Обервезель: История и особенности города на Рейне

Oberwesel is a town on the Middle Rhine in the Rhein Hunsrück Kreis (district) in Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Hunsrück Mittelrhein, whose seat is in Emmelshausen.

Oberwesel lies on the river Rhine’s left (west) bank in the Rhine Gorge or Upper Middle Rhine, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, between the neighbouring towns of Sankt Goar and Bacharach. It is called Oberwesel ("Upper Wesel") to distinguish it from the other city called Wesel along the Lower Rhine.

The town is made up of several Stadtteile, namely the main centre, also called Oberwesel, and the outlying centres of Engehöll, Dellhofen and Langscheid.

Yearly precipitation in Oberwesel amounts to 604 mm, which is very low, falling into the lowest fourth of the precipitation chart for all Germany. Only at 22% of the German Weather Service’s weather stations are even lower figures recorded. The driest month is February. The most rainfall comes in June. In that month, precipitation is 1.6 times what it is in February. Precipitation varies only slightly. At only 1% of the weather stations are lower seasonal swings recorded.

As in many of the region’s towns, Oberwesel quite possibly had its beginnings as a Celtic settlement, named Vosavia or Volsolvia. The Romans later maintained a horse changing station with a hostel here. After the fall of the limes, Oberwesel became a Frankish royal holding with a royal estate. The Wesel Estate passed under Emperor Otto I in 966 to the Archbishopric of Magdeburg. In 1220, Emperor Frederick II dissolved the pledge and Oberwesel became a free imperial city. In 1255, Oberwesel became a member of the Rhenish League of Towns (Rheinischer Städtebund), but in 1309, it lost its status as a free imperial city and fell under the lordship of the Electorate of Trier, to which it belonged until Secularization after the French Revolutionary Wars in 1802. In the so called Weseler Krieg (“Wesel War”) in 1390 and 1391, the town tried yet again to turn over a new leaf, but after a successful siege by Archbishop of Trier Werner von Falkenstein, it had to back down. Winegrowing, fishing, trade and handicrafts helped the town gather enough wealth to begin work on the town walls in 1220, building them in three phases from then until the mid 14th century. The town's importance in the Middle Ages can be gathered from the two great ecclesiastical foundations that it harboured (Our Lady's – or Liebfrauen in German – and Saint Martin's), as well as the two monasteries and the Beginenhof. All together, nine monasteries had sizeable commercial holdings in town. In 1689, in the Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession), Oberwesel was destroyed for the first time, by soldiers of the First French Empire. In 1794, the town was occupied by French Revolutionary troops and in 1802 was annexed by France. After the Congress of Vienna, Oberwesel became, along with the rest of the Rhine's left bank, Prussian.

“Saint Werner’s Chapel” on the side of the town wall facing the Rhine was renovated in 2001. It was consecrated to the former saint, Werner of Oberwesel. In iconography, Werner was shown with a winegrower's billhook, a shovel and a pan as attributes, and was said to be the patron saint of winemakers. According to a blood libel, 16 year old Werner was said to have been murdered on Maundy Thursday 1287 in Oberwesel by local Jews who were thought to have wanted to use his blood in their Passover rituals. A 14th century Latin chronicle reports of an alleged host desecration: Jews from local communities hung Werner up by the feet to rob him of a piece of sacramental bread that he was about to swallow. The Jews then threw him in the Rhine. At the spot on the riverbank in Bacharach where his body washed up, the Gothic, Rheinromantik Saint Werner's Chapel was built. When word of the ritual murder spread, outraged mobs rose up, destroying not only Jewish communities on the Middle Rhine, but also up the Moselle and down on the Lower Rhine, too. In folk Christianity, the Cult of Werner arose, and it was only stricken from the calendar of the Diocese of Trier in 1963. Heinrich Heine treated the legend in his fragmentary tale, Der Rabbi von Bacherach.

From 7 November 1970, the town formed with the municipalities of Damscheid, Dellhofen, Langscheid, Laudert, Niederburg, Perscheid, Urbar and Wiebelsheim the Verbandsgemeinde of Oberwesel. In the course of administrative restructuring in Rhineland Palatinate, the new Verbandsgemeinde of Sankt Goar Oberwesel was formed out of the towns of Sankt Goar and Oberwesel on 22 April 1972, with the administrative seat at Oberwesel. On 17 March 1974, the formerly self administering municipalities of Langscheid, Dellhofen and Urbar were amalgamated with Oberwesel, although on 13 June 1999, Urbar once again became self administering.

