Wolfstein () is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Before 1 July 2014 it was the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde, since then it is part of the Verbandsgemeinde Lauterecken-Wolfstein. Wolfstein is known for its two castle ruins, Neu-Wolfstein standing over the heart of the town, and Alt-Wolfstein standing at the narrowest spot in the Lauter valley at the town's northern entrance. Wolfstein is a state-recognized recreational resort (Erholungsort).
Geography
Location
The town lies in the North Palatine Uplands, in the so-called Königsland (“Kingsland”), between Idar-Oberstein and Kaiserslautern. The municipal area measures 1 377 ha, of which 644 ha is wooded. Also, 154 ha is given over to residential properties and transport facilities, 574 ha to agriculture and 5 ha is taken up by other uses and open water. Geographically, the municipal area belongs to the Glan-Alsenz mountain and hill country, which meets the Kaiserslauterer Senke (a depression) to the north. The town centre lies in the Lauter valley, cut narrowly into the land, between the steep slopes on either side of the Lauter, the Königsberg on the left bank and the Eisenknopf on the right. The Königsberg (not to be confused with the former East Prussian city) is the town's highest point at 568.4 m above sea level. Other selected elevations are as follows: Lang-Heck (Roßbach) — 404.1 m Neu-Wolfstein castle ruin — 238 m Stahlhausen valley floor (southern town limit) — 196 m Wolfstein railway station — 187.9 m The town lies roughly 23 km northeast of Kusel, and 20 km northwest of Kaiserslautern.
Neighbouring municipalities
Wolfstein borders in the north on the municipalities of Lohnweiler and Heinzenhausen, in the northeast on the municipalities of Oberweiler-Tiefenbach and Einöllen, in the east on the municipality of Relsberg, in the southeast on the municipality of Niederkirchen, in the south on the municipality of Kreimbach-Kaulbach, in the southwest on the municipality of Rutsweiler an der Lauter and in the west on the municipality of Aschbach. Wolfstein also meets the municipalities of Hohenöllen, Eßweiler and Offenbach-Hundheim at single points in the northeast, southwest and northwest respectively.
Constituent communities
Wolfstein's Stadtteile are the main townsite, also called Wolfstein (1,792), Roßbach (178) and Reckweilerhof (11). The figures are populations as at 2007.
Town’s layout
Until 1905, the town's municipal area was limited to the area on the Lauter's left bank between Rutsweiler to the south, Lohnweiler to the north and Aschbach to the west. According to the original Bavarian cadastral survey (about 1840), Wolfstein's area measured 616 ha. In the 174 houses at that time lived 826 persons.
Spreading out from the old town (known as the Flecken, meaning “market town”) in the hollow, the settled parts of town lay in the 19th century on the slopes between the Tauchental (dale) and Schlossgasse (or Obergasse – a lane), on the narrow strips of land either side of Lauterstraße (or Untergasse) and on Hauptstraße (“Main Street”, but in an outlying neighbourhood). Worth mentioning are several old buildings in Wolfstein: the Evangelical church (1868, beside the town hall), the Catholic rectory (1845, outside town centre), the Evangelical rectory (1899, outside town centre), the court and prison building (1902/1903, outside town centre) and the former Kurhaus Lautertal (spa hotel, 1862, renovated in 1912, outside town centre).
With the expansion of Wolfstein's inhabited area, the old town's girding, mediaeval wall, which still stood in the early 19th century, had gaps knocked through it and eventually, along with both the town gates and the Bürgerturm (tower), it was torn down altogether.
It was not possible to expand Wolfstein onto lands over on the Lauter's right bank, for stretching for roughly 4 km between Kreimbach and Oberweiler was the village of Roßbach with, as it had then, its five Ortsteile: Stahlhausen, Roßbach (main centre), Mühle, Immetshausen and Kuhbrücker Hübel. The gap between Stahlhausen and the upper village, and the one between Immetshausen and Kuhbrücke, were used for farming. Any building work worthy of note within Roßbach's limits was never to be seen even as late as 1969. The number of houses there, beginning in 1900, hovered around 100.