Gutenburg

En un regard

Le château en bref

The remains of Gutenburg crown a granite knoll where the Schlücht gorge, descending from the southern foothills of the Black Forest, opens towards the Klettgau and the Upper Rhine valley. The site today belongs to the hamlet of Gutenburg, attached to the Aichen district of the town of Waldshut-Tiengen, about one kilometre south of Gurtweil. The hard core of the hill, resistant to erosion, provided a natural foundation for a fortification overseeing the pass. The history of the site begins with a tower built by the Swiss abbey of St Gallen to protect its possessions in the Albgau, before a noble family developed a true castle around it in the twelfth century. The lords of Gutenburg were followed by the Krenkingen, the Hohenfels, the Im Thurn of Schaffhausen and the Rümlang, often through pawning arrangements, until the abbey of St Blasien acquired the lordship in 1480. The Peasants' War and the Thirty Years' War subsequently left their mark on the site, which St Blasien had set on fire in 1640. Only an unconsolidated ruin survives, overgrown with vegetation and difficult to spot in summer. No waymarked path leads to it, and the condition of the masonry makes a visit inadvisable, although access to the land remains open. The name of Gutenburg lives on in the industrial activity of the valley, where an abbey forge and wire-drawing works preceded the fibreboard panel factory installed nearby since 1932.