Deidesheim: Guide, Hotels, Map & Photos
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EUR 43 - 177 Steigenberger Hotel Deidesheim
 This hotel offers free parking, a spa and a restaurant terrace with park views. It is a 10-minute walk from Deidesheim’s town hall and is surrounded… MoreEUR 120 - 750 Hotel Ketschauer Hof
 Offering gourmet cuisine and top-class wines, this exclusive hotel is set amid picturesque vineyards and orchards in Deidesheim, one of the prettiest … MoreEUR 80 - 170 Deidesheimer Hof
 This historic hotel in the heart of Deidesheim offers spacious rooms and an award-winning restaurant. It is 60 metres from the town hall and a 5-minut… More | ||||||||||||||||||
Deidesheim: Guide
Deidesheim is a small town (population approx 4000) and a municipality in the Bad Dürkheim (district)|district of Bad Dürkheim, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the eastern edge of the Pfälzer Wald to the south-west of Ludwigshafen. Many residents work in viticulture and tourism: others use the recently improved road links to commute to work in one or other of the larger towns and cities nearby.
Geography
Location
Deidesheim is situated in the district of Bad Dürkheim, approximately 8 km north of Neustadt an der Weinstraße and 20 km to the south-west of Ludwigshafen.
Ludwigshafen (LU), Speyer |Speyer (SP) and Neustadt an der Weinstraße |Neustadt (NW).]]
The area surrounding Deidesheim extends over the three landscape types of (1) the Pfälzer Wald, (2) the Haardt| Haardt Mountains and (3) the alluvial flat land alongside the Upper Rhine | River Rhine. The town itself is sheltered in the lee of high ground, approximately 1 kilometer to the east of the wooded lower slopes of the Haardt Mountains: the woods can be reached from the west of the town by means of a ten minute walk between the vineyards.
Deidesheim is in the heart of the Pfälzisch Wine region and is itself crossed by the Weinstraße.
Neighbouring Villages
(distances approximate)
Forst an der Weinstraße|Forst 2 km to the north
Mußbach and Königsbach are now administratively part of Neustadt an der Weinstrasse | Neustadt .
The Pfälzer Wald | mountains and their forests are the neighbours to the west.
Deidesheim enjoys an exceptionally favourable River Rhine, 20 kilometers across flat ground on the other side of the town is also noteworthy. The river moderates the effect of the chilling winter winds from the east: as a result, when the snows do come to Deidesheim they tend to melt away much more rapidly than in towns of similar latitude a couple of hundred kilometers to the east, in Lower Bavaria.
The quasi-Mediterranean climate, discovered afresh by each generation of newcomers and visitors, is a source of much comment locally, and is highlighted by the way in which cultivated figs, almonds and Bitter orange|bitter oranges can be ripened here. Local garden shops even offer for sale small lemons|lemon trees. But on a commercial scale it is above all the wine industry that benefits from the benign microclimate. Further to the south along the Weinstraße, the acreage devoted to vineyards increased significantly through the third and fourth quarters of the twentieth century at the expense of mixed arable agriculture, encouraged by growth in wine drinking but also by the preferential subsidies available to viticulture. By contrast the farm land immediately surrounding Deidesheim has been dominated by vineyards for longer than anyone can remember. The long and relatively predictable growing season enables the grapes to ripen fully and permits the consistent production of well regarded wines. Serious frost | frost damage is rare.
To the west and northwest of Deidesheim are wurtzite sandstone from the Triassic period, which is a feature of the central portion of the Pfälzer Wald: this is the oldest of the three Stratigraphy | stratigraphic layers exposed around Deidesheim. To the south-west are Pleistocene deposits, established perhaps one and a half million years ago, and representing the youngest of the three strata found locally. To the north Deidesheim is fringed by a stratum of Pliocene rock, formed approximately three million years ago. Holocene deposits comprising the relatively flat lands between Deidesheim and the Upper Rhine | Rhine are naturally of very much more recent provenance.
Just when Deidesheim was established, as a subsidiary settlement to Niederkirchen, remains unclear. By the late thirteenth century there is evidence for a clear distinction between Niederdeidesheim (modern day Neiderkirchen) and Oberdeidesheim (today’s Deidesheim). In 1292 we have the first reference to the Castle at Deidesheim, (das fürstbischöfliche Deidesheimer Schloss) which is the kernel around which the town has grown up.
