The municipality lies in the Eßweiler Tal (dale) northwest of the Königsberg (mountain) in the North Palatine Uplands at an elevation of some 200 m above sea level.

Bearing witness hereto is a piece of spolia at the churchtower, which shows a portrait of Hercules with abundant hair and beard.

[6] Hinzweiler to a great extent shares the same history as all other villages in the Eßweiler Tal, which in many respects form a unit.

Besides Hinzweiler itself, these were originally Hundheim (Neuenglan), Hachenbach, Nerzweiler, Aschbach, Horschbach, Oberweiler, Elzweiler, Eßweiler and the now vanished villages of Letzweiler, Niederaschbach, Nörweiler, Mittelhofen, Zeizelbach, Füllhof, Neideck and Lanzweiler.

Count Friedrich III of Veldenz granted his wife Margarethe of Nassau-Saarbrücken this Amt as a widow's estate.

Dependence on a great number of lords in the dale afforded greater freedom than in other areas where united power and governing relationships prevailed.

[7] Legal matters within the Eßweiler Tal were governed by a whole range of Weistümer (singular: Weistum – cognate with English wisdom – this was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the Middle Ages and early modern times), which were already in force in the Middle Ages, although they were not actually set down in writing until the early 16th century.

One deals with the court and borders, one is a Kanzelweistum (promulgated at church; Kanzel is German for “pulpit”), one is a Huberweistum (Huber were farmers who worked a whole Hube, which roughly corresponds to an “oxgang”), and one was a municipal Weistum (Gemeindeweistum).

With regard to the ruling class, this brought about a shift in power in 1595 as the high jurisdiction, hitherto held for some 250 years by the Waldgraves and Rhinegraves, was transferred to the Dukes of Zweibrücken.

In return, Count Palatine Johannes I of Zweibrücken transferred the village of Kirchenbollenbach near Idar-Oberstein (nowadays a Stadtteil of that town) to the Rhinegraves.

Lordship over the blood court thereby ended up in new hands, while the other lords named still otherwise held their tithing rights in the various villages.

[8] During the time of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era that followed, the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank were annexed by France.

Hinzweiler passed together with the villages of Aschbach, Nerzweiler, Hachenbach and Gumbsweiler to the newly founded Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Hundheim, which itself belonged to the Canton of Lauterecken and the Arrondissement of Kaiserslautern.

Hinzweiler now belonged within this territory to the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Hundheim in the Canton of Lauterecken and the Landkommissariat (later Bezirksamt, and later still Landkreis or District) of Kusel.

All these “minstrels” brought good earnings back home with them, investing them in cropland, livestock, houses and farms.

Owing to a few exceptions, mainly after the Thirty Years' War, when the population had been heavily decimated, a few Jewish families managed to settle.

Growing antisemitism, however – even before the beginning of the Third Reich – made many Jews choose emigration, while some also moved to Germany's cities.

However, those who could not get themselves to safety in time were rounded up by the Nazis on 22 October 1940 and deported to Gurs in southwestern France, whence they were further sent to the death camps.

In a 1735 statistical publication, of the 25 men who headed families, 22 were said to be free subjects and 3 were said to be Hintersassen (roughly, “dependent peasants”).

Among craftsmen, who only worked the land as a secondary occupation, there were four shoemakers, three linen weavers, two tailors, one blacksmith, one miller and one wainwright.

Nevertheless, in the late 19th century until Weimar times, the regional industry involving local musicians travelling to many parts of Europe and beyond, called Wandermusikantentum, was quite well developed in Hinzweiler.

The following table shows population development over the centuries for Hinzweiler, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:[11][12] In 1563, the village had been wholly wiped out by the Plague, which struck and depopulated the whole Eßweiler Tal.

[13] In Johannes Hofmann's description of the Eßweiler Tal, one reads: “In Hinzweiler’s municipal area, up at the rectory near an den Kreuzäckern (a rural cadastral name) not far from the Zeßelbacher Grund, hewn stone blocks from old buildings, also old coins and other things have also been found, indicating that long ago a village stood right there, called Zeßelbach”.

Beginning in 1601, Hinzweiler became the temporary parish seat, but already by 1610, it once again had to yield this function to Hirsau, only to get it back after the Thirty Years' War.

Worthy of note in the tower area are a piece of Roman spolia set in the outer wall bearing a representation of Hercules and remnants of late mediaeval paintings inside.

The first listed appears on the website, while the second is that published by Debus: Either way, the municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Under a chief wavy gules Or in base a mount of three vert above which a lyre of the first.

[18][19] The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[20] Hinzweiler holds its kermis (church consecration festival) on the third weekend in October.

Hence, the Lutheran school in Hinzweiler received from Horschbach one Malter, three barrels and one Sester of corn (meaning rye in this case) and in cash, four Rhenish guilders, 13 Batzen and seven Pfennig.

In general there were not yet actual schoolhouses in the villages, and classes were conducted in private houses or on municipally owned premises.

It is known from Bavarian times that beginning in 1840 Johann Adam Drumm, born on 26 March 1817 in Erdesbach, taught school in Hinzweiler after having been discharged from military service in 1839.