With few exceptions, they go back, like the village's foremost landmark, the Baroque simultaneous church St. Laurentius (Saint Lawrence's), to the municipality's heyday in the 18th century, towards the end of which Dirmstein apparently held town rights for two decades, although some sources are disputed.

Until this time, there had been a flat, pondlike broadening of the brook's bed south of the church on the Affenstein (a street), next to the village thoroughfare in which carriages could be cleansed of sand and loam buildup.

The in itself unimposing river Floßbach, coming from Obersülzen and also known locally as the Landgraben, which flows round Dirmstein in the north and on the village's eastern outskirts empties into the Eckbach from the left, was in the latter half of the 20th century straightened.

[7] The most important event in the eastern Palatinate's geological development was the rifting and downfaulting relative to the surrounding low mountains of the Upper Rhine Plain, whose onset was some 65,000,000 years ago in the Lower Tertiary and which has lasted until today.

The uppermost – dry – layers of earth warm up more quickly, promoting sugar formation in the grapes, and the vines must root deeper to reach enough moisture, which is advantageous to the absorption of minerals.

Since it was raised onto an embankment with an average height over the flanking lands of 5 m in the latter half of the 20th century, it has been a conspicuous barrier running across the Upper Rhine Plain to the Palatinate Forest, pierced only by a few underpasses.

Charlemagne’s grandson, King of the Franks Charles the Bald, and later also Emperor, who had just met with his half-brother Louis the German in nearby Worms, issued on 23 November 842 letters patent to the Archbishop of Vienne, Agilmar (tenure: 841–859), for landholdings in Aquitaine and Burgundy "in villa Theormsthein" or "Thiormsthein".

Their name is chiselled in stone at several historic buildings in Dirmstein, as it is on the gateway arch into the Spitalhof ("infirmary yard") and on the wall at today’s Fechtschule (literally "swordfighting school", but it is a remodelled castle) at the Kellergarten.

Beginning in the 15th century, the nobility’s representatives formed an area of joint rule, called a Ganerbschaft, whose assemblies were held in a forerunner building to the St. Michael Apotheke built in 1535.

Caspar Lerch was a prominent representative of his family, first as Chamberlain of the Bishop of Speyer, then as Electorate of Mainz Amtmann in Tauberbischofsheim and finally as director of the Knightly Canton of the Upper Rhine (Ritterkanton Oberrhein).

He had his alleged success immortalized in 1738 on Castle Sturmfeder’s gateway, the Michelstor – along with many inscriptions – in the form of a sculpture of a victorious struggle over the devil, which according to contemporaries bears the then mayor’s facial features.

Dirmstein has the interdenominational coöperation between the Catholic Prince-Bishop of Worms and the Protestant Elector, which happened despite an end being put to the condominium, to thank for its famous simultaneous church, St. Laurentius (Saint Lawrence’s).

Taking over from the nobles, whom the French had dispossessed were nouveau riche members of the upmarket citizenry, who expanded the castles and manor houses that had been auctioned off, enlarged park facilities and laid out new ones.

[11] In connection with the Second World War, there are two stories worth mentioning because they so thoroughly contrast with each other: The former prisoner of war Stanisław Świątek (born 1920) from the now Polish city of Szczecin (formerly the German city of Stettin), who from 1940 onwards had spent five years in Dirmstein, maintained a lifelong friendship with the village for more than half a century because of his good experiences, and he conveyed to young fellow countrymen and countrywomen, whom he brought along on visits, his outlook on international understanding.

[13] Against that heartwarming story, however, comes another about an RAF tail gunner named Sergeant Cyril William Sibley (born 1923), who was wounded in captivity after his Halifax bomber was shot down, and then murdered by Nazi Ortsgruppenleiter Adolf Wolfert.

On 1 December 1998, the filling station at the northeast entrance to the village was so heavily damaged by a truck that it had to be closed for a week and the building renovation was only finished early the following year.

The placename developed through many variations, of which a few notable ones have been chosen for this article: In 842 came the first dated documentary mention of the village in a document signed by King of the Franks Charles the Bald "in villa Theormsthein" or "Thiormsthein".

The Palatine Lion on the dexter (armsbearer's right, viewer's left) side and the key as a symbol of the bishop's office and Saint Peter’s attribute on the sinister (armsbearer’s left, viewer’s right) side together stand for the condominium under which Electoral Palatinate and the Bishopric of Worms, whose patron saint was Peter, jointly held the local lordship for three centuries.

The "vair nebuly" fur in the base of the escutcheon is meant to look like three complete and two cut-off silver helmets on a red background such as those once worn by the local resident lower nobility.

An expert opinion obtained at the municipality's request showed in 2007[29] that the version seen in the Großes Wappenbuch der Pfalz was erroneous and did not match the historical example, whereupon the district administration issued the above-cited decree.

[32] Responsible, about 1790, for the Kellergarten, which is also undergoing renovations and is another of the once seven English gardens in the municipality, was Metzger's even more famous professional colleague Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell.

The early mediaeval grave fields mentioned earlier lay some 300 m north and northwest of the forks of the Eckbach and Floßbach, and therefore not far from the area where later arose the Lower Village.

In the area of the road leading out of the village to the northwest (Obersülzer Straße) is a steep, south-facing loess wall, which stands as a biotope for many kinds of warmth-loving insects, among them solitary wild bees and digger wasps.

Above all, the Kulturverein St. Michael Dirmstein (cultural club) busies itself in many fields and invites the public to appearances by its historical dance troupe, to literary evenings and music at the Schlosspark.

Bigger events are held at the Unterhaardter Festhalle (UHF), which stands south of Saint Lawrence's Church on the edge of the village centre and can seat several hundred visitors.

Among the venues for the German-French concert series "Printemps Rhénan – Rheinischer Frühling" (both of which mean "Rhenish Spring" in French and German respectively) is Saint Lawrence's Church.

At the Schlosspark, an outdoor concert of the "palatiajazz" series is held every year at which the original Blues Brothers Band, Branford Marsalis and Cassandra Wilson have appeared.

The fostering of the local speech is taken very seriously in the municipality: several writers who were born here or who have settled here are among the prizewinners at the Palatine dialectal poetry contests and are continually giving readings in the Council Chamber, where there are also literary events dealing with High German.

Since 2003, a local winery has been successfully cultivating the variety Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains, which originally came from Asia Minor and is actually regarded as a warmth-loving Mediterranean plant.

For evenings and late at night there has been since September 2006 a callable taxi service to and from the railway stations in Frankenthal and Kirchheim an der Weinstraße, which likewise accepts VRN tickets.