Town council

The council is made up of 20 council members, who were elected at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.

The municipal election held on 7 June 2009 yielded the following results:^[5]

Mayors

Matthias Weber (FWG) was elected Stadtbürgermeister in June 2016. He is the successor of Jürgen Oberholz (FWG).^[6]

Coat of arms

The town's arms might be described thus: Per fess azure a demi-lion rampant sinister Or armed, langued and crowned gules and argent an uppercase letter F of the third between two bunches of grapes in fess of the first.

The crowned lion symbolizes the historical connection with the Electorate of the Palatinate, since this charge was that state's emblem (although it is halved here), while the F is, of course, the town's initial. The two bunches of blue grapes stand for the local winegrowing, which began quite early on with red wine varieties, which nowadays take up almost half of the cultivated vineyard area within the town.

The town's earliest seal comes from the early 15th century, and shows the arms borne by the local fiefholders, the Lords of Meckenheim. However, the current arms are based on the town's second seal, dating from 1446. Some versions since that time have shown roses instead of the grapes that appear now.

Historically, the Palatine Lion should be shown on a sable (black) field. When these arms were granted, though, the tinctures were not the traditional Palatine ones, but rather the Bavarian ones, as the town was part of the Kingdom of Bavaria at the time.

The arms have been borne since 1845.^[7]

• Town coat of arms
• Town flag
• Town "Banner" (vertical flag for hoisting from a horizontal pole)

Verbandsgemeinde

As seat of the Verbandsgemeinde of Freinsheim, Freinsheim is home to its administration. Belonging to the Verbandsgemeinde are the municipalities of Bobenheim am Berg, Dackenheim, Erpolzheim, Herxheim am Berg, Kallstadt, Weisenheim am Berg and Weisenheim am Sand.

Town partnerships

Freinsheim fosters partnerships with the following places:

• Marcigny, Saône-et-Loire, France
• Buttstädt, Sömmerda, Thuringia

Literature prize

In memory of one of Freinsheim's most important citizens, the Hermann-Sinsheimer-Preis has been awarded since 1983. Prizewinners thus far have been, among others, Siegfried Lenz, Hilde Domin, Carola Stern, Marcel Reich-Ranicki and Marion Gräfin Dönhoff.

Buildings

Regular events

Economy

Although winegrowing has been edging fruitgrowing out as the town's main agricultural endeavour since the mid 20th century, the town is nevertheless still the seat of one of Germany's great fruit juice producers. Today, Freinsheim is among the Palatinate’s biggest winegrowing centres. Because of the historic Old Town, meanwhile, tourism has also grown into an important economic factor.

Sons and daughters of the town

• Jacob Gottfried Weber (1779–1839), trained jurist, was a musician at the Mannheim Conservatory.
• Philipp Lorenz Geiger (1785–1836), chemist and pharmacist
• Philipp Tillmann (1809–died after 1881), politician
• Philipp Merkle (1811–1899), German-American Freethinker and preacher
• Hermann Sinsheimer (1883–1950), journalist and jurist, was editor-in-chief of Simplicissimus; in his honour Freinsheim awards the Hermann-Sinsheimer-Preis. In his Am Schwarzen Kreuz (“At the Black Cross”) stories, Sinsheimer wrote down his memories of his childhood in Freinsheim.
• Franz Lind (1900–1966), painter and sculptor
• Manfred Scherer (1951–), politician (CDU)

Famous people associated with the town

• Emil Bert Hartwig (1907–1996), painter, student of the master Paul Klee, lived in Freinsheim and died there.
• Friedrich Jossé [de] (1897–1994), painter and graphic artist, grew up in Freinsheim.