Gimbweiler

Gimbweiler is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Birkenfeld, whose seat is in the like-named town.

Geography

Location

The municipality lies on the Mörschbach in the Schwarzwälder Hochwald (forest) in the Hunsrück, on the boundary with the Saarland.

Constituent communities

Also belonging to Gimbweiler is the outlying homestead of Heidehof.

History

The oldest forms of Gimbweiler’s name are Gumbweiler (1397), Gompwiler (1480) and Gympwiler (1480). Gimbweiler may be of Roman origin, as the now vanished hamlet of Frudesweiler may have been, too, but this cannot be proved.

Gimbweiler’s history unfolded much like neighbouring Wolfersweiler’s (nowadays an outlying centre of Nohfelden). Gimbweiler always belonged to that village’s high court and parish, while the lords through the Middle Ages were the Bishops of Verdun, the Counts of Veldenz and the Dukes of Palatinate-Zweibrücken.