Johanniskreuz
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Johanniskreuz is a tiny
hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
in the middle of the
Palatine Forest The Palatinate Forest (; ), sometimes also called the Palatine Forest, is a low-mountain region in southwestern Germany, located in the Palatinate in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The forest is a designated nature park () covering 1,771&n ...
in
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
and belongs to the municipality of
Trippstadt Trippstadt is a municipality in the district of Kaiserslautern, in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea ...
in the district of Kaiserslautern in the state of
Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...
.


Geography


Location

Johanniskreuz lies in a
saddle A saddle is a supportive structure for a rider of an animal, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is equestrian. However, specialized saddles have been created for oxen, camels and other animals. It is not know ...
at about , north of the midpoint of the central massif of the Palatine Forest, the Frankenweide, whose surrounding peaks are only a little higher. The Frankenweide, across which the Palatine Watershed runs, is bounded to the west, north and east in the area of Johanniskreuz by the valleys of streams that rise near the hamlet. Immediately west of Johanniskreuz is the source of the Moosalb, a tributary of the Schwarzbach, which itself rises one kilometre southwest of Johanniskreuz. The waters of these streams initially flow westwards through the
Blies The Blies (; ) is a right tributary of the Saar in southwestern Germany ( Saarland) and northeastern France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and ...
and
Saar Saar or SAAR has several meanings: People Given name * Sarr Boubacar (born 1951), Senegalese professional football player * Saar Ganor, Israeli archaeologist * Saar Klein (born 1967), American film editor Surname * Ain Saar (born 1968), E ...
rivers into the river
Moselle The Moselle ( , ; ; ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A sm ...
and then on to the
Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...
. A little to the east of Johanniskreuz is the source of another Schwarzbach, this time the left-hand headstream of the
Speyerbach The Speyerbach is a left tributary of the Rhine in the Palatinate part of Rhineland-Palatinate. In Speyer, the river split into ''Gießhübelbach'' and ''Woogbach''. The Woogbach changes its name to ''Nonnenbach'', then flows into Gießhübe ...
; which flows eastwards, directly to the Rhine. The municipal centre of Trippstadt is about 4.5 kilometres away
as the crow flies The expression ''as the crow flies'' is an idiom for the most direct path between two points. Etymology The meaning of the expression is attested from the early 19th century, and appeared in the Charles Dickens novel ''Oliver Twist'' (1838): ...
. The municipal boundary between Trippstadt and
Elmstein Elmstein is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a Municipalities of Germany, municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim (district), Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Ge ...
, as well as the county boundary between
Kaiserslautern Kaiserslautern (; ) is a town in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfurt am Main, 666 kilometers (414 m ...
and
Bad Dürkheim Bad Dürkheim () is a spa town in the Rhine-Neckar urban agglomeration. It is the seat of the Bad Dürkheim (district), Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, and the site of the discovery of the element caesium, in 1860. Geogra ...
, runs immediately east of the hamlet.


Climate

The annual
precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...
in Johanniskreuz is 1,005 mm and thus lies in the upper quadrant of values within Germany. The driest month is September; the most precipitation falls in December, i.e. 1.6-times as much as in September.


History


Name

The name of the parish may go back to Johannes von Wilenstein. He was a
liege lord Homage (/ˈhɒmɪdʒ/ or ) (from Medieval Latin , lit. "pertaining to a man") in the Middle Ages was the ceremony in which a feudal tenant or vassal pledged reverence and submission to his feudal lord, receiving in exchange the symbolic title t ...
(German: '' Lehnsherr'') at the nearby
castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...
and, in 1269, he had his coat of arms inscribed as a boundary marker – apparently illegally – on an existing
wayside cross A wayside cross is a cross by a footpath, track or road, at an intersection, along the edge of a field or in a forest. It can be made of wood, stone or metal. Stone crosses may also be conciliation crosses. Often they serve as waymarks for wal ...
(''Flurkreuz'') which belonged to the lords of Hohenecken. Lord John's Cross (''Herrn Johanns Creutz'') is first mentioned in the records in 1551. Only remnants of the oldest cross have survived; two crosses of more recent date were placed beside it. Since the district reform of 1972 Johanniskreuz has belonged entirely to the municipality of Trippstadt; before that several of the houses, based on the historic boundaries, were in the parish of
Wilgartswiesen Wilgartswiesen is a municipality in Südwestpfalz district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany. Geography The municipality lies in the southern part of the Palatine Forest, the German part of the Wasgau, in the middle of the Palatine For ...
.


Palatine Forest

At a meeting of Palatine forest officials in Johanniskreuz in August 1843 the name ''Pfälzerwald'' ("Palatine Forest") was given to the northern part of the
Vosges The Vosges ( , ; ; Franconian and ) is a range of medium mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single geomorphological unit and ...
mountains. In a way Johanniskreuz is thus the "birthplace" of the Palatine Forest which, until the early 20th century was counted as part of the Vosges or ''Wasgenwald'' in most travel literature.


