Weilmünster is a municipality in Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, Germany.
Geography
Weilmünster is among the most richly wooded places in Limburg-Weilburg. The forestry office looks after not only the State Forest but also twelve municipalities’ woodlands in the south of the Limburg-Weilburg and Lahn-Dill districts.
Location
The market community of Weilmünster lies on the north slope of the Taunus in the Weil valley, the Weil being a tributary to the Lahn. The nearest major cities are Wetzlar (20 km) to the northeast, Limburg (25 km) to the west and Frankfurt am Main (50 km) to the southeast.
Neighbouring communities
Weilmünster borders in the north on the towns of Weilburg (Limburg-Weilburg) and Braunfels, in the east on the community of Waldsolms (both in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis), in the south on the communities of Grävenwiesbach, Weilrod (both in the Hochtaunuskreis) and Selters and in the west on the communities of Villmar and Weinbach (all three in Limburg-Weilburg).
Constituent communities
Weilmünster's main centre, also called Weilmünster, is the biggest of the constituent communities in this community of roughly 10,000 inhabitants, to which a further eleven centres belong. The other Ortsteile are named Audenschmiede, Aulenhausen, Dietenhausen, Ernsthausen, Essershausen, Laimbach, Langenbach, Laubuseschbach, Lützendorf, Möttau, Rohnstadt and Wolfenhausen. Until about 150 years ago, Heinzenberg, which now belongs to Grävenwiesbach, was also one of Weilmünster's constituent communities.
History
In 1217, Weilmünster had its first documentary mention as Wilmunstre. It was, however, by this time already a sizeable village with its own church. History hints that the Fulda Monastery, which had holdings in the village, had this church built sometime in the 9th century. The church that stands today was built in the early 16th century, and its square defensive tower sometime around 1300. As of 1601, a regular market is known to have been being held in Weilmünster. The community belonged to Nassau, and after the division of inheritance to Nassau-Weilburg. From 1806 it belonged to the Duchy of Nassau. In 1866 it passed to Prussia, becoming part of the Province of Hesse-Nassau.
Industrialization began early. In the early 16th century there was an ironworks with a blast furnace in Weilmünster. Later came foundries and other metalworking businesses. This industrial development, however, was short-lived. While the road through the Lahn valley was expanded and the Lahn was channelled, Weilmünster, which lay off these arteries, fell behind. The building of the Weilstraße (“Weil Road”) in 1860 came too late, and the railway only reached Weilmünster in 1908.
In 1421, there was a forest smithy in Audenschmiede. It developed itself into a nationally important smithy that, in 1798 passed into the ownership of the Buderus firm when it was founded, and until 1930 it was one of the firm's most important locations.
During Nazi Germany, the mentally ill and handicapped of the 1897 Landesheil- und Pflegeanstalt Weilmünster () were forcibly sterilized and systematically underfed or killed with drug overdoses. From 1937 to 1945, more than 6,000 people died there, among them all Jewish patients. Preliminary proceedings against the facility's staff for having taken part in the Nazi murder of the sick were suspended in 1953.
The old community of Weilmünster in the former district of the Oberlahnkreis was merged in the 1970s with other communities into the greater community of Weilmünster.
Of today's constituent communities, Möttau had its first documentary mention in 802, Laubuseschbach in 897, Wolfenhausen in 1194, Essershausen in 1233, Lützendorf in 1234, Dietenhausen in 1301, Ernsthausen in 1309, Laimbach in 1344, Langenbach in 1335, Rohnstadt in 1355 and Aulenhausen in 1565.
Politics
The municipal election held on 26 March 2006 yielded the following results:
Elections 2016: CDU: 10 SPD: 11 BL: 6 BfW: 4
Mayors
Faust, Andreas 1835–1874
Eppstein, Johann Christian 1867–1875, 1876–1880, 1880–1891
Dienst, Philipp Friedrich 1891–1896
Eppstein, Philipp 1896–1900
Klein, Philipp Heinrich 1900–1926
Müller, August 1926 – 1933
Färber, August 1933 – 1941
Weil, Hermann 1941–1945
Weil, Albert 1945
Metzler, Adolf 1945–1946
Weil, Albert 1946–1948
Weinbrenner, Friedrich 1948 (first deputy) Benz, Albert 1948–1951 Dr. Kottek 1951–1952 (first deputy) Benz, Wilhelm 1952–1958 Windmeier, Waldemar 1958–1988 Pfeiffer, Klaus 1988–1994 Heep, Manfred 1994–2018 Koschel, Mario since 2018