Kaisersesch - History

History

The place where Kaisersesch now stands was once a crossroads in prehistoric and Roman times. A Roman presence is known to have existed here from a gravesite and a water supply line that have been unearthed.

In the Early Middle Ages, Asche, as it was once known, was among the Lotharingian county palatine’s holdings. Sometime between 1051 and 1056, Esch, as it came to be known, had its first documentary mention in a donation document dealing with the Ezzonid heiress Richeza’s great donation to the Brauweiler Monastery near Cologne. Beginning in 1294, Esch was a court centre in the Electorate of Trier. In 1320, it was heavily fortified, and the following year, on Archbishop Balduin’s instigation, it was granted town rights by King Louis the Bavarian. Thereafter, the town was known as Kaisersesch (“Emperor’s Esch”), although locals sometimes still call it simply Esch even today.

In the Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession), the town was all but utterly destroyed in 1689 by the French. Beginning in 1794, Kaisersesch lay under French rule, under which it was stripped of its town rights. In 1815 it was assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia at the Congress of Vienna.

In 1895, the Andernach-Gerolstein railway reached Kaisersesch, and the town began to develop as an important regional centre in the eastern Eifel, which was the first economic boost that the town had had since its destruction in the Nine Years' War.

Since 1946, Kaisersesch has been part of the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. On 22 November 1997, Kaisersesch was granted town rights once again.