During the traumatic decade that followed the arrival of the plague, its flourishing economy rendered Deidesheim increasingly vulnerable to attack: in 1360 the citizens received from the Bishop of Speyer, Gerhard von Ehrenberg, the right to fortify the town (Befestigungsrechte). Eventually, on St Valentine’s Day 1395, the Holy Roman Emperor,Wenceslaus, King of the Romans | King Wenceslas of Bohemia, granted Stadtrecht | Town Privileges to Deidesheim. Following the custom of that time, Stadtrecht | Town Privileges were conferred not on the town itself but on the Prince Bishop of Speyer, in his capacity as lord of the town.
In wartime the town walls proved of only limited effectiveness. Deidesheim was conquered in 1396, 1460, 1525, 1552, repeatedly during the Thirty Years’ War and again, during the War of the League of Augsburg | predations in the Palatinate of Louis XIV’s armies, in 1689 and 1693 . Through the late Medieval and Early Modern periods parts of Deidesheim thereby suffered from bouts of plunder and of fire damage. The castle was destroyed by French troops in 1689 and probably had still not been fully restored in 1794 when the French army destroyed it again.
The Napoleonic period was a permanently secularising experience, and one which imposed on Germany many of the aspects of the 'modern state' in terms of the relationship between the citizen and the individual. The French occupation also provided persusive evidence that some sort of a unified nation state would be a much more robust entity than the fragmented patchwork of semi-autonomous territories that had comprised eighteenth century Germany: the decades that led to German unification witnessed a growth in political awareness and the development of various strands of liberal nationalism in this part of the Bavarian kingdom. In 1871 Bavaria was finally subsumed into the newly unified German empire, dominated by Prussia, following the Franco-Prussian war, though the Prussian triumph was arguably as much the outcome of Bismarck's diplomatic skill and consistency, as of his vaunted 'blood and iron' strategy. After 1871 Germany’s political epicentre moved away, far to the east of the Rhineland.
In 1865 Deidesheim was connected to the railway line linking Neustadt to Bad Dürkheim, and as the end of the century approached the town was connected to other networks that would transform life during the twentieth century. A gas company appeared in 1894: 1896 saw he introduction to Deidesheim of electric lighting, with a local Electric power | electricity power network established the following year. The town was connected to a Water supply network | mains water supply in 1898, and by the end of the century all the principal businesses had telephone connections.
For most of the Second World War, Deidesheim remained free from direct damage, but on 9 March 1945 a bomb hit the local hospital, leading to nine deaths. Just over a week later an American military unit was installed, on 17 March 1945, which concluded the war for Deidesheim.
With the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany, Deidesheim found itself within Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate) in 1947, but cultural echoes of Bavaria endure. Local butchers and many of the eating establishments will still serve you Munich style Weißwurst or Leberknödel (Liver Dumplings). In 1968 Deidesheim was officially granted the status of a “Luftkurort” (climatic health resort). 1972 saw a local government reorganisation whereby Deidesheim, Forst an der Weinstraße | Forst, Ruppertsberg, Niederkirchen and Meckenheim found themselves grouped together into the Deidesheim combined municipality (Verbandsgemeinde).
After 1802, following the French annexation of the left bank of the Rhine, Deidesheim fell within the diocese of Mainz, but reverted to Speyer in 1817. Under the 1980 reorganization the town found itself within the deaconate of Bad Durkheim. In recent decades Germany's Upper Rhine region has not been immune from the growing shortage of priests in Western Europe, and in response to this challenge the three parishes of St Ulrich’s in Deidesheim, St Martin’s in Ruppertsberg and St Margaret’s in Forst an der Weinstraße |Forst have, since 2006, comprised together a group ministry centered, on Deidesheim
The arrival of survivingExpulsion of Germans after World War II |
After the existing Jewish prayer room had fallen into serious disrepair, , the present synagogue was established in 1854 opposite the southern moat of the old castle. Here it remains. However, even during the earliest years of the Nazi government, the Jewish community in Deidesheim shrank, as discrimination and impoverishment forced many to emigrate: in 1935 the now dilapidated synagogue was sold, which probably preserved it from subsequent destruction. In October 1940 seven remaining Jews who had been born or were long term resident in Deidesheim were deported as part of the Ethnic Cleansing | Bürckel-Wagner programme. According to a survivor of the concentration camp at Gurs, these perished, victims of the Holocaust.
