From 50 BC to AD 450 – fully 500 years – the Romans held sway in the region, for a time even under Emperor Augustus.

For a short time, Germanic tribes dwelt in the region before having to give way to the Franks, who founded new villages and farms, worked very hard, and were the lords at all the estates.

Desloch was in the Early Middle Ages the seat of a high court of the Waldgraves and the Counts Palatine.

Even today, the local speech refers to the place before the church as Auf der Linde (“At the Limetree”).

In the 16th century, Desloch, which hitherto had belonged to the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves at Kyrburg since 1128, was acquired through marriage by the Counts Palatine of Zweibrücken, who then annexed it to Meisenheim.

After the Thirty Years' War, the Count Palatine of Zweibrücken organized some immigration for the now depopulated region, bringing people from the Tyrol, Switzerland, Italy, France and Holland to settle the land.

After the German campaign in the Napoleonic Wars, Desloch, together with the rest of the region south of the Nahe, passed as the Oberamt of Meisenheim to the Landgraves of Hesse-Homburg, to whom the village and region belonged for 50 years before passing in 1866 first to the Grand Duchy of Hesse and then, later that same year, to the Kingdom of Prussia.

Oben zwei einander zugewandte Löwen, einen fünfstrahligen Stern in der mitte in vertauschten Farben haltend.

Both bore the lion as an heraldic device, the Waldgraves a red one on a gold field, seen in Desloch's arms as the charge on the sinister (armsbearer's left, viewer's right) side, and the Counts Palatine of Zweibrücken a gold one on a black field, seen here as the charge on the dexter (armsbearer's right, viewer's left) side, although in Desloch's arms, he has been turned round to become “sinister” (facing heraldic left) so that the two lion charges in the arms are “combatant”.

Thus, the two lions in the arms hold a star (“mullet of five” in blazon), while two others appear on the trimount to fill in what would otherwise be empty space.

[10] The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[11] The Desloch church, aligned towards the north, lies somewhat hidden on the main road going towards Jeckenbach.

Anyone entering the church itself through the entrance on the east side is surprised and impressed by the unexpected wealth of artistic creativity that has gone into the windows and visual art inside.

Information about the former church that once stood on this same spot, renovated in 1663/1664 and torn down in 1747, comes from a plan dating from the year of its demolition.

The appointments in the church, with a small pulpit on a sandstone pedestal, a plain altar table and a stand for a baptismal bowl with a brass lid, all made of wood, had a rather humble look to them.

The Desloch church's plain and cold-looking interior décor motivated Manfred Herzhoff, then the pastor, to contact his friend Vilmo Gibello in the late 1970s.

The Reverend Manfred Herzhoff arranged for the room in the Desloch Evangelical church that Vilmo Gibello sought for his work, and also put the municipality in touch with his artist friend.

On 17 May 1981, the “oil paintings created on wooden tables and the stained glass designed on new indoor windows – united into a cycle of Biblical motifs from Creation to Revelation, the end of the world” were presented to the congregation during a church service.

As for the artist himself, he is spending his twilight years at his house near Málaga in southern Spain’s Andalusia, and despite his great age, he still creates, making the proceeds of any sale of his artworks available to charitable bodies.