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After belonging for some years under French rule to the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Monzingen, Auen passed under the terms of the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the Prussian Amt of Monzingen, which governed it for 154 years. Although Auen is a very old village, it was only in the 19th century that it blossomed into one of the Nahe region's agricultural and winegrowing hubs. The planting of vineyards promised a good secondary income earner, although a grape seed from about 1500 BC had already been found in the municipality along with some grain. The stonemason's craft, too, flourished at the quarries around Auen. In the mid 19th century, finished capitals and stones were delivered from these to Cologne Cathedral. Thirty-nine small farms grew what was needed. New farm lanes that afforded readier access were laid to make farmwork easier. A few farmers received certificates about 1900 for good yields. Beginning in 1770, 31 inhabitants emigrated. Out of 180 inhabitants, eight fell in the First World War and two went missing in action. In the Second World War, of the 56 soldiers from Auen, 23 fell and 4 went missing. In the course of the 1969 administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate, Auen was grouped into the Verbandsgemeinde of Bad Sobernheim. In 1993, the Auener Chronik, the village chronicle, was published. In recent years, Auen has grown into a residential community fit for tourism that has still not lost its rustic character.^[11]

Saint Willigis’s Chapel

The Chapel was formerly known as the Geh in Kirche or the Getzbach/Götzbach Kirche. Archbishop and Chancellor Willigis from Mainz saw on his inspectional and informational journeys through his rather vast and extensive region that there was already good and eager religious activity, yet there was also a certain lack of gathering places such as churches and other centres of worship to shore up and foster the consolidation of Christian life, especially in outlying areas. On the river Nahe at the bigger centres, the odd church could already be found, but of course, these were simply not enough to serve all believers. It is clear that wherever the former monastery could draw income, there rose, too, the first churches, as in Meckenbach, Hundsbach and Bollenbach. Disibodenberg Abbey, which had risen once again, and which is said to have been Willigis's favourite monastery, was richly furnished with estates, income and tithes. It was up to the canons to spread their influence out from this hub, and thus every thread of their dealings now ran from their monastic seat. In the wild and untamed outlands of the Soon, no income from the old monastic landholds was forthcoming that Willigis could have used. He therefore sought a suitable place, finding it within the limits of the old royal estate of Monzingen, near the village of Auen, owned by a cleric named Wizelin. From this secular priest, Willigis bought an oxgang of land, which he must have found very convenient. In the 1128 document that first mentions Auen, the text does not go into church buildings on the newly acquired lot. It does, however, make clear that there was such a sale. It can be assumed, indeed it is likely, that Willigis found that there were still buildings or ruins on the land from Roman times and he thus had no great difficulty building a church. Furthermore, there were quarries right nearby. It is known today that these buildings that the archbishop would have found here would have been of Roman origin. Perhaps, too, in this outlying area, they had survived the upheavals of the intervening time and had not sustained any serious damage. New knowledge came to light at the time of the renovation in 1978-1979, which yielded rich, informative finds that left no doubt but that the existing foundations are partly of Roman origin. It seems clear that even Willigis would have had qualms about coming to this forsaken land to build a church when even by the 16th century, records were still being made about how dangerous it was there for clergymen on their way to services. Willigis, so the story goes, consecrated this church in which he had put such great hope and named it Geh-in-Kirche (or Gehinkirche, but either way, meaning “Go-To-Church”) as an everlasting reminder to attend church assiduously, wanting as he did to deepen the Soonwald people's understanding of Christian teaching (it should perhaps be pointed out that the verb form, Geh, is in the imperative mood). On the other hand, differing opinions have it that this name is not original, but rather that it came from the local dialect, somehow linked to the name Getzbach or Götzbach, as the local brook was called. Anyone from outside or who was otherwise unfamiliar with the area would not quite gather anything meaningful from either of those names when applied to a church, for a name ending in —bach (“brook”), while it might suit a village or a homestead – and would certainly suit a brook – did not quite go with a church. Whatever the old name's genesis was, when the chapel was reconstructed early in the 20th century – by which time it had fallen into ruin – it was realized in 1913 that no church had ever been consecrated to Willigis (it is true, though, that although he is often called “Saint Willigis”, he has never actually been canonized). So, the two Catholic dioceses concerned, Trier and Mainz, agreed to give the chapel its new name: Willigis-Kapelle (Saint Willigis's Chapel), after its builder. The new name, if it can still be called “new” after more than a century, is of the three names mentioned here still not the most widely used, which goes to show that new names do not always quickly sweep old ones away. “Getzbach”, despite any confusion that it may have caused earlier, is still the preferred name for the chapel among locals (“Ich gehe auf die Getzbach” – “I’m going to the Getzbach”). The new and thus far only church was the hub of a great spiritual guidance area that stretched far across the Soonwald, all the way to Gehlweiler, taking in the centres of not only Auen and Gehlweiler but also Daubach, Eckweiler (forsaken in the late 20th century), Pferdsfeld (likewise), Winterburg, Ippenschied, Seesbach, Kellenbach and further places that later vanished. Churchgoers had to walk for hours to reach the chapel for services. The dead were buried at the church, too. There was a lichway (a path along which the dead were taken to the church and/or graveyard^[17][18]) running from the Soon to the church. The church soon became too small and Willigis had another church built near Seesbach, the Sementis-Kapelle. It had been assumed that the church stood alone, away from the village of Auen. However, given what was found during excavations for the retention basin, which brought to light ample material, it is now believed that a few houses and buildings stood on the other side of the brook. This is also seen in the water supply for the Kneipp wading basin that formerly served people over there. Many documents are on hand dealing with the chapel's history. A timeline has been constructed out of some of them here:

