Neu-Bamberg

While all other places in the Verbandsgemeinde can trace their foundings back to Frankish times and the Early Middle Ages, Neu-Bamberg's roots go back only as far as the Late Middle Ages; it is thus the newest place in the collective municipality. It is possible that Saint Maximin's Abbey in Trier once had landholds in what is now Neu-Bamberg, from which the Raugraves’ landhold arose, to which belonged the porphyry crag in the Appelbach valley, upon which, about 1250, they began building the castle. When the Raugraves founded this Neue Baumburg ("New Baumburg") about 1200 after building the Alte Baumburg ("Old Baumburg"), a new village arose below it. The villagers of nearby Sarlesheim gave their old village up and moved to this new one. Also living in the village were service personnel who had to care for the lordly estate, the livestock, the grazing land and the cropfields. In a 1253 document, the stronghold's existence is witnessed for the first time. On 13 March of that year, Raugrave Heinrich I and his brother Rupprecht II, together with their cousin Konrad I from the Old Baumburg, settled the mutual arrangements for the inheritance rights to their holdings. To distinguish their new comital seat from the old castle, the Alte Baumburg on the heights at the edge of the Alsenz valley, the Raugraves named the new castle Neue Baumburg, from which developed, after various shifts in pronunciation over the centuries, to "Neu-Bamberg". Nevertheless, the 1253 document does not put a name to this place, but rather says: Novum castrum apud Sarlesheim ("new castle near Sarlesheim"). Sarlesheim was a village that lay right near what is now the village of Neu-Bamberg, but later vanished. It had its first documentary mention together with the castle in the Raugraves’ 1253 document. The castle is nowadays a ruin crowning the crag where it was built. It can be seen far beyond the village. Just when the Raugraves, who instituted a constituent county here on their own territory, laid the foundation stone for the complex and completed it is unknown. The document mentioned above was the first to bear witness to its past. It seems clear, though, that by that time, it had been largely completed, at least in its most important parts. Already by the late 13th century, quite a big village had arisen here. The first Jews settled here in 1276 and in 1320, Emperor Ludwig, at Raugrave of Altenbaumburg Georg II's request, afforded the village Imperial protection. The castle and the village that had by now arisen were mentioned by name in a 1285 document. On 1 October of that year, Raugrave Heinrich II transferred to his wife Adelheid, born a countess of Sayn, the castle with all its walls and mountain perimeter as a widow's seat. Another document from 1297 describes the village as a Stadt ("town"). The rulers allowed the townsmen such rights, freedoms and favours as those enjoyed by the Oppenheimers. Furthermore, in 1330, the king granted Neu-Bamberg the right to hold a weekly market on Mondays. This shows that the settlement was a particular candidate for fostering. In 1337, the Raugraves pledged a half share in the castle and the small town of Neu-Bamberg to Archbishop of Mainz Heinrich III against a payment of 1,300 pounds in Heller. In 1369, the Counts Palatine of the Rhine, as well as a few towns, managed to secure entry rights to the half of the town that had remained in the Raugraves’ hands. After 1400, the shares in the ownership of the village were as follows: the Electorate of Mainz held a five-eighths share; the Lords of Daun/Counts of Falkenstein held a one-eighth share; the Counts of Sponheim held a two-eighths share, although by 1403, they had transferred their ownership share to Johann, Marshal of Waldeck. Neu-Bamberg formed an Amt in its own right within the Electorate of Mainz, and its territory also included the villages of Volxheim, Siefersheim, Wöllstein, Gumbsheim and Pleitersheim, along with each one's outlying countryside. Electoral Mainz's Praefectura Neobaumbergensis, as this was called, existed until the French Revolution. It kept its seat at the building that later served as a school and now as the municipal hall. In 1467, Prince-Archbishop-Elector Adolf II of Mainz pledged part of Neu-Bamberg to Count Wirich VII of Daun-Falkenstein. When this part passed by way of inheritance to the Duke of Lorraine in 1661, the then Prince-Archbishop-Elector of Mainz redeemed it in 1663. When a dispute broke out in 1668 with Elector Palatine Karl Ludwig over certain thoroughfare rights through Neu-Bamberg, the Prince-Archbishop-Elector of Mainz sued the Elector Palatine at the Reichskammergericht. The ruling on the dispute was just transferred to the Counts Palatine's declared adversaries, the Margraves of Baden, who quickly assigned the whole Neu-Bamberg landhold to the Archbishop of Mainz. In the disagreement over the local lordship, the castle and the village's fortifications were destroyed. In 1717, Neu-Bamberg was lastingly assigned by treaty in 1717 to the Electorate of Mainz, thereafter becoming an Electoral Mainz Amt to which the Electoral Mainz villages of Volxheim and Siefersheim were subject, as were Wöllstein, Gumbsheim and Pleitersheim, which were jointly ruled with Nassau-Saarbrücken. Mainz held the small castle town until the French conquest in the late 18th century. High jurisdiction is one of the most prominent features of mediaeval and even early-modern lordly power, with the gallows as its hallmark. Hence, it is to be understood that the execution places were to be set up in such exposed, widely visible spots as the Galgenberg ("Gallows Mountain") near Neu-Bamberg, which climbs up steeply right behind the Weidenmühle (mill) on the road going towards Wonsheim. The surroundings up at the hilltop where the gallows stood gives the same grim impression that came to mind when people who lived centuries ago thought of such places: bare, infertile land covered only in sparse grass, above which here and there only scanty shrubs grew. The last of the likely not few times when Neu-Bamberg was pillaged and plundered over its eventful history came in October 1796 by French Revolutionary troops. It lasted two days. Just before this event, the French had been engaging the Austrians nearby. The plunderers took all the village's livestock away with them to their camp. The Revolution of 1848 echoed lastingly in this small castle village, which in 1815 already had 478 inhabitants. An eyewitness, master tinsmith Karl Luttenberger, later told the following:

