Norheim lies in the Nahe valley near the Rheingrafenstein with its castle, and near the Rotenfels. Norheim’s elevation is 135 m above sea level and its municipal area measures 3.15 km².[4]
Also belonging to Norheim are the outlying homesteads of Brunnenhof, Buchenländerhof, Wasserkraftwerk, Kronenhof and Haus am Tunnel.[5]
Climate
Norheim is especially advantageous for its climate. Framed as it is by crags and wooded mountains, its location brings it little rain and a mild climate. Moreover, the soils that have formed from the weathering of the volcanic crags represent the best prerequisites for Norheim’s winegrowing.[6]
Winegrowing (Lage Rotenfels) below the porphyry massif in April
History
At the foot of the porphyry massif known as the Rotenfels, Norheim has a 1,200-year-long history as the oldest wine village on the Nahe, at least going by historical records. In 766, Norheim had its first documentary mention as Narheim in pago Nahgowe (“Norheim in the Nahegau country”) when the Frankishfree noble Adalger sold his landhold, which lay in Narheim, for two pounds of silver to Lorsch Abbey on the Bergstraße. The record of this is contained in the abbey’s old directory of holdings, the Lorsch codex (Codex Laureshamensis), document no. 2007. The name Narheim may have had its roots in nava, a Celtic word for “flowing water”. Over the years, the river’s name underwent various changes: Naba, Naha, Nae, Noh, Nahe. Several times over the centuries, Norheim’s overlords changed as secular princes replaced those who had gone before. Adalger’s old landhold was exchanged by Lorsch in 962 with Saint Maximin’s Abbey in Trier. In 1190, the Lords of Bolanden were enfeoffed with the jurisdiction and holdings by the Holy Roman Empire. By way of the Rhinegraves and the Counts of Sponheim, the Lords of Sickingen at Castle Ebernburg became the village’s rulers in 1440, ruling for more than 300 years. When the last lord of this line died out in 1768, the now heirless fief passed back to the overlord, the Electorate of the Palatinate. After the Napoleonic Wars had ended and after the decisions had been made at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Norheim became Prussian and was assigned to the Oberamt of Kreuznach.[7]
Population development
Norheim’s population development since Napoleonic times is shown in the table below. The figures for the years from 1871 to 1987 are drawn from census data:[3]
Year
Inhabitants
1815
413
1835
582
1871
611
1905
640
1939
899
1950
958
1961
1,033
Year
Inhabitants
1970
1,343
1987
1,567
1997
1,531
2005
1,430
2017
1,507
2018
1,547
Religion
As at 30 November 2013, there are 1,499 full-time residents in Norheim, and of those, 539 are Evangelical (35.957%), 583 are Catholic (38.893%), 1 is Greek Orthodox (0.067%), 1 is Lutheran (0.067%), 30 (2.001%) belong to other religious groups and 345 (23.015%) either have no religion or will not reveal their religious affiliation.[8]
Politics
Municipal council
The council is made up of 16 council members, who were elected by proportional representation at the municipal election held on 9 June 2024, and the honorary mayor as chairman.
Norheim’s current mayor is Uwe Sax, who was sworn in on 03-Dec-2024.
The deputies to the mayor are Patrick Rusch (100% Norheim), Rainer Beisiegel (CDU), and Stephan Karsch (SPD).[18]
During the municipal election held on 09-Jun-2024 the lone candidate for mayor, Tristan Heringklee (CDU), had not reached the required absolute majority, missing it by 12 votes. Due to this a special election was held on 10-Nov-2024, during which the candidate Uwe Sax won the absolute majority, receiving a percentage of votes of 78.2%.[19] His opponent Tristan Heringklee received a percentage of votes of 21.8%.
Uwe Sax's predecessor, Dr. Kai Michelmann, was sworn in on 01-Jul-2014. He was first voted into office at the municipal election held on 25-May-2014, with a percentage of votes of 75.2%.[20] At the municipal election held on 26-May-2019 he was confirmed in office, with a percentage of votes of 71.44%, against his opponent Markus Karsch (SPD).
Coat of arms
The municipality’s arms might be described thus: Azure on ground vert, a steed passant argent upon which Saint Martin of Tours of the same cutting with his sword a piece of his cloak gules for a kneeling beggar man of the third.
This scene from Saint Martin’s life appears in many German civic coats of arms. Indeed, Norheim’s arms are not even the only ones in the Bad Kreuznachdistrict to bear this image, with Meddersheim and Rüdesheim an der Nahe likewise bearing arms depicting Martin cutting off a piece of his cloak for a beggar.
