Oberdiessbach

Geschichte

Oberdiessbach is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2010 the former municipality of Aeschlen and on 1 January 2014, Bleiken bei Oberdiessbach merged into the municipality of Oberdiessbach.HistoryOberdiessbach is first mentioned in 1218 as Tiecebac. Until 1870 it was known as Diessbach.Oberdiessbach, at that time known as Diessbach, was the center of the late medieval Herrschaft of Diessbach. In 1218 it first appears in a record when Hartmann IV of Kyburg inherited the court of Diessbach from the Zähringens. The village, the Herrschaft and the Castle Diessenberg on the Falkenfluh remained with the Kyburg family until they were given as a fief to the Ministerialis (unfree knights in the service of a feudal overlord) family of Senn von Münsingen. In 1331 the city of Bern attacked and destroyed the castle while expanding their power into the region. The Senn family remained in power over the valley for over forty years after the destruction of the castle. Beginning in 1378 the Herrschaft passed through several wealthy families until 1647 when the von Wattenwyl family acquired Diessbach. The high court in the Herrschaft was fully independent until 1471, when Bern forced it to acknowledge Bern's supremacy. A castle was built in valley in 1560 to rule over the Herrschaft. This castle was replaced in 1668 by a new castle (known as the Neues Schloss or Oberdiessbach Castle) under the direction of Albrecht von Wattenwyl. The von Wattenwyl family remained in the town over the following centuries. Around 1728 the country estate Diessenhof was built for a cadet branch of the family.