Lauschied

Lauschied lies on a hill in the Glan-Nahe triangle, the wedge-shaped tongue of land where the former empties into the latter. It lies about 5 km south-southwest of Bad Sobernheim and 13 km east-southeast of Kirn.

Clockwise from the north, Lauschied's neighbours are the municipality of Meddersheim, the town of Bad Sobernheim and the municipalities of Abtweiler, Raumbach (although it meets this at only one point), Desloch, Jeckenbach, Hundsbach and Bärweiler, all of which likewise lie within the Bad Kreuznach district.

Like many places in the region, Lauschied can claim to have had its dealings with the notorious outlaw Schinderhannes (or Johannes Bückler, to use his true name). In 1797 and 1798, Bückler, Germany's most famous robber, was staying in Lauschied. The cobbler Johannes Leyendecker from Lauschied is said to have been a crafty instigator of many of Schinderhannes's misdeeds. Indeed, Leyendecker may have been one of only a few of Schinderhannes's comrades who were as clever as he was, or perhaps even more so.[2]

Lauschied's population development since Napoleonic times is shown in the table below. The figures for the years from 1871 to 1987 are drawn from census data:[3]

The council is made up of 12 council members, who were elected by proportional representation at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman. In the 2004 municipal election, council members were elected by majority vote. The municipal election held on 7 June 2009 yielded the following results:[5]

Lauschied's mayor is Wilhelm Marx.[6]

The German blazon reads: Schild geteilt und unten gespalten. Oben in Silber ein wachsender, schwarzer rotbewehrter Adler, unten vorn in Blau ein durchgehendes goldenes Kreuz, hinten blau-gold geschacht.

The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Per fess argent issuant from the line of partition an eagle displayed sable armed and langued gules, and per pale azure a cross Or and chequy of the fifth and fourth.

The three fields in Lauschied's arms symbolize the municipality's territorial history and are drawn from lordly arms once borne by Imperial knightly houses who had landholds in the village. Wolf von Sponheim bore arms chequy (a shield with a chequered pattern) with a black eagle, a charge now seen in the upper field. From an old 1700 seal comes Saint George’s attribute, a cross, who was the church's patron saint. The blue and gold chequy field is drawn from arms borne by the Lords of Koppenstein.[7]

The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[8]

• Evangelical church, Abtweilerstraße – Baroque aisleless church, 1731
• Saint George’s Catholic Church (Kirche St. Georg), Abtweilerstraße – Romanesquified aisleless church, 1875, architect Julius, Lauschied
• Abtweilerstraße 2 – town hall; plastered building with open Classicist entrance hall, firefighting room, earlier half of the 19th century (essentially older?)
• Abtweilerstraße 19 – Baroque timber-frame house, 17th or early 18th century
• At Abtweilerstraße 21 – armorial tablet at the former estate of the Family Wolf von Sponheim, marked 1631
• At Abtweilerstraße 22 – Baroque portal lintel with relief, marked 1720
• Abtweilerstraße 32 – Catholic rectory; sandstone-block building, pyramid roof, marked 1904/1905
• Meisenheimer Straße 18 – complex with single roof ridge; Gründerzeit sandstone-block building, marked 1881

Lauschied lies within the Rhein-Nahe-Nahverkehrsverbund (RNN), whose fares therefore apply. The nearest railway station is Staudernheim on the Nahe Valley Railway (Bingen–Saarbrücken), 9 km northeast of Lauschied. Bus route 262 runs direct connections on weekdays to Bad Sobernheim station on the same line.