One evening fire could be seen burning all round on the heights. Our townsman Johann Schlamp III, a freedom-fighter captain, fetched himself the Ries orchestra's big drum out of the dance hall, a wooden spoon from the kitchen and worked his way through the laneways in such a way that he soon had a goodly number of people behind him. Thereupon, a parade to the Schloßberg ("Castle Mountain") formed…

A militia was also formed, with wooden shotguns, who met one Sunday with those from Fürfeld and Wonsheim. The meeting, which had begun with much enthusiasm ended less praiseworthily: during a drinking binge, an argument, and then a fight, broke out. When in the end the movement was beaten by the Prussians, the militiamen wished they had never said or done anything. In 1866, four men from Neu-Bamberg went to war in the Prussian forces against Austria, fighting in the Austro-Prussian War, among them Philipp and Michael Bremmer, who also fought alongside 17 others from the village in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871); one of them did not come back from the latter war. It was, however, not only war and other disputes that defined village life at that time. The local stone industry was experiencing decisive growth through technical innovation. In 1898, when the Sprendlingen–Fürfeld railway line was completed, stone could be shipped by rail to its various destinations. Shortly thereafter, trucks were also hauling stone cargoes. Steam engines, which drove the gravel quarries, also made it possible to increase production, as did electricity, which began to be transmitted to the village from Kreuznach in 1917. As early as 1909, Neu-Bamberg also enjoyed the modern convenience of a watermain. The village's sportsmen joined together in 1906 to form the Turn- und Sportverein (gymnastic and sport club). The First World War tore many young men from Neu-Bamberg. Twenty-four of them fell in that war, and six were listed as missing in action.[6][7]

As at 30 November 2013, there are 907 full-time residents in Neu-Bamberg, and of those, 445 are Evangelical (49.063%), 257 are Catholic (28.335%), 1 is Lutheran (0.11%), 1 is Russian Orthodox (0.11%), 10 (1.103%) belong to other religious groups and 193 (21.279%) either have no religion or will not reveal their religious affiliation.[9]

• Alexander Thon and Martin Wenz: Neuenbaumburg. in: Pfälzisches Burgenlexikon (Beiträge zur pfälzischen Geschichte, Bd. 12), published by Jürgen Keddigkeit, Alexander Thon et al., vol. 3, Kaiserslautern 2005, pp. 706–717. (in German)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Neu-Bamberg.

• Neu-Bamberg in the collective municipality’s webpages (in German)
• Private website about Neu-Bamberg (in German)
• Neu-Bamberg’s history at regionalgeschichte.net (in German)