Antiquity Archaeological finds from both the
Old Stone Age and the
New Stone Age on the Königsberg's and the Selberg's west flank,
barrows in the Jungenwald (forest) at the town limits with
Aschbach and
Lohnweiler that have been explored and many finds of
Roman coins with effigies of
Roman emperors at the old
Celtic settlement, which was once surrounded by a ringwall, on the Kreimberg at the town limit with
Kreimbach-Kaulbach (known as the
Heidenburg, or “Heathen Castle”) bear witness to the presence of people in what is now Wolfstein in
prehistoric times and early historic times. Leading over the ridge of the Königsberg was the “
Roman road”, one of the Palatinate's oldest settlement roads. Nevertheless, there was never any
Roman settlement within what are now Wolfstein's limits.
Middle Ages Until 1768, the river
Lauter was a border, cleaving today's unified town into the town of Wolfstein on the one side, which was held by
Electoral Palatinate, and the village of Roßbach on the other, which lay within territory held by the Dukes of
Palatine Zweibrücken. The Reckweilerhof belonged as an either Ducal or Electoral
fief to the holdings of the Offenbach am Glan
Benedictine Monastery. These three centres, therefore, did not share a common history until that date, and accordingly, they are treated separately for the time up to the 18th century.
Wolfstein Wolfstein was founded in 1275 on
Habsburg King Rudolph I's orders, which called for a “fortified and free” town near his
castle, “Woluisstein”, now known as the
Alt-Wolfstein (“Old Wolfstein”) ruin. Rudolph forthwith granted the new town the same
town rights and freedoms as the town of
Speyer. As an “everlasting marketplace”, it was to be a sanctuary for commerce, trade and dealing. The first townsmen and -women came from the surrounding, much older villages. Only for a few decades did the new town enjoy royal immediacy, whereafter it was passed time and again to and from various territorial lordships as a pledged holding. The almost endless chain of pledgings began as early as 1312 with the town's transfer to the
Counts of Sponheim, and only ended in 1673 when the town passed to Electoral Palatinate. The Electoral Palatinate
Amt (or
Unteramt) of Wolfstein in the
Oberamt of Kaiserslautern comprised the two court regions of Katzweiler and “Rothe am Seelberg” (Rothselberg).
Roßbach The landholders in the
Middle Ages (beginning in the 12th century) were the
Counts of Veldenz. Far away from their small seat on the
Moselle (
Veldenz Castle), they owned considerable lands between the
Alsenz, the
Glan and the
Nahe, among which was
Honhelden daz ampt (1387), within which lay the settlements in question. Sometime about the middle of the 16th century, the
Schultheiß’s seat was moved to
Einöllen. In the early 15th century, the Count’s only daughter (and indeed, only child) and sole heir wed Count Palatine Stephan of Zweibrücken from the
House of Wittelsbach. After her father’s death in 1444, the now defunct (for a woman could not inherit the comital title, and there was no male heir) County of Veldenz passed by inheritance to her son, Ludwig I, who now bore the title Duke of Veldenz-Zweibrücken, thereby ushering in a long time of political stability for Roßbach. The village was spared the repeated transfers and pledgings that characterized the neighbouring town’s history at this time.
Reckweilerhof Throughout the Middle Ages up until the beginning of the 19th century, noble feudal lords granted their vassals this estate for hereditary and proprietary use. The landholders at first were the
Waldgraves and Raugraves of Grumbach, then the Counts of Veldenz (1387), and lastly, beginning in 1444, the Dukes of
Palatine Zweibrücken, who were at the same time the guardians and patrons of all holdings belonging to the Offenbach Monastery, and (beginning in 1733) the Electors of the Palatinate. The estate holders’ names from 1514 are known without any gaps in the record. They discharged their hereditary pledge to the monastery, receiving as a reward usage and grazing rights in the “lordly monastery woodlands”, “free lumber and firewood”, the “sheep meadow on the estate’s area as well as the municipal area of the market town of Wolfstein with its own herd of maximally 200 head” (1786).
