Luitpold Tower

The Luitpold Tower (German: Luitpoldturm or Luitpoldsturm) was erected in 1909 on the summit of one of the highest hills in the Palatine Forest, the 610-metre-high Weißenberg as an observation tower. It is made of bunter sandstone.

The idea of building a tower was conceived on 29 May 1895 at the general assembly of the Gräfenstein Conservation Society (Gräfensteiner Verschönerungsverein), a group that forestry assessor August Zwissler from Leimen had founded in 1893. It was decided to build a viewing tower on the Weißenberg costing an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 gold marks. The necessary funding would be raised by society member Martin Jäger, a well known local poet who went under the pseudonym, Fritz Claus. Thanks to his support for the tower he was able to win the Palatine Forest Club, founded in 1902 in Ludwigshafen, to his cause. The leadership of the PWV took over the coordination of the project, had the plans produced by architect Ludwig Ullmann and gathered the necessary funding, predominantly from membership subscriptions. Its name was proposed by Karl Albrecht von Ritter, the chairman of the PWV at the time; it was named after Prince Luitpold of Bavaria. In 1908 construction on the tower began and it was inaugurated on 26 September 1909. The costs came to around 23,000 gold marks, which corresponds to a sum of about €250,000 in 2000. The payment of this amount was concluded in 1911 by the Palatine Forest Club.

The Luitpold Tower is a rectangular structure built of hewn sandstone blocks and comprises a perron, the actual observation tower itself and an attached building annexe The tower is 34.6 metres high, and the viewing platform is 28.5 metres above ground level. From platform level there is a further, small staircase tower with a door and slate roof.

After climbing the perron, the visitor enters a staircase tower, well-lit by multiple window openings. There are 164 steps to the observation deck. Halfway up, there is a small oriel window with a bench that can be used to rest. The upper portion of the tower is occupied by a spacious room with a relatively narrow, metallic spiral staircase in the centre, leading to the top. The visitor leaves the staircase turret through a metal door and finally enters the viewing platform, which is surrounded by a sandstone balustrade, approximately waist high, with four observation niches. In 2002, 12 tablets were mounted on this parapet at regular intervals, which point out places of interest that may be seen from the tower, both close to and in the far distance, together with distance information.

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