Town partnerships
Norheim fosters partnerships with the following places:[21]
In 2012, Norheim and Tannay, a village and commune of several hundred inhabitants in Burgundy, marked the 45th anniversary of their partnership, an occasion that merited a visit to Norheim’s Kronenhof winery by the Speaker of the Rhineland-PalatinateLandtag, Joachim Mertes, who is also Chairman of the Rhineland-Palatinate-Burgundy Partnership Association.
Culture and sightseeing
Buildings
The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[22]
Holy Cross Catholic Parish Church (Pfarrkirche Heiliges Kreuz), St.-Martin-Straße 19 – Gothic Revival quarrystone building, 1864, District Master Builder Neumann, Kreuznach, former quire tower 13th century, floor added in 1911 (see also below)
Nahestraße – bridge, single arch, quarrystone, possibly from the earlier half of the 19th century
Rotenfelser Straße 60 – former mill; building with half-hip roof, marked 1726 and 1821, belonging to complex stable-barns across the street, one marked 1825 (see also below)
St.-Martin-Straße 11 – former Catholic rectory; massive Late Baroque building, marked 1764, essentially possibly older
Rotenfelserstraße 59 – Classicist winepress house (?) and house, from the earlier half of the 19th century
Tunnel portal of the Bingen–Saarbrückenrailway line, northeast of the village – sandstone-block, forms of castle architecture, about 1870
More about buildings
Roman Catholic church
The Roman Catholicchurch at Norheim was erected in stages (particularly the steeple) starting in the first half of the 13th century. From 1363, it was incorporated into the Holy Cross Foundation at Mainz. After the Reformation, and until 1698, the church was used by Protestants. It was given its Gothic Revival makeover in 1864, while the steeple was made taller in 1911 with the addition of a slated belfry and a pointed, eight-sided spire. The steeple stands at the east and earlier formed the quire. The current entrance was also pierced through the walls in 1911.
Mills
Norheim had three watermills. The oldest was the Witt’sche Mühle, which had its first documentary mention in 1471. It was an Old German channel mill with an undershot waterwheel. Ground there were grain and, according to Adam Karst (1838–1852), also oilseed. Because it was an estate mill (Bannmühle), Norheim villagers had to use it, and no other, to grind their grain. After the Witt’sche Mühle was sold to the miller Krieger, it was shut down in 1833.
The second mill is the Steinsche Mühle (as of 1910 Krugermühle). It stands 20 m below the Witt’sche Mühle and was built in 1722 with the Sickingens’ baronial approval as an allodial mill. Because Norheim villagers were bound to the mill upstream from his, the then owner, Stein, had to seek custom elsewhere, in Traisen and Hüffelsheim. He also bought corn at the Kreuznacher Kornmarkt, also selling the flour there. The Krugermühle was a gristmill with its own millpond and an undershot Zuppinger wheel (a kind of waterwheel invented by the 19th-century Swissengineer Walter Zuppinger). This mill was run for many years, and was shut down only in 1975. It gained a new lease on life in 1995 when it was fitted with a new waterwheel and an induction generator. Its then projected yearly output was roughly 200 000 kWh
The third mill is the Weidenmühle on the road leading eastwards out of the village. It was built in 1726 by the miller Matthias Schmitt. It was an allodial mill conceded by the Sickingens in which grain was ground. It was driven by an undershot waterwheel. After the Witt’sche Mühle was shut down in the early 19th century, the Weidenmühle was Norheim’s most important mill. It was shut down in 1950, though, when the last miller, Hans Brosius, died.
Growing in more than 50 ha of vineyards, mainly on south-facing slopes, are grapes that the winemakers make into outstanding wine. The wines from the individual winegrowing locations – Einzellagen – of Kirschheck, Kafels, Oberberg and Dellchen enjoy international reputations.[24]
Famous people
Famous people associated with the municipality
Kurt-Ulrich Mayer (b. 27 June 1950 in Idar-Oberstein), politician (CDU), professor and Chairman of the Saxon State Institute for Private Broadcasting and New Media (Sächsische Landesanstalt für privaten Rundfunk und neue Medien; SLM)
Further reading
Gerd Spengel: Mühlen im Gebiet der Mittleren und unteren Nahe Band 1 und 2, Heimatkundliche Schriftenreihe des Landkreises Bad Kreuznach; 29.1 Verlag Gras & Jung. 1998. (in German)
Walter Zimmermann: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kreises Kreuznach, Nachdr. d. Ausg. Düsseldorf, Schwann, 1935 Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann-Bagel. 1985. (in German)
^"Kommunalwahlen 2014". Der Landeswahlleiter Rheinland-Pfalz. See Norheim listed under Verbandsgemeinde Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
