| Alzey | |
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Alzey
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Location of the town of Alzey within Alzey-Worms district
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| Coordinates | |
| Administration | |
| Country | Germany |
| State | Rhineland-Palatinate |
| District | Alzey-Worms |
| Town subdivisions | 4 |
| Mayor | Christoph Burkhard |
| Basic statistics | |
| Area | 35.21 km2 (13.59 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 194 m (637 ft) |
| Population | 17,681 (31 December 2010)[1] |
| - Density | 502 /km2 (1,301 /sq mi) |
| Other information | |
| Time zone | CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) |
| Postal codes | 55219–55232 |
| Area code | 06731 |
| Website | www.alzey.de |
Alzey (German pronunciation: [ˈaltsaɪ]) is a Verband-free town – one belonging to no Verbandsgemeinde – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the fourth-largest town in Rhenish Hesse, after Mainz, Worms, and Bingen.
Alzey is one of the Nibelungenstädte – towns associated with the Nibelungenlied – because it is represented in this work by the character Volker von Alzey. Hence, Alzey is also known as Volkerstadt.
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Alzey lies in Rhenish Hesse on the western edge of the northern part of the Upper Rhine Plain. It is surrounded by the northern part of the Alzeyer Hügelland (Alzey Hills), which meets the Rheinhessisches Hügelland (Rhenish-Hessian Upland) towards the south and the North Palatine Highland towards the east. The town is found some 30 km southwest of Mainz and some 22 km (as the crow flies, in each case) northwest of Worms. Through Alzey, in places underground, flows the river Selz, a left-bank tributary to the Rhine.
Yearly precipitation in Alzey amounts to 586 mm, which is rather low, falling into the lowest fourth of the precipitation chart for all Germany. At 18% of the German Weather Service’s weather stations, even lower figures are recorded. The driest month is February. The most rainfall comes in June. In that month, precipitation is 1.9 times what it is in February. Precipitation varies moderately. At 41% of the weather stations, lower seasonal swings are recorded.
The earliest traces of settlement in the Alzey area go back as far as the Neolithic. Alzey was founded as a vicus (village) in the Roman province of Germania Superior in the lands surrounding Mogontiacum (Mainz).[2]
On a Nymphenstein (“nymph stone” – a kind of Roman altar stone).[3] Alzey had its first documentary mention in 223 as Vicani Altiaienses (“Villagers of Alzey”). The name Altiaia could well come from as far back as an old, pre-Roman Celtic settlement’s name used about 400 BC, although its exact origins have not been passed down to the present day. Over the ruins of the Roman vicus, which was destroyed about 350, a castrum was built about 390. In 406 and 407, the Burgundians, together with the Vandals, crossed the Rhine and settled in Mainz, Alzey and Worms as Roman confederates. The area was secured for them by treaty. In 436, the Burgundian kingdom was destroyed by the West Roman magister militum Flavius Aëtius with help from Hunnish troops. These events were worked into the Nibelungenlied, and form the origin of the legendary figure Volker von Alzey, the gleeman in the Nibelungenlied. After 450, Alzey passed to the Alamanni and the Franks when they took over the land. After Clovis I’s death in 511, the Frankish Empire fell apart into separate smaller kingdoms, and Alzey became part of Austrasia, whose capital was at Metz. After unification of the Frankish kingdoms in the mid 8th century, Alzey passed in the 843 Treaty of Verdun to the Kingdom of the East Franks, a forerunner of the German Empire. In 897, Alzey was first mentioned as an Imperial fief.
In 1156, Alzey belonged to Electoral Palatinate, and Konrad von Staufen attained the rank of Count Palatine in the Imperial castle, which had been completed in 1118. In 1277, Alzey attained the rank of town from Rudolf von Habsburg. In 1620, Count Spinola sided with the Catholic Emperor in the Thirty Years' War against the Protestant Electoral Palatinate and also conquered Alzey. In 1689, the town and the castle, under the French troops’ scorched-earth policy, were burnt down in the Nine Years' War, when Louis XIV’s armies had to leave areas conquered earlier. In 1798, areas west of the Rhine, among them those that until this time had been parts of Electoral Palatinate, were annexed to France. Alzey belonged until 1814 to the Department of Mont-Tonnerre (or Donnersberg in German). In 1816, Alzey was attached to the Grand Duchy of Hesse. In 1909, the winemaking school (now the Landesanstalt für Rebenzüchtung) was founded. Its first head was Georg Scheu, after whom the grape variety Scheurebe is named.
On Kristallnacht (9 November 1938), the Alzey synagogue was destroyed and the fittings were burnt in front of the building. The ruin was torn down in the 1950s. A rescued Torah scroll can nowadays be found in the museum. On 8 January 1945, in the Second World War, the town narrowly missed being destroyed when 36 Boeing B-17 bombers had been sent to take out a railway bridge in Alzey. Owing to bad weather and a landmark misinterpretation – the crew mistook the top of the old watchtower for the church steeple – the bombers ended up dropping their load on the Wartberg, a nearby hill, giving rise to the legend of the Wartbergturm – the old tower – as Alzey’s saviour.
