Genkingen Castle (ruin)

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Landkreis Reutlingen

North of the village of Genkingen, on the Swabian Jura plateau now part of the municipality of Sonnenbühl (Reutlingen district), faint traces of a small medieval castle survive. This hilltop castle, classed by historians as a village castle, is the third known fortified site in the Genkingen area, alongside the Hohengenkingen stronghold and the Steinhaus. No document sheds direct light on its construction or its disappearance. It is attributed to the lords of Genkingen, a family of minor nobility who appear several times as donors to the Benedictine abbey of Zwiefalten. On the ground, an attentive eye can still make out the ditch cut to isolate the spur, an earthen bank serving as a rampart and the rock that carried the buildings. No significant masonry is visible: it is above all an archaeological site, a witness to the settlement of the minor nobility on the Alb.