Deimberg

Deimberg 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 Lauterecken-Wolfstein. The municipality lies on the heights west of Offenbach-Hundheim in the Western Palatinate. The village stretches over the edge of a mountain hollow at an elevation of some 380 m above sea level affording a lovely view over the northwest Palatine uplands. The Deimberger Höfchen, an outlying homestead, lies at 345 m above sea level almost 1 km northeast of the village on the Offenbach-Homberg road, Kreisstraße 63. The municipal area measures 209 ha, of which roughly 4 ha is settled and 19 ha is wooded. Deimberg borders in the north on the municipality of Herren-Sulzbach, in the east on the municipality of Buborn, in the southeast on the municipality of Offenbach-Hundheim, in the south on the municipality of Glanbrücken, in the southwest on the municipality of Sankt Julian and in the west on the municipality of Kirrweiler. Also belonging to Deimberg is the outlying homestead of Deimberger Höfchen. The broader Deimberg area was likely settled in prehistoric and Roman times, although no archaeological finds confirming this have yet come to light in either the village or the outlying countryside. Deimberg lay in the Nahegau, but was founded relatively late, likely in the 11th or 12th century. Theoretically, there is the possibility that there had formerly been another village at this same spot called Steinbäch(e)l, even before Deimberg's founding. This has since vanished. In 1336, Deimberg had its first documentary mention in a listing of those who were liable to pay contributions to Saint Valentine’s Church (Valentinskirche) in Niedereisenbach (today a constituent community of Glanbrücken). The actual Latin text states: "Item Petrus dictus Geyst de Dimberg et Jutta sua legitima dimidiam libram cerae super agrum dictum Hezzilsbirchen" ("Petrus, called Geyst from Dimberg and his wife Jutta had to deliver half a pound of grain harvested on the field called Hezzilsbirchen"), thus mentioning the village as Dimberg.