Morbach

Morbach is a municipality that belongs to no Verbandsgemeinde – a kind of collective municipality – in the Bernkastel-Wittlich district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is also a state-recognized climatic resort (Luftkurort). The municipality lies at an elevation of between 430 and 770 m above sea level in the low mountain range of the Hunsrück on the boundary with the Birkenfeld district, roughly 25 km southeast of Wittlich and 35 km east of Trier. Its population is 11,051. The nearest town is Bernkastel-Kues. The terrain is one of rolling hills, with superbly organized and maintained stretches of forest interspersed with manicured farmland. Some of the highest (cleanest) air readings in all of Northern Europe have been measured near this area. The municipality of Morbach is subdivided into the following Ortsteile: Until municipal administrative reform in Rhineland-Palatinate in 1969, the municipality belonged to the Bernkastel district, with its seat at Bernkastel-Kues. The municipality as it is today arose on 31 December 1974 when the new municipality of Morbach was formed out of Morbach itself and the 18 until then self-administering municipalities of Bischofsdhron, Elzerath, Gonzerath, Gutenthal, Haag, Heinzerath, Hinzerath, Hoxel, Hundheim, Hunolstein, Merscheid, Morscheid-Riedenburg, Odert, Rapperath, Wederath, Weiperath, Wenigerath and Wolzburg. Within what is now the outlying centre of Wenigerath lay the US Air Force's Wenigerath Munitions Depot until 1995. Beginning in the 1950s, several hundred United States Air Force Munitions Systems personnel, otherwise known as “ammo troops”, worked at the so-called Wenigerath Non-Nuclear Munitions Storage Area and lived in Morbach and neighbouring villages in support of NATO operations launched from nearby Hahn Air base. The former “bomb dump”, which ceased operations after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, is now dotted with wind turbines, photovoltaic cells and various technologies which serve as an “Energy Farm”.