Waldau Castle (Burg Waldau)

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Landkreis Ostalbkreis

The scant remains of Waldau Castle, called Hohenwalden in a document of 1674, occupy a wooded spur at an altitude of about 451 metres, near the hamlet of Waldau, part of Großdeinbach, today a district of Schwäbisch Gmünd. Recent research sees it as a spur castle of the Staufer period, later than 1150, as suggested by a rusticated stone and pottery sherds from the 12th to the 14th centuries. In 1301 the site belonged to Kraft of Klingenfels, then passed to the lords of Rechberg; in 1393 Wilhelm of Rechberg held it as a fief from Count Ulrich of Hohenlohe. In 1540 Wolf of Rechberg ceded the castle and its farmstead to the Imperial City of Schwäbisch Gmünd, which nevertheless had to receive investiture from the Hohenlohe until this feudal bond was abolished in 1864-1870. A hunting map from around 1567 already shows the site in ruins; the destruction often attributed to the people of Gmünd in 1449 is not proven. Only a few sections of masonry survive in the forest.