Hahn, Rhineland-Palatinate
Encyclopedia
History
Within Hahn’s municipal limits are traces of RomanAncient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
and Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
settlement. The placename Hahn, originally written Hagene (1120), and later also Haan, Han, Hane, and Hain, originally meant, according to the Rhenish toponym researcher Heinrich Dittmaier, “wattled fence”, then later “enclosed dwelling place”. In 1120, Hagene had its first documentary mention in connection with Lötzbeuren
Lötzbeuren
Lötzbeuren is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bernkastel-Wittlich district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.- Location :...
, Pünderich
Pünderich
Pünderich is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
and Karden
Treis-Karden
Treis-Karden is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde to which it also belongs...
in a donation document made out to Mettlach
Mettlach
Mettlach is a municipality in the district Merzig-Wadern, in Saarland, Germany. It is situated on the river Saar, approx. 7 km northwest of Merzig, and 30 km south of Trier.Villeroy & Boch's headquarters are in Mettlach....
Abbey. It was mentioned a second time about 1330 or 1335 in the Sponheim
County of Sponheim
The County of Sponheim was an independent territory in the Holy Roman Empire which lasted from the 11th century until the early 19th century...
taxation register. Beginning in 1794, Hahn lay under French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
rule. In 1815 it was assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
at the Congress of Vienna
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
. Since 1946, it has been part of the then newly founded state
States of Germany
Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...
of Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....
. After the Second World War, an air base was built on parts of the municipal area. This was converted for civil aviation
Civil aviation
Civil aviation is one of two major categories of flying, representing all non-military aviation, both private and commercial. Most of the countries in the world are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization and work together to establish common standards and recommended practices...
in 1993 after the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
withdrew from the base. It is now called Frankfurt-Hahn Airport
Frankfurt-Hahn Airport
-Cargo airlines:-Other facilities:AirIT Services AG, a subsidiary of Fraport, has its head office in Building 663 at Hahn Airport.-References:*Active Air Force Bases Within the United States of America on 17 September 1982 USAF Reference Series, Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force,...
(or Flughafen Frankfurt-Hahn in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
).
Hahn and the airport
Hahn suffered for many years under the noise from military jets taking off and landing, but also benefitted from jobs at the air base and from opportunities to let properties in the surrounding area out. The latter benefit shrank sharply after the Americans withdrew from Hahn. Although civil aircraft are not quite as noisy as the air force jets were, Hahn still lies within the noise protection zone because of the 24-hour-a-day air traffic overhead, which has hindered plans to expand the village with new building developments.Religion
Hahn’s EvangelicalEvangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
parish, to which the Briedeler Heck
Briedel
Briedel 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 Zell, whose seat is in the municipality of Zell an der Mosel...
also belonged, merged on 1 January 1978 with the Evangelical parish of Würrich
Würrich
Würrich is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
, and today this is also tied administratively with the parish of Zell
Zell (Mosel)
Zell is a town in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Zell has roughly 4,300 inhabitants and is the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde.-Location:...
-Bad Bertrich-Blankenrath
Blankenrath
Blankenrath 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 Zell, whose seat is in the municipality of Zell an der Mosel.- Location :The...
and belongs to the church district of Simmern-Trarbach. Saint Michael’s in Sohren
Sohren
Sohren is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kirchberg, whose seat is in the like-named town...
tends to the Catholic community’s needs in Hahn.
Municipal council
The council is made up of 6 council members, who were elected by majority votePlurality voting system
The plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member constituencies...
at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.
Coat of arms
The German blazon reads: In Blau ein goldener Schrägrechtbalken, belegt mit einem schwarzen aufsteigenden Düsenjäger. Vorn drei goldene Getreidehalme mit Ähren und Blättern, hinten gekreuzt ein goldener Hammer und ein goldener Schlägel.The municipality’s arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
might in English heraldic
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
language be described thus: Azure a bend Or charged with a fighter jet sable, the whole between three ears of wheat with stems conjoined, leafed and couped, one stem each bendwise, palewise and bendwise sinister, and a hammer and sledge per saltire, all of the second.
The field tincture
Tincture (heraldry)
In heraldry, tinctures are the colours used to emblazon a coat of arms. These can be divided into several categories including light tinctures called metals, dark tinctures called colours, nonstandard colours called stains, furs, and "proper". A charge tinctured proper is coloured as it would be...
s azure and Or (blue and gold) refer to the village’s former allegiance to the “Further” County of Sponheim
County of Sponheim
The County of Sponheim was an independent territory in the Holy Roman Empire which lasted from the 11th century until the early 19th century...
, which between 1248 and 1437 held the lordship here, and which bore these tinctures in its arms. The fighter jet on the bend (diagonal stripe) refers to the former NATO air base at Hahn, built in 1951, but now given over to civilian use. The three ears of wheat stand for the centuries-old practice of agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
in the municipality. The crossed mining tools stand for slate
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...
mining, which for a time was historical, but it is now once more undertaken.
The arms have been borne since 4 December 1986, and were designed by Harald Kaspar, a glass artist who lived in Hahn at the time, but who has since moved to Kappel.
