Glanbrücken 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 Lauterecken-Wolfstein.
Geography
Location The municipality lies on the river Glan in the Western Palatinate. The municipal area measures 458 ha, of which 185 ha is wooded.Location
Hachenbach The Ortsteil of Hachenbach lies at an elevation of 175 m above sea level on the Glan's right bank at the lower end of the southward-running valley of the Horschbach, which here empties into the Glan. The community, which is built in the dale and also on the slope of the hill known as "Auf der Platte", lies mostly in a row along the road between Horschbach and Hundheim and the community core lies right at the old bridge across the river. The highest point in the outlying countryside is found on the high expanse in the cadastral area "Auf der Platte". This lies at 310 m above sea level.Location – Hachenbach
Niedereisenbach The Ortsteil of Niedereisenbach lies on the Glan's left bank, 172 m above sea level, at the mouth of the Eisenbach, which flows into the community from the west. The north side of the hollow abuts a foothill of the so-called Kipp, which borders the Glan valley all the way to Offenbach in a broad bow. In the west, a ridge ends here that bounds the Glan valley from Niederalben northwestwards. In the upper part of the community, the Bächelsgraben, running from the north, empties into the Eisenbach. The old community core lies at the lower end of the side dales that join together near Niedereisenbach. The newer part of the built-up area stands in a row along the main road running through the Glan valley. The highest point in the outlying countryside is found in the cadastral area "Auf Hardt", which has an elevation of 339 m above sea level.Location – Niedereisenbach
Neighbouring municipalities Glanbrücken borders in the north on the municipality of Deimberg, in the east on the municipality of Offenbach-Hundheim, in the southeast on the municipalities of Nerzweiler and Hinzweiler, in the south on the municipality of Horschbach and in the west on the municipality of Sankt Julian.
Constituent communities Glanbrücken's Ortsteile are Hachenbach south of the Glan and Niedereisenbach on the north bank. There is no centre within the municipality named "Glanbrücken". This name was coined in 1969 for the then newly amalgamated municipality.
Municipality’s layout
Hachenbach This community's appearance is characterized by its location on the river Glan. The most important streets (Horschbacher Straße, Dorfstraße and Hirsauer Straße) run parallel to the Horschbach and the Glan. Horschbacher Straße leads straight to the bridge over the Glan. Even the street "An den Mühlen" ("At the Mills") beyond the bridge lies within the Ortsteil of Hachenbach. Before reaching the bridge, Dorfstraße ("Village Street") branches off eastwards from Horschbacher Straße, then crossing the Horschbach and turning southwards. Once over the Horschbach, Hirsauer Straße branches off Dorfstraße, then running, in stretches as a rural path, all the way to the well known Hirsauer Kirche, an old 12th-century aisleless church that was once the hub of a regional parish, and to the neighbouring village of Hundheim. The graveyard lies at the community's south end near where Kreisstraße 26 branches off Horschbacher Straße. Formerly, Hachenbach was almost purely a farming village. Today the community is purely residential, with villagers commuting to jobs, mainly in Kaiserslautern. There are still two full-time agricultural operations. Since 1744, 50 ha of woodland in Horschbach's municipal area in the area of the Herrmannsberg has belonged to the Ortsteil of Hachenbach along with a further 10 ha right in the former municipal area. The forest is nowadays administered by the Lauterecken Forestry Office. The 216-hectare municipal area is very hilly in places and usable for agriculture only with some difficulty. This is even reflected in some rural cadastral names such as "Hagendornbusch" ("Hawthorn Bush"), "im Steinacker" ("in the Stone Field"), "in den Steinen" ("in the Stones") and "am Felsenrech" (the name refers to a cliff or crag). Among the few good plots of land are "Solch" and "Kappelfeld", which lie on the heath.Municipality’s layout – Hachenbach
Niedereisenbach This community's appearance is characterized by three roads: Bundesstraße 420, Landesstraße 373 and Kreisstraße 29. Formerly, the community's appearance was defined by the quarrying business. A manor house once belonging to the Barons of Kellenbach still exists as a ruin and is known from records to date back at least as far as 1629. The community core is formed by the 14th-century Saint Valentine’s Church (Valentinskirche). After the railway-building work in 1904, several representative sandstone buildings arose along Glantalstraße (Glan Valley Road). The shift from a farming village to a residential community with people in various occupations lasted until the 1960s; workers now commute to jobs in Kaiserslautern, Bad Kreuznach, Kirchheimbolanden and Ludwigshafen. Since 1990, there have no longer been any agricultural operations. The Niedereisenbach municipal area has only a few fertile cropfields and meadows. Besides the floodplains in the valley, the landscape is made up of slopes and stony heights, as reflected in some rural cadastral names such as "Auf dem Klöppchen" ("On the Little Knocks"), "Hungergraben" ("Hunger Pits"), "Rosskopf" ("Horse’s Head"), "Weisselstein" (perhaps "Whitewashed Stone") and "Rauweide" ("Raw Grazing Land"). Niedereisenbach owns 120 ha of woodland, part of which has arisen from coppicing former stands of tanning oak. It is administered by the Lauterecken Forestry Office.Municipality’s layout – Niedereisenbach
