Kastellaun

Location

The town lies in the eastern Hunsrück roughly equidistant from the Moselle, the Rhine and the Nahe. The town centre lies between a depression in the north and the plateau of the Hunsrück, over which runs Bundesstraße 327, the so-called Hunsrückhöhenstraße (“Hunsrück Heights Road”, a scenic road across the Hunsrück built originally as a military road on Hermann Göring’s orders).

Climate

Yearly precipitation in Kastellaun amounts to 755 mm, which falls into the middle third of the precipitation chart for all Germany. At 53% of the German Weather Service’s weather stations, lower figures recorded. The driest month is April. The most rainfall comes in June. In that month, precipitation is 1.4 times what it is in April. Precipitation varies only slightly and is spread very evenly throughout the year. Only at 1% of the weather stations are lower seasonal swings recorded.

History

In 1226, Kestilun had its first documentary mention. The like-named castle was built by the Counts of Sponheim and belonged until 1417 to the “Further” County of Sponheim.

In 1301, the castle and the town became home to Simon II of Sponheim and his wife Elisabeth. Count Simon granted Kastellaun town rights in 1305 and also secured market rights on 8 November 1309 from Emperor Henry VII, who was the brother of Baldwin of Luxembourg, Archbishop of Trier. In 1321, the castle and the town found themselves under siege from Baldwin, who in 1325 also built another castle at Buch, Burg Balduinseck, to counter Kastellaun’s challenges to his authority. In 1340, Count Walram of Sponheim left Kastellaun and went to Bad Kreuznach.

In 1437, the Counts of Sponheim died out, and the inheritance fell with the Amt of Kastellaun to the Lords of Palatinate-Zweibrücken and Baden, who ruled it jointly. Frederick I acquired the Principality of Simmern and a share of the County of Sponheim from the Veldenz legacy, which he ruled, after the last Count of Veldenz had died, from Kastellaun. He was therefore the actual founder of the Palatinate-Simmern line. Frederick I and his brother Louis divided their father’s holdings between them once again in 1459. Louis got the Duchy of Zweibrücken and Frederick resided in Simmern. The Palatinate-Simmern share of the County of Sponheim passed in 1560 to Palatinate-Zweibrücken and in 1569 to Palatinate-Birkenfeld under Zweibrücken hegemony.

Living at the castle until 1594 were various bailiffs (Amtmänner) who represented the joint lords’ (the County of Veldenz, the Margraviate of Baden, Palatinate-Simmern and Palatinate-Zweibrücken) interests. Margrave Edward Fortunatus was driven out of Baden-Baden in 1594 and sought refuge at the castle, thereby making it a residence once again. In the course of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), the town was occupied by Spaniards, Swedes, Lorrains, Hessians and Frenchmen. Great Plague epidemics raged.

The Sponheim lordship began to come to an end in 1687 as many parts of the Rhine’s left bank were being occupied by King Louis XIV’s troops in the Nine Years' War (known in Germany as the Pfälzischer Erbfolgekrieg, or War of the Palatine Succession). The main result of the occupation for Kastellaun was the castle’s and the town’s destruction. In 1776, the joint lordship ended definitively, and the Amt and town of Kastellaun passed to Palatinate-Zweibrücken.

During the French Revolutionary Wars, the region was occupied in 1793 and 1794 by French troops and in 1798 it was assigned to the Department of Rhin-et-Moselle, thereby making it French until the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Then, Kastellaun became part of the Prussian Rhine Province.

In 1820, the castle passed into private ownership. In 1884, the town bought the property and gave the ruin its first renovation.

Since 1946, Kastellaun has been part of the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. On 14 September 1969, it was granted town rights once again.

The castle hill and the ruins underwent renovation and restoration once again between 1990 and 1993. In 1999, the first castle house was rebuilt, followed by a second in 2005. On 9 September 2007, a documentation centre was dedicated as the “House of Regional History”.

Town council

The council is made up of 22 council members, who were elected by proportional representation at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.

