Antiquity According to Bantelmann (writing in 1972), there is supposedly a
prehistoric barrow to be found on the Hollerkopf in the village's southwest, although apparently, after an
archaeological survey, it can no longer be made out. There are, however, richer finds from
Roman times. According to Zenglein (although this is based on another writer's information, namely Egon Wagner's), there are the following sites at which archaeological finds have come to light in Dunzweiler: • a
villa rustica at the Lacherwald (forest), confirmed by trial digging; • a further villa rustica in the strip field named Hübschweiler; • two
Viergöttersteine (“four-god stones”, pedestals on which a
Jupiter Column was customarily stood), which were walled into the masonry as
spolia at the Dunzweiler Evangelical church on the Heidenkopf, and which were described as early as the 16th century by Tilemann Stella and again by more recent archaeologists (Friedrich Sprater, for one); • also spreading onto Waldmohr's municipal area in the Hengstwald (forest), remnants from
Gallo-Roman times found long ago by farmers, and described in the 18th century by the Reverend Jodocus Selbach, who even wrote a poem about the finds on the Prince-Elector's behalf; these finds were in the past incorrectly said to be the “Sanctuary of Waldmohr”.
Middle Ages It is likely that “Dunzo’s Homestead” (the name's original meaning) arose as early as
Frankish times, thus before the 10th century. According to the document from
Henry II, Count of Zweibrücken, containing Dunzweiler's first documentary mention (29 April 1247), Wilhelm von Duntzwilre and his wife Panzerte forwent a complaint against the nearby Wörschweiler Abbey over a plot of land, in return for which they were to be buried at the abbey upon their deaths. In 1264, it comes to light from a document from Loretta von Zweibrücken that a priest named Verculo forsook his property “
zu Dunzwilr” (“at Dunzweiler”). In the same year Henry II documented that a priest at Dunzweiler named Johannes bequeathed all his holdings to Wörschweiler Abbey. According to this document, Dunzweiler belonged to the
County of Zweibrücken, whose counts enfeoffed vassals with holdings in the village, foremost among them the Lords of Bitsch. In the early 15th century, the County of Zweibrücken was pledged, later being redeemed by
Stephen of
Electoral Palatinate, who out of his own inheritance from Electoral Palatinate, his wife
Anna of Veldenz' from the now defunct
County of Veldenz and the now redeemed County of Zweibrücken founded the
County Palatine of Zweibrücken, which in the fullness of time came to be known as the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken. Nevertheless, lesser nobles had holdings in Dunzweiler that bit by bit were taken over by the Dukes of Zweibrücken. Two 15th-century
Weistümer (a
Weistum –
cognate with
English wisdom – was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the
Middle Ages and early modern times) from Dunzweiler are still preserved. In 1487, the village burnt to the ground and was not fully restored for 80 years.
Modern times Dunzweiler, as part of the
Schultheißerei of Waldmohr, now shared a history with the
County Palatine of Zweibrücken right up until that state's dissolution at the time of the
French Revolution. In 1547, the first detailed information about Dunzweiler and its environs was to be found in the so-called
Oberamtsbuch kept by the
Oberamt of Zweibrücken, which was compiled on
Duke Wolfgang's orders, and by way of the archaeological listings, the village appears repeatedly in Tilemann Stella's (a surveyor and cartographer from
Siegen) 1564
Beschreibung der Ämter Zweibrücken und Kirkel (“Description of the
Ämter of Zweibrücken and Kirkel”, a territory also known as the
Dunzweiler Bann). It says, for instance, on page 28, in archaic German: “
Fortan gehet die grenitz berguber biß zu einem Ort, im Hohen Teich genannt. Dieser Ort schaidet Duntzweiller und Ditweiller. Von dan gehet die oberkait gemach bergin bis zu einem marckstein. Dieser marckstein wirt genannt oben am Hundthauser teich bei der Krelesaichen. Er hatt ein creutz unnd schaidet Duntzweiller und Diweiller, diß ist Pfältzisch unndt höret inns Reich.” (“Henceforth the border goes over the mountain to a place named ‘im Hohen Teich’. This place divides
Duntzweiller and
Ditweiller. Thence, the authority goes into the mountains to a borderstone. This borderstone is named up above at the Hundthaus pond near the
Krelesaichen. It has a cross and divides
Duntzweiller and
Ditweiller, this is Palatine and belongs in the
Empire.”). During the course of the 16th century, Count (Duke)
John I of Zweibrücken finally managed to acquire all foreign lordly rights in Dunzweiler, completing the acquisition on 27 April 1577. In 1609 came the first complete list of Dunzweiler’s inhabitants in the form of a directory of parishioners belonging to the parish branch of Dunzweiler. It was compiled by the Reverend Simon Metzler, the parish priest at
Ohmbach, to which Dunzweiler was parochially attached. This list may well also represent the village’s population figure – roughly 120 persons – just before the