The former synagogue was transferred to the ownership of the town in 1992 and has since 1995 been undergoing a progressive restoration process. Today it is used for concerts and other cultural events.
Viticulture has a long history in Deidesheim. Claims exist of fossilised remnants from a vine type plant more than four million years old having been found at Ungstein, some ten kilometres to the north. From the Ancient Rome|Roman period a barrel shaped glass container has been found near Deidesheim along with other containers suitable for wine: wine was certainly known in central Europe during Roman times, and so it is entirely possible that locally produced wine was traded and drunk, but no conclusive documentary or other evidence has been found as to whether wine was produced in the upper Rhine region two thousand years ago.
The first surviving reference to Deidesheim as a wine producing district occurs in 770 in a record from the monastery at walls: this indicates that wine had by now become incontestably a principal source and badge of wealth for the town. In 1504 we find the earliest reference to a specific vine type being grown in Deidesheim: the Gänsfüßer is a well known if no longer widely grown vine being the basis for a fruity slightly astringent wine: it was once popular in Styria and South Tyrol as well as in the Upper Rhine region.
Buochs (Switzerland)
Saint-Jean-de-Boiseau (France)
Tihany (Hungary)
From Helmut Kohl|Helmut Kohl's affection for Deidesheim, it will perhaps be apparent that, politically, Deidesheim strongly favours the Christian Democratic Union (Germany)|CDU (The Christian Democratic Union, Dr Kohl's political party, normally described by informed commentators in the Anglosphere as Germany's party of the centre-right). The Christian Democratic Union (Germany)|CDU has appointed every mayor of Deidesheim since 1946 when the party won 62% of the votes cast in the local government election: in the 2004 election they won 59%.
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Niederkirchen bei Deidesheim | Niederkirchen 2 km to the east
Ruppertsberg 2 km to the southeast
Mußbach 5 km to the south
Königsbach 4 km to the southwest Climate and Agriculture
Geology
The defining event in forming the landscape in the district, as in the entire Upper Rhine | Vorderpfalz region, came during the Paleocene |
early tertiary period, when some 65 million years ago the Upper Rhine | River Rhine broke its way through the Haardt Massif at the point marked today by Bingen and Rüdesheim. To the east of the mountains a flatter area stretched out, traversed by streams originating in the Pfälzer Wald. Subsequent ice ages saw most of Europe covered by a succession of huge ice sheets | ice Wisconsin glaciation | sheets which slowly crushed and carved their way downhill, leaving the wind to polish away at sections exposed when the ice retreated during interglacial phases. The process has transformed theTerrain | surface topography to the east of the mountains into today’s alluvial plain interspersed with moraines - areas of partially flattened higher ground formed from debris deposited where an ice sheets | ice Wisconsin glaciation | sheet melted at its edge over a prolonged period, and thereafter smoothed over when the ice sheets | ice Wisconsin glaciation | sheet returned to cover them. The warmer interglacial phases have here been characterized by the distribution across the landscape of layers of loess, enriched by the rapid spread of organic matter, through wind and water action. History
Origins
The first identified reference to Deidesheim occurs in 699, in the records of the Niederkirchen .Medieval Deidesheim
In 1100, Johann Count of Kraichgau, a nephew to Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor | Henry IV and from 1090 – 1104 Prince Bishop of Speyer, donated his lands in this area (which included Deidesheim) to the Speyer Prince-Bishopric. It is clear from the Speyer monastic records that Deidesheim now grew rapidly in economic importance, well supported financially by an active Jewish community which until 1349, and the pogroms that accompanied the Black Death, had its own synagogue in Deidesheim.The Napoleonic Occupation and its aftermath
With the invasion of the Revolutionary Army, Deidesheim fell to the French in 1794. Recaptured by Imperial forces in 1795, it reverted to France in 1797 and remained within Napoléon’s empire until 1814. The redrawing of maps that took place in 1816 at the Congress of Vienna saw the entire ‘Upper Rhine’ region passing to the kingdom of Bavaria, initially being known as the Rheinkreis (Bavarian Rhine District) and after 1838 as the ‘Palatinate’. In 1819 neighbouring Niederkirchen became administratively independent of Deidesheim. The Twentieth Century
French troops returned to the Rheinland in 1918, following the end of the First World War, and some were quartered in Deidesheim. This time the French stayed till July 1930. Meanwhile, in August 1921, about 300 hectares of the woodland on the western edge of the town were destroyed in a forest fire. Memorably, all male inhabitants aged 18 or above were recruited to fight the fire: extinguishing it took three days and three nights. Religion
