Alberweiler Castle is a small castle-like structure in the village of Alberweiler, now part of the municipality of Schemmerhofen in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on a hillside in the centre of the village. The ground and the first floor of the castle are made of stone whereas the upper storeys consist of three projecting half-timbered floors.

A castle is first mentioned in sources dating from the 11th century. It was occupied by knights in the service of the Counts of Berg-Wartstein. This early structure was destroyed in 1487 but soon after, towards the end of the 15th century, a new castle was erected at the behest of Bartholome of Warthausen. Some remains of the circular rampart are still visible. Following the extinction of the house of Warthausen zu Alberweiler in 1585, the castle was enfeoffed to the Counts of Stadion by Emperor Rudolf II. The castle was renovated in early-Baroque style in the 17th century. The gate was also constructed during these restoration works. At around 1700, the castle functioned as residence for the local reeve, the Counts of Stadion residing at Warthausen Castle, and subsequently went into private ownership during the course of the 18th century. In 1826, the Counts of Stadion sold all rights to the village and the castle to the Kingdom of Württemberg. Following alterations in 1880 the structure slowly began to fall into disrepair. The castle was extensively restored in the late 20th century and is privately owned today.

Alberweiler Castle

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Schloss Warthausen (Warthausen palace) is a schloss (large country palace) near the town of Warthausen in Germany. It has been home to several famous historical personages, including authors Christoph Martin Wieland and Sophie von La Roche, and painter Johann Heinrich Tischbein. It was the traditional home of the Counts of Stadion-Warthausen. It is the subject of an article, The Gardens at Schloss Warthausen and Their Place in German Literature.

In 1168, a castle was sold to Friedrich Barbarossa, and passed to the House of Habsburg in 1339. The castle burned down in 1474, and was rebuilt.

In 1529, Reichsritter Dr. Hans Schad von Mittelbiberach (1505-1571)  received the building from the House of Habsburg, adding new construction to it between 1532 and 1540, enlarging it to a country palace. It was burned again in 1623, during the Thirty Years' War, and rebuilt in the Renaissance style in the 1620s.

From 1696 to 1827, Schloss Warthausen was in the possession of the Counts of Stadion. The State of Württemberg took possession of it and its hereditary rights in 1827. In 1829, it was acquired by Wilhelm von König-Warthausen (de).

It has been home to many notable historical personages, including Count Anton Heinrich Friedrich von Stadion (de), Johann Philipp Stadion, Count von Warthausen, Christoph Martin Wieland, Johann Heinrich Tischbein, Sophie von La Roche, and Friedrich Karl von Koenig-Warthausen.

Since 1985, the building and its surrounding lands have been owned by Franz Freiherr von Ulm zu Erbach.

The palace is built in the South German Renaissance style. It has Baroque external architecture features. It is located just north of Warthausen, near the river Riss. It dominates the area and the eastern tip of the estate overlooks the Riss valley.

The landscape as it had recently been completely redone in English style appears in a plan of 1793 by the gardener Brückner. This new landscape design set a historic new standard for German gardens. The landscaped portion of the entire 120 acre estate consists of about 17 acres. It contains parterres (formal gardens). The remaining land is neatly divided in fields lined by allées, some being there still. There are some ornamental ponds and lakes on the estate.

The Warthausen Brewery, active from 1632-1970, was located at the foot of the hill. It was a beer supplier for about 400 inns throughout Southern Germany and at tourist attractions. The building is now a nursing home.

The estate has been a setting of inspiration for notable writers and poets who were invited to the property from time to time over the years. Wieland, a leading authority of the German Rococo, for example was inspired by the grounds of the estate. Wilhelm von König-Warthausen gave detailed descriptions of the Schloss and its gardens in his works.



Schloss Warthausen

Achstetten Castle is a classicist mansion in the southern German municipality of Achstetten in Upper Swabia.

Achstetten Castle is located at an elevation of about 503 m in the southern part of the municipality close to the parish church St Oswald and Agatha, the 18th-century country inn Rössle and the local town hall. The castle is situated on the edge of the valley of the river Rot to the east, and an elevated plain leading to the valley of the river Rottum to the west.

Achstetten Castle is a spacious three-storey building in classicist style with a risalit in its centre. Two wings are loosely attached to the main structure at a right angle. These two wings function as economy buildings. On three sides the castle is surrounded by a large park, which is home to an enclosure where fallow deer are kept. The main access to the castle is by a driveway measuring about 150 metres (490 ft) long. Noteworthy of the interior are a classicist staircase, 19th century furniture, an iron stove from 1798, portraits of the Freyberg family and a porcelain collection. A raised and roofed passageway on wooden pillars connects the castle to the nearby church. This passageway has a length of approximately 100 metres (330 ft). Passageways of this kind, which enabled the lord of the castle and his family to enter the church without being subject to the weather, were not uncommon; remnants of such a construction can also be seen at Großlaupheim Castle.

