[3][4] In 1932, an Alsatian autonomist and politician, Friedrich Spieser, purchased the castle ruins and in 1934 had new residential buildings and a bergfried built in the Neo-Romanesque style by Karl Erich Loebell, an architect of the Stuttgart School and student of Paul Schmitthenner.

In his autobiographical account, A Thousand Bridges (Tausend Brücken) Spieser described the principles of his reconstruction: a commitment to the history, connectedness with nature, simplicity and objectivity in its features, authenticity of materials, orientation to German building tradition.

Unlike its medieval precursor it was not placed in the forward position of the outer ward, but moved to the other end of the rock.

A "Peace Tower" (Friedens-Turm) was dedicated to "the most unknown soldiers of 1914-18 World War / the fallen of Alsace-Lorraine / and dead fighters of the region".

[6] The Francophile press of Alsace attacked the reconstructed castle in the political conflicts of the pre-war period as a "bulwark of Germanness".

At the request of Baden's Gauleiter and Chief of the Civil Administration in Alsace Robert Wagner, the body of the autonomist politician, Karl Roos, who had been executed in 1940, was transferred from Nancy and interred at the castle on 19 June 1941 with military honours.

The Société mutualiste du personnel de l’Enregistrement bought the site and turned it into a holiday home for its members.