KAISERSLAUTERN, town in the Bavarian palatinate, on the Waldlauter, in the district of Westrich, 41 m. by rail W.
of Mannheim. Pop. 62,578. Kaiserslautern takes its name from the emperor (Kaiser) Frederick I., who built a castle here about 1152, although it appears to have been a royal residence in Carolingian times. It was an imperial city until 1357, when it passed to the palatinate. It was one of the early stations of the Reformation, and in 1849 was the centre of the revolutionary spirit in the palatinate. The house of correction occupies the site of Frederick Barbarossa's castle, which was demolished by the French in 1713. Kaiserslautern is one of the most important industrial towns in the palatinate. Its industries include cotton and wool spinning and weaving, iron-founding, and the manufacture of beer, tobacco, sugar, boots and furniture. KAISERSWERTH, town in the Prussian Rhine province, on the right bank of the Rhine, 6 m. below Diisseldorf. Pop. (1925)
2,972. It possesses a Romanesque Roman Catholic church of the 12th or 13th century, with a shrine, said to contain the bones of St. Suitbert. The Roman Catholic hospital occupies the former Franciscan convent. The population is engaged in small industries. In 710 Bishop Suitbert built the Benedictine monastery round which the town gradually formed. Until 1214 Kaiserswerth lay on an island, but in that year the Count of Berg, who was besieging it, dammed up effectually one arm of the Rhine. About the beginning of the 14th century Kaiserswerth, then an imperial city, came to the archbishopric of Cologne. It finally passed into the possession of the princes of the palatinate, whose rights, long dis puted by the elector of Cologne, were legally settled in 1772.