Harburg Castle

At that time, the 13-year-old Staufer Henry Berengar, son and co-king of King Conrad III and Gertrude of Sulzbach, wrote a letter to Constantinople to his aunt, the Empress Berta of Sulzbach, and her husband Manuel Komnenos, in which he spoke of the Battle of Flochberg against Welf VI.

“On the 8th of February [1150], that lofty and unfaithful Welf, who did not want to remember all the blessings he had received from my father, entered our country with hostility.

Having sent forward very mobile horsemen, who cut off their way of escape, we obtained such a great victory that, if it were to be We captured 300 knights and a considerable number of horses were killed, struck partly by spears, partly by swords.In 1299 the castle was pledged by King Albert I of the House of Habsburg to the Counts of Oettingen.

The Castle was utilised in World War 2 by the Nazi's secret police "gestapo" and used to house prisoners for interrogation purposes.

The Harburg Castle is located high above the valley of the Wörnitz River on a steep mountain spur falling to three sides at the south-eastern entrance of the Ries Crater on the Romantic Road.

The castle was built without reference to an older valley settlement, a process that was extremely rare in the High Middle Ages.

The enormous size of the core castle may also allow conclusions to be drawn about the revitalization of a pre-historic or early-historic Hillfort.

[4] This hill castle is a completely preserved facility with a remarkable building complex from the Middle Ages.

[6] The interior of Harburg Castle can be visited daily as part of a guided tour from mid-March to early November.