Birkenfeld

Birkenfeld lies in the Hunsrück country near the Nahe. Its name, meaning a field of birches, appears in a document of 981. By the thirteenth century it belonged to the counts of Sponheim; its castle was recorded in 1293, and Emperor Louis the Bavarian granted town rights in 1332.

After the Sponheim line ended in 1437, its lands passed to the margraves of Baden and the counts of Veldenz. From 1584 Count Palatine Charles of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld made the town his residence and began rebuilding the castle as a Renaissance palace. War and plague struck in 1635, when the epidemic alone claimed 416 lives. Birkenfeld later became a Baden administrative seat, then passed under French rule. In 1817 its territory was assigned to Oldenburg, whose rulers built a new residence here in 1821.