On January 1, 1974, the municipal territorial and administrative reform was completed. Together with other, previously independent municipalities, the old town of Blieskastel now forms a new administrative unit with 15 districts. With about 3,000 hectares of forest, Blieskastel is one of the most densely forested communities in the Saarland. Due to the charming landscape and the curative climatic conditions, Blieskastel became a state-approved Kneipp health resort. Blieskastel is also known as a place of pilgrimage. Thousands make the annual pilgrimage to the historically interesting and legendary Pieta "Our Lady with the Arrows", in the over 300 year old Holy Cross Chapel. In front of her, there are also two Schaecher crosses, which are considered the oldest large sculptures of the 17th century in the Saarland.
The industrial development of the 19th century led past Blieskastel. Decisive for this were the new means of transportation that were established on new routes, especially to the coalfields. The former Blieskastel provincial town of St. Ingbert grew into a large settlement as a result of coal and the railroad. In 1902, St. Ingbert became the district town and Blieskastel belonged to the district of St. Ingbert from then on. In the following decades, the political development of Blieskastel was identical with the eventful history of the Saarland. In 1935, after the referendum, the Saarland and thus also Blieskastel returned to the German Reich. In the following ten years of the brown dictatorship, the population of the Saarland - as it was officially called from March 1, 1935 - experienced repression and terror against political dissidents as well as against the religiously and racially excluded and ostracized; they had to live through the horrors of the air war and the fighting on land. The people of Blieskastel, like the other inhabitants of the "Red Zone," also had to endure the evacuations in the first and last years of the war. In 1947, the Saarland became an independent political entity with close ties to France. After the Saar referendum of 1955, political annexation followed in 1957, and in 1959 economic annexation to the then Federal Republic.
Around the pond of the Blieskastel district of Niederwürzbach, a local recreation area, there are still baroque buildings from the Leyen period, such as the "Roter Bau", the "Annahof" and the rest of the "Philippsburg". The baroque core of Blieskastel itself, with 154 individual monuments, has been declared a protected monument area "Alt Blieskastel". That the town of Blieskastel is willing to give its past a future is shown, among other things, by the redevelopment of the old town and the opening of the pedestrian zone, which reconciles the requirements of the present with the historic townscape. In 1994, the town of Blieskastel was awarded the Saarland's monument conservation prize for its ongoing efforts to preserve the baroque townscape. In 1998, the residents of the Wolfersheim district were able to receive a silver medal in the federal competition "Unser Dorf soll schöner werden" ("Our village should become more beautiful").
When Napoleon, on the occasion of whose coronation as emperor in 1804 the citizens of Blieskastel erected the "Napoleon Fountain", popularly known as the "Snake Fountain", lost the Battle of Leipzig, the territory on the left bank of the Rhine, which belonged to France, was initially under the central administration of the victorious states. The canton of Blieskastel had been under an imperial-royal Austrian and royal Bavarian joint land administration since 1814. On April 14, 1816, Austria and Bavaria concluded a compensation deal, according to which the "Rhine District", the later Palatinate, was assigned to the Kingdom of Bavaria. As a result, the canton of Blieskastel was placed under the district administration of Zweibrücken on May 1, 1816, and the local population was now Bavarian. In 1823, on the occasion of the construction of the important new road Blieskastel-Biesingen, the "citizens of the little town of Bliescastel" erected the so-called Maximilian Column in homage to the Bavarian king.
On January 1, 1775, Blieskastel was elevated to the status of Oberamt. On September 26 of the same year, the ruling count died. His widow, Countess Marianne, took over the official business for her underage son. In 1793, she was only able to escape the threatening arrest by French revolutionary troops by an adventurous escape. Blieskastel - like the entire area on the left bank of the Rhine - was conquered by troops of the French Republic and finally appointed cantonal capital in the Saar department in 1798.
The boom for Blieskastel began after 1733, when the reigning Imperial Count Franz Carl von der Leyen and his wife Marianne, née Dalberg, moved their residence to the local castle for various reasons. This was the beginning of Blieskastel's heyday. The Count's lively building activity is still evidenced today by stately palaces in late Baroque style, today's Town Hall I, formerly the Oberamts-, Zucht-, Arbeits- und Waisenhaus; the Franciscan monastery church (today's so-called "Schloßkirche") as well as the generously designed Paradeplatz.
On the occasion of the marriage of his son Friedrich Ferdinand, Count Carl Caspar Franz von der Leyen gave him the office and the village of Blieskastel in 1733. Friedrich Ferdinand lived with his family mainly in the local castle and moved to Koblenz only in 1739, after the death of his father, to take over the office.
