Zilshausen is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kastellaun. Geography Location The municipality lies on a high plateau in the northern Hunsrück between the valleys of the Lützbach to the east and the Dünnbach to the west. Constituent communities Zilshausen has one outlying Ortsteil named Petershäuser Hof. History The village arose from an agricultural estate, which was mentioned in a document from 1346 as Zullinshausen. Zilshausen may well have belonged to the so-called “three-lord” territory, which was shared by three landholders, among them the Electorate of Trier and the House of Braunshorn-Metternich-Beilstein. This arrangement was brought to an end by the French Revolutionary occupation of lands on the Rhine’s left bank in 1794. In 1814 Zilshausen was assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia at the Congress of Vienna. In 1933, Nazism was welcomed in Zilshausen. That year, eight men from the village joined the Sturmabteilung and on 9 November, the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, there was a memorial celebration for the “heroes” who fell in Munich that day. Three days later, there was an election, which included a referendum on Adolf Hitler’s policies of withdrawing from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference. Ninety-five percent of the voters – the turnout was 98% – supported Hitler. The village chronicle comments: Unfortunately, two men had even voted “no”. They were seemingly not satisfied with the Hitler régime, or had decided thus out of a lack of understanding. The anti-tank barriers put up at the ways into the village could not stave off Zilshausen’s conquest forever, and on 16 March 1945, the Second World War ended, at least for Zilshausen, when the village was overrun by American forces, only a day after German soldiers here had fled their posts. Since 1946, Zilshausen has been part of the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Before 1 July 2014, when it was assigned to the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis, it was part of the Cochem-Zell district. Politics Municipal council The council is made up of 8 council members, who were elected by majority vote at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman. Coat of arms The German blazon reads: Ein silbernes Schildhaupt, darin ein durchgehendes rotes Kreuz belegt mit einer goldenen Lilie,