Bruchmühlbach-Miesau: A city steeped in history

by Petra Lessoing
Ramstein Public Affairs


Bruchmühlbach-Miesau is one of nine union communities belonging to Kaiserslautern County. It consists of the communities of  Bruchmühlbach-Miesau, Gerhardsbrunn, Lambsborn, Langwieden and Martinshöhe.

The mayor is Werner Holz, who has his office in the town hall, Am Rathaus 2.

Bruchmühlbach was documented around 900 for the first time. Miesau was first mentioned in 1222 in a protection letter by King Henry VII.

 

Bruchmühlbach and Miesau were merged in 1972. Today, Bruchmühlbach-Miesau has about 8,000 inhabitants including the village parts of Buchholz, Elschbach and Vogelbach.

The town offers various leisure facilities: a heated outdoor pool, a miniature golf court, riding stables, camping grounds and a fishing pond.

Miesau has a Protestant church, built in Baroque style in 1738. The Catholic church in Bruchmühlbach was finished in New Roman style in 1864.

Gerhardsbrunn has about 180 citizens. Its first documents date from around 1560. The Protestant church was built in 1825 and was also used as school in former times.

Today, locals use it as their community hall. The village is surrounded by many hiking paths, located in the Ummelsbachtal landscape conservation area.

Lamsborn, first documented around 1150, has about 800 inhabitants and is located on the bottom of Sickinger Höhe.

The Protestant church has a precious Baroque pulpit from 1783. The village also has a community hall, two playgrounds, a library, the local sports club’s gym and sports field. The local certified Nordic walking park offers three attractive routes.

Martinshöhe was mentioned in a document in Worms in 1496 for the first time. It has about 1,700 inhabitants.

The village’s token is the Catholic church with a bell tower of 36 meters, built in late Roman style. It’s white with red sandstone borders. A menhir (roman stone) next to the water tower proves the early settlement of the area by Celtic tribes and Romans.

Langwieden, with its about 280 inhabitants, was mentioned at the beginning of the 12th century for the first time. It has a Protestant church that is listed as a historic monument. It is one of the oldest churches in the Pfalz.

The local elementary school is also used as community hall for festivities of each kind.

A special attraction is the only wind protection hedge in Rheinland-Pfalz. It surrounds the village on several kilometers and was planted more than 40 years ago to break the wind and to protect the steep areas from ground erosions.

The union community of Bruchmühlbach-Miesau has a few buildings considered as industrial monuments: the old water tower from the 19th century, built of sandstone in Martinshöhe, the old railway viaduct near Elschbach, and the distillery cooperative, known as the oldest cooperative in Germany.

Bruchmühlbach-Miesau also has a special natural monument, the “Elendsklamm,” or gorge of bale. The 3-kilometer-long gorge has cascaded paths and sputtering water falls with a special flora and fauna.

The variegated sandstone gorge leads to the bottom of Tausendmühle, the only and still functioning flour mill in the Kaiserslautern County.

The whole union community is known for various hiking paths of about 120 kilometers. The blue scallop leads hikers on 13 kilometers across the union community on the Way of St. James, the pilgrims’ way to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.