Only since the 16th century has the municipality used the prefix Alt— (“Old”) to distinguish itself from another, nearby place called Weidelbach, itself now called Kleinweidelbach (an outlying centre of Rheinböllen).
It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Rheinböllen, whose seat is in the like-named town.
Birkenstraße – Saint Sebastian’s Chapel (St.-Sebastian-Kapelle); square chapel, 1950s; hand pump, Rheinböllen Ironworks, late 19th century
The municipality’s namesake is a brook called the Dichtelbach, which empties into the Guldenbach between Rheinböllen’s main centre and its outlying centre of Rheinböllerhütte.
Rheinböllen lies roughly 12 km to the east, while another 8 km beyond, the Rhine flows by Bacharach.
He left Coesfeld in 1691, when, at the urgent request of the Archbishop of Trier, he undertook the charge of the parishes, first of Wehr, then of Rheinböllen, and afterwards of Idar-Oberstein, from December, 1696, until his death in 1719.
The municipality lies in the Hunsrück roughly 9 km northeast of Simmern and 8 km northwest of Rheinböllen, above the Grundbach just upstream from where it empties into the Simmerbach near Kisselbach.
Catholic branch church, Lenzgraben 1 – Baroque aisleless church, marked 1747; cast-iron grave cross, Rheinböllen Ironworks, marked 1899; whole complex of buildings with graveyard
Along the municipality’s northern outskirts, about a kilometre from the village centre, runs the well constructed Bundesstraße 50 between Bitburg and Bingen, over which the nearest Autobahn interchange, at Rheinböllen, on the A 61, can be reached, 20 km to the east.
Even the building of the Autobahn A 61 helped see to it that farmers became employees, commuting to jobs in Rheinböllen, Simmern, Koblenz or the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region.
There is a connection to the Autobahn “cross” at Mainz (A 61/A 60, Cologne/Koblenz/Ludwigshafen) across the Wiesbaden-Schierstein bridge over the Rhine; and by way of the Rhine ferries at Lorch and Kaub to the on-ramps at Laudert and Rheinböllen (about 15 km).