The Roman Catholic Communion
Before the establishment of the current parish, Deidesheim was a sub-parish of of Niederkirchen (formerly Niederdeidesheim). The present parish church of St Ulrich was built on the site of an earlier chapel in the late Gothic style during the fifteenth century, and control over the parish seems to have passed to Deidesheim during the middle years of the sixteenth century. Niederkirchen and Forst an der Weinstraße |Forst then operated as sub-parishes of Deidesheim until, respectively, 1750 and 1820 when they became independent parishes.The Protestant Community
The lands of the Prince Bishop of Speyer proved to be stony ground for the Protestant Reformation at the time when Martin Luther was preaching. Nevertheless, by 1788 the number of protestants in Deidesheim had increased to 4, rising further, to 38 by 1863. In 1848 the protestant cause received a boost in Bavaria with the accession to the throne of Maximilian II of Bavaria | Maximillian II. He had married a Marie of Prussia |princess from the north in 1842, and even though once widowed she ultimately would convert to Catholicism, Maximillian's reign was marked by the building of protestant churches in many of the small towns in the Bavarian west. In Deidesheim the protestant church building was completed in 1875, through the conversion of a former barn. The tower was added in 1891.
refugees, primarily, from those parts of Germany that passed to Czechoslovakia and the other Soviet dominated states under the Potsdam Conference | Potsdam Agreement, gave a further boost to protestant numbers after 1945. In 1957 Deidesheim's protestants, joined with those of Forst |Forst an der Weinstraße , Niederkirchen and Ruppersberg to form a single protestant congregation, affliliated to Wachenheim. The Deidesheim church which is a part of the Palatinate Protestant Church Community (Evangelische Kirche der Pfalz) has had its own minister since 1984.The Jewish Community
The presence of a synagogue in the middle ages testifies to the existence of a Jewish community, but the Jews were killed in a pogrom that occurred following the appearance of the Black Death in 1349, and the synagogue was transferred to the church. A new Jewish community appeared in Deidesheim in the sixteenth century. Economy
Viticulture
Tourism
The other principal economic activities locally are those involving tourism. The surrounding countryside has a natural year-round beauty: at the start of the summer the blossom on the fruit trees is considered a particularly attractive feature of the district, and one which appears to have been enhanced in recent decades through the planting of additional fruit trees near to the roadside along the Weinstraße (Wine Street - a designated Tourist Route) running northwards towards Bad Dürkheim. Deidesheim itself features a wider range of restaurants than is normal for this size of town, supplemented by a range of refreshment booths during the annual Weinfest each August and the Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas market) each December. The recent opening of a relief road to the east of the little town has reduced pressure from through traffic on the Weinstraße, which here follows the main north-south street through the town. Deidesheim has since 1865 been linked by railway to Neustadt an der Weinstraße, and the line continues northwards to Bad Dürkheim and Grünstadt. To the west, once you pass through the belt of vineyards, the Pfälzer Wald offers excellent walks.Sister Cities| Towns twinned with Deidesheim
Bad Klosterlausnitz (Germany) Visiting Deidesheim
Deidesheim contains several interesting monuments including the intriguing 'Geißbock' (billy goat) fountain which may splash the unwary. Between the 'Geißbock' fountain and the low key war memorial is to be found the nineteenth century synagogue, recently restored. The former Rathaus (Town Hall) next to St Ulrich's |St Ulrich's church, now houses a small museum. On the west side of the town, opposite the railway station, the lavish municipal offices constructed at the end of the twentieth century testify to the prosperity that came to Deidesheim in the 1990s. The Kohl connection
During the Chancellorship of Dr Helmut Kohl, who was born in Friesenheim and lived for a long time in Oggersheim (both suburbs of nearby Ludwigshafen), Deidesheim received periodic visits from the Chancellor and accompanying international statesmen who were entertained to lavish dinners incorporating Saumagen, one of the chancellor's favourite local dishes, washed down with the excellent local wine. Saumagen comprises a pig's stomach, stuffed with pork, root vegetables, herbs and seasoning. The precise balance of ingredients is variable. Saumagen is normally cut into slices approximately 1cm thick and fried in an open pan. Delicious, but high in fat and salt, Saumagen is not recommended for slimmers.