Lambrecht, Rhineland-Palatinate
Lambrecht is a town in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany lying roughly 6 km northwest of Neustadt an der Weinstraße. It is the seat of the like-named "Verbandsgemeinde". Geography. Location. The municipality lies in the Palatinate, and indeed in the middle of the Palatinate Forest. It is crossed by the river Speyerbach. The municipality's highest mountain is the Kaisergarten at 519 m above sea level. Land use. Lambrecht's 8.32 km² is distributed as follows: History. In 977, Lambrecht had its first documentary mention. Duke Otto of Worms (Otto I, Duke of  Carinthia) endowed the Benedictine Convent of Saint Lambrecht for the village of Grevenhausen. The convent was dissolved in 1553. In 1568, the disused convent's buildings together with houses, church and cropfields was turned over as an asylum by Frederick III, Elector Palatine to Walloons who had been driven from their homeland. In 1838 or 1839, the two neighbouring villages of St Lambrecht and Grevenhausen merged. On 25 August 1849, Lambrecht became a stop on the railway when the Neustadt-Frankenstein section of the Palatinate Ludwig Railway was opened, completing the Rhein-Saar line for coal transport. Since 21 December  1887, Lambrecht has held town rights. On 1 March 1972, the "Verbandsgemeinde" of Lambrecht was formed. Administrative activities were assumed on 1 January 1973. Religion. Lambrecht has an autonomous Catholic parish (Sacred Heart of Jesus/Herz Jesu). The Catholic parish is the sponsor of the St Lambertus daycare centre. The pastor in the parish community tends not only Lambrecht but also the municipalities of Lindenberg, Neidenfels-Frankeneck and Weidenthal-Frankenstein. The Lambrecht parish is part of the parish league of Neustadt (Weinstraße) in the deaconry of Bad Dürkheim and belongs to the Diocese of Speyer. Together with the neighbouring centre  of Lindenberg there exists a Protestant parish. Lambrecht is part of the Protestant deaconry of Neustadt in the Evangelical Church of the Palatinate. In 2007, 43.8% of the inhabitants were Evangelical and 30.4% Catholic. The rest belonged to other faiths or adhered to none. Politics. Town council. The council is made up of 20 council members, who were elected 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: Coat of arms. The German blazon reads: "" The town's arms might in English  heraldic language be described thus: Per fess sable a lion passant Or armed, langued and crowned gules, and vert three lambs argent passant. The arms were granted on 21 December 1887 by Bavarian Prince Regent Luitpold and go back to a seal from 1707, although compositions involving the same charges go back to 1583. Several versions are known from the intervening time. One also showed the lion holding a book in his paws to symbolize the University of Heidelberg, which was the local landlord after 1553. The upper field in the escutcheon shows the Palatine Lion, although here passant (walking ) instead of rampant (rearing up). This stands for the town's former allegiance to Electoral Palatinate. The sheep – or rather lambs, as the German blazon stipulates – symbolize the wool industry that throve here after the Walloon refugees arrived in the 16th century. They are also canting for the name Lambrecht (“lamb” is "Lamm" in German). Economy and infrastructure. Economy. For a long time, Lambrecht was said to be a clothmaking town. With the Huguenots, or more precisely the Walloons from Belgium who migrated here in the 16th century, a flourishing clothmaking industry grew up in Lambrecht. Thus it was that  on Wallonenstraße, a street in Lambrecht's town centre, a genuine clothmaking centre with many hand-weaving businesses sprang up. Witnessing this time is the "Zunfthaus" (“Guildhall”) from 1606/1607 with its oriel window. The stately building goes back to a wealthy Walloon immigrant. After the Industrial Revolution, many businesses did not make the leap to factory scale. Nevertheless, in 1931 there were still nine cloth factories in town, and only in the 1960s did clothmaking finally die out as an industry. Today, one former cloth factory makes felts, paper machine clothing and needled felts. In another former cloth factory, special  switching devices are made, which have been successfully marketed worldwide. Moreover, a multifaceted midsize supply industry has developed. Besides these operations, tourism and, to a far lesser extent, forestry are also among the town's economic factors. The town also has at its disposal a variety of shopping places, craft businesses and service industries that fulfil daily demands. Education. Located in Lambrecht are three kindergartens and two general-education schools. Hauptschule and Realschule functions are integrated into the Regional School. Gymnasien can be found in the bigger neighbouring town of Neustadt an der Weinstraße. Dealing in adult education are the  folk high school and the "Pfalzakademie" (“Palatinate Academy”). Further reading. Stadtchronik:"Hans Fell: 1000 Jahre Lambrecht – Chronik einer Stadt." Edeldruck Lambrecht GmbH & Co. KG., Lambrecht (Pfalz) 1978 Die nahezu vergriffene Stadtchronik hat 2 Hauptautoren. Außer Hans Fell ist deshalb vorrangig auch Dr. Ernst Collofong zu nennen.