Ehningen Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Landkreis Böblingen

South of Ehningen's old village centre, in the district of Böblingen, Schlossstraße preserves the memory of the municipality's so-called upper castle. Its origins go back to a Wasserburg, a water-protected castle recorded around 1300. In 1670 the estate passed by inheritance to the von Breitschwert family, which included the jurist Philipp Leonhard von Breitschwerdt (1654-1712), lord of the place. In 1755 the building was rebuilt by Georg H. Heidegger, giving it the appearance of an 18th-century manor house. Ehningen also had a second seat, the Untere Burg or lower castle, demolished in 1768; nor should this castle be confused with that of neighbouring Mauren, destroyed in a bombing raid in 1943. Now reported as private property, Ehningen Castle bears witness to the minor nobility who held the Swabian villages around Böblingen.