernheim. In 1993, the Auener Chronik, the village chronicle, was published. In recent years, Auen has grown into a residential community fit for tourism that has still not lost its rustic character.Recent times
Municipality’s name Auen is a placename that describes a settlement or a homestead. Only beginning in the mid 18th century did the current spelling “Auen” establish itself as the customary one. In Modern High German, the name literally means “floodplains” or “riverside flats”, and indeed this would seem to be its derivation. Thus it is Germanic, but from Celtic dhwö, from Proto-Indo-European akua (“water”), a(z)wjö (“island”). It is akin to the Latin aqua (“water”) and the Old High German auw(i)a (“land at, in or near water”). Over the ages, Auen has borne the following names:Municipality’s name 1047: Auwen 1124: Auwen 1488: dorff Awen 1588: Awen 1601: Dörflein Awen 1720: Gemeind Awen 1731: Auwen 1758: Auen 1761: Auen
Population development Auen has always been a small village that has never emerged from the shadows. In 1437/1438, the village's population was recorded as 8 hearths (for which read “households”). Between 1580 and 1600, there were 81 inhabitants living at 18 hearths, and in 1808 there were 152 inhabitants in Auen.Population development The table shows Auen's population development since Napoleonic times. The figures in the table from 1871 to 1987 are based on censuses: Year Inhabitants 1815 178 1835 249 1871 267 1905 220 1939 193 Year Inhabitants 1950 211 1961 203 1970 220 1987 227 2005 239
Religion As at 31 August 2013, there are 193 full-time residents in Auen, and of those, 96 are Evangelical (49.741%), 55 are Catholic (28.497%), 3 (1.554%) belong to other religious groups and 39 (20.207%) either have no religion or will not reveal their religious affiliation.Religion
Politics
Municipal council The council is made up of 6 council members, who were elected by majority vote at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.Kommunalwahl Rheinland-Pfalz 2009, Gemeinderat
Mayor Auen's mayor is Torsten Baus.
Coat of arms The German blazon reads: Schild durch silbernen Schrägbalken geteilt, der mit einem Schwarzen A belegt ist. Oben blau-goldenes Schach, unten in Blau eine goldene Abtskrümme.
The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: A bend argent charged with the letter A sable between chequy of twelve azure and Or and azure an abbot's staff bendwise couped in base of the fourth.
The bend (slanted stripe) with the letter A – for “Auen”, of course – goes back to a court seal from 1731. The charge below this, the abbot's staff, refers to Archbishop Bardo of Mainz, who in 1044 listed, among other places, Auen in a donation document. The “chequy” pattern recalls the County of Sponheim, to which Auen belonged until the late 18th century.
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 Hauptstraße 2 – house, Late Classicist sandstone-block building, about 1850 Zur Feuchten Ecke 1 – former school, town hall; Late Classicist sandstone-block building, about 1850 In the forest – Saint Willigis’s Catholic Chapel (St. Willigiskapelle), formerly “Go-To-Church” (Geh-in-Kirche); quire of Romanesque church, converted to Early Gothic, which had been in ruins since the 17th century, but reconstructed in 1912
Saint Willigis’s Chapel