Güssing Castle

[2] Wolfer, a German knight, who arrived to the Kingdom of Hungary during the reign of Géza II, founded a Benedictine monastery on the top of the mountain Güssing (or Küszén) in 1157.

[6] The Benedictine friars were compensated only in that year by Béla IV, who donated some landholdings in Nyitra County to the Pannonhalma Abbey, "in exchange" for the castle.

By that time, his loyal baron, Maurice Pok and his brothers already possessed Németújvár, when Béla IV donated some surrounding lands to them.

Richárd Horváth argues these events occurred in the first half of the 1250s, when Béla IV was involved in a military confrontation with Ottokar II of Bohemia over the Duchy of Styria.

[8] The castle fell to Wolfer's great-great grandson, the notorious oligarch Ivan Kőszegi in the first half of the 1280s, during his rapid expansion over Western Transdanubia.

When Albert I, Duke of Austria launched his massive royal campaign (still incorrectly called "Güssing Feud" in Austrian historiography) with his 15,000-size army against the Kőszegis in the spring of 1289, Németújvár was also besieged and captured among other important forts.

Based on a lost document, written by Mór Wertner, Berthold von Emmerberg, who seized the castle from Ivan Kőszegi two years earlier, strongly opposed to hand Németújvár back to the Hungarians.

His royal general Alexander Köcski captured four castles, including Németújvár, resulting in the ultimate disintegration of the Kőszegis' power over Transdanubia.

Due to the high cost of maintenance and the introduced “roof tax” by empress Maria Theresia, there was a partial demolition of some of the castles fortifications.