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Kapfenstein is a municipality in the southeast of Styria in the district of Southeast Styria. Kapfenstein is located about 45 km as the crow flies, but at least 66 km driving distance southeast of Graz and about 10 km southeast of the district capital Feldbach in the East Styrian hill country. A striking feature of the landscape is the extinct volcanic cone in the village of Kapfenstein.
Culture and sights
Kapfenstein Castle: The castle stands in the middle of the village on an extinct volcanic cone and was first mentioned in a document in 1065. For many centuries, the fortress was one of those fortified castles in the eastern Styrian region that protected Styria and the neighboring Austrian crown lands from the onslaughts of the Magyars, Turks and Kurucs. At first Kapfenstein was owned by the Caphensteins, then it belonged to the Walseers, Weisseneggern, Lengheim and the Piebetz family. Finally, in 1898, the estate came into the possession of the Winkler-Hermaden family, who are still the owners today.
Catholic parish church Kapfenstein St. Nicholas stands on a hillside south of the castle.
According to her own account, on Christmas Eve 1937 the Christ Child appeared to Wilhelmine Kellner, then seven years old from Kapfenstein, in a forest in the village. Her grandson, the journalist and author Ewald Wurzinger, published the story in 2017 in the children's book Wilma und das Christkind (Wilma and the Christ Child) published by Paramon Verlag. In the municipality, a path was named after Kellner in 2019.
