Wildenburg Castle

Wildenburg Castle is a ruined castle near Kempfeld in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany).

The ruin is located in the Hunsrück between the Idarwald to the north and the town of Idar-Oberstein to the south, at an altitude of approx. 630 m above sea level on the Wildenburger Kopf above the Idarbach valley. It was the highest castle in the Hunsrück.

The predecessor of Wildenburg was a presumably Celtic refuge castle with a double rampart from the La Tène period (approx. 450–50 BC). The Wildenburger Wall belongs to a series of Celtic ramparts in the southern Hunsrück between the Ringwall of Otzenhausen, the Ringkopf, the Altburg and the Alteburg in the Soonwald. A short section of the wall was reconstructed as a "Gallic wall" (murus gallicus).

Around 350 AD, a late Roman fortification was established on the Wildenburg for a short time.

In the late Middle Ages, the Wildgrafen built Wildenburg Castle on the rock at the western tip of the ring wall (first mentioned in 1330) and it was plundered and destroyed by marauding Lorraine troops in 1651. After partial reconstruction in 1660, the lower castle served as the administrative seat of the Wildenburg office until the abolition of the county in 1792.