Хасслох: История и современность немецкой общины

Haßloch (or Hassloch) is a municipality in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. Unlike most municipalities in the district, it does not belong to any Verbandsgemeinde – a type of collective municipality. It lies near the Mannheim/Ludwigshafen built up area. The municipality has grown out of a single centre and is thus sometimes styled “Germany’s biggest village”. Haßloch is the Bad Dürkheim district's biggest municipality, exceeding even the namesake district seat. The village has at its disposal well developed infrastructure with educational and shopping facilities; the region's surrounding centres can in the main be reached within 20 minutes.

Haßloch lies east of Neustadt an der Weinstraße and is part of the Rhine Neckar urban agglomeration southwest of Mannheim and Ludwigshafen. It also lies on the Mannheim–Kaiserslautern line. At the municipality's northern limit runs Autobahn A 65, and from there it is 25 km to either Ludwigshafen or Mannheim. Haßloch is on the whole a continuous built up area, although Haßloch's southeasternmost neighbourhood, the Wehlachsiedlung, lies somewhat apart from the main centre.

Haßloch's beginnings stretch at least as far back as Roman times with settlement activity by the Romans known to have been taking place about AD 400. About 500, the Alamanni were driven out of the area by the Franks. The village itself came into being sometime about 600, with its first documentary mention – as Hasalaha – coming in 773 or 774. In 985, Haßloch was one of the many villages in the region subject to the Salischer Kirchenraub, or “Salian Church Robbery”, a land grab in which Otto I, Duke of Carinthia took over ownership of various landholdings formerly belonging to the Weißenburg Monastery (in the town now called Wissembourg in Alsace, France) on the Upper and Middle Rhine. Some time between 900 and 1000, Haßloch became an Imperial Village. In 1186, Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa spent the night in Haßloch. In 1330, Emperor Louis the Bavarian pledged Haßloch to the Electorate of the Palatinate, who then in turn pledged three fourths of this pledge to the Counts of Leiningen in the same year. In 1621, during the Thirty Years' War, Haßloch was laid waste by the Spaniards. In 1689, it met the same fate again, more than once, in the Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession), this time at the hands of the Spaniards and the French. In 1797 came an end to the joint rule by the Electorate of the Palatinate and the Counts of Leiningen. Haßloch – along with the rest of the region – was annexed to France. In 1815 or 1816, as a result of the Congress of Vienna, the Leiningen holdings, along with the Palatinate, passed to the Kingdom of Bavaria, remaining Bavarian until the end of the Second World War. In 1843, the Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn (railway) was built. In 1945, Haßloch became part of the French Zone of Occupation and the next year, part of the new state of Rhineland Palatinate. In 1969, the old district of Neustadt an der Weinstraße was abolished and Haßloch was assigned to the newly created district of Bad Dürkheim.

Haßloch, because it was ruled by the Counts of Leiningen, is a Protestant community. This can even be seen in the church buildings. All the oldest ones – Christuskirche (“Christ Church” or “Church of Christ”), Lutherkirche and Pauluskirche (“Saint Paul’s”) are Evangelical, whereas only the two newer ones – St. Gallus and St. Ulrich – belong to the Catholic parish.

The former Old High German city name 'Hasalaha' means something like 'water flowing through hazel bushes'. 'Hasal' is the Old High German term for the hazel bush, 'aha' means something like 'water' or 'stream'. Due to sound shifts and changing the spelling, the name 'Haselach' first emerged (documented around 900) and finally the present place name 'Haßloch'.

The Lokales Bündnis für Familie (“Local Alliance for Family”) has been active in Haßloch since 2006. It promotes families and volunteer work in collaboration with politics, administration, citizens, educational institutions and clubs.

The municipality's arms might be described thus: Per fess in chief per pale sable a lion rampant Or armed, langued and crowned gules and azure three eagles displayed argent armed and langued of the third, two in pale in dexter and one in sinister, in base argent the letter S turned backwards of the first. The arms were designed in 1926 by the Munich Main State Archive and officially conferred in 1938. They show the gold Palatine Lion and next to this the three silver eagles borne as arms by the Counts of Leiningen. The double hook, as it is taken to be, which looks like the letter Ƨ, goes back to a court seal from the time when Haßloch was a pledged holding. Heraldry of the World, quoting another source, furthermore says that the Ƨ is a symbol that was used on “borderstones and decorations” beginning in the 18th century.

In Haßloch, the better part of the resident industry is in metalworking. This is shown in the three “great” production companies in Haßloch (Ball Packaging, Gottlieb Duttenhöfer GmbH and Dinex Deutschland GmbH). In Haßloch stands one of the world's biggest and most modern drink can factories, Ball Packaging Europe. Among other things, the first half litre can (a beer can) was made in Haßloch. Haßloch, along with the neighbouring municipality of Böhl Iggelheim, is also home to one of the 28 “open channels” in Rhineland Palatinate. This regional broadcaster allows communal coverage by citizens for citizens.

Haßloch is a test market for new brandname items and consumer products: at Haßloch retailers’ shops, products are available in advance that are only to be introduced into the rest of Germany in the future. On the local cable television network, specially made commercials for these products are shown, and individual newspapers (such as Hörzu and Bunte) are published for Haßloch with special advertisements for the new products. Moreover, some citizens hold cards with barcodes that can be scanned with every purchase so that an individual household's shopping habits can be tracked. The Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung (“Company for Consumer Research”, GfK) can thereby tell how tested products are being received by customers. The research that the GfK does here matches later market data with an accuracy of 90%. Haßloch was chosen because it exhibits a population structure that, by various criteria, comes quite close to the German average, such as in its age structure and social classes. Haßloch's structure is also midway between a town and a village.

Haßloch has at its disposal good transport links towards the region's centre (Mannheim/Ludwigshafen/Heidelberg), be it by Autobahn A 65 or the RheinNeckar S Bahn. S Bahn lines S1, S2 – and mornings and evenings S3 and S4 – run every 30 minutes during peak times from Haßloch station.

Available weekdays to Haßloch's citizens is the citizens’ office for all questions and applications.