Thirty Years' War, which brought great hardship, misery and sickness (foremost, the
Plague) along with it. Dunzweiler was not spared in the Conquest of Kaiserslautern, either, falling victim to plundering and being set on fire. Most of the village’s farmers and craftsmen likely died in this time. The war was brought to an end in 1648 with the
Peace of Westphalia. After great fluctuations in the population in the years that followed, the first population figures known from the years after the Thirty Years’ War were 7 families in 1675 and 14 in 1704, whereas some villages in the broader area had died right out in the war. Some inhabitants had fled and were now staying in faraway places. On 12 February 1673, the municipality, which had been settled once again, enacted its own
municipal code (
Gemeindeordnung), which prescribed a
police force. The code, which was read aloud every year, was officially confirmed by the
Amt of Zweibrücken. In the early 18th century there was a serious dispute with the neighbouring village of Dittweiler. The land that was the subject of this dispute is still known today as
Streitgewann (roughly “Dispute Strip”). This comes from a hitherto unknown entry in a church book. Closer examination of this source has also brought to light that during the Inquisition in the
Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken under
Heinrich Kramer (c. 1430-c. 1505), Dunzweiler was the scene of local
violent crimes. A “stock book” has survived from 1756 or 1759. It was compiled by the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken and used information gathered by land surveyors to determine who owned how much land, and in which fields. Also listed in this book was a figure of 30 to 35 houses in Dunzweiler. Following in 1776 were the
Huldigungslisten (“homage lists”), a list of Dunzweiler subjects at that time in homage to
Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, who had just (on 5 November 1775) assumed the Duchy's leadership after
his predecessor's death. This list, which came into being shortly before the
French Revolution, counted 48 fathers heading families, 16 fully grown, unwed young men and two older inhabitants who, owing to age or infirmity, could not show up for the counting. In 1793, the Duchy was conquered by invading
French troops, putting Charles II August to flight, shortly whereafter his palace was burnt down. By 1805, Dunzweiler, along with the rest of the German lands on the
Rhine’s left bank, had been
annexed to
Napoleon’s
empire, within which the
Commune de Dunzweiler found itself until 1814 in the
Canton of Waldmohr, the
Arrondissement of Sarrebruck (
Saarbrücken) and the
Department of
Sarre, whose seat was at Trèves (
Trier). In 1805, the French administration had a
plan géometrique of Dunzweiler laid out, that is, a map with building areas and divisions of farm fields drawn in. This makes it clear that there was a great upswing in the village’s population in the 19th century. While there had been only 50 houses in Dunzweiler in 1805, there were 96 in 1845.
Recent times In 1814, the French withdrew from the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank, and after Napoleon’s defeat at
Waterloo, the
Congress of Vienna in 1816, after a transitional period, awarded the
Baierische Rheinkreis (“Bavarian Rhenish District”), which was later known as the
Bayerische Rheinpfalz (“Bavarian Rhenish Palatinate”), to the
Kingdom of Bavaria, whose kings were descended from
Charles II August, effectively
Zweibrücken's last duke (the territory was occupied by the French when the last duke, his brother
Maximilian, inherited the duchy). Dunzweiler thus became Bavarian. In 1820, the first, and therefore oldest, mining tunnel was driven into the mountain above the road leading to Schmittweiler (nowadays a constituent community of
Schönenberg-Kübelberg). Another was driven in the same place, and may have been worked even during the
Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). It was last brought into service after the
First World War, but owing to stiff competition from mines in the Saarland, it was shut up for good in 1925. The administrative entities that had arisen during
French Revolutionary and
Napoleonic times were for the most part kept. Dunzweiler now belonged to the
Bürgermeisteramt (mayoral office) in the canton of Waldmohr in the
Landkommissariat (later
Bezirksamt) of Homburg. On 21 July 1845, the Bavarian administration began to compile land tax registers for each village, listing each landowner's holdings and his origins. In the original
cadastre, 96 residential buildings, one church and 3,259 parcels of land were individually listed. Listed in the 1911/1912 Zweibrücken edition of the address book for the Western Palatinate is, among other things, a population figure of 707 for Dunzweiler. The post-Napoleonic administrative structure remained unchanged until the end of the First World War, after which the district of Homburg was grouped into the
British- and French-
occupied Saar. The canton of Waldmohr was grouped into the newly founded Free State of
Bavaria, thus remaining under German sovereignty within the new
