Burg Beilstein, Rock castle ruin near Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

Burg Beilstein is a ruined rock castle about two kilometres east of Kaiserslautern on the B37 towards Hochspeyer, at 313 m above sea level. What remains consists mainly of parts of the curtain wall, a portal and the rock needle with recesses for the roof beams of the buildings once erected around it. The name probably comes from the axe-shaped (Beil) rock.

Duke Frederick II of Swabia probably built the castle in the 12th century; in 1185 it was held by the ministerialis Merbodo von Beilstein. King Henry VII allowed the rebuilding of the Castrum Bylenstein in 1234. Between 1420 and 1455 it was violently destroyed and never rebuilt, passing to the Flörsheim family and the Electoral Palatinate; after the Flörsheim line died out in 1665 it came wholly to the Palatinate.

The name Beilstein probably comes from the axe shape of the rock the castle stands on. A legend tells of a proud knight's daughter guarded by two spirits: Junker Hanno, who tried to abduct her, was killed by a touch, and later a journeyman who ran around the ruin three times on a bet died the same way.

The ruin lies about two kilometres east of Kaiserslautern on the B37 towards Hochspeyer, at 313 m above sea level. Only parts of the curtain wall, a portal and the rock needle with its beam sockets survive, so the grounds are small and quickly seen. Sturdy shoes help on the rocky outcrop.

The rock needle still shows the recesses cut to hold the roof beams of the buildings once raised around it, so the vanished upper storeys can be read in the stone. Excavations in the late 1950s showed that an earlier complex stood here before the first mention, larger than the surviving masonry.