Rammelsbach

Rammelsbach 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. The municipality lies within the Kusel Musikantenland (“Minstrels’ Land”) in the Western Palatinate. Rammelsbach lies in the Kuselbach valley between Kusel and Altenglan and also stretches into the valley of the Rammelsbach, which flows to the Kuselbach from the south. In its upper reaches, the Rammelsbach is known as the Tiefenbach. The Kuselbach valley floor lies at 215 m above sea level. Prominent elevations on the Kuselbach's right bank are the Rammelsbacher Kopf (256 m) and the Remigiusberg (368 m), while over on the left bank is the Hinzigberg, which near the Schlichterhof reaches a height of almost 300 m. The great basalt quarry, locally known as “Dimpel”, spreads over the whole Rammelsbacher Kopf. An electronics factory stands in the village's west end between Bundesstraße 420 and the Kuselbach. The industrial lands in this area have over time come to abut those in Kusel. The municipal area measures 264 ha, of which 31 ha is wooded. Rammelsbach borders in the north and east on the municipality of Altenglan, in the south on the municipality of Haschbach am Remigiusberg and in the west on the town of Kusel. Rammelsbach also meets the municipality of Theisbergstegen at a single point in the southeast. Also belonging to Rammelsbach are the outlying homesteads of Haus Menges, Kreuzhof, Rechenhäuschen and Schlichterhof. Rammelsbach was originally made up of only a few houses and was even once called the Rammelsbacher Hof (“estate” or “farm”). The village core spread out until the 19th century over both banks of the Rammelsbach, and only the mill stood on the Kuselbach. Beginning in the 17th century, the village began to spread outwards, but only slowly at first. A small outlying centre arose in the 19th century, the Rechenhäuschen, on the Kuselbach's left bank.