A castle in Achstetten was first mentioned ion 1386. In a description dating from 1449, the castle is said to be a tall building, surrounded by moats and having two bridges. The castle was looted and burnt to the ground during the German Peasants' War in 1525 by members of the local peasant army, the Baltringer Haufe. A new castle was erected in 1583 which was described in 1620 by the visiting abbot of Ochsenhausen Abbey as a splendid palace.

By around 1750 it consisted of an inner yard, surrounded by a large building which contained the stables, a derelict barn and a gate on the ground floor, the granary in the attic and living quarters in between. To the left of the gate there was a prison building and the dairy whereas on the right hand side of the gate more stables for cattle and sheep were located. In the outer yard stood the building allocated to the Vogt as well as a barn. The castle and its gardens were surrounded by a tall hedge which functioned as a living wall.

The original castle was owned by the barons of Freyberg until 1639 after which time it changed hands several times before being bought by Baron Beat Conrad Reuttner von Weyl in 1795. He had the current castle built in 1794–1796. The architect was Franz Anton Bagnato. The building works started one year before the actual contract of sale was signed. Beat Conrad Reuttner von Weyl must therefore have been quite certain of his future acquisition. During the first half of the 19th century, the pond and the moats that surrounded the previous castle were drained and turned into a park. Most recently restoration works at the castle took place in 1982 and 1983. In 1996 a fountain, which already appeared in the original plans by Bagnato, was erected in the castle yard.

Achstetten Castle and its estate are in the possession of the family Reuttner von Weyl who still reside at the castle. It is also home to the offices for the administration and the management of the estate. The castle is in private hands and not accessible to the public.

Achstetten Castle

Dellmensingen Castle is an early Baroque castle in the Upper Swabian village of Dellmensingen, now part of the city of Erbach, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Dellmensingen Castle is a plain and unadorned three-storey stone building, covered by a gabled roof.

For a long period of time there were two castles in Dellmensingen: the Untere Burg (Lower Castle), surrounded by a moat, mentioned in the 15th century, of which no remains are visible today as it was completely demolished in 1809, and the Obere Burg (Upper Castle). Both castles were destroyed during the Thirty Years War.

When the owner of the village of Dellmensingen, Johann Karl von Stotzingen, canon at Augsburg and Regensburg, died without there being a male successor in 1647, Ellwangen Abbey, which had seignory over the Lower Castle, attempted to expand its rights over the whole village, including the Upper Castle. This claim, however, was rejected by Emperor Ferdinand III whereupon the ownership of the Upper Castle together with its rights over the village went to Georg Heinrich von Werdenstein, an official in the service of Kempten Abbey, in 1657. Consequently, Dellmensingen became the main seat of residence for the Barons of Werdenstein. The dilapidated Lower Castle was rebuilt in Baroque style in 1685. It consisted not only of the actual castle building but also of stables, barns, bakery, a cowshed and other agricultural buildings, surrounded by castle walls. Castle Dellmensingen and its accompanying rights over the village remained in possession of the Barons of Werdenstein until 1796 when the last member of the family, Anton Christoph von Werdenstein, died without a male issue. The fiefdom of Dellmensingen returned to the Emperor.

During the German Mediatisation nuns of Söflingen Abbey, which was dissolved following its annexation by Bavaria, found temporary refuge in the castle in 1809.

After Dellmensingen had become part of the newly founded Kingdom of Württemberg, the castle was sold into private hands, first, in 1814, to two patricians from Biberach, then to a citizen from the village of Asch in 1840 and finally to Count Karl Viktor Reuttner von Weyl from Achstetten in 1851.

Between March and August 1942 Castle Dellmensingen was used as a so-called retirement home for Jews, where more than 100 elderly Jews were forced to live until their deportation to the death camps. 18 of the inhabitants died during their stay at the castle and were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Laupheim. In the autumn of 1942, the castle housed 23 families from Slovenia who were thought by the SS to be able to be Germanised. All of them returned to Slovenia in July 1945.

After the end of the Second World War the castle served as accommodation for ethnic Germans expelled from Eastern Europe and from 1947 until 1967 the charity organisation Caritas utilised the premises as an old people's home.

The then independent municipality of Dellmensingen bought the castle in 1955 from the Counts of Achstetten. In 1971, Castle Dellmensingen changed into private hands, followed by extensive interior renovation works.

The interior of the castle has been separated into a number of flats and a business centre which offers office space for small companies.



