Bruttig-Fankel


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

Geography

Location

The municipality lies on the river Moselle and, as the name suggests, is made up of the two constituent communities of Bruttig and Fankel.

Climate

Yearly precipitation in Bruttig-Fankel amounts to 716 mm, which falls into the middle third of the precipitation chart for all Germany. Only at 43% of the German Weather Service's weather stations are lower figures recorded. The driest month is February. The most rainfall comes in June. In that month, precipitation is 1.8 times what it is in February. Precipitation varies moderately. At 46% of the weather stations, lower seasonal :File:BRUTTIG FANKEL nieder.svg|swings are recorded.

History

The oldest evidence of settlers in the area is the very well preserved barrows on the Bruttig-Fankeler Berg along the so-called Rennweg, an old linking road between the Roman long-distance roads, over which today runs the “Archaeological Hiking Trail”. According to information from the State Office for Care of Monuments in Koblenz, some of these barrows date back to the Bronze Age.
Bruttig-Fankel has both Celtic-Roman and Merovingian-Frankish beginnings, with the constituent community of Bruttig likely being the older of the two. It had its first documentary mention on 4 June 898 as Pruteca im Mayengau in a donation document from the Lotharingian king Zwentibold, whose beneficiary was the Imperially immediate, free-noble convent in Essen. Besides many holdings in the Cologne and Bergheim area, the king transferred to the convent “…in pago magnensi in villa pruteca terra arabilis cum curtile et vineis…”. This document establishes that the village is at least 1,100 years old, likely even older, for there was already an estate with vineyards. A further clue as to the village's Celtic beginnings can be found in the name “Bruttig” itself. Language scholars derive the modern name from the Celtic Brutiacum through the Latin Proteca and Prodecha to today's Bruttig
The other constituent community, Fankel, had its first documentary mention about 1100. The name derived from the Celtic fank, meaning “wetlands”. Ownership arrangements in the Middle Ages were governed in both Bruttig and Fankel by several so-called Weistümer. In the time of French occupation, beginning in 1794, both centres were assigned to the Mairie of Beilstein, which itself belonged to the Canton of Zell. Administration nevertheless lay with the Canton of Treis, and as of 1816, when Bruttig and Fankel were assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia at the Congress of Vienna, it lay with the former Cochem district. Since 1946, the two centres have been part of the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
In the course of administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate, the two formerly administratively separate municipalities of Bruttig and Fankel were amalgamated into one, named Bruttig-Fankel.

Politics

Municipal council

The council is made up of 16 council members, who were elected by majority vote at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.

Mayor

Bruttig-Fankel's mayor is Rainer Welches.

Coat of arms

The municipality's arms might be described thus: Per pale argent a fess wavy vert, the whole surmounted by a key palewise gules, the wards to chief and turned to sinister, and vert a fleur-de-lis Or.
Bruttig-Fankel has an impaled coat of arms, meaning that it is composed of two other coats united in one field and separated by a vertical line of partition. The former coats belonged to the two constituent communities when they were separate municipalities.

Town partnerships

Bruttig-Fankel fosters partnerships with the following places:

Buildings

The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:

Bruttig

and tourism characterize the village and belong inseparably together. In the constituent community of Bruttig, on the second weekend in August each year, the great Winemakers’ Festival is held. Well known steep-slope vineyards are Pfarrgarten, Götterlay, Rathausberg, Layenberg and Rosenberg. Raised here mainly is Riesling, although there are also Elbling and various other grape varieties, including some red.
In Fankel is found, besides the Fankel Weir, also the RWE Power AG main control centre, from which all hydroelectric stations at weirs on the German section of the Moselle are controlled.

Famous people

Sons and daughters of the town