The outlying centre of Windhof, lying 3 km to the northeast an elevation of 340 m above sea level offers the visitor an outstanding panorama of the surrounding countryside, owing to its exposed location.

This first documentary mention and the continuous accounts thereafter, based on solid sources, lead to the conclusion that the village’s founding came about in the earlier half of the 13th century, which would also match what is classically believed to be the castle’s building date: 1200-1250.

Worth mentioning is the hierarchical division of building practices, which reflected the feudal societal structure: On the heights stood the old castle, which represented the way the nobility lived.

If the ruling family was to live there permanently, the mediaeval castle would have to be adapted to more modern requirements, which would end up fully overhauling very nearly all aspects of the then existing building.

The terracelike, well aligned building work done in the areas known as “Auf dem Schloss” (“At the Palatial Castle”) and “Im Lustgarten” (“In the Pleasure Garden”) still bear witness today to the way that architectural imagination strove for harmony, here in a V-shaped convergence of the two at a newly built residence.

Only relatively late, in the latter half of the 18th century, did the settlement in the dale, this time in the course of an economic upswing, begin to spread out to the west and east, giving rise to representative residential buildings, some of which can still be recognized today.

However, as also in all later expansions, these ones might not have left Grumbach with its old character, that of a late mediaeval-early modern castle-market town that presented itself in a well-nigh unique way within the district of Kusel.

In 1937, the gymnasium on Gemeinde-Zimmerer-Platz (square), which also fulfilled the function of a village hall, was built by a building bee organized by the gymnastic club.

More recent examinations of aerial photographs have shown that there might have been a settlement in Roman times in the area of the Schlossberg, west of the current village of Grumbach.

[3] In March 1243, Grumbach had its first documentary mention, when the then holder of the castle, Waldgrave Conrad II of Kyrburg, enfeoffed the Duke of Brabant with it.

On 29 July 1330, the village was granted town rights on the Kaiserslautern model in a freedom certificate by Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian, although there were no major attendant effects.

This structure was supposedly preserved well beyond feudal times, characterizing the village in increasing measure until in the course of administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate in 1969-1972 it abruptly met its end.

The Rhinegraves of Grumbach, meanwhile, who had been forced into flight before the Revolutionary tide early in 1793, were richly compensated by the Extraordinary Imperial Deputation at Regensburg in 1802-1803 for the lands on the Rhine’s left bank that they had lost to the French, by being granted, through their delegates’ skilful negotiation, lands in the now secularized Prince-Bishopric of Münster in Westphalia, where their line, as Princes at Salm-Horstmar, Waldgraves and Rhinegraves, still thrives today, if not as rulers.

After the reconquest of the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank, the first authority that held sway here was the jointly Austrian- and Bavarian-led Landesadministrationskommission (“State Administration Commission”), whose seat was at Bad Kreuznach, before 1815, when the Congress of Vienna divided the Canton of Grumbach.

Likewise at the Congress of Vienna, it was agreed that other princes who had participated in the Wars of Freedom should get a share of the compensation, and accordingly, there was a wholesale “trade in souls”, which saw Grumbach, among other places, ceded to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, which eventually named its newly created Palatine exclave the Principality of Lichtenberg on 24 February 1819.

Later, after the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles, which went into force on 10 January 1920, stipulated, among other things, that 26 of the Sankt Wendel district’s 94 municipalities had to be ceded to the British- and French-occupied Saar.

The hostels in the dale that the agreement also mentions and the non-resident lower nobility’s Burgmann politics, known to have characterized the Late Middle Ages, point to an infrastructure that fit the conditions that then prevailed, with the attendant population development.

Grumbach’s continuous status as an administrative centre of one kind or another, even beyond the Holy Roman Empire’s final downfall, ensured that the village always had a solid population core, although emigration did make its mark in the time of pauperism.

Grumbach got its own church in the years 1836-1838, which was built by Master Builder Leonhard from Sankt Wendel in an unusual spot: the one formerly occupied by the castle, high above the rest of the village.

[1] The German blazon reads: In Gold ein grüner Wellenschrägbalken belegt mit einem blaubewehrten, blaubezungten und blaugekrönten roten Löwen.

The Waldgravial lion in the current arms is a reference not only to the village’s former allegiance to the Waldgraviate-Rhinegraviate, but also to Grumbach’s former status as that noble family’s residential seat.

Looking back on an even longer history than the gymnastic club, albeit not a continuous one, is the public Evangelical library at the village’s old rectory.

The catastrophic economic conditions in the village caused the lordship in 1708 to institute support measures, which actually began to take effect in the decades that followed.

Only two fulltime agricultural operations are to be found today in Grumbach, and they both lie in the outlying centre of Windhof, and one also offers “holidays down on the farm”, which is greatly in demand.

Trade and crafts, on the other hand, were brought to an end with the dissolution of the Amt and the consequent shift of administrative functions to the nearby and economically stronger town of Lauterecken.

Over the last 30 years, Grumbach has evolved into a purely residential community, where even such basic craft businesses as baker and butcher are no longer to be found.

This changed in the course of the 18th century when, by way of an apparent bequest from the French language teacher Gilbret am Hofe, the municipality found itself in a position to build its own schoolhouse.

After the French auctioned off all goods and landholds seized from the Rhinegraves, school lessons were moved to the Hofratshaus (courthouse) at Oberstraße 31, a building that is still under municipal ownership even today.

There were the track to Hausweiler, the Sonnhofweg to Kappeln and the Roman road and onwards to Meisenheim, the Schlossbergweg to Merzweiler and Langweiler, the Pfaffensteg to Sulzbach and the Hettengraben to Buborn.

The condition of the road link between the Glan and Nahe valleys, which led through the village, was at that time quite poor and the upgrade to today’s Bundesstraße 270 only came about after the Second World War.