The castle lies at a height of about 320 m (1,050 ft)[2] above the Selke valley near the village of Meisdorf in the Harz district, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt.

[3]: 99 According to legend, Falkenstein Castle has its origins in a murder: around 1080, the Saxon nobleman Egeno II of Konradsburg slew Count Adalbert II of Ballenstedt in a fight, whereupon the murderer was allegedly made to give up his family seat to be converted into a monastery.

As a result, Egeno's son, Burchard of Konradsburg, had the new Falkenstein Castle built.

The castle was one of several backdrops in the seven-part children's series shot by GDR television, Spuk unterm Riesenrad, and one of the locations for the DEFA fairy tale film Schneeweißchen and Rosenrot ("Snow White and Rose Red"), as well as featuring in the Polizeiruf 110 episode Die Entdeckung.

[4] Originally, a wooden bridge used to connect the bergfried about 9 metres above the ground to the palas located in the northwest corner.