Weimar Republic. The canton of Waldmohr belonged, with an administrative outpost, to the
Bezirksamt (district) of Kusel. In 1940, this Waldmohr administrative outpost was dissolved and merged into the district of Kusel. On 1 April 1948, under Mayor Alfred Pfaff, Dunzweiler was demerged from the municipality of Waldmohr, thus becoming self-administering. This was followed on 1 June by a registry office. Precisely a year later, on 1 June 1949, yet another mine tunnel was dug, this time with monies from the state government. This, however, like the others, ended up being shut down after taking a long time to build and yielding little in the way of returns. A further venture into mining, involving a test bore, was shelved by the
Bundesregierung, even though an amount of 100,000
DM had already been approved for the project. No mining work has been done since. By 1954, there were 380 households in Dunzweiler and 1,086 persons. The following businesses were also to be found: • 6 “colonial goods” shops • 2 motor carrier businesses • 1
sandstone quarry • 2
threshing machine rental companies • 1
gristmill • 4
inns • 1
diamond-cutting shop • 1 textile wholesaler • 1 shoe shop • 1
greengrocer’s shop • 1 metal goods shop • 1
cinema In the years 1956 and 1957, the state government built three outlying farming centres within Dunzweiler’s limits. These were the Lacherwaldhof and the two Frauenfelderhöfe (the form
–höfe indicates plural), which are all still in operation today and contribute considerably to the municipality’s outlook. In 1959, the first
sewerage was laid in Dunzweiler, and in 1961 the work was finished with the opening of a new
sewage treatment plant. That same year, planning began for building a new
schoolhouse, for the old one, which had been built in 1840, was simply too antiquated. The school was finally dedicated on 11 December 1964, and the old one was torn down three years later. On 1 September 1971, Dunzweiler, along with
Breitenbach and
Waldmohr, was grouped as a self-administering
Ortsgemeinde into the new
Verbandsgemeinde of Waldmohr. In 1997, Dunzweiler celebrated 750 years of existence (since its first documentary mention).
Population development Dunzweiler was originally a farming village all whose inhabitants also worked at crafts. From the mid 18th century onwards, many men also began working at coalmining with the growth of that industry, even outside the village. The same held true for the brickworks.
Commuting, especially to the great collieries in the
Saarland, had an early beginning. About 1900, there were roughly 90 miners, as against only 25 farmers among men who were active in Dunzweiler’s workforce. Very often, though, these two occupations combined to yield the job description called
Bergmannsbauer (“miner-farmer”), which also yielded a particular kind of house. With the development of the West Palatine
diamond-cutting industry, many inhabitants also found opportunities in this field. After the
Second World War,
agriculture was concentrated on ever fewer, and therefore bigger, operations. At first, farms worked as a secondary occupation expanded, only to disappear from the scene later. Traditional craft occupations met a similar fate, expanding along with the post-war rise in population only to be forsaken later on, rendered obsolete by newer occupations. Today, Dunzweiler is a residential community for people in the most varied of occupations, and a great many of today's local workforce must commute to earn their livelihoods. With respect to
religion, about two thirds of the inhabitants are
Evangelical and one third are
Catholic. The following table shows population development over the centuries for Dunzweiler, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:
Municipality’s name The village's name combines the common placename ending
—weiler, meaning “
hamlet” or, originally, “homestead”, with the personal name “Dunzo”, and thus the name Dunzweiler originally meant “Dunzo’s Homestead”. To be taken far less seriously, though, is the local “folk” explanation that the village was founded by three
Dunzeln (apparently a word meaning “women”, although
Duden defines it as
ein Mensch, der schwer von Begriff ist, or roughly “a person who is slow on the uptake” ). Through history, the village's name has taken the following forms, among others:
Dunzwilre (1247),
Dontzwilre (1336),
Dunzwylr (1441),
Dontzwiler (1485),
Duntzwiller (1535),
Dontzweiler (1659).
Vanished villages In the Dunzweiler area once lay several villages that have since disappeared. Known from 1563 or 1564 is a place called Abenhausen, which would seem to be the same village named as Omborn in Tilemann Stella's 1564
Beschreibung der Ämter Zweibrücken und Kirkel (“Description of the
Ämter of Zweibrücken and Kirkel”). It most likely lay in the south of today's village of Dunzweiler. Likewise named in Tilemann Stella's work is a village called Holzweiler, which most likely lay in the southeast. Hübschweiler, which might well also have lain south of today's village, was named in a 1405 document. North of Dunzweiler lay the village of Hundhausen, which Tilemann Stella marked on his map. ==Religion==