Dienstweiler

Dienstweiler 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.GeographyLocationDienstweiler lies at the edge of the Hunsrück, southeast of the district seat of Birkenfeld, 2 km away. The old village centre is nestled in a dale on a small brook at an average elevation of 400 m above sea level. Outlying centres can be reached from the crossroads in the middle of the village, as can the “old new” building development called Auf dem Ellenberg, which sits at 450 m above sea level. The municipal area measures 667 ha, of which some 320 ha is wooded.Constituent communitiesAlso belonging to Dienstweiler are the outlying homesteads of Eborn and Eborner Berg.HistoryUntil the 17th century, the village went by the names Dintzwilr, Dyntzwilr, Dynczwiller and Dientzweiler before settling on the current form of the name, Dienstweiler. In 1367, Dienstweiler had its first documentary mention, and belonged to the “Hinder” County of Sponheim. The homestead of Eborn, which still exists today (roughly a kilometre outside the village itself) was formerly a self-administering municipality, but it merged with Dienstweiler sometime about 1544.