Hennweiler's municipal area, measuring slightly over 14 km2, is the biggest in the Verbandsgemeinde of Kirn-Land, and more than half of it is wooded.

[3] Clockwise from the north, Hennweiler's neighbours are the municipalities of Schlierschied, Kellenbach, Heinzenberg, Oberhausen bei Kirn, Hahnenbach, Sonnschied, Bruschied and Woppenroth.

With the Roman takeover of the Rhine’s left bank in the last century of the pre-Christian era, the time that followed brought the Treveri, a people of mixed Celtic and Germanic stock, cultural dominance, but enrichment, too.

Various archaeological finds in Hennweiler from Celtic and Roman times bear witness to settlers who were members of these two peoples.

In 992, Hennweiler had its first documentary mention in a charter by king Otto III: the king, under Archbishop of Mainz Willigis’s aegis (for Otto was still a boy at the time), donated the royal estate of Hanenwilare to the only recently founded Saint Stephen’s Foundation in Mainz.

The centres of Guntzelnberg and Rode, which lay at the limit of the Hahnenbach and Bruschied estate areas, are believed to have been forsaken and to have vanished even before the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).

After French rule ended, there was a short transitional time after which the new political order laid out by the Congress of Vienna came into force.

In 1749, the lordship of the Lords of Warsberg decreed a Judenordnung (a replacement of the old Schutzjude status) for the Amt of Wartenstein.

The frightful great fire on 28 August 1781, which burnt down two thirds of Hennweiler (60 houses, barns and stables) and also killed some people, also hit the village's Jewish families very hard.

Feist Isaac's and Jospel Moises's families were left homeless when their houses were lost in the fire.

To provide for the community's religious needs, a schoolteacher was hired for a time, who also busied himself as the hazzan and the shochet.

In 1933, the year when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seized power in Germany, there were still 30 Jews living in Hennweiler.

In the years that followed, though, some of the Jews emigrated in the face of the boycotting of their businesses, the progressive stripping of their rights and repression, all brought about by the Nazis.

According to Yad Vashem's lists and information from the work Gedenkbuch - Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933–1945 ("Memorial Book – Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933–1945"), the following members of Hennweiler's Jewish community fell victim to the Holocaust (along with their birth years): Likewise, the following members of the outlying community in Bruschied died: In 1985, in memory of the Jews who were driven out of Hennweiler and murdered, a memorial stone was placed at the municipality's Christian graveyard.

Shortly after 1750, a new synagogue (actually a new prayer room) was established; a new decree, a Synagogenordnung, was made for that to regulate the “ritual character” in the “shul at Hennweiler”.

It is believed that in the 1830s, community members Joseph Gottschall and his wife Sara acquired a building that could be used to establish a synagogue.

Master mason Johann Böres, from Hennweiler, built the new place of worship on Obergasse (a lane); the quarrystone and the sand was put at the builders’ disposal by the municipality from its own quarry.

The municipality then sold it to a private citizen, and before the year had ended, the new owner had had it torn down so that a house could be built on the lot.

[9] An old graveyard whose whereabouts are today unknown is believed to have lain east of Hennweiler, astride the municipal limit with Oberhausen in the Römerswald (forest).

To the right of the entrance is a great information panel telling of Hennweiler's and Bruschied's former Jewish inhabitants and also containing references to the memorial stones at these two villages’ municipal graveyards.

[14] Hennweiler's mayor is Michael Schmidt, and his deputies are Bernd Müller, Monika Schreiner and Andreas Beck.

[15][16] The German blazon reads: Schild gespalten, vorne in Schwarz ein silberner, goldgekrönter, -bewehrter und gezungter Löwe, hinten in Silber eine Orchidee Salep-Orchis (Orchis morio) mit grünen Wurzelknollen, grünem Stengel und sechs roten Blüten.

The charge on the dexter (armsbearer's right, viewer's left) side, the lion, refers to the Lordship of Wartenstein, an Electoral-Trier fief to the House of Warsberg.

The other charge, on the sinister (armsbearer's left, viewer's right) side, the green-winged orchid, enjoys conservational protection within a glade that lies within Hennweiler's limits.

After consent by the state archive, the Ministry of the Interior in Mainz granted approval for Hahnenbach to bear its own arms on 14 May 1965.

[18] The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[19] Up in the heights of the Lützelsoon, a small, outlying bit of the Hunsrück (the name prefix Lützel— is cognate with the English word “little”, but is no longer used as an everyday, standalone word[20]), is a natural monument known as the Teufelsfels (literally “Devil’s Crag”).

Each year in late July, the Hennweiler Markt (market), an event full of tradition, is held in the village.

The Lützelsoonschule, as it is called, is a two-stream primary school with some 150 pupils from Hennweiler, Oberhausen, Hahnenbach, Bruschied and Schneppenbach.

The big, modern sport hall and the broad, near-natural playground in the outer areas round out the school’s offerings.

This daycare centre has been awarded the FELIX several times – a mark of recognition in Germany for musical facilities.