Town hall of Blotzheim

The Town hall of Blotzheim is a historic building of the town of Blotzheim

In the Middle Ages, there existed with Blotzheim a very strong proportion of free men. As of the 13th century, these Middle-class men organize themselves to manage their communal goods which they distribute according to very strict uses. They had the basic duty justice and of civil justice on their grounds. The provost must consequently compose with “his middle-class men”, thus appears a municipal capacity chaired by a “mayor” assisted aldermen (of noble of the village). Those needed a meeting room to deliberate and return justice: the “belfry”, ancestor of the town halls.

The first “common house”, located a little in withdrawal of the current town hall, become too small, the notable ones of the city decided to set up in 1609 the building inaugurated today: a solid masonry out of stones, without foundations, with the very thick walls (more than one meter at the ground floor). The elegant frontage was bored of three doors:

the central door gave access to the whole of the parts of the ground floor and with the driving staircase with the upper floor (the restored current staircase, date of the eighteenth century),
the big room on the floor was used as deposit of weapons and ammunition with the guard of Blotzheim.
the door of right-hand side opened on the room of the firemen, prolonged by the prison of the village.
the door of left gave access the room deliberations, which was transformed into court on the occasion.

On the pediment of the main entrance was engraved the date of construction and the name of his/her fathers; in first place that of the provost appeared of! Blotzheim, the “Vogt” Nicolaus Muller, which were to die in 1624, victim of the plague like 202 other Blotzheimois.

Between 1680 and 1690, Louis XIV granted, against payment, the armorial bearings of the town of Blotzheim. The Middle-class men made them engrave on the frontage of the building; they were of sand on money bottom, presenting a surmounted hollow triangle of a pattée cross, meaning “Ora and Labora”. This currency points out the “Laborare is Orare” (work is a sanctification) what leaves think that the “house of the Middle-class men” was between good hands: the noble ones which fights and defends, the clerks who request and populates it which works.

Construction survived the successive wars and plunderings. It was even one of the rare houses of Blotzheim still intact after the Thirty year old war and especially after the invasion of the Swedes. At that time, the peasants of Blotzheim and the surroundings, gathered to revolt against the posted Swedes with Hésingue. They wanted to protect their families and their goods. But the assessment of the punitive countryside of the invaders against refractories was very full of consequences. One counted nearly 900 killed peasants, of many prisoners and all the village was put at fire and blood. The cruel Swedes tortured the peasants, either in their making swallow liquid manure using a funnel (Schwedendrunk), or by emptying the belly of condemned its entrails until dead follows from there (Kuttelrausgraben), others still were burned alives in their houses. As for the “chiefs” (approximately 80), they were hung high and runs to the trees of the round of applause of Blotzheim

Despite everything these disorders, the provost and the Middle-class men of the city met to treat the financial and criminal businesses; in these extracts testify to the departmental records of Haut-Rhin:

In 1608, the council sits on the business of Wolfgang bastard H., after his death, for the repurchase of its goods per Louis K. who had looked after it.
In 1629, the community joins together the council for a hunting rights disputed on an island of the Rhine.
In 1660, the court engages a lawsuit, under the aegis of the provost of Blotzheim, against a marked man of inceste.
During the Revolution, the partisans sowed terror in the city. The peasants remained faithful to the Church were persecuted. The dissidents were imprisoned after judgment of the local revolutionary tribunal.
During the formation of the Commune, the “house of the Middle-class men” became the town hall of Blotzheim.
In 1885, the building was altered first once.
About 1905-1906, it was seriously restored.
on July 14th, 1919, day of the first celebration of the national festival in released Alsace, a tree of freedom was planted in front of the building.
On the photographs, going back to 1926, one notes that the arched side doors, the pediment, the balustrade of the roof and the two long chimneys, are still present.
the Town hall damaged at the beginning of the second world war, was rebuilt since 1942-1943 with materials of recovery, it is undoubtedly at this time that the bell-tower was added. The inscriptions engraved on the walls of the prison undoubtedly attest that between 1944 and 1946, several prisoners there were imprisoned, on standby transfer in prisons.
In November 1986, the administrative services of the town hall are transferred street from the Rhine. The interior of the building is refitted, two escutcheons with the weapons of the city are again affixed on the frontage and the renovated bell-tower is equipped with a bell sounding the hours, the marriages ........
In 2005, of work of handing-over to the standards are carried out.

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