The municipal election held on 7 June 2009 yielded the following results:

Mayor

Kastellaun’s mayor is Dr. Marlok Bröhr, and his deputies are Anette Kramb, Karl-Heinz Faber and Katharina Groß.

Coat of arms

The town’s arms might be described thus: Sable a fess countercompony gules and argent, in chief two crowns in fess Or.

The arms recall those formerly borne by the Counts of Sponheim, which featured a “chequy” pattern. The two crowns are said to symbolize two of the counts who held sway here. These arms appear on the town seal as early as the 15th century.

In the 1920s, Otto Hupp showed a somewhat different coat of arms for Kastellaun in the Coffee Hag albums, with azure (blue) as the field tincture instead of sable (black), and with 14 squares of alternating tinctures on the fess (horizontal stripe) instead of 12. The composition of charges, however, was otherwise the same as in the arms borne now.

Town partnerships

Kastellaun fosters partnerships with the following places:

Buildings

The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:

Sport and leisure

On the town’s southeastern outskirts is found an indoor swimming pool with an integrated medical rehabilitation centre, and a sport and fitness area. Right nearby is a miniature golf course.

Since May 2008 there has been the Kyrill Path. Part of the woodlands laid waste by this 2007 hurricane-strength windstorm has been made publicly accessible. Along the 800 m-long path leading through 1.5 ha of woodland devastated by windthrow, the visitor can get an idea of the destruction wrought by Kyrill and also learn something about the new forest now springing up. Ten information stations deal in detail with geology, pedology, root development, climate, weather, life in dead wood, the bark beetle’s voraciousness, natural and artificial forest rejuvenation, mechanized wood harvesting and modern forestry.

Near the Kyrill Path, a ropes course and a barefoot path were opened in May 2008.

Along Kastellaun’s southern outskirts, along the old Hunsrückbahn (railway) right-of-way, runs the Schinderhannes-Radweg (cycle path). This begins in Simmern and leads by Kastellaun on the way to Emmelshausen.

Near Kastellaun lies the former Pydna Missile Base, where each year, an open-air electronic music festival called Nature One is held.

Among the many clubs, there is the Kastellaun Gymnastics Club (Turnverein Kastellaun), part of the widely known Kastellaun-Simmern Handball Playing Association (Handballspielgemeinschaft Kastellaun-Simmern).

Education

Located in Kastellaun are one primary school, an Integrierte Gesamtschule (IGS; a comprehensive school that combines Hauptschule, Realschule and Gymnasium streams) with a gymnasial upper level, the Theodor Heuss School for the Mentally Handicapped/School for the Physically Handicapped and the Kastellaun Free Waldorf School.

Other institutions

The Julius-Reuß-Wohnheim is an institution geared to help people with disabilities. It is among the so-called Schmiedelanstalten (roughly “Swamp Institutions” – named for the wetland area where they were originally found; Julius Reuß was their founder) and is located in a residential neighbourhood between the town centre and the industrial park. It collaborates with the other institutions in town dedicated to care of the handicapped, namely the Theodor Heuss Schools mentioned above along with their special kindergarten for children with mental disabilities, the workshop and the daytime assistance centre at the Rhein-Mosel-Werkstätten (“Rhine-Moselle Workshops”) and the home of the club Betreutes Wohnen Hunsrück e.V. (“Hunsrück Assisted Living”) for those with physical illnesses.

Tourism

The town takes it upon itself to promote tourism. On offer are guided tours through the Old Town and to the castle ruins. The most important buildings and sites and historical events from the castle’s and the town’s history are described and explained on these tours by expert guides. The small, traditional Bell Leisure Park lies right nearby.

Kastellaun lies on the Deutsche Alleenstraße (Germany’s longest themed holiday road, featuring many Alleen – tree-lined avenues).

Bundeswehr post

Kastellaun has been home since 20 March 1964 to a Bundeswehr barracks, which houses Command Support Battalion (Führungsunterstützungsbataillon) 282.

Notable people born in the town

Other notable people associated with the town