Rhinehessen
In 1816, after the repartition of Europe at the Congress of Vienna, our region was added to the Grand Duchy of Hesse and was given the name Province of Rhinehesse. Today, Rheinhessen is no longer an administrative unit, but now denotes an evolved cultural region and Germany’s largest wine-growing area.
Harxheim is in the Rheinhessen region. This ancient cultural region in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate includes the area in the great Rhine bend with the cities of Mainz, Worms, Alzey and Bingen. Almost 650,000 people live here, almost 220,000 of them in Mainz.
Rheinhessen is not only a culturally grown region. Geologically, the area of Rheinhessen makes up a significant part of the Mainz Basin. The Mainz Basin is a fossil sedimentary basin that formed many millions of years ago and is of interest to geologists worldwide.
Rhinehesse region
Source: Lencer*, for details see source citation below
During the Ice Age, which began 2.6 million years ago, the plateau and hilly landscape characteristic of Rheinhessen was formed. The geological history is decisive for the soils of Rheinhessen, which were largely formed by sedimentary deposits and later by loess drifts during the ice age.
Rheinhessen also refers to the largest of the 13 wine-growing regions in Germany. The area under vines is about 27,000 hectares, which is a good quarter of the total German vineyard area. Viticulture meets good conditions here, because Rheinhessen lies protected by forested low mountain ranges. The average temperature in Rheinhessen is comparatively high at over 10 degrees Celsius, as is the number of annual hours of sunshine.
But why is this area called Rheinhessen, although it is not in Hesse at all? This has historical reasons. After the victory over Napoleon, the European powers of 1814 – 1815 came together at the Congress of Vienna and reorganized Europe.
Our region, which had been under French administration from 1798 – 1814 as part of the Département du Mont Tonnère (Département of Donnersberg), fell to the Grand Duchy of Hesse in the course of negotiations in 1816. This was the birth of Rheinhessen, for this was the name given to the new Hessian province.
The sign of the mayoralty of Harxheim in the Volksstaat Hessen – now to be seen in the community center in Harxheim
Image: Siegfried Schäfer
After the end of the First World War in 1918 and the abolition of the monarchy, the People’s State of Hesse came into being as the legal successor to the Grand Duchy of Hesse. In the community center in Harxheim hangs the sign of the mayor’s office from that time. The province of Rhine-Hesse initially remained as part of the Volkstaat. However, in the course of the Gleichschaltung of the People’s State of Hesse under the National Socialists, the province of Rheinhessen was dissolved in 1937.
After World War II, Rheinhessen was separated from Hesse due to the occupation situation – French on the left bank of the Rhine, Americans on the right bank – and now belonged to the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, which was newly founded in 1946. Until 1968 there was also a “Regierungsbezirk Rheinhessen”. In 1969, this was merged into the administrative district of Rheinhessen-Pfalz, which existed until 1999. Since then, Rheinhessen is no longer an administrative unit. However, the name for the region remained.
Favorable climatic conditions and the Rhine as a traffic artery have attracted people to Rheinhessen at all times. The quote from Carl Zuckmayer refers to the Rhineland as the “mill of the peoples of Europe. Thus, Rheinhessen, which was founded in 1816, has also experienced eventful times long before that. This can be read here.
References:
Rettinger, Elmar (2005). The Mainz-Bingen district in history. https://www.regionalgeschichte.net/fileadmin/Superportal/Bibliothek/RettMainzBingen2005.pdf
Rick, Josef (1967): Weinbaugemeinde Harxheim. In: Gemeinde Harxheim (Hrsg.): Festschrift. 1200 Jahre Weinbaugemeinde Harxheim.
www.regionalgeschichte.net/bibliothek/aufsaetze/grathoff-geschichte-rheinhessens.html
wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinhessen, as of November 2021
* Lencer, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rheinhessen_Relief_Karte.png, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Rheinhessen_Relief_Karte.png, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>;, via Wikimedia Commons
