The municipality lies in the Vulkaneifel, a part of the Eifel known for its volcanic history, geographical and geological features, and even ongoing activity today, including gases that sometimes well up from the earth.

[1] The German blazon reads: Zwischen einem durch Zinnenschnitt von Gold und Rot geteilten Schildhaupt und einem grünen Fünfberg, darin eine silberne Mausefalle, in Gold eine rote Waage.

The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Or balances gules and in chief a fess embattled of seven of the same, in base a mount of five vert charged with a hemispherical wire mousetrap argent.

The stage was thus set for a new handicraft industry to arise, one that produced much sought-after articles: mousetraps and rat traps.

The needed skills were brought to the community by a former teacher from Neroth, who saw such an industry as a way out of the otherwise intractable chronic wretchedness that had hitherto beset the village – and indeed most of the Eifel.

These wire handicrafts were made mostly by women at home, while the men became travelling mousetrap salesmen, going well beyond Germany's current borders to sell their wares, into what is now Poland and the Czech Republic.