Blumenstein Castle

Blumenstein Castle is a castle ruin in the Palatinate Forest in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. According to the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, Blumenstein castle was probably constructed in the first half of the thirteenth century as part of a line of defensive castles along the Alsatian border.

The castle was first mentioned in 1332 in connection with knight Anselm from Batzendorf near Blumenstein. After a feud with the House of Fleckenstein in 1347, the knight was banished from the castle.

About 1350, the counts of Zweibrücken had 1 quarter of the castle, the House of Dahn owned the rest. Blumenstein castle was probably destroyed in the German Peasants' War in 1525. The ruin passed from the counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg to the landgraves of Hesse, then to the bishopric of Speyer and finally to the state of Rheinland-Pfalz. The state office of Castles, Palaces and Antiquities installed safeguarding measures (such as railings along stairways and around the cliff edges) in the 1970s.

"Blumenstein Castle, situated in magnificant loneliness, at a height of about 500 meters, presents, even today, one of the most unspoilt impressions of its kind." The castle sits upon the top of a narrow red sandstone pier about 20 feet wide and 150 feet long, about 80 feet above the hilltop. Parts of the castle, including the narrow stairways, are carved directly into the red sandstone. "Prior to the invention of firearms, it was hardly possible to capture this picturesque castle hidden in the middle of the forest. It was necessary to siege it and starve its inhabitants out."