Kreuzwertheim

The municipality lies on the right bank of the river Main on the edge of the Spessart, across the river from the town of Wertheim in Baden-Württemberg.

Kreuzwertheim's Ortsteile are (with year of amalgamation and rough population figures):

• Kreuzwertheim, 2,844
• Unterwittbach, 1977, 207
• Wiebelbach, 1972, 201
• Röttbach, 1978, 569

The municipality has the following Gemarkungen (traditional rural cadastral areas): Kreuzwertheim, Röttbach, Unterwittbach, Wiebelbach.

As witnessed by finds of stone hatchets, human settlement in the municipal area goes as far back as the Stone Age. The first known description of the settlement names Werdheim, which can be taken to mean "homestead on the safe riverbank", referring to the community's location on the Main.

The municipality's first documentary mention came (quite likely) as early as 779 (as one of the Fulda Abbey's outlying holdings). Werdheim developed into the mother parish for the southeastern Spessart area, which itself was first overseen by the Bishop of Würzburg. In 1009 the town was conferred of market rights by King Heinrich II.[2]^:69

From the early 12th century, one branch of the Reginbodo noble family was naming itself after Wertheim. This family had a new defensive complex built on the Main's left bank, whereby, under this new protection, a new settlement arose, which soon took the name Werdheim. In 1192, today's town of Wertheim (across the river) was first mentioned as Suburbium castri Wertheim. About 1200 this was described as an oppidum (town) and in 1244 as a civitas.

Since this time, a new name has been found to better distinguish the municipality from the one just across the river, one that refers to the stone cross (Kreuz in German) on the marketplace. It was thereafter called Crucwertheim, Heiligen-Creuzeswertheim or also simply Creütz. After Wertheim was granted town rights in 1306, its counterpart across the Main slid into steep decline.

Kreuzwertheim Castle, residence of the Princes of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg since 1736

In 1368, Kreuzwertheim was awarded the right to coin silver Pfennige.[2]^:69

In 1736, the Schloss at Kreuzwertheim is built as a dowager house for the Countess of Lowenstein-Wertheim-Rochefort und Virneburg.

The former Amt of the Counts of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg was mediatized in favour of Prince Primate von Dalberg's Principality of Aschaffenburg in 1803 and passed in 1814 with this short-lived principality (by this time it had become a department of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt) to the Kingdom of Bavaria.

• since 2014 Klaus H. Thoma (independent, but nominated by CSU/Freie Wählervereinigung)
• 1996—2014 Horst E. Fuhrmann, CSU
• 1984—1996 Christa Schoenberg, CSU
• 1978—1984 Gerald Amarell, Freie Wählervereinigung
• 1972—1978 Hans Schneider, CSU (d. 1978)
• 1945—1972 Philipp Günzelmann, SPD
• 1925—1945 Georg Fröber
• 1906—1925 Andreas Dinkel
• 1888—1905 Georg M. Fröber

The community's arms might be described thus: Per fess in chief argent a Celtic cross barby issuant from the line of partition sable, in base azure three roses of the first seeded Or.

The municipality's oldest surviving seal dates from 1600, and it, too, bore the Celtic cross in reference to the one that still stands in the marketplace. The municipality's current arms, conferred in 1958, still bear this charge in the upper half of the escutcheon, and in the lower half are the arms once borne by the Counts of Wertheim.[3]