Reichenstein Castle (Württemberg)

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Allemagne entière

Perched at 585 metres on a wooded slope of the Great Lauter valley, above the hamlet of Reichenstein (municipality of Lauterach, Alb-Donau district), the Reichenstein ruin is a fine example of a Hohenstaufen-era hilltop castle. Built around 1230-1250 on the initiative of the Counts of Wartstein, it was entrusted to their ministerials, the lords vom Stein, one branch of whom took the name Reichenstein and lived there for almost two centuries. Passing to the Benedictine abbey of Zwiefalten at the end of the 15th century, the fortress was destroyed during the Peasants' War in 1525 and by around 1600 was no more than an "old castle site". Its square keep of some twenty metres, which still retains rusticated ashlar stones, was restored in 1971-1972 and given a ground-level entrance: today it serves as a lookout tower with a wide view over the Lauter valley, one of the richest in castles in all of Germany. The freely accessible site can be discovered along the hiking trails of the Swabian Jura.