Kirschroth

In 1364, Kirschroth had its first documentary mention as Rodde. It is certain, though, that it had already existed for quite some time, likely having arisen in the Early Middle Ages. Traces of human habitation may indeed stretch all the way back to Celtic and Roman times. The village was held by the Archbishops of Mainz well into the 12th century before being pledged to the Counts of Saarbrücken, and then about 1275 to the Waldgraves at the Kirburg. They then held it until the French Revolution in 1789. It was administered by a Schultheiß from Mainz who was subject to the castle count at Disibodenberg, or as of 1240 in Sobernheim and as of 1279 at Castle Böckelheim. In 1239, there was a serious dispute between the Archbishop and the counts in the Nahe area who opposed the ecclesiastical prince's quest for power in what they considered their domain. The local lordship over Kirschroth changed many times within the Waldgravial – and beginning in 1408 Waldgravial-Rhinegravial – family, because individual lines sometimes died out, arising from which were complicated divisions of inheritance. Until the 20th century, agriculture was the foremost income earner, and after that, winegrowing. In 1798, the French, to whom the Nahe area had finally fallen, set up their own Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Meddersheim, which comprised the villages of Meddersheim, Kirschroth and Staudernheim. After the French had been driven out and Napoleon had been definitively defeated, there came a short transitional time, this mairie, now called a Bürgermeisterei (meaning the same thing in German) passed under the terms of the Congress of Vienna to the new Oberamt of Meisenheim within the Landgraviate of Hesse-Homburg, passing once again along with this in 1866 to the Grand Dukes of Hesse-Darmstadt. They lost the Oberamt to the Kingdom of Prussia, which in 1869 made a small rural district out of it. In 1919, the Amt of Meddersheim was formed out of the Bürgermeistereien of Meddersheim and Merxheim, but this was dissolved along with the Meisenheim district in 1932. Beginning in 1935, Kirschroth was in a kind of “personal union” with the town of Sobernheim, and as of 1940, it was fully joined with it in a new Amt called Sobernheim. In 1969, the Amt of Sobernheim became the Verbandsgemeinde of Sobernheim.[5] In 1990, Kirschroth placed third at the state level in the contest Unser Dorf soll schöner werden (“Our village should become lovelier”).[6]

As at 30 September 2013, there are 258 full-time residents in Kirschroth, and of those, 202 are Evangelical (78.295%), 19 are Catholic (7.364%), 1 (0.388%) belongs to another religious group and 36 (13.953%) either have no religion or will not reveal their religious affiliation.[7]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kirschroth.

• Municipality’s official webpage (in German)
• Kirschroth in the collective municipality’s webpages (in German)