Laubach, Cochem-Zell

Laubach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kaisersesch, whose seat is in the like-named town. Laubach is a state-recognized tourism municipality.

Geography

Location

The municipality lies in the Eifel roughly 3 km west of Kaisersesch. Its elevation is 550 m above sea level^[2]. Laubach lies on Autobahn A 48 between Koblenz and Trier.

Name

The municipality’s name likely has its roots in the Middle High German lôbach. Lob and the Modern High German Laub (cognate with the English word “leaf”^[3]) here refer to a forest, while ach means a boggy stretch of ground^[4].

History

Several finds in the Laubach area give clues to settlers in early times. There is, for instance, a barrow from the Late Bronze Age within the municipality’s limits. The Romans, too, left their stone traces.

The first undisputed documentary mention of Laubach comes from the year 1455, when “court, people and revenue at Laubach” were sold to the Counts of Virneburg, a noble family first mentioned in 1024 and enfeoffed by the Archbishop of Trier. Less than a century later, however, in 1548, the Electorate of Trier took over the lordly rights.

For centuries, the village’s main livelihood lay in slate mining. This is documented as far back as 1695, although smaller pits were worked before that. The last slate pit was closed in 1959 after it filled with water.

Laubach belonged to the high court district of Masburg, which itself was owned by the Counts of Virneburg, and owed its tithes to Saint Castor’s Monastery in Karden, even after the Electorate of Trier took over. Suffering came as armies waged war across the land. King Louis XIV’s forces overran the area in the Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession), as did the hordes in the Thirty Years' War.

In 1563, Laubach had 15 hearths (households), but in 1680 – 32 years after the Thirty Years’ War had ended – there were only 5 families. By 1874, though, there were 26 houses.

Beginning in 1794, Laubach lay under French rule. In 1815 it was assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia at the Congress of Vienna.

Under Napoleonic hegemony, the lands on the Rhine’s left bank became French in 1798 and the administration was structured on the French model. Laubach belonged to the Department of Rhin-et-Moselle (or Rhein-Mosel in German) and to the canton and mairie (“mayoralty”) of Kaisersesch. In 1809, there were 17 “souls”. Without a doubt, the Rhineland, as part of a greater state, enjoyed advantages such as freedom of trade, equality before the law – the Code Napoléon also applied here – and expansion of the road network.

Laubach lay on the Route de deuxième classe Paris-Trier-Koblenz. During the French Revolution, French settlers came to Laubach and the surrounding area, whose existence is witnesses by many local surnames, such as Bourgeois (later Germanized to Buschwa), Gorges, Lefev, Regnier and Gilles. French words, too, entered the local speech, some of which can still be heard today. When Europe was newly carved up among the powers of the day at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Rhineland became Prussian. Prussian times brought the impoverished Eifel region considerable economic improvements. Healthcare was greatly enhanced, roads, schools and churches were built, there was modest industrialization, and handicrafts flourished, even if the main focus was still on agriculture. By 1832, Laubach’s population had risen to 270, and by 1872, it had grown to 345.

The Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and 1871 brought the Eifel region hardship once more. Even worse was the First World War. Troops were constantly marching through the countryside, and the school became an army camp. Of Laubach’s 224 male inhabitants (figure from 1905), 88 were in the war. Only women and children were left to work the fields, the latter being let off school specially for this.

Fifteen of the village’s men fell in the Great War; in 1918, ten others were prisoners of war and a further two were missing in action. The war years were marked by crop failures, hunger and cold. The time after the war was no better.

The 1920s brought joblessness, huge prices, neediness and, once more, hunger. National Socialism does not seem to have played much of a rôle in Laubach, aside from the odd Nazi henchman, as was so throughout Germany. One of these stalwarts was the local schoolteacher, one of whose entries in the school and village chronicle in 1933 stands out:

With the seizure of power by the Führer Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP, the whole outlook changes. One thing, nonetheless, can be expected to come along with the movement: inwardly, some are its adversaries now just as they were before. They knowingly belong to those whom the Führer “broadly renounces”.

The Second World War claimed 21 men from Laubach. On 1 September 1949, another 11 men were missing in action and 8 were prisoners of war. There once more followed economic hardship. This was eased somewhat by gathering beechnuts in the surrounding woods, as indeed the villagers had already done after the First World War. The beechnuts were delivered to a central place where they were processed for their oil. Four and a half kilogrammes of beechnuts yielded one litre of beechnut oil. The going price for a kilogramme of beechnuts was 2 Marks, and one litre of beechnut oil cost 15 Marks^[5].

Since 1946, Laubach has been part of the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The outlying centre of Leienkaul, formerly part of Laubach, became a separate municipality in June 2004.

Politics

Municipal council

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. The 12 seats on council are shared between two voters’ groups. In 2004, the election was by majority vote^[6].

Mayor

Laubach’s mayor is Manfred Adams, and his deputies are Dr. Stefan Göbel and Frank Regnier^[7].

Coat of arms

The municipality’s arms might be described thus: Per bend argent a slate bendwise pierced at each corner sable surmounted by a pickaxe of the field, and vert a sheaf of six ears of wheat Or, on a chief of the first six lozenges fesswise conjoined of the second, conjoined with six lozenges fesswise conjoined gules below.

Culture and sightseeing

Buildings

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

• Hohlweg 2 – former school; plastered building, part with eaves at front 1842, part with gable at front about 1900^[8]

Economy and infrastructure

Transport

Laubach lies on Autobahn A 48.

References

External links

• Municipality’s official webpage (German)

This article incorporates information from the German Wikipedia.