page_title: Hargesheim
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Hargesheim / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Mentioning of Hargesheim in medieval document Deutsch: Erwähnung Hargesheims in mittelalterlicher Urkunde: Bestätigung der Schenkung Wendelas durch Erzbischof Arnold, 1158
context_page_description: Hargesheim 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 Rüdesheim, whose seat is in the municipality of Rüdesheim an der Nahe. Hargesheim is a state-recognized tourism community.
context_section_description: It is clear from archaeological finds that the Hargesheim area was one of those in the Nahe river area that were already settled as far back as the New Stone Age about 5000 BC. Sometime about AD 600, Hargesheim arose as an outlying centre of the ancient settlement of Roxheim. Centuries later, about 1100, Hargesheim passed to the County of Sponheim. In 1158, Hargesheim had its first documentary mention in a directory of landholds kept by Rupertsberg Abbey (see image at right). In 1232, the County of Sponheim was partitioned between two lines of the ruling comital family, and Hargesheim found itself in the “Further” County of Sponheim-Kreuznach. In 1400, the villagers became Ausbürger of the town of Kreuznach, that is to say, citizens of a kind with some of the attendant rights, even though they did not live within the town's zone of jurisdiction. The town granted them protection and freed them from the customary gate toll levied on visitors to the town. Against this favour, the town also demanded that the villagers provide manual labour and draught animals for the town's wall-building project. In 1601, after many disagreements over inheritance among members of the House of Sponheim, Hargesheim passed to the Oberamt of Kreuznach, whose seat was at Castle Kauzenburg (nowadays a ruin in nearby Bad Kreuznach). In 1622, Saint Valentine's Chapel in Hargesheim was destroyed in a blaze. In 1707, the village, together with Kreuznach, passed to the Electorate of the Palatinate. In 1723, there were 18 families living in Hargesheim, 10 Reformed, 4 Catholic and 4 Lutheran. In 1725, a great, frightful storm struck the region. In 1730, building work began on the Catholic church, while work was likewise begun on what is now the Protestant church the following year. By 1799, Hargesheim lay under French rule after French Revolutionary troops had overrun and occupied the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank. The village was part of the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Mandel. From 1801 to 1814 – Napoleonic times – Hargesheim belonged to the Department of Rhin-et-Moselle in the First French Empire. In 1816, after Napoleon's downfall and the imposition of a new political order on Europe by the Congress of Vienna, Hargesheim passed to the Kingdom of Prussia, within which a new administrative régime also put it in the Kreuznach district. In 1868, the school house was built at the church; this building still stands and has since become the municipal hall. In 1876, the two churches’ shared churchyard was closed as a graveyard, and a new graveyard was then laid out in the cadastral area known as “Auf dem Neunmorgen”. Over the years that followed, a number of foundings took place: in 1879, the warriors’ association; in 1887, the “Harmonie” singing club; in 1891, the schoolchildren's orchestra; in 1894, the “Concordia” singing club. In 1896, the Kleinbahn, a narrow-gauge railway, came into service. In 1900, Hargesheim had 840 inhabitants, 477 Evangelical, 354 Catholic and 9 Jewish. In 1903, the volunteer fire brigade was founded, as was the Catholic men's club. In 1908, the warriors’ memorial on Lindenstraße was dedicated. In 1910, the gymnastics and sport club was founded, and the following year saw the dedication of the new schoolhouse on Hunsrückstraße. The early years of the 20th century also saw the arrival of important infrastructure in Hargesheim, a watermain in 1912 and electric light in 1913. In 1922, four years after the First World War, the monument to the fallen was dedicated at the graveyard. In 1929, the winegrowers’ association was founded. In 1930, President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg was heartily greeted as he was driven through the village. Hindenburg would soon afterwards play no small part in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, signing both the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act in 1933, bringing an end to the Weimar Republic, whose head of state he himself had been, and making Hitler Germany’s dictator. In 1936, the Kleinbahn ceased operations. Passenger services were replaced with buses. Late in the Second World War, in 1945, Har
caption: Hargesheim's first documentary mention from 1158
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