Guldental

Guldental 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" Langenlonsheim-Stromberg, whose seat is in Langenlonsheim. With a population of some 2,900 inhabitants, Guldental is the biggest rural winegrowing community on the Nahe.
Geography.
Location.
Guldental lies in the Naheland – the land lining each side of the Nahe – among the southern foothills of the Hunsrück, on the Guldenbach.
Neighbouring municipalities.
Clockwise from the north, Guldental's neighbours are the municipality of Langenlonsheim, the municipality of Bretzenheim, the town of Bad Kreuznach, the municipality of Hargesheim, the municipality of Gutenberg and the municipality of Windesheim.
Constituent communities.
Guldental's "Ortsteile" are Heddesheim and Waldhilbersheim. Also belonging to Guldental are the outlying homesteads of Breitenfelserhof and Ackermühle.
History.
As early as 1163, the landhold of "Hetdenesheim" (Heddesheim) had its first documentary mention and already by 700 years ago it was one of the greater villages in what is now the Bad Kreuznach district. Under Revolutionary/Napoleonic French rule, Heddesheim was grouped into the "Mairie" ("Mayoralty") of Langenlonsheim in 1800. The village, now constituent community of Guldental, Waldhilbersheim is likewise very old. Beginning as long ago as 1200, it began to crop up in documents. In 1800, however, it was grouped into the "Mairie" of Windesheim, and in 1939 into the "Amt" of Langenlonsheim. Today's "Ortsgemeinde" of Guldental was formed in the course of administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate on 7 June 1969 through the merger of the hitherto self-administering municipalities of Heddesheim (Nahe) with its outlying centre of Breitenfelser Hof and Waldhilbersheim. Guldental thus became the biggest winegrowing community on the Nahe, with 417 ha of land given over to vineyards. The vineyards to the south run for 6 km along the Guldenbach. Winegrowing in this area is witnessed quite early on.
Jewish history.
Until the 1930s, there was a small Jewish community in Waldhilbersheim to which Jews in Heddesheim – and thus in both villages that now make up Guldental – also belonged. It had come to be established at least as far back as the 18th century. In 1808, Waldhilbersheim counted 29 Jewish inhabitants. Living here about 1858 were 50 Jews in Waldhilbersheim and another 40 in Heddesheim, but thereafter the numbers began to shrink with emigration and depopulation. This small community also included the Jewish inhabitants in Laubenheim until 1895, when they became tied to the community in Langenlonsheim. By 1925, the Jewish population in Waldhilbersheim and Heddesheim had sunk to 8 and 29 respectively. In the mid 1920s, the head of the Jewish community was August Schneider. In the way of institutions, the Jewish community had a small synagogue, a religious school (believed to have been housed somewhere in the synagogue) and a graveyard. To supply the community's religious needs, a "worship official" was hired, at least temporarily, to do the jobs of religious teacher, prayer leader and shochet. According to the "GedenkbuchOpfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945" ("Memorial BookVictims of the Persecution of the Jews under National Socialist Tyranny") and Yad Vashem, of all Jews who either were born in Waldhilbersheim or Heddesheim or lived there for a long time, 50 died under Nazi rule (birthdates in brackets):
On a memorial at the community's Jewish cemetery are the names of 23 persons who were murdered in the Holocaust. In the 19th century, the Jewish community held its services in rented rooms until in 1910 a favourably located house was acquired that cound be converted into a synagogue. On 16 September 1910, the synagogue was consecrated by the Kreuznach regional rabbi, Dr. Abraham Tawrogi. Also present were the mayors of both Windesheim and Langenlonsheim, along with Heddesheim's and Waldhilbersheim's municipal leaders, clergy and schoolteachers. The "Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums", a Jewish newspaper, reported the following on 7 October 1910:
The synagogue itself was a simple aisleless building with round and round-arch windows. Corner lesenes and an ascending frieze were the outward decorative elements. On Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938), the synagogue was wrecked and plundered. In the process, all the fittings and the ritual objects (two Torah scrolls, the silver menorah, silver beakers and plates, 75 prayer books, curtains and blankets), the pump organ, the stove, lamps and other useful things were stolen or destroyed by the Nazis. In January 1939, the building was sold and thereafter it was used as a storage building or a garage. On the street side, a gate was broken through, and the windows were walled up. Since 1994, the building has been under monumental protection. Its address in Waldhilbersheim is Naheweinstraße 83.
Religion.
As at 30 September 2013, there are 2,460 full-time residents in Guldental, and of those, 768 are Evangelical (31.22%), 1,272 are Catholic (51.707%), 1 belongs to the Free Evangelical Church (0.041%),
1 is Greek Orthodox (0.041%),
4 are Lutheran (0.163%), 53 (2.154%) belong to other religious groups and 361 (14.675%) either have no religion or will not reveal their religious affiliation.
Politics.
Municipal council.
The council is made up of 20 council members, who were elected by proportional representation at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman. The municipal election held on 7 June 2009 yielded the following results:
Mayor.
Guldental's mayor is Alfons Lorsbach, and his deputies are Peter Schermuly, Elke Demele and Kurt Römer.
Coat of arms.
The municipality's arms might be described thus: Per fess Or a saltire humetty sable and gules three wings argent.
The municipal arms are put together from two coats of arms, the ones formerly borne by the two villages of Heddesheim and Waldhilbersheim before they were merged as part of administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate. The charge in the upper field is Saint Andrew's Cross, a saltire (X-shaped cross) whose arms do not reach the field's outer edges ("humetty"). This was drawn from Waldhilbersheim's former arms. In the lower field stands a threefold charge, bird's wings. These were drawn from Heddesheim's former arms. The approval for the new, merged municipality of Guldental to bear these arms was granted some time after the actual 1969 merger, in 1971, by the now defunct "Regierungsbezirk" administration in Koblenz.
Town partnerships.
Guldental fosters partnerships with the following places:
This relationship is not a formalized partnership, amounting to more of a "friendship".
Culture and sightseeing.
Buildings.
The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate's Directory of Cultural Monuments:
Jewish graveyard.
The Jewish graveyard in Waldhilbersheim was documented up to about 1934, according to Alemannia Judaica. It has an area of 1 274 m². Also differing from the Directory of Cultural Monuments above is Alemannia Judaica's figure for the number of gravestones, which they give as 42.
Clubs.
Guldental has a great number of clubs. Currently active in the municipality are the following:
Economy and infrastructure.
Transport.
Guldental lies within the "Rhein-Nahe-Nahverkehrsverbund", a local public transport association whose fares therefore apply. Within the municipality is a railway station, "Heddesheim (Nahe)" on the Cross-Hunsrück Railway ("Hunsrückquerbah"; Langenlonsheim–Hermeskeil), although currently it has only goods service. The nearest place with passenger rail service is Langenlonsheim on the Alsenz Valley Railway ("Alsenztalbahn"; Pirmasens–Bingen) lying some 5 km east of Guldental. In Bad Kreuznach, some 8 km south of Guldental, this line crosses the Nahe Valley Railway (Bingen–Saarbrücken). Running daily at least every two hours to Bad Kreuznach is bus route 240, run by "Omnibusverkehr Rhein-Nahe". The nearest Autobahn interchange is "Waldlaubersheim" on the A 61 (Koblenz–Ludwigshafen), some 5 km north of Guldental.
Winegrowing.
Guldental is characterized to a considerable extent by winegrowing, and with 377 ha of vineyard planted it is second only to Bad Kreuznach among the Nahe wine region's biggest winegrowing centres.
Sundry.
The constituent community of Heddesheim has the same name as another village in the Rhein-Neckar-Kreis in Baden-Württemberg.