Dorndiel
Geography and location
Dorndiel, by traditional standards, would be
considered a village, i.e. larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town.
With a population of 520 people, Dorndiel is in the German state of Hessen and
is located approximately 60 km, or 37 mi, southeast of Frankfurt am Main.
Aside from farming, tourism is the only industry, per se.
The village lies in a valley of the northern foothills of the Odenwald which is
a popular mountain range nature preserve that contains several castles and
examples of medevial and Roman architecture still standing today.
Photographs, circa
2008, courtesy of Roland Vogt
Historical details
Due to it's size, there is very little published
historical information available regarding Dorndiel. I was, however, able
to obtain the following excerpt from Familenbuch - Mosbach mit Dorndiel im
Bachgau which was translated by Roland Vogt of Lorzweiler, Germany.
"In the year 1618 there
started the 30-years-war in Germany. Some parts of this war was in the region
of Dorndiel and Mosbach. The name of this region is "Bachgau". In
Bachgau was some troup camps of different troups and
nations - one year the Swedish troups from Gustav Adolph - the next
year the troups of a German regiment. Some different nationality people was
fighting during this war Sweden, Spain, France ....
In this years of the war
nearly 90 percent of the people in this region was killed by the soldiers, illness and
hunger. It was terrible. Most of the houses was destroyed. Churches was fired -
priests killed - documents destroyed. In the year 1648 when the
war ends - the small towns were empty of people. In Dorndiel the population was
50 people in the year 1617 - in 1650 only three people was alive - one man and two
women. In
Mosbach the population was nearly 200 people before the war. In the year 1650
there was only ten people alive. In
the years 1650-1670 many people of Belgium emigrated to this region. Now nearly
70 percent spoke French and not German. Many new family names came from this
emigrations - Cuny, Dechant, Daniel, ... But
not the Muessig name. Where they originally came from we do not know"
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