Postage stamp: sights - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1988 - 300 Pfennig

With »Landmarks«, the Deutsche Bundespost replaces the series »Castles and Palaces«, begun in 1976/77. The new permanent series with its extraordinary representations of significant cultural and technical achievements out, but should also be an incentive to look at the objects once in the original. The reel stamps appear simultaneously and identically with the inscription "Deutsche Bundespost Berlin". The Hambach Castle (also called Maxburg or popularly Kastenburg) is one of the birthplaces of German democracy in the 19th century. The former imperial castle was founded in the 11th century by the Salians and then belonged to the bishopric of Speyer, whose bishops were here in the late Middle Ages. Destroyed during the Peasants' War as in the Palatinate War of Succession, in 1842 it was handed over to the Bavarian Crown Prince Maximilian as a wedding present by Palatine citizens. It was to be extended to plans by August von Voit - a restoration that was not pursued after 1848. Today the castle, which is located in the area of ​​Neustadt an der Weinstraße, is owned by the district of Bad Dürkheim. In 1982, the Hambach Castle, one of the most important German national monuments, was expanded in its present form. On May 27, 1832 gathered on the castle hill in Hambach twenty to thirty thousand people from the countries of the German Confederation, but also Polish and French freedom fighters to demonstrate in peaceful form with black and red gold cockade for the civil rights and political unity of Germany. It was one of the first major mass demonstrations in German history, which demanded not only the one fatherland but also the "free, republican Europe" programmatically. Many performances of the Hambach Patriots were further updated in the St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt in 1848 and have entered into both the Weimar Constitution and the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany. The 150th anniversary of the Hambach Festival in 1982, during which the state government of Rhineland-Palatinate and all political parties renewed its commitment to the ideals of democracy, the rule of law and a united Europe for the present and the future Castle ruin The idea and idea of ​​Hambach was carried into wide circles of the population. Since then, the Hambach Castle, as well as the conferences and exhibitions organized there, have attracted many hundreds of thousands of visitors from Germany and abroad. (Text: Rhineland-Palatinate, State Chancellery, Mainz)