History
Hachenbach
Middle Ages In 1150, Hachenbach had its first documentary mention in a document according to which Archbishop Heinrich of Mainz acknowledged the founding of a monastic cell in Offenbach by the freeman Reinfried von Rüdesheim. The original of this document is still on hand at the Departmental Archive in Metz. Hachenbach belonged then to the County of Veldenz in the Amt of Grumbach, whose seat was at Nerzweiler.Middle Ages – HachenbachHachenbach’s history
Modern times In 1515, Hachenbach passed along with the other villages in the Eßweiler Tal (dale) into the lordship of the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves of Grumbach. In 1595, the Eßweiler Tal, and thereby Hachenbach too, then passed to the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken. Like many other villages in the region, Hachenbach, too, was utterly destroyed in 1677 in the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678) by French King Louis XIV’s troops. Even though a 1755 agreement between Palatinate-Zweibrücken and the Rhinegraves of Grumbach resulted in the cession of five villages by the former back to the latter, Hachenbach remained with Zweibrücken and received a customs station at the bridge across the Glan, for Hachenbach had become a border village. This bridge, first built as a stone bridge in 1751/1752, was of special importance to the village. All postal and road traffic between Meisenheim and Zweibrücken went across this bridge in the area of the so-called Hohe Straße ("High Road"). The bridge had its first documentary mention in 1693, when it was newly built, although it was still only a wooden bridge then. The cost of this bridge, which was completed in May 1752 and which was thereby the earliest known crossing of the Glan, was 1,746 Gulden, two thirds of which (1,164 Gulden) was borne by the treasury of the Zweibrücken Oberamt of Lichtenberg, and the other third of which (582 Gulden) was borne by the administration of the Lordship of Kellenbach. In 1784, the bridge was heavily damaged in an ice run on the Glan, and thus Duke Carl II August of Zweibrücken saw to it in 1789 that a great two-storey-high and 70-foot-long (actually the old German measure called a Schuh, which literally means "shoe"; this was >20 m) wing wall was built onto the bridge on the Hachenbach (right) side, obliged as he felt to shield the bridge against any further such misfortunes. In 1794, the French military broke the arch nearest the Hachenbach side. Until 1825, a wooden emergency bridge was used, until the stone bridge could be set right again. As before, the cost was split at a ratio of 2:1, between the rightful heirs to the lordships on each side of the Glan, but the total this time was only 850 Gulden.Modern times – Hachenbach
Recent times In 1798, Hachenbach passed within the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank that had been annexed by France to the Department of Mont-Tonnerre (or Donnersberg in German), the Arrondissement of Kaiserslautern, the Canton of Lauterecken and the Mairie ("Mayoralty") of Hundheim. After the Congress of Vienna, the village passed in 1816 to the district (at first Landcommissariat and then Bezirksamt) of Kusel within the Kingdom of Bavaria. After the Second World War it passed to the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. In the course of administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate in 1969, Hachenbach was merged with the neighbouring village of Niedereisenbach, which hitherto had belonged to the Birkenfeld district, to form the new municipality of Glanbrücken.Recent times – Hachenbach
Niedereisenbach
Middle Ages The earliest verifiable documentary mention, from 1246, is to be found in a not very accessible information book given to the Benedictine and Cistercian orders. In another document from 23 June 1336, in which Niedereisenbach is named as INFERIORI YSENBACH (nieder – cognate with the English word "nether" – in German and inferior in Latin both mean "lower"), Werner, the archpriest of Kusel, witnessed the building of the chapel consecrated to Saint Valentine at Eisenbach. In 1358, Clas von Kellenbach pledged the village of Eisenbach, which he held in fief, and the mill to Count Heinrich of Veldenz for the sum of 180 pounds in hellers. From the 13th century onwards, until French Revolutionary troops marched in during the French Revolution, Niedereisenbach always belonged to the Barons of Kellenbach, who as early as 1289 donated the Hirsauer Kirche to Saint Mary's Monastery of Offenbach.Middle Ages – NiedereisenbachNiedereisenbach’s history
Modern times After the Thirty Years' War, Philipp Heinrich von Kellenbach lived with his family in Niedereisenbach. The manor house stood above the Hofpfad (nowadays a street, although the name means "Estate Path") near the Klink property. It no longer stands, but parts of the back wall with bits of a chimney can still be seen. Philipp Heinrich's son Johan Ludwig von Kellenbach, born in 1680 in Niedereisenbach, was Chief Estate Master and Master Hunter at Count Ludwig von Nassau-Saarbrücken-Ottweiler's estate in Ottweiler. In the Niedereisenbach church lie, supposedly, the baronial family's remains, although this can no longer be verified. After Johan Ludwig von Kellenbach's death on 21 September 1750, the house's heirs and the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken became embroiled in a years-long court case that ended with the estate being auctioned off. The mill was left out of this process, and was still owned by the Kellenbachs’ heirs until 1875.Modern times – Niedereisenbach
Recent times