Haideck Castle Site

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Allemagne entière

On the Haidberg, east of the hamlet of Haideck in Oberkotzau, a rock plateau at 568 metres holds the traces of a vanished castle. It was an outpost of the Kotzau family, a secondary stronghold guarding the lands of the family seat. The spur is naturally well defended: its slopes are steep and rock outcrops shield the east and west sides, almost like an outer ward. The entrance was on the west. The castle was ruined in the 1330s in a private war against the imperial cities, above all Eger (Cheb), and was then seen as a 'deserted castle'. A tower, apparently rebuilt later, was destroyed in turn by the Hussites around 1430, along with the archives the Kotzau family thought were safe there. In the 16th century its stones were used for building in Oberkotzau. Today only uneven ground and traces of a rampart remain, on a site protected as an archaeological monument and never studied in detail.