the first world war broke out on 28 july 1914.
the first world war broke out on 28 july 1914.
when was the first world war broke out?
28 july 1914
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for centuries, agriculture defined people’s daily life and characterized the village’s image. to this day, the three-layer structure of large, medium and small agricultural operations that held true in herschweiler-pettersheim right up until the middle of the 20th century can still be made out. the predominant system in farming up to that time, which saw the younger generation taking over the day-to-day running of farms when their parents became elderly, and thus offering the parents some security in their old age, could not keep up with the system that became predominant after the second world war. younger workers could earn salaries, and industry was altering the economic and social landscape. the undervaluing of agricultural products, too, in comparison with industrial ones steadily thrust farming into rationalization with its consequent growth in farms’ average size, or even forced some people to give farms up and shift to wage-dependent work. of the 125 farming operations still in business in 1950, which employed 36.8% of the local workforce, only 73 were still in business in 1960. by 1970, this had shrunk to 26, by 1986 to 13 and by 2000 to only 4 run as primary sources of earnings, while a further two were run as secondary sources of earnings, with the trend continuing downwards. besides agriculture, men and women from herschweiler-pettersheim and the surrounding area could seek their livelihoods at the hard-stone quarries on the steinkopf and the hühnerrech, which had been opened as early as 1832 and were not shut down for good until 1972, as quarrymen, stone dressers, pitmen, stone chippers and hauliers. the municipality, too, profited from tenancies and tax revenues. earning great importance after the first world war were the local diamond-cutting workshops that arose in the area around brücken, about 4 km south of herschweiler-pettersheim and the hub of the palatine diamond-cutting industry, which gave rise to an economic upswing. the groundwork for this blossoming industry was laid for herschweiler-pettersheim in 1908 by christian schultheiß, who came from the german centre for diamond processing in hanau, and who had been recruited in 1887-1888 by isidor dreyfuß for the newly founded diamond-cutting workshop at the "neumühle" (“new mill”) between ohmbach and brücken. further growth was cut short only a few years later when the first world war broke out, but this was only a temporary setback, and work began again in 1923. the industry’s promising development was again cut short in october 1929 when the stock markets in the usa crashed and the great depression struck the industrialized world. since demand for diamonds was now very slight and since rough stones were now hard to come by anyway, many diamond cutters were out of work for weeks or even longer. once the national socialists had seized power, though, the situation did not improve at first. the nazi boycott of dutch and belgian diamond dealers, brought about by the persecution of jews in germany, forced 13 of the 14 local independent diamond-cutting businesses to shut up shop in 1933, with the remaining one cutting back on the amount of business that it did. low production costs due to the nazi state’s subsidies, and the high quality standard, made the boycott ineffective, so that the business reached a peak in 1935. of the 3,500 people then working in the 150 businesses in the palatine diamond industry, 197 diamond cutters were working at 23 diamond-cutting workshops in herschweiler-pettersheim. with the outbreak of the second world war, almost all these businesses were shut down. after currency reform in 1948 (the introduction of the deutsche mark), the diamond-cutting industry came back to life. between 1950 and 1960, herschweiler-pettersheim had roughly 30 such businesses, and even as many as 50 until 1972. even so, as early as 1957, business was suffering from quickly shrinking earnings. it was actually in 1972 that all work in the industry ceased, the industry’s fate sealed by competition from countries with lower labour costs. all that can be seen of the industry today in herschweiler-pettersheim is the former diamond-cutting workshop buildings, recognizable from their great lattice windows. when the rich coal deposits on the saar started a boom in the coal and iron industry, workers from herschweiler-pettersheim, too, found jobs there as miners and ironworkers. about 1890, young people set off on foot in great throngs, walking far, to the new workplaces in the frankenholz and neunkirchen mines and at the ironworks. once there, they worked the whole week through, stayed in dormitories, and returned home on sunday. with a knapsack full of potato waffles to keep themselves warm during the work week, they set off back to their jobs on sunday evening. the women took care of farming, the children herded the cows and goats on common land. until the time after the second world war, many people still worked their land as a secondary occupation as worker-farmers or retired miners. first and foremost, the "bergmannskühe" (literally “miner’s cows”; that is to say, goats) helped worker families out of the grimmest neediness after the war. after the fall of the ironworking industry and the closure of many collieries in the saarland in the last fourth of the 20th century in the face of stiff foreign competition, many workers switched to the processing and finishing industry in the homburg and kaiserslautern area. the old adage “nothing is as constant as change”, however, applies here, too. with the growing shift of cost-intensive production facilities about the turn of the millennium to countries with low labour costs, the economic outlook for the saarland and the western palatinate is rather more bleak than rosy. also grave was the decline of craft occupations beginning about 1970. the vocations of blacksmith, shoemaker, tailor, painter and cabinetmaker fell victim to industrial output. even those of baker and butcher met the same fate in the late 20th century. of the three bakeries and two butcher’s shops of the postwar era, only the leixner butcher’s shop was still in business in 2000. all other goods were sold by foreign firms in local branch locations. wars, suppression of freedom of thought and economic need are also reflected in population figures. the thirty years' war (1618-1648) almost emptied herschweiler and pettersheim of people. in 1670, only five families came back. into the almost thoroughly depopulated duchy of palatinate-zweibrücken came new settlers from various parts of germany, but foremost in number were those who came from switzerland. during french king louis xiv’s wars of conquest, several more pettersheim farmers were killed on 5 december 1675 when the homburg garrison was attacked. there was great loss of life among the local population, too, in the first world war (1914-1918), in which 24 local men fell, and in the second world war (1939-1945), in which 67 local men fell and 29 went missing. economic distress and a lack of future prospects have also made some locals turn their backs on their homeland and seek their fortune in faraway lands. as early as 1709, and again later in 1742, citizens from herschweiler and pettersheim took part in the first great wave of emigration from southwestern germany to the new world and settled in pennsylvania, “america’s palatinate”. beginning in 1765, some accepted empress empress maria theresia’s and emperor joseph ii’s offer of settlement in the southeast of their empire. thus, in 1765, jakob hederich, who was born in pettersheim, cropped up in the records as working in bačka and the banat as a teacher and a preacher along with friedrich and christian schneider. only at the beginning of bavarian times in 1816 did the numbers of people emigrating to north america rise again. in 1816, the year without a summer, bad grain harvests along with their attendant unpleasant consequences led ten local day-labourer families with all together 51 persons to emigrate. between 1833 and 1854, six individual villagers and 45 families with one to ten children left the village to seek new lives elsewhere. during this time, far more than 200 persons, smallhold farmers, day labourers and craftsmen may have left herschweiler-pettersheim, which is reflected in stagnating, and even shrinking, population figures. from 1833 to 1883, the american state of ohio was a target of local emigrants; a west palatine colony of sorts was forming there about 1840. three poor families wanted to emigrate to algeria, but could not obtain approval because they did not have enough money to make the trip.
herschweiler-pettersheim