As early as 1661, work began on the newly planned castle building, which was to be erected on the site of the old castle complex. The master builder was the Capuchin friar Bonitius. With the construction of the still preserved "Long Building", the so-called "Orangery", the Barons von der Leyen created what is probably the most impressive Renaissance building in all of southwest Germany.
The development of Blieskastel, often referred to as the "baroque gem" of the Saarland, is closely linked to the Derer von der Leyen family. This ancient family, originating from the Moselle, first obtained rights and estates in and around Blieskastel in 1456 through the marriage of Georg I von der Leyen to Eva Mauchenheimer from Zweibrücken. A fortunate circumstance for the von der Leyen and their family policy was the election of Carl Caspar von der Leyen as Elector and Archbishop of Trier in 1652. With political farsightedness and the necessary financial means, Carl Caspar recognized the favorable opportunity that now presented itself to the family after the end of the 30 Years War to obtain a contiguous estate in the Blieskastel district.
The nobility residing in the Bliesgau had been impoverished by the destruction of their estates during the war and were therefore prepared to sell their property and feudal rights, which had become unprofitable. With the financial support of his two brothers, Barons Hugo Ernst and Damian Hartard, later Elector of Mainz, Carl Caspar von der Leyen persistently and systematically pursued the expansion of the Leyen property in the Bliesgau in the following years. In his official capacity as Elector of Trier, he transferred the house and office of Blieskastel to the Barons von der Leyen with the approval of the cathedral chapter on January 12, 1660. This family now owned the land on the Blies as a fief for several generations.
In 1998 Blieskastel celebrated the 900th anniversary of its first documentary mention. These referred to a document from the year 1098, in which a Count Gottfried von Castele also appeared as a witness. This count can be assigned to a noble family, which can be traced back to the 9th century in the Saar and Blies region. After the death of the last Bliesgau count, Count Heinrich von Castel, in 1273, his daughter Elisabeth, the founder of the Gräfinthal monastery, managed to assert the county of Blieskastel against her mother and her six sisters, thus triggering protracted inheritance disputes. In 1284, the now owner of the castle, Heinrich von Salm, sold his property to Bishop Burkhard von Metz. Two years later, the latter issued the so-called "Freiheitsbrief" (letter of freedom), in which Blieskastel is mentioned as a place of residence, as a village: "villa Castris". The first reliable proof of a settlement near the castle dates back to 1275. In 1326, Blieskastel was pledged by the bishop of Metz to the Lorraine lords of Finstingen. In 1337, the castle finally became the property of the Electorate of Trier, and Archbishop Jakob, in need of money, gave half of the rights to the knight Friedrich von Lewenstein. In 1522, during his war campaign against Trier, Franz von Sickingen attacked the village of Blieskastel and burned down the small settlement. The continuing financial misery led to the pledge of Blieskastel again in 1533, this time to Count Philipp II of Nassau-Saarbrücken. However, after the cancellation of the pledge, they did not think of returning the Electorate of Blieskastel with the town of the same name and had to be forced to do so by Archbishop Christoph von Sötern in 1634. In the meantime, the 30 Years' War also claimed its toll of blood in the Bliesgau. According to a report from 1651, there were only 47 households in the entire Blieskastel district, four of them in Blieskastel, which owned only three horses and one cow.
The founding history of Blieskastel itself lies in the dark. The presumed, but by nothing proven descent of the name from a Roman "Castellum ad Blesam" led again and again to imaginative interpretations and lively attempts of interpretation.
In addition, there are the 12 Hallstatt-period burial mounds to the left of the Böckweiler-Mimbach road, the remains of a Roman villa near Bierbach, the 2-meter "Celtic giant" discovered in Wolfersheim in 1987, and the two Roman equestrian statues found in a quarry near Breitfurt as early as 1887. Today they are located in front of the Historical Museum of the Palatinate in Speyer. The early Romanesque St. Stephen's Church in today's Böckweiler district has existed for 1,000 years. Monks of the Benedictine order built this oldest church in the Saarland around 850.
The 7 m high "Gollenstein" bears witness to the early settlement of Blieskastel. Built 4,000 years ago, it is considered the largest menhir in Central Europe and one of the oldest cultural monuments in Germany. It reminds especially the younger visitors of a menhir, the constant companion of Obelix and Asterix.
History of Blieskastel from www.blieskastel.de.