Culture and sightseeing
Buildings
The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-PalatinateRhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....
’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:
- Saint Anthony’sAnthony the GreatAnthony the Great or Antony the Great , , also known as Saint Anthony, Anthony the Abbot, Anthony of Egypt, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, Abba Antonius , and Father of All Monks, was a Christian saint from Egypt, a prominent leader among the Desert Fathers...
Simultaneous ChurchSimultaneumA shared church, or Simultankirche, Simultaneum or, more fully, simultaneum mixtum, a term first coined in 16th century Germany, is a church in which public worship is conducted by adherents of two or more religious groups. Such churches became common in Europe in the wake of the Reformation...
(Simultankirche St. Antonius), An der Gass – quire, west tower, parts of the once three-naved main hall, late 13th century, Late GothicGothic architectureGothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
traceryTraceryIn architecture, Tracery is the stonework elements that support the glass in a Gothic window. The term probably derives from the 'tracing floors' on which the complex patterns of late Gothic windows were laid out.-Plate tracery:...
windows, spire (wooden tub), 18th century; whole complex with graveyard (see also below) - An der Gass 15 – timber-frameTimber framingTimber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...
house, hipped mansard roofMansard roofA mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...
, about 1800
The church
The building worthiest of note is the little village church. Saint Anthony’s Simultaneous ChurchSimultaneum
A shared church, or Simultankirche, Simultaneum or, more fully, simultaneum mixtum, a term first coined in 16th century Germany, is a church in which public worship is conducted by adherents of two or more religious groups. Such churches became common in Europe in the wake of the Reformation...
has a churchtower that looks rather like a defensive structure, reckoned by dendrochronological
Dendrochronology
Dendrochronology or tree-ring dating is the scientific method of dating based on the analysis of patterns of tree-rings. Dendrochronology can date the time at which tree rings were formed, in many types of wood, to the exact calendar year...
dating to come from the time between 1350 and 1370. The nave and quire date from 1470. Two bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
bell
Bell (instrument)
A bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...
s come from 1489, according to the inscription (one bell was recast because it had cracked). In a 1508 document, the church is called a “rectorate at Hahn”. Before the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, the church was in Sohren’s care in the rural chapter of Glan in the Archbishopric of Mainz
Archbishopric of Mainz
The Archbishopric of Mainz or Electorate of Mainz was an influential ecclesiastic and secular prince-bishopric in the Holy Roman Empire between 780–82 and 1802. In the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, the Archbishop of Mainz was the primas Germaniae, the substitute of the Pope north of the Alps...
. Today Hahn belongs once again as a branch church to Sohren and the Diocese of Trier. The church has been since 17 May 1689 a simultaneous church and is used by both Catholics and Evangelicals
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
. It is the second oldest simultaneous church in the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland
Evangelical Church in the Rhineland
Evangelical Church in the Rhineland is a united Protestant church body in parts of the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Hesse . This is actually the area covered by the former Prussian Rhine Province until 1920. It is the most important Protestant...
.
The Evangelical territory of Palatinate-Simmern had passed after Charles II’s
Charles II, Elector Palatine
Charles II was Elector Palatine from 1680 to 1685. He was the son of Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine and Charlotte of Hesse-Kassel.Charles was a strict Calvinist. In 1671, his aunt Electress Sophia of Hanover arranged his marriage to Princess Wilhelmina Ernestina, daughter of King Frederick III...
death without a direct heir to the Palatinate-Neuburg
Palatinate-Neuburg
Palatinate-Neuburg is a former territory of the Holy Roman Empire, founded in 1505. Its capital was Neuburg an der Donau. Its area was about 2,750 km², with a population of some 100,000.-History:...
line, which had only a short time earlier become Catholic. The designated successor, Philip William had nevertheless promised religious freedom. After the promotion of the Catholic Church and in many cases the abolition of Evangelical parishes in the time of the Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession) with France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, a settlement was reached in the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick
Treaty of Ryswick
The Treaty of Ryswick or Ryswyck was signed on 20 September 1697 and named after Ryswick in the Dutch Republic. The treaty settled the Nine Years' War, which pitted France against the Grand Alliance of England, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire and the United Provinces.Negotiations started in May...
whereby the Catholic side enjoyed support from Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine
Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine
Johann Wilhelm II, Elector Palatine was Elector Palatine , Duke Palatine of Neuburg/Danube , Duke of Jülich and Berg , and Duke of Upper Palatinate and Cham...
. In many municipalities in the Palatinate, simultaneous churches were built. So many of them were later abolished in the course of industrialization between 1880 and 1910 that the smaller denomination in each case built its own church. This happened in neighbouring Kappel. In the little village of Hahn, however, there was no need. On the information display board before the church, there is a reference to the Gospel According to John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
: Damit sie alle eins seien – “That they all may be one” (John 17:21).
Since 1980, the church has been under monumental protection. Since 1998, the municipality has been floodlighting the church at night so that it can be seen even by passing motorists on the Hunsrückhöhenstraße.