Mörschied

Mörschied
Coat of arms
Mörschied
Location of Mörschied within Birkenfeld district
Coordinates: 49°47′26″N 07°18′25″E / 49.79056°N 7.30694°ECoordinates: 49°47′26″N 07°18′25″E / 49.79056°N 7.30694°E
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Birkenfeld
Municipal assoc.	Herrstein
Government
• Mayor	Dieter Brombacher
Area
• Total	10.69 km^2 (4.13 sq mi)
Population (2013-12-31)[1]
• Total	811
• Density	76/km^2 (200/sq mi)
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes	55758
Dialling codes	06785
Vehicle registration	BIR
Website	www.moerschied.de

Mörschied is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Herrstein, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.

Geography

Location

The municipality lies on the Naturpark Saar-Hunsrück. The municipal area is 64% wooded. To the east lies Herrstein. The nearest major town is Idar-Oberstein to the south.

Constituent communities

Also belonging to Mörschied are the outlying homesteads of Am Herrsteinerweg, Asbacherhütte, Hahnenmühle and Harfenmühle.^[2]

Politics

Municipal council

The council is made up of 12 council members, who were elected by majority vote at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.^[3]

Mayor

Mörschied’s mayor is Dieter Brombacher, and his deputies are Andreas Herbert and Christian Engel.^[4]

Coat of arms

The municipality’s arms might be described thus: Per bend sinister sable issuant from the line of partition a demilion with tail bifurcated argent crowned Or and chequy gules and argent issuant from base a mount of three.

Culture and sightseeing

Buildings

The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:^[5]

• Evangelical church, Äckerchen – aisleless church with ridge turret, 1731-1746; décor; organ, firm of G. Stumm, 1896; two tomb slabs
• Herrsteiner Straße 11 – stately timber-frame Quereinhaus (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street), partly solid, partly slated, half-hipped roof, 19th century
• Herrsteiner Straße 21 – Quereinhaus, partly timber-frame (plastered), timber-frame gallery, marked 1830, conversion 1860
• Hahnenmühle, southeast of the village on the Fischbach – stately miller’s and farmer’s house, marked 1907; mill gear from time of building, bakehouse, mountain cellar
• Schleiferei Biehl (gemcutting shop), northwest of the village on the Fischbach – latter half of the 19th century, technical equipment

Regular events

Since 1990, Mörschied has had an open-air stage on which the Karl-May-Festspiele Mörschied are staged in the summer months each year. In 2010, the play Winnetou gegen Santer (gegen means “against”; both those named in the title are characters from Karl May’s writings) was produced.

Economy and infrastructure

Transport

To the south runs Bundesstraße 422. Serving nearby Idar-Oberstein is a railway station that, as a Regional-Express and Regionalbahn stop, is linked by way of the Nahe Valley Railway (Bingen–Saarbrücken) to the Saarland and the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region. The Rhein-Nahe-Express running the Mainz-Saarbrücken route serves the station hourly. Every other train goes through to the main railway station in Frankfurt with a stop at Frankfurt Airport. Formerly, fast trains on the Frankfurt-Paris route had a stop at Idar-Oberstein.

References

1. "Gemeinden in Deutschland mit Bevölkerung am 31. Dezember 2013". Statistisches Bundesamt (in German). 2014.
2. Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz – Amtliches Verzeichnis der Gemeinden und Gemeindeteile, Seite 20 (PDF)
3. Kommunalwahl Rheinland-Pfalz 2009, Gemeinderat
4. Mörschied’s council
5. Directory of Cultural Monuments in Birkenfeld district

External links

• Mörschied in the collective municipality’s webpages (German)