Germany · 11th century
The Schönburg (German pronunciation: [ˈʃøːnbʊʁk]) is a castle above the medieval town of Oberwesel in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Schönburg Castle was first mentioned in history between the years 911 and 1166.
From the 12th century, the Lords of Schönburg ruled over the town of Oberwesel and had also the right to levy customs on the Rhine river. The most famous was Friedrich von Schönburg - a much-feared man known as "Marshall Schomberg" - who in the 17th century served as a colonel and as a general under the King of France in France and Portugal and later also for the Prussians and for William Prince of Orange in England.
The Schönburg line died out with the last heir, the son of Friedrich of Schönburg.
The castle was burned down in 1689 by French soldiers during the War of the Grand Alliance.
Schönburg castle remained in ruins for 200 years until it was acquired by the German-American Rhinelander family who bought the castle from the town of Oberwesel in the late 19th century, and restored it.
The town council of Oberwesel acquired the castle back from the Rhinelander family in 1950.
Since 1957 the Hüttl family have been living at the castle on a long-term lease; they operate a successful hotel and restaurant there.
Text adapted from “Schönburg (Rhine)” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Schönburg ranks #2,337 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #178 of the 711 mapped in Germany. Founded 1100, it is older than 85% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 436 atlas entries founded in the 11th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 2,662 times in the last 60 days, more than 75% of the atlas. 28 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Koblenz, 30 km away. It is one of the 39 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of the Middle Rhine. It is stop 14 of 32 on the Rhine castle route, Bingen to Koblenz. See how Germany compares in the castle statistics.
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