Modern times Wolfstein The
Amtskellerei, whose mostly noble
Amtskeller were charged with executing princely orders, was to be found at Neu-Wolfstein Castle, and after that was destroyed in 1688 by King
Louis XIV’s troops in the
Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the
Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession), at a small house beside the old town hall at the foot of the Schlossberg; beginning in 1753 it was at the great building before the outer town gate (today the town hall) built on
Elector Karl Theodor’s (1742-1799) orders from
Amtsgefällen –
Amt taxes. By territorial swap between the Elector and the Duke of Zweibrücken in 1768, the places within the
Schultheißerei of Einöllen (
Einöllen,
Hohenöllen,
Tiefenbach, Oberweiler, Roßbach and Sulzhof) passed to
Electoral Palatinate and were assigned to the
Amt of Wolfstein. The town’s days as an Electoral Palatinate holding came to an end when
French Revolutionary troops occupied the lands on the
Rhine’s left bank, including the town itself; by 1801, this territory had been
annexed under the terms of the
Treaty of Lunéville by the soon to be
Napoleonic
France. As early as 1797, Wolfstein became, in the course of administrative reform carried out by the French, a
cantonal seat in the
Arrondissement of Kaiserslautern and the
Department of
Mont-Tonnerre (or Donnersberg in
German). Belonging to the canton were 32 municipalities with 8 mayors and roughly 8,000 inhabitants. The
Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Wolfstein comprised four municipalities with roughly 1,300 inhabitants; in the town itself lived 37 families and 311 persons. In 1814, the French withdrew from the Canton of Wolfstein.
Roßbach From 1444 to 1768, the villagers of Roßbach were
Ducal-Zweibrücken subjects. From this epoch, only a few noteworthy events are recorded: The
Roßbacher Weistum (1544 – a
Weistum –
cognate with
English wisdom – was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the
Middle Ages and early modern times) reported about yearly meetings of the
Gemeinsmannen resident in Roßbach,
Imzmannßhausen (about 1250:
Ziermannshusen; today: Immetshausen), Melhausen (since vanished),
Stohlhaussen (today: Stahlhausen) on
Saint Dionysius’s Day (9 October) on the “Dionysiusberg (mountain) near the
chapel to the saint, Dionysius” (today: Auf dem Mühlacker). The small house of worship was a
chapel of ease in the parish of Tiefenbach, which found itself in the hands of the
Order of Saint John from the early 15th century until the
Reformation as a donation from the
Counts of Veldenz. As early as 1528, Tiefenbach became a
Reformed parish. The chapel was used into the 18th century for church services by Reformed worshippers, then also by
Lutherans and
Catholics. It was torn down in the 19th century, although the surrounding graveyard was still used as such until 1902. In the early 1930s, it was levelled during the building of the memorial square. The
Mühlarzt (“mill doctor”) Adam Silberwäscher from
Baumholder built a gristmill with a millrace in 1604 on a “little stream up from the village called Roßbach”; it was the first mill recorded in Roßbach. It was, however, destroyed in the
Thirty Years' War. In 1695, Johannes Schwammbacher built a new gristmill downstream from Roßbach on the Lauter, “where none has ever stood before”. A new centre sprang up around the mill,
Bei der Roßbacher Mühle (today: “In Mühlhausen” or “In der Hohl”).
Duke Christian IV of Zweibrücken transferred to
Elector Palatine Karl Theodor the
Schultheißerei of Einöllen. Five little villages were incorporated into the
Unteramt of Wolfstein. The municipality of Roßbach comprised at this time 1,125
Morgen of cropland, 57
Morgen of meadows, 33
Morgen of
vineyards, 10
Morgen of gardens and 137
Morgen of forest. Living in the village were 222 people. There were 42 houses, 1 church and 2
schools.
