The Rudelsburg is a ruined hill castle located on the east bank of the river Saale above Saaleck, a village in the borough of Naumburg in the county of Burgenlandkreis in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

The Rudelsburg was built in the Middle Ages by the Bishop of Naumburg and served to secure trade routes such as the Via Regia through the Saale Valley.

The castle occasionally served various noble families as a residence, until it was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War and thereafter fell into disrepair.

From 1855 onwards it achieved national renown as the annual meeting place of the Kösener Senioren-Convents-Verband, the oldest union of student fraternities with delegates from all German-speaking countries.

The Rudelsburg still maintains a particular attraction for visitors and lies on the Romanesque Road (Ger:Straße der Romanik), a tourist route.

Rudelsburg sits atop a rocky shell limestone ridge, approximately 85 metres (279 ft) above the river Saale and above Saaleck, a suburb of Bad Kösen in the Burgenlandkreis district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

Archaeological finds seem to indicate that an early Bronze Age settlement existed on the site of the Rudelsburg, which has been attributed to the Unetice culture.

The discovery of the Nebra sky disk attracted public attention to this prehistoric civilisation and its elevated culture and provoked interest in the settlements in the region of Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.

During a dispute with the noble Curtefrund, the citizens of Naumburg led by their captain Johann von Trautzschen laid siege to the Rudelsburg from 22 April to 30 July 1348.

The only earlier recorded use of ordnance dates back to the siege of the town of Meersburg on Lake Constance by Ludwig von Bayern in 1334.

The next mention of the castle dates to 1383, when the Schenk family from Saaleck belonging to the House of Vargula are named as masters of the citadel, seated in Rottelsburg.

A loan certificate of the Dukes of Saxony, who belonged to the House of Wettin, dated 2 April 1441 names the brothers Rudolf, Günther and Heinrich von Bünau as the owners of the Rudelsburg.

Although Groitzsch still describes the Rudelsburg as arx pulcherrima ("most beautiful castle") in his 1585 work Descriptio Salae fluvii eidemque adjacentium urbium, arcium etc.

), a record from 1612 indicates that the lord marshal of Osterhausen employed a stonemason and a carpenter to provide "necessary support of the sagging beams, girders and rafters".

In 1818, the cantor emeritus, Johann Friedrich Förtsch, described the Rudelsburg as follows: “The inner courtyard is covered in the rubble of the various ceremonial halls, chambers, weapon and storage rooms, kitchens, underground vaults, cellars and corridors, which have collapsed.

During the same period, the masters of the castle belonging to the family of the barons von Schönberg planted grapevines on the southern slope of the hill.

The attractiveness of the castle rose however with the services offered by Wagner, so much so that the head of the district authorities in Naumburg asked Friedrich von Schönberg, the owner of the property, if it would be possible to open it officially for visitors.

The completion of the Thuringian Railway in 1849, which improved the access to the Rudelsburg, coupled with the gastronomic offerings, further increased the attractiveness of the castle and brought in visitors from further abroad, including for example students from Leipzig and Halle an der Saale.

During a large-scale Prussian military exercise in the area in 1853, the provincial classes invited King Frederick William IV to breakfast at the castle.

The partial reconstruction of the castle began a year later under the leadership of the master builder, Werner, from Bad Kösen, using plans drawn up by the royal building officer in Saxony, Oskar Mothes.

While youthful appreciation of nature and the romantic scenery had been pivotal in the first half of the century, the Rudelsburg now became a symbol for the members of the KSCV.

The KSCV was a strong ally of the state, which was reinforced by the membership of both of the most important political decision-makers of the time, Otto von Bismarck and Emperor Wilhelm II.

In the Empire and the Weimar Republic, life-size copies of the Rudelsburg monuments were made and sold to interested buyers in Germany and Austria.

After the end of World War II, the Rudelsburg was part of the Soviet occupation zone and later the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

The town Bad Kösen and the surrounding districts now market the castle as part of the “Thuringian Toscana”, including the nature reserve Saale-Unstrut-Triasland.

The stones of the outer ward were largely reused in the 18th century and it is no longer recognisable; only parts of the wall in the east and south are still there.

It consisted of a base with stairs, a platform with balustrade, a four-metre tall pedestal and a pillar topped by an imperial eagle with a crown.

Of the countless Bismarck monuments erected in Germany, this was the only one that depicted the first Imperial Chancellor as a nonchalantly seated young man with the sash of his fraternity across his chest and a duelling sword in his hand.

A reproduction of the original monument was unveiled by the KSCV on 1 April 2006 in the presence of the Justice Minister of Saxony-Anhalt, Curt Becker.

Andreas Belser from Traunstein was the responsible sculptor and the casting had been carried out by the firm Otto Strehle in Winhöring near Altötting.