Dellmensingen Castle

Untersulmetingen Castle is a small castle-like renaissance structure in the village of Untersulmetingen, now part of the municipality of Laupheim, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

The castle is situated at an elevation of 509 metres in the centre of the formerly independent village of Untersulmetingen. It is located on a slow slope of a terminal moraine to the west of the river Riß.

Untersulmetingen Castle is a plain, three-storey building, covered by a large gabled roof which dates from around 1600.

The castles' chapel, which dates from 1608 and was dedicated to Saint Othmar, is decorated by paintings and stucco whose function it is to amalgamate the encompassed forms of the windows and paintings into a moving form.

A medieval castle was built around 1400. In March 1525 this castle was looted and burnt down by the Baltringer Haufen during the German Peasants' War. On the death of Georg von Sulmetingen in 1528, the indigenous local nobility became extinct, after which the castle and the village repeatedly changed hands. Between 1538 and 1542, Hieronymus Roth von Schreckenstein, a patrician from Ulm, had a new castle built on the foundations of the previous one, destroyed during the Peasants' War.

In 1551 Untersulmetingen Castle was acquired by Johann Jakob Fugger. His successors altered the castle fundamentally. Around 1600, the gabled roof was constructed. In 1608, Trajan Fugger added a Rococo-style chapel to the castle. He invested a large sum to embellish the castle itself and its precinct, erecting a gatehouse, a castle garden, a tithe barn and several economy buildings. In 1729, the castle was mortgaged to Ochsenhausen Abbey which ultimately bought the castle in 1735.

Between 1730 and 1732, Benedikt Denzel, abbot of Ochsenhausen Abbey, redesigned the interior of Untersulmetingen Castle as well as the castles' chapel, employing prestigious artists such as sculptor Dominikus Hermenegild Herberger and painter Franz Joseph Spiegler.

In 1803, after the dissolution of the monasteries during the secularisation, the castle went into the hands of Georg Karl von Metternich-Winneburg und Beilstein as compensation for territories lost to France following Napoleon's conquests. In 1805 he sold the castle to Karl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis. In December 1805 the village passed into the possession of the Kingdom of Bavaria and in 1806 it was assigned to the Kingdom of Württemberg. Karl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis remained lord of the castle until the feudal tenure was abolished later on. From that time the castle was allocated to the local priest who used it as his residence until 1969, when it was sold into private hands.

In 1979 and in 2000, the castle's chapel was renovated.

Today the castle is privately owned. The chapel is home of the local administration.

A stork's nest is situated on top of one of the chimneys.

Untersulmetingen Castle

Erbach Castle is a patrician Renaissance castle situated on a hillside close to the ciy of Erbach an der Donau in the state of Baden Württemberg, Germany. The current owner is Baron zu Ulm-Erbach.

The origins of the castle date back to the 12th century. The task of the castle was to secure and safeguard the important crossing over the river Danube. The keep was built during the reign of the House of Hohenstaufen and explicitly mentioned in a document from 1384. The Gothic spire was added at the end of the 15th century. The original modest Romanesque castle was extended in the 16th century into a renaissance palace. In 1525 during the German Peasants' War the castle was damaged by revolting farmers of the Baltringer Haufen.

Hans von Paumgarten, a patrician from Augsburg, was enfeoffed with Erbach Castle in 1534. His heir, Hans Georg von Paumgarten, started works to rebuild the castle on a large scale in 1550: two wings alongside each other on top of large vaulted basement rooms, three storeys high with four more levels under the roofs. The works were completed in 1555, ruining Hans Georg von Paumgarten.

In 1612 Hans Ludwig of Ulm became lord of Erbach. During the Thirty Years' War Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, one of the foremost Protestant generals, resided at Erbach Castle in 1633. Following a prolonged period of occupation by Swedish troops, the castle was left in an uninhabitable state. After the Thirty Years' War a pleasure garden, non-existent today, was added to the castle. The last substantial alterations to the castle were carried out in the first half of the 18th century. In 1902 the castle was decorated in neo-baroque style.

Erbach Castle was inspired by the architectural style employed by patricians of the larger cities, evidence for which are crow-stepped gables and the gabled roofs. Entrance to the castle is via a drawbridge, followed by a gate. The castle courtyard is surrounded by mews and outbuildings. In the courtyard there is a hand-drawn water well. The Baroque castle chapel is situated at the end of the main hall.

The so-called Renaissance Room was altered in 1884 for the last time; other rooms worth mentioning are the Small Smoking room, the Maria-Theresia-Drawing room, the Brown Drawing room, the Red Drawing room and the Clerical Drawing room.

Erbach Castle is still in private hands, owned by the barons of Ulm-Erbach who also run the castle museum. Parts of the castle are used as a restaurant while the basement houses a theatre.