Meddersheim
Meddersheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, 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. Meddersheim is a winegrowing village.
Geography
Location
Meddersheim lies in the Nahe valley between Idar-Oberstein and Bad Kreuznach. South of the village is the edge of the North Palatine Uplands. Fertile vineyards, fields, and wooded heights surround the village.Neighbouring municipalities
Clockwise from the north, Meddersheim's neighbours are the municipality of Nußbaum, the town of Bad Sobernheim, and the municipalities of Lauschied, Bärweiler, Kirschroth, Merxheim, and Monzingen, all of which likewise lie within the Bad Kreuznach district.Constituent communities
Also belonging to Meddersheim are the outlying homesteads of Lohmühle, Schliffgesmühle, Am Meisenheimer Pfad, and the "Felke-Kurhaus Menschel".History
The area that is now Meddersheim was settled as far back as Celtic and Roman times, and perhaps even earlier. Various archaeological finds of remnants of a Roman estate on Römerstraße, extensive foundations, and an ancient watermain bear witness to this. The current clump village arose in Frankish times at a favourable, flat site as a crossroads outside the River Nahe's floodplain. Until the 13th century, the village of Meddersheim belonged to the Archbishops of Mainz, then passing by way of pledge to the Waldgraves at the Kyrburg. They held it until the French Revolutionary Wars in the late 18th century. It was administered by a MainzSchultheiß responsible for the Burgrave at Disibodenberg, beginning in 1240 in Sobernheim and then beginning in 1279 at Castle Böckelheim. In 1239, there was a serious dispute between the Archbishop and the Counts in the Nahe region, who opposed the Prince-Archbishop-Elector's political reach into the Nahe region.Moreover, there was a disagreement over the pledge of Meddersheim with Kirschroth, which was always bound with Meddersheim. Although the Archbishop redeemed both villages, the Waldgrave at the Kyrburg, heir to the Counts of Saarbrücken, did not wish to give them up. The Archbishop prevailed, but later, one of his successors pledged the Schultheißerei again, this time for good. The feudal and tithing rights were always shared among several lordships. The oldest part of the church, the steeple, comes from the 12th century, while after several conversions and additions, the nave comes from 1756. Particularly worthy of mention are the pulpit from the 18th century, the 1753 Stumm organ, and the 16th-century baptismal font.
In 1798, the French overran the German lands on the Rhine's left bank and imposed their administrative system on the land. Meddersheim became the seat of a mairie in the Canton of Meisenheim, which also comprised Kirschroth and Staudernheim and lay in the Department of Sarre. No, later than Napoleonic times, something akin to gavelkind – an equal land division among heirs – was introduced. his led to a splintering of businesses and, in many cases, to impoverishment among smallholder farmers. After Napoleon had been driven out in 1814, Meddersheim was, after a short transitional time, assigned under the terms of the Congress of Vienna in 1816 to the Oberamt of Meisenheim, and it was then furthermore the seat of an Oberschultheißerei. Thus did Meddersheim become, with the Oberamt of Meisenheim an exclave of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Homburg. In 1866, it passed to the Grand Duchy of Hesse. Then, in 1869, the region passed to the Kingdom of Prussia, and Meddersheim now belonged to the Meisenheim district in the Regierungsbezirk of Koblenz in the Rhine Province. In 1919, after the First World War, the Bürgermeistereien of Meddersheim and Merxheim were merged.
After the Meisenheim district was dissolved in 1932, the Amt no longer existed. In 1935, Meddersheim had the same municipal administration – as it were, a "personal union" at the municipal level – but in 1940, the former Amt of Meddersheim was merged with the Amt of Sobernheim, from which arose the Verbandsgemeinde of Sobernheim in 1969. On Lehmkaut, remnants of brickworks could still be seen until the 1960s. Made here, right in the village, were field-fired bricks. In Andreas Gottfried's former potter's shop, pottery was made until 1968. The flax extensively grown here on the heaths, whose poorer soils were subjected to controlled burns, was retted in a great flax-retting tank, which is believed to have been communally organized.
