Antiquity From the
Stone Age, the
Bronze Age and the
Iron Age comes no direct knowledge about any
archaeological finds made within Hefersweiler's limits. Nonetheless, finds from neighbouring municipalities make it clear that the area where the municipality now lies was settled by human beings even as far back as
prehistoric times. As early as 1805, Hefersweiler villagers discovered nearby, between the roads to Wolfstein and the Ausbacherhof, a
Roman villa rustica. Digging then brought to light several building foundations with a
hypocaust and smoke channels. The excavators also found Roman coins.
Middle Ages In 1223, Hefersweiler had its first documentary mention. Hefersweiler itself was among the earliest holdings of the
Cistercian Otterberg Abbey. The two centres that today make up the municipality of Hefersweiler followed different paths of development over the course of history. Hefersweiler itself was a village under the lordship of Reipoltskirchen, and largely shared
that neighbouring village's history. In the 14th century, it belonged to the Counts of Hohenfels, and in the 15th century, to the Lords of Hohenfels-Reipoltskirchen. A
Huberweistum (a
Weistum –
cognate with
English wisdom – was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the
Middle Ages and early modern times;
Huber refers to farmers who owned a whole
Hube – roughly “
oxgang” – of land) was put in writing in 1597; it was renewed in 1652 as a constituent document of the Reipoltskirchen lordship's
Weistümer (the plural). For centuries, Berzweiler was made up of nothing but four estates held by Otterberg Abbey. Philipp von Bolanden, who was married to
Waldgravine Beatrix, removed the village from the Monastery's ownership. Waldgravine Beatrix later married Theoderich von Heinzenberg, who in 1225 gave the village back to the Monastery. This dependent relationship remained in place until the time of the
Reformation. Within municipal limits, a few border stones from the time of monasterial ownership can still be found. In 1492, the abbot of Otterberg Abbey issued a letter of
entailment to the landowners in Berzweiler, according to which the estates were hereditarily transferred to them. Moreover, an extensive
Weistum from
mediaeval Berzweiler has survived that was first put in writing in 1469 and then renewed in 1565.
Modern times In the 16th century, the knight Sir Johannes, who was now and then
Franz von Sickingen’s brother-in-arms, was important for the
Imperial lordship's, and therefore also Hefersweiler's, history. His daughter-in-law Amalia wed, as her second husband, Count Philipp I of
Leiningen-Westerburg, who introduced into all his landholds, including the lordship of Reipoltskirchen and therefore Hefersweiler too, the
Reformation. In 1603, Amalia bequeathed the lordship of Reipoltskirchen to her brothers Sebastian (d. 1619) and Emich (d. 1628). In the time that followed, there were further divisions of the lordship, which often left it subject to several lords, although it remained a cohesive territorial unit. Among the lords were the Lord of Löwenhaupt, the Lord of Manderscheid-Keil, the Baron of Hillesheim (d. 1748), the Count of Ellradt (d. 1767), and lastly Caroline von
Isenburg, a natural daughter of
Carl Theodor, the last
Elector Palatine. Berzweiler remained under Otterberg Abbey's ownership until it was dissolved in 1561. The monastery belonged to
Electoral Palatinate, and thus Berzweiler, too, became an Electoral Palatinate holding. The Elector Palatine at this time was
Ludwig VI, who died in 1581, and for whom
Johann Casimir ruled Electoral Palatinate as administrator. Johann Casimir owned a half share in the village of
Friedelhausen, but eventually acquired the other half in 1588 by trading Berzweiler to the holder of the other share,
John I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken. Even at the 1618 onset of the
Thirty Years' War, there were no longer any people living at the village's estates, and long after the war, the village remained empty of people. Berzweiler belonged in a manner of speaking to Zweibrücken, but only as a pledged holding. Nevertheless, in 1694, under the terms of succession of the
Palatinate-Veldenz (a
cadet branch of Palatinate-Zweibrücken), it was permanently taken over by Zweibrücken. In the course of the 1778 Kübelberg Exchange, though, the village passed back to Electoral Palatinate, but was forthwith incorporated into the realm of the Lordship of Reipoltskirchen, which at that time was transferred to Countess Caroline von Isenburg. Thus did the two centres of today's municipality first find themselves together in the same lordly and administrative territory.