Reckweilerhof From 1644 to 1788, the estate was run as an hereditary tenancy by the
Amtsschultheiß at
Odenbach am Glan and his heirs. After
feudalism was abolished, the Ducal Württemberg Minister of State Emich Johann von Üxküll bought the estate for 22,500
Gulden. He let the estate in 1796 to Christoph Burckhardt, who transferred the running of the estate to his son Ludwig Karl Friedrich (born 1779). In 1817, Ludwig Burckhardt bought the estate, and ever since, it has been in the family Burckhardt’s ownership. Even today, Ludwig Burchhardt’s descendants, through his son Heinrich, still run the
Hotel Reckweilerhof. These statistics about the Reckweilerhof in the time just before the
French Revolution are drawn from the 1786
Güterbestandsaufnahme (“Estate Inventory Record”): Two-floor manor house; on 1st floor dwelling for “estate people”, on upper floor a spacious dwelling for the “lord of the manor”, three cattle stables, sheepcote for 300 head, a special dwelling for the shepherd, all together and under one roof; then barn, winepress house, vaulted cellar, herdsman’s house, bakehouse and 8 great pigsties; a well laid out seedling nursery.—52
Morgen of meadows, 4
Morgen of vineyards, 474
Morgen of cropfields and 19
Morgen of grazing fields. Estimated worth 22,000
Gulden.
Recent times Kingdom of Bavaria times After the new post-Napoleonic order imposed by the
Congress of Vienna in 1814, Wolfsteiners became
Bavarian nationals, which until 1918 meant the Bavarian king’s subjects; after monarchy was overthrown in 1918, they belonged to the Free State of Bavaria in the days of the
Weimar Republic. Only in 1947, after the
Second World War, did the Palatinate formally cease to be a Bavarian
exclave, whereupon it was incorporated into the then newly founded
state of
Rhineland-Palatinate. The break with Bavaria was confirmed by referendum on 22 April 1956. In the “Bavarian Rhine District” (
Bayerischer Rheinkreis – that is, the Bavarian Palatinate), Wolfstein was grouped into the
Landkommissariat of Kusel (from 1862
Bezirksamt and from 1939
Landratsamt). To the Canton of Wolfstein in 1817 belonged 33 municipalities. The
Bürgermeisterei (“mayoralty”) comprised the town with the Reckweilerhof, the municipalities of Einöllen (until 1900) and Roßbach (until 1905). From 1814 to 1832, the town administration was led by the physician Wilhelm Vogt as
Oberbürgermeister. After the 1849
Palatine Uprising, many people from the town
emigrated to the
United States. In connection with the 1832
Hambach Festival and the later Palatine Uprising, there is a story: On the republican-liberal citizenry’s side was the 23-year-old tanner’s son Jakob Krieger, who fled to the
United States, where he founded a trade and banking company in
Louisville. His daughter Amy married the Wolfstein banker Karl Otto Braun. On the other side was the State Procurator General at the court of appeal in
Zweibrücken, Wolfstein-born Ludwig Schmitt,
Heidelberger Romantik painter Georg Philipp Schmitt’s brother, and also Jakob Krieger’s cousin. Schmitt led the prosecution of the trials against the insurrectionists. In 1852, the cantons were changed into district municipalities (
Distriktgemeinden). On the district councils – 30 municipalities belonged to the Wolfstein district (
Distrikt Wolfstein) – farmers held the majority, as the voting rather favoured those who were most heavily taxed. Of the 43 councillors in the Wolfstein district, 35 were farmers. Monarchy came to an end in Bavaria with the
last Bavarian king’s abdication in 1918 (he had reigned since 1913), after the
First World War, in which 35 soldiers from Wolfstein and 19 from Roßbach fell.
