Elzweiler

Elzweiler is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kusel-Altenglan, whose seat is in Kusel. The municipality lies at the entrance to the Sachsbach valley in the Western Palatinate. The village lies at the foot of the 536 m-high Herrmannsberg at an elevation of some 270 m above sea level on the local thoroughfare. Lying right on this only a few hundred metres away in a side valley is the neighbouring village of Welchweiler. The Sachsbach rises some 2 km up from the village of Elzweiler near the Schneeweiderhof and empties into the river Glan near Glanbrücken. In its lower reaches, the stream bears the name Horschbach. The municipal area measures 209 ha, of which 95 ha is wooded. Elzweiler borders in the north and east on the municipality of Horschbach, in the southeast on the municipality of Eßweiler, in the south on the municipality of Bosenbach and in the west on the municipality of Welchweiler. Elzweiler also meets the municipality of Altenglan at a single point in the southwest. The village's houses stand on a spur road that branches off the Glanbrücken-Altenglan through road in the Sachsbach valley and ends behind the village's last houses and at several short sidestreets. As a general rule, houses are simple and often modernized, and belong to commuters. About half the houses were built before 1900. Owing to only slight population growth, the original built-up area has not significantly spread outwards. Signs of human activity in prehistoric or Roman times in Elzweiler have thus far not been confirmed. Elzweiler is believed to have been founded by the Franks, but an exact founding date for the village cannot be pinpointed, though it is certain that Elzweiler was founded after the Archbishopric of Reims had established the so-called Remigiusland. Going by the border description for the Remigiusland, the small village must have lain right on the border.