Recent times In 1793,
French Revolutionary troops seized the Lordship of Reipoltskirchen and thereby also the neighbouring villages of Hefersweiler and Berzweiler. The inhabitants had to pay their share of contributions to them. In 1799,
France dissolved the old lordships, and along with them the Lordship of Reipoltskirchen. Hefersweiler became the seat of a
mairie (“mayoralty”), to which Berzweiler also belonged, within the
French First Republic. This
mairie in turn lay in the
Canton of Wolfstein, the
Arrondissement of Kaiserslautern and the
Department of
Mont-Tonnerre (or Donnersberg in
German). After the 1814 reconquest of the German lands on the
Rhine’s left bank by
Prussian,
Austrian and
Russian troops, the region passed after a transitional period to the
Kingdom of Bavaria. Hefersweiler and Berzweiler now lay within the Bavarian
Rheinkreis (the Palatinate, after the
Congress of Vienna had awarded it to Bavaria) in the Canton of Wolfstein and the
Landkommissariat of Kusel, and Hefersweiler was still the seat of a mayoralty, only now it was called by its German word:
Bürgermeisterei. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the
Nazi Party (NSDAP) was quite popular in Hefersweiler and Berzweiler. In the
1928 Reichstag elections, only 11.6% of the votes from Hefersweiler went to
Adolf Hitler’s party and 21.0% from Berzweiler, but by the
1930 Reichstag elections, this had grown to 66.0% in Hefersweiler and 42.6% in Berzweiler. By the time of the
1933 Reichstag elections, after Hitler had already
seized power, local support for the Nazis had swollen to 83.3% in Hefersweiler and 80.2% in Berzweiler. Hitler's success in these elections paved the way for his
Enabling Act of 1933 (
Ermächtigungsgesetz), thus starting the
Third Reich in earnest. The municipality that exists today came into being on 7 June 1969 when the two municipalities of Hefersweiler and Berzweiler were amalgamated in the course of administrative restructuring in
Rhineland-Palatinate. The old mayoralty was also dissolved. Since 1972, the two villages have formed a self-administering
Ortsgemeinde with two
Ortsteile within the
Kusel district.
Population development In both villages, the inhabitants formerly earned their livelihoods mainly at
agriculture. There were, however, job opportunities in the crafts, trade and work at the quarries and collieries. As early as the late 18th century, particularly in Hefersweiler, were several
Jewish families. During the 20th century, there was a fundamental shift away from farming, with ever fewer villagers working the land and ever more
commuting as workers and employees to jobs in the industrial towns nearby and even farther afield. This development was enhanced by Hefersweiler's relatively favourable transport links with
Kaiserslautern. The population figures reached their first peak about the turn of the 20th century, shrank in the time leading up to the
Second World War and then stagnated after the war until about 1980 when there was once again a noticeable upswing. With regard to religion, the majority is
Evangelical. The following table shows population development over the centuries for Hefersweiler, with some figures broken down by religious denomination: The following table shows population development over the centuries for Berzweiler, with some figures broken down by religious denomination: The following table shows population development since amalgamation for the merged municipality:
Municipality’s name The bigger village's name, Hefersweiler, has the common
German placename ending
—weiler, which as a standalone word means “
hamlet” (originally “homestead”), to which is prefixed an element that according to researchers Dolch and Greule goes back to a personal name “Hunfrid”. Thus, the name's original meaning would have been “Hunfrid’s homestead”. The name appears for the first time in a 1223 document as
Hunfrideswilre. Later forms that the name took are
Hunfertswilre (1377),
Hunfritzwyller (1519) and
Hinfurßwiller (1544). Close to the current form is the 1779 form
Heffersweiler. The smaller village, Berzweiler, is yet another of the many villages with names ending in
—weiler, and in Berzweiler's case, this is prefixed with a syllable also believed to go back to a personal name, either “Berni” or “Bernhard”. Thus, the name's original meaning would have been “Berni’s homestead” or “Bernhard’s homestead”. In the 1223 document of first mention it was called
Berhardesvillre. Later forms that the name took are
Berssweiler (1393),
Bertzweiler (1469)
Berssweiler (1599) and
Beersweyler (1745). As for the Ahlenbornerhof, the ending
—hof means “farm” or “estate”, and the syllables to which that is suffixed apparently refer to an old
spring, for the homestead once lay near one (this would be
bei einem alten Brunnen in
Modern High German). ==Religion==