Niedermodern

The first recorded mention of the village, under the name “Matra Villa,” dates back to the year 773 and appears in a deed of donation to Wissembourg Abbey. In the Middle Ages, the village was under the rule of Otto III of Ochsenstein and Louis III of Lichtenberg. After several disputes over the division of the estate, ownership reverted to the lords of Lichtenberg and later to their successors, the Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg and the Counts of Hesse-Darmstadt, until the French Revolution.

In the meantime, the village suffered the ravages of the Thirty Years’ War and remained uninhabited for nearly a year after the passage of Lorraine troops, who plundered and burned the villages of Pfaffenhoffen and Niedermodern on August 10, 1633. The last episode of warfare to affect the village occurred in early 1945 during Operation “Nordwind,” when the Moder River temporarily served as a demarcation line between the American and German armies.

Economically, the village’s main activity was agriculture, carried out by a few medium-sized farms and several small farming operations. Some artisans, such as wheelwrights, blacksmiths, shoemakers, and tailors, also cultivated their own plots of land. In addition to grains, the village grew hemp, madder, tobacco, and hops.

The vineyard, which covered 25 hectares at the beginning of the 20th century, produced a well-regarded table wine. The completion in 1881 of the railroad line serving the Moder Valley changed the situation by encouraging the establishment and development of industrial activities. This led to the creation of the Léopold household goods factory at the western edge of the village. This business enabled many households to improve their incomes and employed as many as 800 workers in the early 1960s. But over the years, the company fell into decline and eventually ceased operations in 2001.

Since then, the site has been completely demolished and is expected to make way for a retail store. Many businesses from that era (shoe stores, breweries, etc.) suffered the same fate during the 1970s and ’80s, plunging the Val de Moder into recession—a trend that reversed over the past decade with the development of an intermunicipal business park built at the eastern edge of Niedermodern.