Stauferburg Hohenecken

In the year 1697 in the peace treaty of Ryswick a church in Hohenecken was mentioned,
which belonged to the Protestans. His chapel must have been build after the reformation
after the year 1565. During the War of the Palatinate succession, Kaierslautern was occupied
by the french troops on the 29.9.1688. At this time Hohenecken castle was occupied by
General Bouffleur, burned down and blown up.

During the chaos of war, the old church was damaged, it was no longer possible to attend mass there.
In the year 1747 the palatinate elector Karl Theodor supported the constuction of the Rochus Chapel.

In july 1748 the Franciscan monks announced the rebuilding of the Rochus chapel, which proves
that it was build on the same place where the old Church was located. It was dedicated to the plague
saint Rochus, in memory to the pest which raged in Kaiserslautern in the year 1666.

The „Retzendell“ got it´s name from the special climatic condicions:
cool, humid and sunny at the same time. Here flax and linnen was
produced out of the plant fibres by retting on the ground. They were
lying in swaths, a parallel row of fibres. The alternation of wet dew
and  drying by solar irradiation rips off the skin. Bacteria and fungus
can easily enter the fibre and split it up. 
It takes a few manufacturing processes to spin the yarn and produce
fabrics in weaving mills. In 1771 the first Kaiserslautern cloth factory
was established, in „Espensteig“ the grand bleaching was formed
and a lot of the people in Hohenecken worked as weavers.

Today the formerly open valley bottom of the „Retzendell“ is overgrown

The charge of the „Keller“ existed already in the 15.th and 16.th century.
The Keller was the custodian of the grand estate of the Hoheneckens,
an important noble family and imperial ministeriales of the castle.
The comunities with the right of wood were Hohenecken, Erfenbach, Siegelbach,
Espensteig and Stockborn.

Since 1733 the „Kellerei“, which means an operational area, was a dependent
office of the electoral palatinate. The former „Hohenecker Forst“ was the name
of the forrest belonging to the Reichsfreiherr of Hohenecken. It was renamed and
until today it is called „Kellereiwald“. A part of this is also the hills Kleiner Scheibenkopf,
großer Scheibenkopf, Kohlkopf and Schlossberg, the castle hill. Despite a number of
disputes, the citiziens of Hohenecken kept the right to use wood
of the forrest for building their houses or for heating until today.

The name oft he street „Kellereiwaldstraße“ keeps this privilege alive.