Historical facts about the town of Dingelstädt

Today´s rural municipality of ‘Stadt Dingelstädt’, with its ten villages Beberstedt, Bickenriede, Dingelstädt, Helmsdorf, Hüpstedt, Kefferhausen, Kreuzebra, Silberhausen,

Struth and Zella, belonged to the core area of the former Eichsfeldgau. This was first documented in 897. The villages of Dingelstädt and Kreuzebra were already mentioned in a register of goods of the monastery of Fulda in the year 817.
The Eichsfeld, and with it the villages of our town and its inhabitants, have been significantly characterised by the 500-year affiliation (1294-1802) to the Electorate of Mainz.

The peasants’ revolt in 1525 also affected the Eichsfeld and the “new doctrine”, the Reformation, found many followers here. After establishing the principle that the sovereign determined the religion of his subjects in the the religious peace of Augsburg in 1555, the Elector of Mainz and Archbishop of Mainz Daniel Brendel von Homburg began the Counter-Reformation in 1574. Thanks to the work of the Jesuits in particular, the Eichsfeld had become Catholic again by 1611, with the exception of a few aristocratic villages and parts of the Duderstadt burghers.

This Catholic ‘island’ in the midst of Protestant lands had dire consequences for the land and its people, especially during the Thirty Years’ War. During this war, the population of the Eichsfeld was reduced to around 1/3 of its pre-war level. Numerous houses and churches had fallen into ruin and many fields were no longer cultivated.

Valentin Degenhardt introduced commercial weaving in the Eichsfeld at 1682. This new trade led to a rapid increase in the population. In addition to wool combing mills, manufactories for fulling, dyeing and printing fabrics settled in the villages along the Unstrut. The ‘hilltop villages’, on the other hand, were more characterised by home-based weaving.
With the dissolution of the ecclesiastical principalities as a result of the French Revolution, the Eichsfeld became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1802. The Protestant-influenced Prussian officials showed little understanding for the Catholic Eichsfelders. As a result, the Eichsfelders developed their own identity, which was often critical of the authorities. In 1816, the administrative division into districts took place. As a result, today’s ten villages of our town, which had belonged to the Mainz district of Gleichenstein for over 500 years, were seperated into three different districts: Heiligenstadt, Mühlhausen and Worbis. With the district reform in 1994, the villages then belonged to the Eichsfeld and Unstrut-Hainich districts.

The town of Dingelstädt with ten villages, as mentioned at the beginning, has only existed  since January 2024. What happened before?

In 2019, the localities (Dingelstädt, Helmsdorf, Kefferhausen, Kreuzebra, Silberhausen) of the Dingelstädt administrative community formed the new rural municipality of ‘Stadt Dingelstädt’. Following a citizens’ survey, which was overwhelmingly approved by the residents, Beberstedt, Bickenriede, Hüpstedt and Zella joined the rural municipality of “Stadt Dingelstädt” in 2022. The municipality of Struth followed in 2024. For some villages, this also meant a change of district – they now all belong to the Eichsfeld.

Today, the town of Dingelstädt has a population of around 12.800 inhabitants.