Dennweiler-Frohnbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kusel-Altenglan, whose seat is in Kusel.
The municipality arose from the merger of the two formerly self-administering municipalities of Dennweiler and Frohnbach.
Geography
Location The scenic, rural double village is nestled in a low-mountain landscape on the upper river Kuralb, which here bears the name Stegbach, and farther up, the names Stegwiesbach and Feldwiesbach. Towards the east, the Kuralb flows by way of Oberalben to the Totenalb and the Steinalb. The village itself lies in the southern part of a relatively big municipal area at an elevation of some 330 m above sea level. The formerly self-administering village of Dennweiler lies in the northeast of the combined built-up area, while the former village of Frohnbach lies in the southwest. Particularly towards the north, the land climbs steeply up, and heights of more than 500 m above sea level are reached (Hundshübel 430 m, Hohe Buchen 514 m). To the south, towards the so-called Roman road, elevations of only 400 m above sea level are reached within municipal limits. The municipal area measures 613 ha, of which 177 ha is wooded.Location
Neighbouring municipalities Dennweiler-Frohnbach borders in the north on the town of Baumholder, in the east on the municipality of Oberalben and in the southwest on the municipality of Körborn.
Municipality's layout The greater part of the village of Dennweiler-Frohnbach stretches along Hauptstraße, its main thoroughfare, Kreisstraße 22. In Dennweiler, Friedhofstraße sprouts off towards the graveyard ("Friedhofstraße" means "Graveyard Street") to the west outside the village. Brunnenweg also branches off to the north. Standing here at this crossroads is the outstandingly embellished village community centre, the Kulturhaus Wadenauer Hof, which is a venue even for events of more than local significance. Friedhofstraße is distinguished by a row of unspoilt Westrich (an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France) farmhouses (Einfirsthäuser, that is, houses with a single roof ridge), which gives a good impression of the former general kind of housebuilding that was undertaken in West Palatine villages. From the crossroads, Hauptstraße winds its way southwards and leads by the original Art Nouveau church from 1906. Nearby stands the kindergarten, housed in the former schoolhouse. The street leads across the Stegbach and turns in the core of Frohnbach once again towards the west, towards the neighbouring village of Körborn. Going out from the bend in the street southwards is where most of Frohnbach's buildings stand. Most are houses, mostly built in their present shape in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Along the road that extends from this street lies the Frohnbacher Hof, which was laid out in feudal times as a lordly landhold. Since Dennweiler-Frohnbach and Oberalben have a common sport club, the sporting ground in Oberalben is also used by athletes from Dennweiler-Frohnbach. Likewise, the two municipalities have a common fire station.Municipality’s layout
History
Antiquity East of Frohnbach, in the field known as Kappel, a small, Stone Age cutting tool, described as a thumbnail scraper, was found. This archaeological find, just under 2 cm long, is today kept at the museum in Speyer. Standing on the flat knoll of the mountain Hohe Buchen are two still untouched, flat-topped barrows from an unknown time. Roman finds have come to light in places right near the village and somewhat farther away, but thus far, no such thing has cropped up in Dennweiler-Frohnbach itself.Antiquity
Middle Ages Just when the two villages were founded is unknown today. Dennweiler seems to be older than Frohnbach, which itself might have arisen relatively shortly before the first documentary mention, but this is merely speculation. According to the 1355 Grenzscheidweistum (border Weistum, a Weistum – cognate with English wisdom – being a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the Middle Ages and early modern times), Dennweiler and Frohnbach originally belonged to different lordly domains, as the Stegbach – farther downstream called the Kuralb – formed the border of the so-called Remigiusland. The Weistum mentions that the border goes down the brook called the kuralbe. Also worthy of note is that while Frohnbach (Fronenbach in the Weistum), which belonged to the Remigiusland, is clearly mentioned, Dennweiler, which lay on the brook's left bank, is not. The lands there were held by the Bishopric of Verdun as part of their Baumholder holding. This border lost much of its importance in the 12th century when both the Remigiusland and Verdun's Baumholder landhold were taken on by the Counts of Veldenz as a Vogtei. Within the County of Veldenz, Frohnbach belonged to the Amt of Lichtenberg, whereas Dennweiler belonged to the Amt of Baumholder. These relations are believed to have held true at the time when Heinrich I of Veldenz issued a document in 1270 that mentioned Dennweiler and Ruppertsweiler (not the place in the Südwestpfalz district, but rather a nearby, long vanished village) for the first time. This document dealt with a dispute among various Burgmannen, among them Bertram von Wadenau, over holdings and rights in several places that all lay in the Amt of Baumholder. From the document in which Frohnbach had its first documentary mention it can be seen that in 1302, the knight Bertram von Wadenau now wanted to give his estate, named Vronebach, back to the Remigiusberg Monastery, after originally having received it from among the monastery's holdings. Both villages therefore belonged to the County of Veldenz, but lay in different Ämter. In 1444, the County of Veldenz met its end when Count Friederick III of Veldenz died without a male heir. His daughter Anna had wed Stephen, Count Palatine of Simmern-Zweibrücken, who now founded out of his own holdings and his wife's inheritance the County Palantine of Zweibrücken.Middle Ages