Since 1947, Alzey has no longer been Hessian, but rather it became the seat of Alzey District in the newly formed state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
Since the merger of the old Alzey and Worms Districts in 1969, Alzey has been the seat of the new Alzey-Worms District and the seat of the Verbandsgemeinde of Alzey-Land, although as a Verband-free town, it does not actually belong to the Verbandsgemeinde.
On 22 April 1972, the formerly autonomous centres of Weinheim, Heimersheim and Dautenheim were amalgamated with Alzey. The outlying centre of Schafhausen had already been a Stadtteil (constituent community) of Alzey since the Middle Ages.
On 31 January 2008, the townsfolk’s religious affiliations broke down thus:[4]
The council is made up of 32 parttime council members who were elected at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the fulltime mayor as chairman. The seats are apportioned thus:[5]
| SPD | CDU | FDP | Greens | LINKE | FWG | Total | |
| 2009 | 11 | 9 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 32 seats |
| 2004 | 12 | 11 | 1 | 2 | - | 6 | 32 seats |
The town’s arms might be described thus: Per fess sable a demi-lion rampant Or armed, langued and crowned gules, and argent a vielle bendwise of the third.
The lion recalls the town’s former overlord, Electoral Palatinate. The vielle, a kind of fiddle, stands for the noble families by the name of Truchseß, or Truchsess (Volker von Alzey), Winter and Wilch, who were formerly resident in the town.
The town of Alzey regularly bestows the following awards and prizes:
The town’s links with wine are even shown in the Alser Lied, a town song, which is always sung on the Friday of the opening of the winemakers’ festival. One version sung by former mayor Walter Zuber could be found on the jukebox at the Alzey traditional pub, Zur Gretel for a decade.
Alzey has a well-kept old town with many timber-frame houses, restaurants, cafés and shops, surrounded by ruins of the mediaeval town wall. The town’s midpoint is the Rossmarkt (“Horse Market”) with the bronze horse by artist Gernot Rumpf. A sculpture of an ondine by Karlheinz Oswald stands at the Fischmarkt (“Fish Market”) in front of the old town hall.
The Wartbergstadion is the town’s biggest sporting facility. It has a type-B competition running track with a large grass playing field, a 400 m loop track, track and field areas (plastic) and stands. Here can also be found the leisure swimming pool Wartbergbad. Nearby is a riding club with stalls, paddocks and a riding hall.
Moreover, Alzey has at its disposal a newly built artificial-turf playing field, which is used mainly by the hockey and football clubs. There is also a multipurpose sporting ground and at schools several more hard courts.
The so-called Weinbergshäuschen Wanderung (“Vineyard Cottage Hike”), or Wingertshaisje Wanderung in the local speech, is a hike through the hilly Rhenish-Hessian countryside between Alzey and the outlying centres of Weinheim and Heimersheim. It is held each September on the first Sunday in that month. Along the network of paths, vineyard cottages are operated between 11:00 and 18:00 by winemaking estates and clubs. On offer at these times are both cold and warm foods and drinks, including the Rhenish-Hessian wine typical of the region.
The Winzerfest is held each year on the third weekend in September and lasts from Friday to the following Tuesday. It is the biggest event of its kind in Alzey. On the wine and sekt terrace are presented selected regional wines. Parallel with this is a yearly market with rides and games of all kinds.
Being the centre of a winegrowing region, the specialities are first and foremost wines and dishes that are made with wine, such as the Backesgrumbeere, a seasoned potato casserole with bacon, wine and sour cream, which is found throughout Rhenish Hesse. The winegrowing engineer Georg Scheu named a variety of grapevine after his workplace, the Perle von Alzey.
The town’s main branches of industry are winegrowing, the resident specialized clinic, the building firm Wilhelm Faber GmbH & Co. KG, a Schlecker distribution centre, a Plus distribution centre, an administrative seat of the hypermarket chain real,- and Lufthansa daughter companies Lufthansa Technik AERO Alzey and LSG Sky Food. Moreover, Alzey is the region’s service provision centre with a very broad array, for the town’s size, of shopping, which is concentrated mainly in the industrial area.
Alzey is characterized by winegrowing and with 769 ha of vineyards currently worked, 69% with white wine varieties and 31% with red, it ranks sixth in size among winegrowing centres in Rhineland-Palatinate, and after Worms (1 490 ha) and Nierstein (783 ha), it is the third biggest winegrowing centre in Rhenish Hesse.
Alzey is found near the Autobahnkreuz Alzey, an Autobahn interchange at which cross the two Autobahnen A 61 (Venlo, Koblenz, Bingen, Alzey, Ludwigshafen, Hockenheim) and A 63 (Mainz, Alzey, Kaiserslautern).
There are direct connections to Mainz by Regional-Express and Regionalbahn on the Alzey–Mainz railway, and on the Rheinhessenbahn (railway) to Bingen and Worms. The Donnersbergbahn has since 1999 once more connected Alzey with Kirchheimbolanden. On weekends and holidays, trips on the Elsass-Express (“Alsace Express”) to Wissembourg are possible.
The town belongs to the VRN. This tariff can also be used for trips to and from the Rhein-Nahe-Nahverkehrsverbund (RNN) area as far as Alzey.
Volker Gallé / Christine Hinkel / Manfred Hinkel / Gisela Kleinknecht / Wulf Kleinknecht: Alzeyer Köpfe. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-86680-098-4
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