Montabaur lies in the Westerwald, roughly 20 km northeast of Koblenz. About 14,000 people live in the city, while the district is home to about 40,000.
Constituent communities
Montabaur has seven outlying centres. In the north lies Eschelbach, and in the west lie Horressen and Elgendorf. Stretching south along the Gelbach valley are the pilgrimage centre of Wirzenborn, and, farther along still, Reckenthal, Bladernheim and Ettersdorf.
Montabaur's Old Town (Altstadt) is famed for its Gothic RevivalRoter Löwe ("Red Lion") town hall, many timber-frame houses from the 16th and 17th centuries and the great Late GothicCatholic parish church. The mediaeval town wall is preserved in parts, including the Wolfsturm ("Wolf's Tower").
The Montabaur Stadthalle (literally "town hall", but actually an event venue) is intended for various functions such as conferences, concerts, theatre and other events. The historic Wolfsturm is at the townsfolk's disposal and can be hired for use.
Castle
Schloss Montabaur [de] was the seat of the district administrator's office of the old Unterwesterwaldkreis [de] until 1945 before becoming the seat of the Montabaur district government. Today, it is owned by the Akademie Deutscher Genossenschaften [de] ('Academy of German Co-operatives'), which has expanded it for use as a 4-star conference hotel and training centre for the German Cooperative Financial Group. It stands in a prominent position above the town on the Schlossberg ('Castle Mountain') at 321 m above sea level.
The town has a history that can be traced back to the year 959, with the Montabaur fort castellum Humbacense. The Archbishop-Elector of Trier, Dietrich von Wied, who came back from a Crusade in the Holy Land about 1217, had the humbacense castle newly built and named it Mons Tabor for its similarity to Mount Tabor in Israel, said to be the place of the Transfiguration of Jesus. Out of this grew Montabaur. In 1291, King Rudolf von Habsburg (1218–1291) granted Montabaur, as well as Welschbillig, Mayen, Bernkastel and Saarburg, town rights, so that the village became a town with its own coat of arms and a town wall.
In 1802 with the dissolution of the Archbishopric-Electorate of Trier the princes of Nassau took power in Montabaur and annexed it to the Duchy of Nassau in 1806. With Prussia annexing Nassau in 1866 Montabaur became part of the Wiesbaden Region within the Province of Hesse-Nassau. In 1945 the western Allies partitioned the northwestern part of the Wiesbaden Region with Montabaur and annexed it to the new German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The partitioned part of the Wiesbaden Region then formed the Montabaur Region (as of 1946) seated in Montabaur. In 1968 the Montabaur Region, one of the originally five Regierungsbezirke of Rhineland-Palatinate, was dissolved and its territory annexed to the adjacent Koblenz Region.
Until early 2004, Montabaur was furthermore a Bundeswehr station with the Westerwaldkaserne, where the Raketenartilleriebataillon 350 (RakArtBtl 350) and, later, maintenance units were stationed.
The earliest forerunner of the building nowadays used as a Catholic parish church was a wooden church built in 940. In 959 followed another church building on this spot, this time with a stone foundation. Today's church was built between the 12th and 14th centuries. The oldest parts of the building display Romanesque style elements, although the church's overall character is Early Gothic. Peculiarities in the décor are a Doomsday painting above the quire arch and a stone Madonna, both remnants of the original décor, as well as a wooden Madonna from about 1450. The parish church has been lavishly renovated and now shines with a new radiance.
Brüderkirche (Catholic), "Brethren's Church", House of God used by the order known as the Barmherzige Brüder Montabaur ("Montabaur Merciful Brethren")
The churchyard's former funerary chapel was built in 1300 and given timber-frame work on the sides and top in the 17th and 18th centuries, which housed the parish vicars' dwellings. Today it is part of the house façade southeast of the parish church.
Marien-Wallfahrtskirche (pilgrimage church) in the outlying centre of Wirzenborn in the Gelbach valley.
Cultural institutions
Amateur theatre "Die Oase"
Stadtbücherei (town library)
Haus der Jugend ("House of Youth")
Katholische öffentliche Bücherei (Catholic public library)
Stadtarchiv (town archive)
Stadthalle Haus Mons-Tabor (event venue)
Akademie für Darstellende Kunst Schauspielwerkstatt e.V. ("Academy for Representative Art" Exhibition Workshop)
The routes are certified by the Deutscher Nordic Walking Nordic Inline Verband (DNV) and range from the shortest route, the 2.36-km fitness path to the longest, the 11.16-km Biebrichskopf-Route. Integrated into the Montabaur Nordic-Walking-Park, too, is the 10-km-long Münz-Sylvesterlauf jogging path.
Cycling paths run from Montabaur though the Gelbach valley to the Lahn valley.
Big municipal primary school of Montabaur (in 2006, 370 pupils, 16 classes) with a preschool kindergarten class, voluntary all-day school Monday-Thursday until 16:00 including lunch, homework supervision, supervised free time and many further educational offerings. Integrated foreign-language work in English and French. Partner school: École Louis Pasteur in Tonnerre, Burgundy.
Waldschule (primary school and Hauptschule) in outlying centre of Horressen
The Peter-Altmeier-Gymnasium Montabaur was until 1999 an Aufbaugymnasium (a Gymnasium for former Realschule students who want to upgrade their secondary education with an Abitur). As of 1991, the first music students came into the fifth class; these first music students did their Abitur in 2000.
Maximilian Sauerborn (1889–1963), jurist, administrative official and politician
Anton Diel (1898–1959), politician, 1949–59 Member of the Bundestag
August Kunst (1898–1980), politician, 1957–61 Member of the Bundestag
Heinz König (1927–2002), economist, Rector of the University of Mannheim, founding father of the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim
