Oberstaufenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kusel-Altenglan, whose seat is in Kusel.
Geography
Location Oberstaufenbach lies between Kaiserslautern and Kusel on Landesstraße (State Road) 367 in the valley of the Reichenbach, a tributary to the river Glan, and at the foot of the Potzberg in the North Palatine Uplands on the river's left bank and at the foot of the Heidenburg (today a quarry) on the river's right bank. Culturally and historically, it lies in the middle of the Kusel Musikantenland ("Minstrels' Land"). The land within municipal limits exhibits a variable topography, with heights ranging from 240 to 400 m above sea level. The village's elevation is 254 m above sea level. With reference to slope, the lands within Oberstaufenbach might be described as being 10% even, 25% leaning, 45% sloped and 20% steep. The village originally arose in the dale. The municipal area measures 268 ha, of which about 37 ha is wooded and 211 ha is under agricultural use (170 ha cropland and 40 ha meadowland).Location
Neighbouring municipalities Oberstaufenbach borders in the north on the municipality of Niederstaufenbach, in the southeast on the municipality of Reichenbach-Steegen, in the west on the municipality of Neunkirchen am Potzberg and in the northwest on the municipality of Föckelberg.
Constituent communities Also belonging to Oberstaufenbach is the outlying homestead of Birkenhof, which was built in 1965 as an Aussiedlerhof, an agricultural settlement whose goal was to enhance food production.Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz – Amtliches Verzeichnis der Gemeinden und Gemeindeteile , Seite 97 (PDF) There is also the Oberstaufenbacher Mühle (mill).Constituent communities
Municipality’s layout Oberstaufenbach can be considered a clump village with loosely scattered houses. The original settlement grew on the Reichenbach's left bank and on both sides of the Limbach. Only with the building of the road in the Reichenbach valley did residential development arise here, along the road, both towards Reichenbach and towards Niederstaufenbach. Also built were houses along former farm lanes. Over the last two decades, the slopes near the village have also been opened to extensive building development. Worthy of note is an armorial stone found on the gable at the family Grill's house. It came about 1871/1872 as a keystone from a gateway arch to Oberstaufenbach. In Weilerbach, the house's builder had acquired bits of the former Schellenberger Hof, among other things the stones from the gateway arch, when that estate was torn down. He brought them to Oberstaufenbach, thinking to use them in his own building work. He set the keystone, which bears the von Horn coat of arms, in the walling in his house's gable. As early as 1855, the municipality of Oberstaufenbach laid out its own graveyard on the way out of the village going towards Neunkirchen am Potzberg, and not many years ago, it also had a mortuary built there. The former Heidenburg (literally “ castle”) is described in literature time and again as a Römerkastell (“Roman fort”). Only in the 1994 publication Oberstaufenbach im Wandel der Zeit (“Oberstaufenbach Through the Ages”) can a systematic reappraisal of this storied knoll be found. The writer came to the following conclusion: The knoll was fortified from early to middle La Tène times. In Roman times, nothing more than grave monuments and godstones were set up there. Reports of archaeological finds during the 19th century mention almost nothing but carved images, and conspicuous by their almost utter absence are reports of any finds of coins. Thus, any notion that a Roman fort once stood upon the knoll must be thoroughly revised. In the 10th century, there may well have been a wooden chapel standing there, and it seems likely that in the centuries that followed, this would have been replaced with a stone building. At the same time, work on a tower castle began. No later than the 12th century, this castle was provided with a girding wall and a well shaft. Nevertheless, the castle was forsaken before the Middle Ages had even ended, and hence, a written mention of it is nowhere to be found. In the 19th century, the knoll became the location for something else, a hard-stone quarry. The work there removed any remnant of the old castle that had lain there for centuries. Also unearthed at the site were pieces of Roman grave monuments, which might themselves have been used later to build the castle. In bygone centuries, the municipal area was a tangle of crisscrossing property lines, with often very small fields. In 1976, however, Flurbereinigung was undertaken, forming contiguous blocks of farmland, some quite big.Municipality’s layout
History
Antiquity Partial settlement, even before Roman times, can be confirmed by archaeological finds on the Heidenburg from La Tène times. What can also be established is that there were settlers here in Roman times. Remnants left by them were being unearthed on the Heidenburg up until the late 19th century. Despite the common assumption that there was a Roman fortification on this hilltop, there was actually only a Roman graveyard.Antiquity
Middle Ages In the village of Oberhausen (see Vanished villages below), people may once again have settled within what are now Oberstaufenbach's limits as early as the 8th century. Sometime in the Early Middle Ages, a castle complex was built, in which the available Roman grave monuments would have been used. This castle was not used for very long, though, and any trace of it was finally destroyed by stone quarrying in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1393, Oberstaufenbach had its first documentary mention in a document of bestowal from Count Friedrich of Veldenz. Professor Ernst Christmann, however, was of the opinion that there were already settlers in what is now Oberstaufenbach by 900, for Emperor Otto I in 945 granted a liegeman six Königshufen (an area of land) that lay between Bosenbach and Reichenbach, that is to say, within what are now Oberstaufenbach's and Niederstaufenbach's limits. Whatever the facts were, Oberstaufenbach was not mentioned by name in this document. Count Friedrich's 1393 document, however, in which he granted his wife Margareta von Nassau villages belonging to the Ämter of Reichenbach and Theisbergstegen, lists Oberstaufenbach by name, along with all the other villages that he gave his wife. About the turn of the second millennium, the village belonged to the Imperial Domain (Reichsland) near Kaiserslautern. Back then, Oberstaufenbach was considered part of the Amt of Deinsberg (Theißberg) am Glan, where the parochial seat could also be found. This Amt ended up by pledge in the ownership of the Counts of Veldenz and passed in 1444 to Louis I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, as rightful heir to the County of Veldenz.Middle AgesOberstaufenbach’s history
Modern times In 1543, the Amt area, now described as the Jettenbacher Gericht (“court”), was grouped into the then newly formed Principality of Veldenz-Lauterecken. Also belonging to this until 1697 was Oberstaufenbach. It was then that Electoral Palatinate troops occupied the former Veldenz Ämter of Lauterecken and Reichenbach to lend weight to the Electorate's inheritance claims. In the end, the Amt of Reichenbach remained with Electoral Palatinate as of 1733.Modern times
Recent times During the time of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era that followed, the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank were annexed by France. Oberstaufenbach now belonged to the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Bosenbach, the Canton of Wolfstein, the Arrondissement of Kaiserslautern and the Department of Mont-Tonnerre (or Donnersberg in German). After the French were driven out in 1814, the Congress of Vienna established a new political order in post-Napoleonic Europe. In 1816, after a transitional time, Oberstaufenbach was grouped into the bayerischer Rheinkreis, later known as Rheinpfalz (“Rhenish Palatinate”), an exclave of the Kingdom of Bavaria. More locally, Oberstaufenbach was grouped into the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Neunkirchen, the Canton of Wolfstein and the Landkommissariat of Kusel. After the Second World War, Oberstaufenbach found itself in the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Until the formation of the Verbandsgemeinden in 1972, Oberstaufenbach was assigned to the Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Neunkirchen am Potzberg. Upon formation of the Verbandsgemeinden, Oberstaufenbach found itself in the Verbandsgemeinde of Altenglan in the Kusel district.Recent times Only in 1975 did the municipality finally decide to undertake Flurbereinigung after eight landowners put forth a proposal that led to approval by municipal council on 16 October of that year. The municipality received a subsidy covering 87% of the cost of rearranging properties, which resulted in, among other things, the utter obliteration of the old network of paths and the laying out of a whole new one. Roughly 5 km of farm lanes were paved with blacktop and a footpath and cycle path was built from Oberstaufenbach to Niederstaufenbach. Further, the new building area “Hahnwege” was surveyed and subdivided; part of the existing village was also surveyed.
The Heidenburg Since the 19th century, the Heidenburg (literally “ castle”) has been known as Römerkastell (“Roman fort”). Beginning about 1855, this melaphyr-bearing land was a stone quarry where paving stones were made. These were sold as far away as France. Beginning in 1862, the municipally owned land was let to various tenants. The considerable income from rent led to the municipality being rather well off. Only in 1885 were archaeological investigations begun and a survey of the remaining ruins undertaken. By this time, a good three fourths of the complex had fallen victim to quarrying. The quarrymen's statements allowed investigators to reconstruct the ringwall's alignment at least. According to these, the Heidenburg had once had an oval fortification with an almost straight south wall. The ringwall had a breadth of 1.50 to 1.80 m and enclosed an area about 100 m long and 69 m wide. Buildings still stood, but only in the southern part of the complex that had still been preserved in 1855. A well 90 cm in diameter could be traced to a depth of 40 m, but the bottom could not be reached. On the southeastern side, two nearly complete buildings were observed, but of a third only one wall remained. The use of mortar in the masonry and the lack of any clearly Roman materials give rise to doubts about the complex dating from Roman times. Rather, it would seem, going by archaeological finds, to be a castle complex from the High Middle Ages, the 11th and 12th centuries, but whatever nobles owned it is quite unknown.
Population development Oberstaufenbach was originally inhabited only by farmers, but bit by bit, many villagers also sought livelihoods in quarries and mines. Today the village is a residential community for people of the most varied of occupations, who for the most part are commuting to jobs outside the village. In the future, the village will gain importance for recreation seekers and tourism. During the 19th century, population figures kept rising steadily, if not very quickly, even though emigration was taking place. A drop in the earlier half of the 20th century can be explained by emigration and migrations to other parts of Germany. In the latter half of the 20th century, there was for a short while considerable growth in population figures fostered by the village's favourable location near both Kusel and Kaiserslautern. This development, though, does not seem to be continuing.