Niederlauterbach

The Niederlauterbach area covers 1122 hectares, crossed by two streams, the Lauter and the Landbach. Its history dates back to the 7th century, when it was mentioned as Lutterbach before becoming Lauterbach in the 16th century. After separating from a hamlet, it took the name Niederlauterbach, while the other became Oberlauterbach. Of Gallo-Roman origin, the village was under the administration of the Lauterbourg bailiwick and depended on the episcopal principality of Speyer until 1789. Emperor Heinrich III granted a possession, the Hundshof, to the Bishop of Speyer. In the 18th century, the De Reissenbach family built a castle, Neuhof, on these lands. Destroyed during the Thirty Years' War, the village notably lost its hamlet of Dürrenseebach. In the 17th century, waves of immigration from the Alpine regions, Switzerland, Bavaria, and Austria settled here. In 1831, the commune had 1701 inhabitants, an all-time high. After being annexed by Germany in 1871, it was returned to France in 1918. In 1939, its population was evacuated to Haute-Vienne. Liberated first by the Americans on December 14, 1944, the village was retaken by the Germans before being definitively liberated by the French on March 18, 1945. Since the early Middle Ages, Niederlauterbach belonged to the Weissenburg Landkapitel of the Diocese of Speyer and was the center of a large parish district including several surrounding localities such as Lauterbourg, Scheibenhard, Durrenseebach, Oberlauterbach, Siegen-Kaydenbourg, the Neuhof estate (disappeared last century), and during the Reformation, Salmbach. Of the 13th-century mother church, only the lower level of the bell tower remains today, integrated as the entrance to the current church, consecrated in 1788.