Modern times Both villages now shared a history with the County Palantine of Zweibrücken until that state was swept away along with all the other feudal states in the events of the French Revolution. In 1570 or 1571, the Zweibrücken official Johannes Schlemmer described the Amt and Gericht (court region) of Baumholder, also mentioning places that were right at the boundary, just outside the Gericht. It says in his writing that Frohnbach (outside the bounds) was directly subject to the Prince (Duke Johannes I), and that Dennweiler (within the bounds) had been granted to the House of Blick von Lichtenberg as a fief. Despite this difference, the two villages had common grazing rights. The villages were very small, with Dennweiler being made up of only eight houses and Frohnbach of only three, of which only two were occupied. Since Ruppertsweiler was not mentioned here, it might well already have vanished. Today's Frohnbacher Hof in the south of the Ortsteil of Frohnbach arose in the late 18th century as a lordly seat for Duke Johannes I. Quite understandably, given their low population figures, both Dennweiler's and Frohnbach's whole populations died in the Thirty Years' War. It can be assumed that other people moved into the two villages after the Thirty Years' War, that French King Louis XIV's wars of conquest brought more destruction and death and that the population only once again began to climb appreciably in the 18th century.Modern times
Recent times During French Revolutionary and Napoleonic times (1801–1814), the two villages lay within the Department of Sarre, and more locally in the Arrondissement of Birkenfeld, the Canton of Kusel and the Mairie ("Mayoralty") of Ulmet. The two villages now effectively became one, for they now both had the same administrative structure. In Bavarian times, beginning in 1816, Dennweiler-Frohnbach's assignment to the new Bürgermeisterei ("Mayoralty") of Ulmet in the Landkommissariat of Kusel was at first retained, but in 1869, it was assigned to Kusel, both ecclesiastically and politically. During the 19th century, there was a great deal of emigration to the United States, with a few emigrants also leaving for Poland and Brazil. In 1898, three houses were lost in a great fire.
In the early 1930s, the Nazi Party (NSDAP) became quite popular in Dennweiler-Frohnbach. In the 1930 Reichstag elections, 7.7% of the local votes went to Adolf Hitler’s party. By the time of the 1933 Reichstag elections, after Hitler had already seized power, local support for the Nazis had swollen to 82.4%. Hitler's success in these elections paved the way for his Enabling Act of 1933 (Ermächtigungsgesetz), thus starting the Third Reich in earnest.
Since 1972, the municipality has belonged to the then newly founded Verbandsgemeinde of Kusel.Recent times
Population development According to the 1609 church visitation protocol of the Oberamt of Lichtenberg, only a few families lived in the village, earning their livelihoods as farmers and woodsmen. Since the late 19th century, other occupations have come to the fore, and agriculture now only plays a minor role. Most workers, who work at various occupations, must nowadays seek a living outside the village, commuting to work. Not to be overlooked are those whose lives are dedicated to special cultural commitments, and those with strong commitments to conservation. With regard to religion, the great majority of Dennweiler-Frohnbach's inhabitants are Evangelical. Population figures rose quickly after the turn of the 18th century, and about the turn of the 19th century, the population peaked at somewhat more than 400 inhabitants. Currently, though, the figure is stalled at a level of about 330. The village's proximity to the town of Kusel has clearly prevented a fall in population.
The following table shows population development over the centuries for Dennweiler-Frohnbach, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:Dennweiler-Frohnbach’s population development Year 1825 1835 1871 1905 1939 1961 1994 2005 Total 320 385 408 405 334 351 330 332 Catholic 9 14 Evangelical 311 337
Municipality's name Dennweiler's name first appears as Dennewilre in the 1270 Heinrichurkunde (the document issued by Heinrich I of Veldenz mentioned above). Later forms showed hardly any changes from this first documentary mention. In 1570, the modern spelling, "Dennweiler", cropped up for the first time. The name goes back to a Frankish settlement and a man named "Danno", while the ending —weiler is German for "hamlet" (originally "homestead"). Thus, the name originally meant "Danno’s homestead". The folk interpretation that the name springs from a form such as Tannenweiler ("Fir Tree Hamlet"), however, may be put down to folk etymology. Nevertheless, a fir tree is the main charge in the municipality's coat of arms. Frohnbach's name first came to light in 1302 as curia Vronebach in a document from the Remigiusberg Monastery. The name also appeared as Fronenbach (1457 and 1490). The word fron meant "belonging to the lord". This word element still appears in German in Frondienst (compulsory labour, originally for a lord) and Fronleichnam (literally "dead body belonging to the Lord", and thus meaning "Corpus Christi"); the word Fron by itself even still exists, although now it is a noun meaning "drudgery". What the Fron— element may mean here is that the village might have first arisen as a lordly estate (another such estate arose in the 18th century, the Frohnbacher Hof). The placename ending —bach is German for "brook".Municipality’s name
Vanished villages