In the area of Brechkaut and Brechlöcher, there were major brick kilns, and at their ends lay the hot-air shaft measuring about 2 × 3 m on which the flax was retted so that it could then be scutched and heckled. The former herdsmen's houses of the herding association have been gone since the 1950s. Five mills and one pig farm were listed for a time within Meddersheim's limits. At the Ilsberg was a quarry. The red shale sandstone was quarried until some time towards the end of the 18th century, whereafter yellow-grey quarried sandstone from surrounding villages was used. In the Reformation, the inhabitants of Meddersheim became Protestant under the then-local lordship. The Baroque screen around the altar was removed during renovations at Saint Martin'sEvangelical church in 1964. For generations, the church was shared. During Catholic Mass, the gate was closed. A few epitaphs, a ceiling-high sacramental shrine in the Gothic quire and a Stumm organ, together with a series of pictures in the gallery, bear witness to the wealth of this winegrowing, farming and craft village. In 1960, Meddersheim had some 750 inhabitants. By 2010, it was nearly 1,400.
Jewish history
Meddersheim had a small Jewish community in the 19th century. It arose in the 18th century. The forebears of the Families Feibelmann and Ostermann lived here as early as the latter half of the 18th century. In the 19th century, the number of Jewish inhabitants developed as follows:- In 1808, 32 Jewish inhabitants were in seven families, and 16 children were altogether.
- In 1855, there were 54.
- In 1861, the Jewish population peaked at 55.
Research in the village has drawn different accounts from Meddersheim inhabitants regarding where the former Jewish community's prayer room was. It could be that services were held at various Jewish houses because no room in the village had been specifically set up for the purpose. Towards the end, services were surely irregular and perhaps held only on high holidays. In 1933, the year when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seized power, 12 Jews were still living in Meddersheim. In the years that followed, though, some of the Jews moved away or even emigrated in the face of the boycotting of their businesses, the progressive stripping of their rights and repression, all brought about by the Nazis. The livestock dealer Leo Rauner went to Pittsburgh in 1938, and a few Family Ostermann members also went to the United States. In April 1942, the last Jews living in the village, the four-headed Family Braun, were deported. According to the Gedenkbuch – Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945 and Yad Vashem, of all Jews who either were born in Meddersheim or lived there for a long time, seven were killed during Nazi persecution :
- Hermine Braun née Gärtner
- Hildegard Braun
- Norbert Braun
- Siegmund Braun
- Siegmund Braun
- Walter Haas
- Jakob Ostermann
Religion
Politics
Municipal council
The council is made up of 16 council members, who were elected by proportional representation at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairwoman. The municipal election held on 7 June 2009 yielded the following results:| Year | SPD | CDU | FWG | UWG | Total |
| 2009 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 16 seats |
| 2004 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 16 seats |
Mayor
Meddersheim's mayor is Renate Weingarth-Schenk, and her deputies are Karl Curt Bamberger, Michael Engisch and Günter Weinel.Coat of arms
The German blazon reads: In Blau auf silbernem Roß, der golden nimbierte, rot gekleidete St. Martin, der mit silbernem Schwert den roten Mantel dem auf der Erde sitzenden Bettler zuteilt; im linken Obereck ein goldenes Schildchen, darin ein roter, blau gekrönter Löwenkopf.The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Azure on a horse passant argent bridled sable and saddled of the field Saint Martin reguardant with nimbus Or vested gules cutting his mantle with a sword of the second for a beggar man sitting on the ground, in sinister chief an inescutcheon of the fourth charged with a lion's head erased of the fifth crowned of the first.
This scene from Saint Martin's life appears in many German civic coats of arms. Indeed, Meddersheim's arms are not even the only ones in the Bad Kreuznach district to bear this image, with Norheim and Rüdesheim an der Nahe likewise bearing arms depicting Martin cutting off a piece of his cloak for a beggar. In Meddersheim's case, the image goes back to the village's old court seal, which also bore this image. Meddersheim's arms are distinguished, however, by the small inescutcheon in sinister chief. The charge thereon, a lion's head, is a reference to historical lordships. Meddersheim was an Oberschultheißerei in the Waldgraviate-Rhinegraviate. In 1750 it belonged as a condominium to the lines of Salm-Kyrburg and Dhaun, with each holding a one-half share. Salm-Kyrburg bore arms gules three lions Or. For heraldic reasons, the lion's head is borne in Meddersheim's arms in reversed tinctures.