Lorch am Rhein

Lorch am Rhein is a small town in the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis in the "Regierungsbezirk" of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany. It belongs to the Rhine Gorge World Heritage Site.
Geography.
Location.
The town is characterized by winegrowing and tourism.
Lorch lies in the southwestern part of the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis in the foothills of the Rheingaugebirge (range), some 10 km north of the bend in the Rhine near Rüdesheim. The town owes its picturesque setting in the Middle Rhine Valley between Rüdesheim am Rhein and Sankt Goarshausen to its location at the mouth of the Wisper and to its steep vineyards. The town's municipal area stretches into the richly wooded Wisper valley along "Landesstraße" (State Road) 3033 between Lorch and the district seat of Bad Schwalbach. The town is a state-recognized recreational resort ("Erholungsort"). The Rheinsteig, the new hiking trail on the Rhine's right bank leading from Wiesbaden to Bonn, runs on the Rhine heights. In the Rhine near Lorch lies the island and nature conservation area called Lorcher Werth.
Constituent communities.
Lorch's "Stadtteile", besides the main town, also called Lorch, are Lorchhausen, Espenschied, Ransel, Ranselberg, and Wollmerschied.
History.
The area was settled quite early on, first by the Celts, and then, come the Christian Era, by the Ubii and later the Mattiaci. In the first century, the Romans thrust forth to the Taunus. The Romans were followed by the Alamanni and with the onset of the Migration Period, the Franks.
The town's oldest documentary mention is a document from 1085 in which Archbishop Wezilo documented a donation from the Mainz Cathedral Canon Embricho to the cathedral chapter of a number of holdings, among them a house and vineyards in Lorch.
In the Middle Ages, Lorch served as the northern bastion of the Archbishopric of Mainz facing toward the Rheingau. Beginning in the twelfth century, Lorch found itself at the southern end of the "Rheingauer Gebück", a kind of border defence made out of an impenetrable “hedge” of stunted trees (the word itself comes from the root of the German word "bücken", meaning “stoop”, a reference to the trees’ thick, low boughs). This was put in place by the Archbishops of Mainz.
In the thirteenth century, a parish, whose first documentary mention came in 1254, was established in Lorch.
In 1460, 1631, 1794, and in the final phase of the Second World War, there was warfare in Lorch, which sometimes brought considerable destruction.
Twentieth century.
On 10 January 1919, the Free State Bottleneck, a provisional statelike entity between occupation zones after the First World War, was proclaimed, with Lorch as the “capital”. Even today, many of the ministate's coats of arms in the town still recall this time.
In the early 1960s, the Bundeswehr came to town with its "Flugabwehrregiment 5" (“Antiaircraft Regiment 5”). A new settlement, the Ranselberg, was built for soldiers and their families. The barracks in the picturesque Wisper Valley represented an important economic factor for the town of Lorch. Many local people found work in the barracks, the attached post administration, the munitions depot, the equipment depot, and the sanitary depot.
In the course of Bundeswehr reform, the barracks were closed in 1993. At the site, the underground "Gerätehauptdepot Lorch-Wispertal" (“Main Equipment Depot”) and the likewise underground "Sanitätshauptdepot Lorch-Rheingau" (“Main Sanitary Depot”) remained. In November 2003, the complete abandonment of the Bundeswehr post was announced. The sanitary company was to be withdrawn in early 2008. By 31 December 2007, the "Sanitätshauptdepot" was to be dissolved, and a year later the "Gerätehauptdepot" was to disappear. Some 280 civilians would thereby lose their jobs.
Meanwhile, various businesses have set up in the abandoned Bundeswehr facilities, which has offset the job losses due to the military's pullout to a certain extent.
Religion.
Lorch's character is mostly Catholic, and serving this community is the Gothic church St. Martin. Since 1908, the Protestant parishioners have been gathering in a church room in a house at Oberweg 4.
Politics.
Town council.
The municipal election, held on 26 March 2006, yielded the following results:
Town partnerships.
"Adopted wine town":
Culture and sightseeing.
Culturally and politically, Lorch is part of the Hessian Rheingau.
Museums.
The "Robert-Struppmann-Museum" is the town's local history museum. It houses valuable carvings, documents, sculptures, and sacral objects, among other things a woodcarving of John the Baptist's severed head from the twelfth century and the seated Madonna with Christ Child and grapes from the early fourteenth century. It is open weekend afternoons in spring, summer, and autumn and also serves as a tourist information centre. There are many brochures to be had there for free. Moreover, books about Lorch's history and winegrowing are on sale there.
Economy and infrastructure.
Transport.
Lorch lies on "Bundesstraße" 42 (Koblenz–Wiesbaden) and the railway line that roughly parallels it. It is some 40 km to the Autobahn interchange in Wiesbaden where the B 42 meets the A 66 going towards Frankfurt. There is a connection to the Autobahn “cross” at Mainz (A 61/A 60, Cologne/Koblenz/Ludwigshafen) across the Wiesbaden-Schierstein bridge over the Rhine; and by way of the Rhine ferries at Lorch and Kaub to the on-ramps at Laudert and Rheinböllen (about 15 km).
The town is served by regional services on the East Rhine Railway sponsored by the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund.
Moreover, there is the Wiesbaden-Lorchhausen ORN ("Omnibusverkehr Rhein-Nahe") busline.
The Rheinsteig, the new hiking trail from Wiesbaden to Bonn by way of the Ehrenbreitstein fort runs on the Rhine heights of Lorch.
After dealings with the "Bundesvermögensverwaltung" (“Federal Estate Administration”), the town of Lorch managed to build an industrial park with some 20 firms on the lands formerly occupied by the barracks.
Winegrowing.
Winegrowing in Lorch is run within the Rheingau winegrowing region under the "Großlage" (roughly “vineyard group” or “appellation”) “Burgweg”. The individual vineyards are "Schlossberg" (53 ha), "Kapellenberg" (58 ha), "Krone" (13 ha), "Pfaffenwies" (35 ha), and "Bodental-Steinberg" (23 ha).
The dominant grape variety is Riesling, but Pinot noir has a growing share of the harvest. From the wines, "Edelbrände" and sekt are also produced.
The grapes grow in hillside vineyards on stony, heat-storing slate- and quartzite-bearing earth. The great expanse of water that is the Rhine accounts for the temperature balance, working as a reflector off which sunlight shines, thereby strengthening it.
Famous people.
The town's noble family named itself “von Lorch”. Their most important representative was Johann Hilchen (1484–1548), knight and Imperial field marshal.