Schönburg Castle
It is the multitude of towers, residential and defensive buildings that gives Schönburg Castle near Oberwesel its unique silhouette. Schönburg is a typical Ganerbenburg in which different branches of the Schönburg family lived together over the course of the centuries.
The castle, which probably dates back to the first half of the 12th century, was built on the northern foothills of a mountain chain. Owned by the archbishop of Magdeburg, it passed into the possession of Emperor Friedrich I in 1166, who raised it to imperial status and mortgaged it to the archdiocese of Magdeburg again in 1216.
- Schönburg Castle. Source: LAD
The castle consists of three courtyards arranged at different heights. The central courtyard is the oldest part of the castle and originally had a ditch on its southern side. The square-shaped gate tower also seems to have been built at that time. In the 13th century, up to eight branches of the family were living on the castle grounds. The southern upper courtyard with its two adjacent circular towers, the great hall, and the Gothic chapel as well as the bowers, a rectangular residential gate building of three storeys, are believed to date from this time.
Around 1320/1350, the castle was further enlarged through a paved gateway on the western slope of the hill and the lower courtyard with a mighty curtain wall, that is unique among the Rhine castles.
Schönburg Castle was occupied by different armies during the Thirty Years’ War and destroyed in the Palatinate War of Succession of 1689. In 1885, Oakley Rhinelander, a real estate agent from the United States, began rebuilding parts of the ruin, including, among others things, the bowers, the chapel, and the guardhouse. Between 1951 and 1953, the northern third of the castle was rebuilt by the Kolping family association and turned into a youth hostel, and further enhancements were made until 1982.