Saturday, July 5, 2014

Luzenhart

A number of my relatives were born and raised in Luzenhart and I was lucky to find a good history of the area and community on the web. The history of Luzenharttes back to 8th and 3rd century BC. My family lived in the town around the 1600 through 1700's. The community had remained Catholic during the Reformation when it was under the Austrian rule. During the thirty year war and war of the Palatine, South West Germany suffered tremendously. Villages were burned, people were terrorized and then the plague broke out in the middle of the 17th century. Wurttemberg whose population was 450,000 went down to 100,000. Then once again war broke out when France tried to extend its boundaries. Luzenhart was surrounded by Protestant towns at this time. In 1722 there was a tremendous fire which burned the forest in the Luzenhart area. By 1750 Luzenhart was converted from a farm to a village. There was a rapid rise in the number of basket weavers, broom craftsmen and flint dealers. There was an invasion of the feudal lord in 1784 and in 1789 there was an outbreak of the French Revolution and Wuttemberg joined Austria in the war.