The town wall, which was built in the early 13th century and some of whose parts are open to the public, was expanded and strengthened in the 14th century, and with 16 defensive towers – among them the Hospitalgassenturm (“Hospital Lane Tower”), the Steingassenturm (“Stone Lane Tower”), the Katzenturm (“Cats’ Tower”) and the Ochsenturm (“Ox’s Tower”), which is crenellated and has an octagonal top tower, making it a type of butter churn tower (Butterfassturm) – is the best preserved girding wall anywhere on the Rhine Gorge. There was planning to open further sections to the public in 2006. “Saint” Werner's Chapel is nowadays more properly known as the Mutter Rosa Kapelle, since its consecration to Werner has been rescinded and Werner has been stricken from the roll of saints. The chapel is now named after Rosa Flesch, the founder of a Franciscan order in the 19th century. Physically, it actually consists only of the quire of the chapel attached to the hospital, which itself was destroyed in 1689. Building work on the Church of Our Lady (Liebfrauenkirche, or Pfarrkirche Liebfrauen as it is styled above) began in 1308. In 1331, the church was consecrated and it was completed in 1375. It was built on the spot once occupied by another church, which was first mentioned in 1213. From the old church, the new one took over an endowment for secular clergy (as opposed to regular clergy). Given its architecture and appointments (golden altar, rood screen, wall paintings), it is among the Rhineland’s most important Gothic churches. Saint Martin’s Church, too, is a Gothic building that arose on a foregoing church’s old site. It was built in 1350, but was not finished owing to strained finances. The tower, which in the Wesel War was incorporated into the town wall as a defensive structure, is an illustrative example of ecclesiastical defensive architecture in the Rhineland. Much of the Gothic appointments has been destroyed. Preserved, however, are a few wall paintings from about 1500 to 1600. The Minorite monastery was a Franciscan institution founded in 1242 and dissolved in 1802 by Napoleon. In the great town fire of 1836, it was destroyed, and has been a ruin ever since. Haus Weitblick was opened in 2011. It is the seat of the Giordano Bruno Foundation and the seat of the Institute for Secular Law.

Within the Middle Rhine wine region, Oberwesel is one of the biggest winegrowing centres. The winemaking appellation – Großlage – of Schloss Schönburg encompasses 72 ha. Individual winemakers within this appellation – Einzellagen – are Sieben Jungfrauen, Oelsberg, Bienenberg, St. Martinsberg, Goldemund, Bernstein and Römerkrug. The vineyards are steeply terraced and 80% of the area is planted with Riesling and 20% with other white grape varieties (Müller Thurgau, Kerner, Pinot blanc) and less often with red varieties (Pinot noir, Dornfelder). All kinds of wine (mild, half dry and dry) and quality levels (Prädikat Kabinett to the odd ice wine) are produced. Recently in the Oelsberg vineyards, some light Flurbereinigung was undertaken, and the now newly planted vineyards have been provided with an irrigation facility. This was meant to safeguard this traditional Einzellage, for not only will it spare the winemakers some work, but it will also ensure good yields even in dry summers. Some of the 30 or so winemaking estates in town have been under family ownership for more than 200 years; some also keep wine bars in the town.

Johann von Wesel (b. 1425; d. 1481 in Mainz), German theologian
Joseph Adamy (b.1778; d. 1849), mine owner and politician
August Zeuner (b. 6 September 1913; d. 1976), German politician (CDU), Member of the Landtag (Rhineland Palatinate)
Johann Peter Josten (b. 15 July 1915), German politician (CDU), Member of the Bundestag, (Rhineland Palatinate)
Wilhelm Lauer (b. 1923; d. 2007), geographer and university professor
Alfred Gottschalk (b. 7 March 1930; d. 12 September 2009), German born American Rabbi, leader in the Reform Judaism movement
Robert Brahm (b. 25 August 1956), auxiliary bishop in Trier
Eberhard Lauer (b. 1956), church musician
Carl Johann Haag (b. 20 April 1820, d 17 January 1915) Orientalist watercolour painter and Höfmaler to the Duke of Saxe Coburg Gotha