Antiquity Signs of human activity in
prehistoric or
Roman times in Elzweiler have thus far not been confirmed.
Middle Ages Elzweiler is believed to have been founded by the
Franks, but an exact founding date for the village cannot be pinpointed, though it is certain that Elzweiler was founded after the
Archbishopric of Reims had established the so-called
Remigiusland. Going by the border description for the
Remigiusland, the small village must have lain right on the border. It could even be that houses on the brook's right bank lay within the Free
Imperial Domain (
freies Reichsland) while houses on the brook's left bank lay within the
Remigiusland. The border's exact 1355 alignment, however, cannot be fully gathered from this oldest surviving description, making much of the matter guesswork. What can be gathered is that the border ran along the brook down from Welchweiler as far as the forks with the Sachsbach, whence it doubled back upstream into the woods. With regard to Elzweiler's territorial allegiance, this had the effect of the village sometimes being seen as part of the
Remigiusland and at other times part of the originally
Imperially immediate Königsland (“King’s Land”). Apart from the mention of the “Elzweiler Bach” (that is, the Sachsbach) in this 1355 border
Weistum (a
Weistum –
cognate with
English wisdom – was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the
Middle Ages and early modern times), the first documentary mention of the village itself is found in a 1364 document, according to which Count Heinrich II of
Veldenz transferred the tithes from the villages in the
Amt of Altenglan-Brücken, and later the
Niederamt of Ulmet, to the newlywed comital couple Lauretta and Heinrich. This younger Heinrich would later become Count Heinrich II of Veldenz. According to this document, Elzweiler belonged to the
Remigiusland within the County of Veldenz. As time wore on, though, the village came to be regarded as lying outside the
Remigiusland, and it thereby shared a history with the neighbouring village of
Horschbach and all those in the Eßweiler Tal (dale).
Modern times According to Johannes Hofmann's 1588 description of the
Amt of Lichtenberg, the border between the
Grumbacher Gebiet and the
County Palatine of Zweibrücken ran between the villages of Elzweiler and Welchweiler. In this description, Elzweiler is described as a
Hof (“estate” or “farm”), thereby giving a clue as to the village's very small size at that time. Also named in the description is a
Kaisermühle (“Emperor’s Mill”), which stood near Elzweiler on the Sachsbach. Another mill, the
Lorenzenmühle, later stood between Elzweiler and
Horschbach. During the
Thirty Years' War, Elzweiler was utterly wiped out. Wartime events and sickness took their heavy toll on the villagers, and by the time the war had ended, there were no longer any people living in the village. Bit by bit, though, it was repopulated with new settlers. In 1594, the village passed together with
Niedereisenbach, Hachenbach, Horschbach and the villages in the Eßweiler Tal to Palatinate-Zweibrücken in exchange for
Kirchenbollenbach. Thereafter, Elzweiler remained with the County Palatine until its downfall after
French Revolutionary troops began their
occupation.
Recent times During the time of
French rule from 1801 to 1814, Elzweiler lay in the
Department of
Mont-Tonnerre (or Donnersberg in
German), whose seat was in
Mainz, in the
Arrondissement of Kaiserslautern and in the
Canton of Wolfstein. After the French had withdrawn in 1814 and
Napoleon had been defeated at
Waterloo, the
Congress of Vienna awarded the Palatinate to the
Kingdom of Bavaria. Within this state, Elzweiler lay in the
Landkommissariat (later
Bezirksamt, then
Landkreis, or “rural district”) and the
Bürgermeisteramt (“Mayoralty”) of Horschbach, even being merged with Horschbach in 1835 into a single municipality. In the early 1930s, the
Nazi Party (NSDAP) was quite popular in Elzweiler. In the
1930 Reichstag elections, 30.6% of the local votes went to
Adolf Hitler’s party. By the time of the
1933 Reichstag elections, after Hitler had already
seized power, local support for the Nazis had swollen to 83.6%. Hitler’s success in these elections paved the way for his
Enabling Act of 1933 (
Ermächtigungsgesetz), thus starting the
Third Reich in earnest. Since the end of the
Second World War, when the Palatinate was split off from Bavaria, the village has lain in the then newly founded
state of
Rhineland-Palatinate. Originally part of the
Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Horschbach, in the course of the 1968 administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate, Elzweiler was grouped into the
Verbandsgemeinde of Altenglan.
Population development According to a 1515 description of the Eßweiler Tal, Elzweiler was made up of only two residents, or perhaps households. It can be assumed that there were two farms, whose occupants worked land practically throughout what is now the municipal area, and to whose households belonged not only the farmers and their families, but also menservants and maidservants. Nevertheless, for 1477 and 1478, fifteen villagers who owed taxes were named, leading to the conclusion that the population must have shrunk drastically sometime about the beginning of the 16th century, perhaps as a result of an
epidemic. Exact population figures for the village's early history are unknown. Only during the 18th century is it known for certain that there was population growth. According to a 1734 list of subjects, Elzweiler had 32 inhabitants living in seven families. There was also one further inhabitant, a
Hintersasse (roughly, “dependent peasant”). Evidently, though, of the seven families then in the village, only two earned their livelihoods at farming. Six of the family heads were craftsmen: a
cabinetmaker, a
shoemaker, a
miller, a
blacksmith and a
carpenter. The
Hintersasse was a
bricklayer. During the 18th century, seven families
emigrated to
Southeast Europe (as far as is known, none went to the
Americas). Only because of industrial growth in the late 19th century and in the time before the
First World War did workers, too, settle in the village. Eventually, they made up two thirds of the population. After the Second World War, a slight but continuous rise in population could be noted at first, which was followed beginning in 1975 by a likewise slight but continuous drop in population. The following table shows population development over the centuries for Elzweiler:
Municipality’s name The village's name has taken the following forms over the ages:
Eltzenbach (1355),
Eltzwijlre (1364),
Eltzwiller (1512),
Eltzwiler (1515),
Eltzweiller (1593). The common placename ending
—weiler, meaning “
hamlet” or, originally, “homestead”, indicates that the village was founded sometime before the 12th century as a homestead. The prefix
Elz— might be derived from a personal name. According to researchers Dolch and Greule, this name might have come from
Agiwalt. This was later corrupted to
Eiwalt and eventually shortened to
Elt and
Etz. If this holds true, the name's original meaning was “Agiwalt’s homestead”.
Vanished villages Filhop, named in Hofmann's 1588 work mentioned above, had at that time already been abandoned. Its name still appears in rural cadastral toponyms within Elzweiler's limits, however. ==Religion==