Darscheid

Darscheid
Coat of arms
Darscheid
Location of Darscheid within Vulkaneifel district
Coordinates: 50°12′52″N 6°53′28″E / 50.21444°N 6.89111°E / 50.21444; 6.89111Coordinates: 50°12′52″N 6°53′28″E / 50.21444°N 6.89111°E / 50.21444; 6.89111
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Vulkaneifel
Municipal assoc.	Daun
Government
• Mayor	Manfred Thönnes
Area
• Total	5.80 km2 (2.24 sq mi)
Elevation	490 m (1,610 ft)
Population (2015-12-31)
• Total	831
• Density	140/km2 (370/sq mi)
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes	54552
Dialling codes	06592
Vehicle registration	DAU
Website	www.darscheid.de

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

The municipality lies in the Vulkaneifel, a part of the Eifel known for its volcanic history, geographical and geological features, and even ongoing activity today, including gases that sometimes well up from the earth. The Alfbach also rises nearby.

Darscheid’s parish and school chronicle tells a story about how the three villages in the Alfbach’s headwaters came into being. Three brothers, the reader is told, came and settled here from faraway lands and divided the land amongst themselves, saying “Hier ist ein Scheid, da ist ein Scheid und unten ist für alle ein Scheid.” (“Here is a share, there is a share and below is for all a share”). From these “shares” or “splits” arose three farms that later grew into villages: Hörscheid (Hier + Scheid), Darscheid (Da + Scheid) and Allscheid (Alle + Scheid).

More steadily based in historical fact, though, is the Celtic presence in the area. They settled the Eifel as livestock raisers, and it may be assumed that they were in what is now Darscheid as well, as witnessed by the barrows in the nearby Lehwald (woods), which were explored in the late 19th century and determined to date from the early Iron Age – Hallstatt times.

In the Middle Ages, Darscheid was quite a poor village out in the heath, like so many in the Eifel. Thatched timber-frame houses gathered around a 14th-century chapel. Darscheid had its first documentary mention in 1354, at which time it lay under the Counts of Daun. After they died out in 1420, the lordship passed to the Counts of Manderscheid. There followed a long period of serfdom, compulsory labour and economic woes. Even after serfdom was abolished, things got no better, and many people heeded the promises of a better life from Empress Maria Theresa’s settler recruiter in 1754 and left the village for a new life in Hungary.