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Hottenbach 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 Herrstein-Rhaunen, whose seat is in Herrstein.
The village that stands now had its first documentary mention in 1181 under the name Hattinbach. The name itself comes from the personal name Hatto, which has been linked with the Hattonids, a comital house in Carolingian times whose influence stretched through the years 756 to 843. The seeds from which the village sprang were the two lordly estates down from and up from the church, which were held by the Hunsrück noble family of Wiltberg, who also had at their disposal the local lordship and the church patronage.
In the 14th century, a number of sales led to a change in fiefholders at the two estates to which lordly rights to the village were also attached. Hereafter, the village had four lords: the Archbishop of Trier, the and Rhinegraves, the “Further” County of Sponheim and the Lords Cratz von Scharfenstein. After this last named noble house died out in its male line in 1718, the Electorate of Trier took over their share of the lordship.
In the 18th century, many families Emigration from Hottenbach. Their destinations were the United States, West Prussia, East Prussia and later Galicia.
Beginning in 1794, Hottenbach, along with the rest of the lands on the Rhine’s left bank, was occupied by the France. On 17 December 1795, during fighting between French and Austrian troops, the village was plundered. In 1800, the former Unterschultheißerei of Hottenbach was raised to seat of a mairie (“mayoralty”) made up of not only Hottenbach but also Hellertshausen, Asbach, Weiden, Schauren, Bruchweiler, Kempfeld, Breitenthal, Wickenrodt and Oberhosenbach.
After Hottenbach was transferred to Prussia as a result of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, it became part of the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Rhaunen in the newly formed Bernkastel district in the Regierungsbezirk of Trier. In 1867, Hottenbach's population figure peaked, at 917 inhabitants. However, the nearby Asbach Ironworks was shut down in 1872 and this led in the years that followed to migration to the Saarland and further emigration to the United States.
In the course of administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate in 1969 and 1970, Hottenbach passed along with the Verbandsgemeinde of Rhaunen to the Birkenfeld district.
The Reformation came relatively late to Hottenbach because of the denominational rift in Hottenbach: the Electorate of Trier and the Lords Cratz von Scharfenstein clung to the old belief (Catholic Church), the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves were Lutheranism and the “Further” County of Sponheim was Reformed. About 1600, there is known to have been a Lutheran pastor in the village. It also seems that in these years the church was renovated after a fire. About 1608, the Electorate of the Palatinate, over resistance from the other local lords, posted a Reformed preacher in the village. No later than 1621, though, Hottenbach was once again Lutheran. Twice during the Thirty Years' War there were attempts at a counterreformation: from 1625 to 1629 and from 1636 to 1640, Hottenbach had a Catholic pastor.
In 1701, more pews were added to the church and the galleries were expanded. Furthermore, the church received an ornate pulpit and a Baroque church door with a porch. In French times, the parish of Hottenbach belonged to the Wirschweiler consistorial church. This was united in 1817 along with the Traben-Trarbach consistorial church with the Trier District Synod. When the Synod was deemed to have become too big, it was sundered in 1825, and the parishes in the Bernkastel and Trier districts then formed the Wolf District Synod, whose name became Trier District Synod in 1843, after the biggest place within its limits. The branch parish of Weiden was separated from Hottenbach in 1817 when the terms of the agreements made at the Congress of Vienna came into force, putting Weiden in the Principality of Birkenfeld, an exclave of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, most of whose territory was in what is now northwest Germany, with a coastline on the North Sea. In 1819, the parishes of Hottenbach and Stipshausen were bound to each other. In 1903, the church's old nave, which had fallen into disrepair, was torn down, while the former quire tower from 1290 was left standing. On 1 August 1904, the new church building, designed by architect August Senz, was consecrated. The new central structure combined the traditional with the modern, incorporating many parts of the old building while also meeting Protestantism requirements.
In 1880, Hottenbach's Jewish population amounted to 17% of the village's inhabitants. Hottenbach and Stipshausen together formed a qahal. In 1875, the Jews of Bruchweiler, Sensweiler and Wirschweiler also belonged to the synagogical region, which was overseen by the Chief Rabbi of Trier. In the late 19th century, many of the Jews Emigration to the United States or joined the Idar-Oberstein jewellery industry. When the Jewish community was dissolved in 1932, sixteen Jews were still living in Hottenbach. On 3 March 1940, the village's last Jewish family fled the country for the United States. The memorial book Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933–1945 ("Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the Nazi Party Nazi Germany") in the German Federal Archives lists 16 names of Jewish citizens who either were born in Hottenbach (14) or lived there (2), and who were murdered in the Holocaust. Gedenkbuch des Bundesarchives
The former synagogue is today a privately owned house. The Jewish graveyard is administered and maintained by the municipality of Hottenbach.
The municipality's arms might in English Heraldry language be described thus: Per fess gules a stone argent with a figure representing Mercury of the same on a background sable, the whole surmounting a fess abased of the second, and Or issuant from base a lion rampant of the first armed and langued azure.
The main charge in the upper field is a simplified depiction of a Roman Viergötterstein (“four-god stone”) found in 1903 while the old church was being torn down. The silver fess (horizontal stripe) on the red field recalls the Sponheim and Electorate of Trier colours, a reference to two of the village's former lords. A third one is recalled by the composition in the lower field, namely the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves. Together these three lordships formed the Blood court of Hottenbach-Hellertshausen. After these two villages were separated, the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves were left with the greatest share of Hottenbach. Description and explanation of Hottenbach’s arms
A further decorative element in the church is the organ, built in 1782 by the Stumm family of organ builders from neighbouring Sulzbach.
Serving nearby Idar-Oberstein is a railway station, which as a Regional-Express and Regionalbahn stop, is linked by way of the Nahe Valley Railway (Bingen–Saarbrücken) to the Saarland and the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region. The Rhein-Nahe-Express running the Mainz-Saarbrücken route serves the station hourly. Every other train goes through to the main railway station in Frankfurt with a stop at Frankfurt Airport. Formerly, fast trains on the Frankfurt-Paris route had a stop at Idar-Oberstein.
To the north lie Bundesstraße 50 and Frankfurt-Hahn Airport.
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