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Cultural centre of the Palatinate (Pfalz), central starting-point in wonderful hiking and holiday areas, that is Kaiserslautern, whose name goes back to the Hohenstaufen emperor Barbarossa. The beauty of the countryside impressed him 800 years ago, and he had a palace built for himself in "Lautern". The seemingly endless forests also fascinated the Count Palatine Johann Casimir, known to history as the legendary huntsman, the "Jäger aus Kurpfalz".

There is archaeological evidence (in the form of a sarcophagus found in 1895) that the mountaintop on which Hohenecken Castle was built was fortified even in Roman times. The final departure of the Romans in 406 C.E. left the area almost unpopulated for several centuries. (kaiser) in 1152, Frederick I (called Barbarossa because of his red beard) began to fortify the Palatinate, building a castle at Lautern (thus Kaiserslautern) and a number of surrounding fortifications of which Hohenecken was perhaps the largest. Construction was probably not completed until after 1210.

The royal court of Lutra is first mentioned in a document of around 830 AD. A new development in the history of the village of Lutra was the grant of market rights by Emperor Otto III in 985 and the building of an imperial palace by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa in 1152. The emperor himself often stayed at this palace, which caused the city to be known centuries later as Barbarossa's City. Lautern was granted a city charter by King Rudolf von Habsburg in 1276. This was also the time of the construction of a great hall church, the Collegiate Church. In the following century the city was given as security to various ecclesiastical and secular rulers. It was given a new lease of life in 1569, when the Count Palatine Johann Casimir, the "Jäger aus Kurpfalz" had a Renaissance palace built beside the foundations of the ruined castle of Barbarossa, himself moving to Kaiserslautern. The Thirty Years' War, occupation by Spanish, Swedish and French troops devastated the medieval city. Under Napoleon, Kaiserslautern became the seat of a sous-prefecture. After the end of Napoleon's reign, the city and the whole Palatinate became part of Bavaria. In the middle of the 19th Century the Fruchthalle was built, in which the revolutionary government of the Palatinate assembled.

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