Weimar Republic and Third Reich (1919-1945) At the elections for the
Weimar National Assembly and the
Bavarian Landtag, the
Social Democrats (SPD) earned roughly 34% of the vote in Wolfstein, about the same as the
German Democratic Party (DDP), while the
German People's Party (DVP) earned about 23% and the
Bavarian People's Party (BVP) about 9% of the votes cast. By the time of the
Reichstag elections in 1924, though, the SPD’s share of the vote had sunk to 9%, while the Nationale Rechte earned 34%, the
Communists (KPD) 4%, the Völkischer Block 30%, the BVP 12% and the Freiwirtschaftsbund 11%. The 1930 Reichstag elections brought the “
Hitler Movement” (
NSDAP) 54% in Wolfstein (279 votes), the SPD 13% (68 votes), the
Centre Party 4% (25 votes), the KPD 3% (18 votes), the DVP 4% (21 votes), the Wirtschaftspartei 15% (78 votes) and splinter parties 6% (27 votes). At the first town council election after the
Nazis seized power in Germany (21 April 1933), the NSDAP won 8 of the 10 seats, and in the same year, town council bestowed honorary citizenship upon President
Paul von Hindenburg,
Reichskanzler – he did not yet bear the title
Führer – Adolf Hitler and
Reichsstatthalter Franz Ritter von Epp; the same honour was awarded to the local poet Pauline König. On the Roßbach municipal council, too, the Nazis won a majority. Public servants such as police officials, municipal officials, field and forest rangers and the chief of waterworks were replaced with men who were true to the
National Socialist ideology. The
Party and its many organizations more and more came to define the town’s economic and cultural life. Thus, in 1933, the local singing clubs were merged into the “Westmark” singers’ association, the
chamber of commerce, which had been founded in 1899, was dissolved in 1934 “under approval of all present” and the local
Jugendleite (secular coming-of-age ceremony) was held on
Confirmation Day, causing 189 people to leave their religious community. The town, which 100 years earlier had been associated with the struggle for democracy, was now welcoming, with a majority among its population, Nazi
dictatorship. Once the Nazis’ goals had become manifest, however, it was too late to turn back. Wolfstein was largely spared any material destruction in the
Second World War; however, the human toll was quite heavy: on Wolfstein’s war memorial to the fallen, built in 1930 at Neu-Wolfstein castle, a further 100 names now had to be chiselled; over in Roßbach, the 1931 war memorial bore 44 new names after the war.
Since 1945 Beginning in 1947, Wolfstein was part of the then newly founded
state of
Rhineland-Palatinate. On 7 June 1969, the until then self-administering municipality of Roßbach in der Pfalz was merged into the town of Wolfstein. Since 1971, the town has been the administrative seat of the
Verbandsgemeinde of Wolfstein.
Population development Living in Wolfstein about 1600, according to the townsmen’s register in the
Stattbuch (“town book”), which was begun in 1599, were some 150 people in 36 households. In 1618, there were 50 families with some 200 persons, but this is estimated to have dropped to only 50 inhabitants by the time the
Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) ended. The 1618 population level was once again reached in 1684. Thereafter, the population figures kept rising. No records of Roßbach's population from the 17th century are available. In 1885 – only “present” persons were counted, while soldiers and the wandering musicians for which the region was then famous were left out of the total – there were 471 inhabitants (95 houses, no rented dwellings, no multi-family houses with separated living areas; occupancy per dwelling 4.95 persons). In 1900, there were 577 inhabitants (Kuhbrücke 78, Immetshausen 55, Roßbach main centre 381, Stahlhausen 63). In 1905, after the Kuhbrücke had been transferred to Wolfstein, there were 489 inhabitants. In 1918 there were 466 in 100 dwellings. In 1925, there were 504 in 98 houses. In 1933, there were 483 and in 1939, 515 (263 male and 252 female). In 1969, just before amalgamation with Wolfstein, there were 541 inhabitants. The following table shows population development over the centuries for Wolfstein, with some figures broken down by religious denomination: The two separate figures for 1969 indicate numbers before and after Roßbach's amalgamation. The figures for Roßbach itself before amalgamation are as follows: • 42 households
Town’s name The name “Wolfstein” has appeared in many different spellings over the ages:
Woluisstein (1275),
Wolffestein (1387),
Wolffstein (1438),
Wolfsstein (1477), Wolfstein (1824). Also, in the local dialectal speech, the town is called
Wolschde. The name “Roßbach” has likewise undergone spelling changes:
Ruosbach (1024),
Roßbach or
Ruspach (1544),
Roßbach (1558). In the local dialectal speech, the village is called
Roschbach. The name “Reckweilerhof” has undergone some more pronounced changes:
Regewilre (1200),
Reckweiler (1509),
Rögswiller or
Röchswiller (1600),
Reckweylerhof (1777/1778),
Röckweilerhof (1917) and now Reckweilerhof, or in the local dialectal speech,
Reckwillerhof. ==Religion==