• 1128 — Founding of the Geh in Kirche
• 1259 — Archbishop Gerhard reserves the right to appoint the parish priest
• 1273 — Sir Philipp, called Paffe, forgoes tithes
• 1339 — Foundation of the Mass
• 1400 — Willigis's building supposedly burns down; reconstructed with nave in the Gothic style
• 1501 — Synodic Weistum
• 1515 — Synodic court
• 1552 — Last priest, Venter, departs (Reformation); becomes first Reformed pastor in Pferdsfeld, after selling everything off with the Schultheiß of Auen
• 1560 — Reformation is introduced
• 1564 — Niklas von Schmittburg has the right to appoint the pastor and is “collator”
• 1568 — Parish seat is moved to Eckweiler when the rectory burns down
• 1602 — Complaint about the church building's bad condition
• 1608 — Church is on the point of collapse
• 1630 — Reconstruction or renovation
• 1685 — Copies of the 1501 Weistum by Gehlweiler, which instigated secession

In the graveyard, people from Eckweiler, Daubach, Auen and the Soonwald were henceforth also buried. Now and then, a funeral sermon was still delivered in the ruin, as it was for Friedrich Wilhelm Utsch (“the Hunter from Electoral Palatinate”), as was a yearly sermon. The church, however, kept on falling further into disrepair. People removing the stone for their own building projects also did not help. A listing from 1876 gives a clear indication of how heavy the damage to the church was, and slowly, efforts arose to reconstruct it once again. In a relatively short time, this was finally done and the church was consecrated on 15 September 1912. The building work proceeded without much care taken as to old relics, and certainly a certain amount of destruction of important things resulted. Now, though, there were once more weekly services, weddings, christenings and burials. Through both world wars, little importance was placed on maintaining the building, and so considerable disrepair began to show up once more. In 1977 and 1979, a general overhaul by the parish of Rehbach and make-work measures were carried out. During this work, finds from early history were made, some of them important, including proof that the church stood on Roman foundations; even Celtic material was unearthed. At the Priorhof (Bad Sobernheim’s town museum) an exhibit of the most important finds is on loan. Lying buried at the little forest graveyard are Friedrich Wilhelm Utsch, called “the Hunter from Electoral Palatinate”, and his wife and two children.^[19]

Evangelical church

The Lapis Primarius (“Foundation Stone”) Evangelical church has an end window by Röhrig/Bensberg