France · 13th century
The Château du Nideck is a ruined castle located in the commune of Oberhaslach in the Bas-Rhin département of France.
Situated on the heights of the road from Oberhaslach to Wangenbourg, the castle was first mentioned in a charter in 1264, as the property of sire Bourckard, burgrave of Nideck. In 1336 there is mention of a second castle, below the first, fief of the Bishop of Strasbourg and held by the landgraves of Basse-Alsace.
Nideck then became the property of the seigneurs of the region, in the 14th and 15th centuries, according to the various regional conflicts and other events of the time. It was besieged by the Strasbourgeois in 1448. The Müllenheim family took possession of the castle and kept it until 1509. It was finally destroyed by a fire in 1636.
The castle overlooks the Nideck waterfall and is easily reached on foot. The castle has been listed since 1898 by the French Ministry of Culture as a monument historique and is owned by the state.
In 1816 the legend of Nideck joined the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm «Das Riesen-Spielzeug» (The Giant's Toy). This story inspired the poet Adalbert von Chamisso to write Das Riesenfräulein (The Giant's Daughter). The tale relates how the castle was inhabited by a couple of giants and their little daughter. Bored one day, she walked as far as the Alsace plains and found what she took to be some living toys. Once returned to the castle, her father explained to her that they were men and that they must be left in their place because they cultivated the land to feed the giants.
Text adapted from “Château du Nideck” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Château du Nideck ranks #6,091 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #543 of the 793 mapped in France. Founded 1250, it is older than 67% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 1080 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. 20 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Strasbourg, 35 km away. It is one of the 63 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Alsace. It is stop 14 of 32 on the Alsace castle route, Wissembourg to Mulhouse. See how France compares in the castle statistics.
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