Roman Catholic Convention

Johanniskreuz is part of the Roman Catholic parish of Trippstadt. In 1908, after the theology graduate, Anton Fooß, had taken over the
benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...
there in 1906, he initiated the first Speyer Diocesan Catholic Convention (''Speyerer Diözesan-Katholikentag'') in Johanniskreuz. This Catholic Convention was a firm tradition in the
Diocese of Speyer The Diocese of Speyer () is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church in Germany. The diocese is located in the South of the Rhineland-Palatinate and comprises also the Saarpfalz district in the east of the Saarland. The bishop's see is in the ...
and took place annually at the venue selected by Fooß in Johanniskreuz until 2007. Many well known bishops, churchmen, politicians and otherwise notable Roman Catholics since 1908 went to the annual convention in Johanniskreuz as guests, celebrants, preachers or speakers. On 19 July 1931, Anton Fooß, now living in Würzburg as an initiator, joined the event again as its keynote speaker. He gave a speech on the 40th anniversary of the death of
Ludwig Windthorst Baron Ludwig von Windthorst (17 January 181214 March 1891) was a German politician and leader of the Catholic Centre Party and the most notable opponent of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck during the Prussian-led unification of Germany and the '' ...
entitled "Windthorst and Our Time". It was to be the last of these conventions before the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. In 1932 it was cancelled because on the same day Reich Chancellor
Heinrich Brüning Heinrich Aloysius Maria Elisabeth Brüning (; 26 November 1885 – 30 March 1970) was a German Centre Party politician and academic, who served as the chancellor of Germany during the Weimar Republic from 1930 to 1932. A political scientis ...
was speaking at a major event of the Centre Party in
Ludwigshafen Ludwigshafen, officially Ludwigshafen am Rhein (; meaning "Ludwig I of Bavaria, Ludwig's Port upon the Rhine"; Palatine German dialects, Palatine German: ''Ludwichshafe''), is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in the German state of Rh ...
. From 1933, during the
Nazi era Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
, these diocesan conventions could no longer take place. Only after the Second World War was the tradition revived. In 2007 it came to light that most of the old deciduous and pine trees at the woodland venue were in danger of falling. Because no funding is available to carry our safety work, the Roman Catholic Convention is no longer held in Johanniskreuz.


Economy and infrastructure


Transport

Johanniskreuz has always been a central communication hub in the Palatine Forest. Whilst the most important historic link from
Speyer Speyer (, older spelling ; ; ), historically known in English as Spires, is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in the western part of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the r ...
to
Metz Metz ( , , , then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle (river), Moselle and the Seille (Moselle), Seille rivers. Metz is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Moselle (department), Moselle Departments ...
ran from east to west and the area around Johanniskreuz was also part of the northern route of the Palatine St. James' Ways, today the main transport axis is the B 48 federal highway from
Annweiler Annweiler am Trifels (), or Annweiler is a town in the Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the river Queich, 12 km west of Landau. Annweiler am Trifels station is on the Landau–Saarbrücken ...
to
Hochspeyer Hochspeyer () is a municipality in the district of Kaiserslautern, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated in the Palatinate forest (Pfälzer Wald), approx. 10 km east of Kaiserslautern. Hochspeyer was the seat of the former Verba ...
which runs from north to south. From the
Queich The Queich is a tributary of the Rhine, which rises in the southern part of the Palatinate Forest, and flows through the Upper Rhine valley to its confluence with the Rhine in Germersheim. It is long and is one of the four major drainage system ...
valley to Hochspeyer, Johanniskreuz is the only settlement on this very route, which is very winding especially in the north. Also important from a transport perspective is the equally winding
state road A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either numbered or maintained by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a state or ...
through the
Elmstein Valley Elmstein is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Geography Location Elmstein lies in the Palatinate ...
towards
Neustadt an der Weinstraße Neustadt (German for ''new town'' or ''new city'') may refer to: Places * Neustadt (urban district) Czech Republic *Neustadt an der Mettau, Nové Město nad Metují *Neustadt an der Tafelfichte, Nové Město pod Smrkem * Nové Město na Mo ...
. Other road links in a western direction through the
Karlstal The Karlstal is the valley of the Moosalb stream located near Trippstadt in the Palatine Forest in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is registered as a nature reserve - number 335 055 - under the name of ''Karlstalschlucht'' ("K ...
to Trippstadt and southwest – Heltersberg, Waldfischbach-Burgalben – in places follow paths that were used in the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
. As the hub of several scenic routes Johanniskreuz has become a meeting place for motorcyclists. However, the road through the Elmsteiner Tal is closed to motorcycles at weekends during the summer months due to the high number of accidents. The nearest railway stations are
Schopp Schopp is a municipality in the district of Kaiserslautern, in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany. Schopp station lies on the Biebermühl Railway. History The place was first mentioned in documents in 1345. In the Middle Ages Schopp, to ...
on the
Biebermühl Railway The Biebermühl Railway ()—sometimes called the Moosalbbahn (Moosalb Railway)—is a 35.9 km long railway line from Kaiserslautern to Pirmasens in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, which was built between 1875 and 1913. The first ...
and
Elmstein Elmstein is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a Municipalities of Germany, municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim (district), Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Ge ...
on the Cuckoo Railway (''Kuckucksbähnel'').


Tourism

Since the first attempts at developing
tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...
in the Palatine Forest in the 19th century, Johanniskreuz has been a top destination for visitors to the region. Spa houses (''Kurhäuser'') were established early on that, today, function as hotels. In 2004 the House of Sustainability (''Haus der Nachhaltigkeit'') opened, with permanent exhibitions about
sustainable economics Sustainable development is an approach to growth and human development that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.United Nations General Assembly (1987)''Report of the ...
and future
energy Energy () is the physical quantity, quantitative physical property, property that is transferred to a physical body, body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of Work (thermodynamics), work and in the form of heat and l ...
concepts as its main attraction. The latest tourist facility is the Palatine Forest Mountain Bike Park (''Mountainbikepark Pfälzerwald''), for which 5 routes, together over 300 kilometres long, have been marked out. Johanniskreuz is also the intersection of all footpaths marked with a cross by the
Palatine Forest Club The Palatine Forest Club () is a hiking club in the former Bavarian Palatinate, i.e. the southern part of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the Saarland county of Saarpfalz-Kreis. In 2011 it had 221 local branches with around 27,000 ...
.


Literature

*


External links


Trippstadt: Sights in Johanniskreuz

''Haus der Nachhaltigkeit''
{{Authority control Villages in Rhineland-Palatinate