By 1562, though, Weinfeld had been forsaken. It was in this year that the last pastor left the now dead village and moved to Schalkenmehren. In 1522, the Plague had broken out in the German Emperor’s army. A chronicle from the Saarland reports: "At that time, warring peoples had brought a plaguelike sickness in, which in the Rhinelands wrought great devastation. The people died en masse and suddenly." Weinfeld was one of quite a few Eifel villages that were wiped out in the epidemic. The statues of the "Plague Saints", Saint Sebastian and Saint Roch, recall this time. The survivors migrated away or moved to Schalkenmehren. However, Weinfeld remained a parish until 1803 – the onset of Napoleonic times – and the pastors still bore the title Parish Priest of Weinfeld, even though they lived in Schalkenmehren.