On the history of the village

The community of Kottweiler-Schwanden was first mentioned in a document in 1349. In the certificate, the knight Friedrich von Beilstein and his wife Grete waived their share of the property in Schwanden in favor of the Remigiusberg provost. At that time only part of the current district of Schwanden was meant, which is popularly known as the „Hagische Seit“ and was owned by the Veldenz Counts of Lauterecken. The other districts of Kottweiler, Hanbuchen (never settled), Steigen and the remaining part of Schwanden belonged to the Electoral Palatinate and the court of Steinwenden.
While in the centuries up to the outbreak of the Thirty Years‘ War (1615-1646) the population grew or remained stable, the acts of war led to a complete depopulation of the neighboring villages as well. The region was deserted. Only in 1684 is a repopulation of Kottweiler with two families documented. The place Steigen was considered to have sunk and the area was added to Kottweiler. Around the same time, the part of the Electoral Palatinate of Schwanden was repopulated by a family, a little later also „Lautereckisch Schwanden“. By 1700 the number of inhabitants rose to around 190. Around 1816, when the Palatinate belonged to Bavaria, it was no longer belonging to two different judicial districts. Only then the three places were combined to form the local community of Kottweiler-Schwanden.