Halberg Castle

At the beginning of the 18th century, Louis Crato, Count of Nassau-Saarbrücken had a small baroque lustschloss (pleasure palace) called "Monplaisir" built between 1709 and 1711 at Halberg,[2] from designs by Joseph C. Motte dit la Bonté, architect of the Saarlouis fortress.

[6] From 1774, Monplaisir was the preferred residence of Princess Wilhelmine of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt (1751–1780), whose multiple extramarital relationships (including Baroness Amalie Frederike von Dorsberg and, her maidservant, Katharina Kest) had made life at court unbearable.

It became known in 1875 that the Royal Prussian Forestry Administration in Trier wanted to sell Halberg to the industrialist Carl Ferdinand Stumm of Neunkirchen, which angered the citizens of Saarbrücken and St. Johann.

The campaign was unsuccessful, however, and, in 1877, Stumm purchased all of Halberg for 700,000 marks and hired architect Edwin Oppler from Hanover was commissioned to design and build a new castle.

[13] The Prussian King and German Emperor Wilhelm II stayed at Halberg Castle in 1892 as a guest of Baron von Stumm-Halberg.

[20] By 1969, several outbuildings of the old castle were demolished to make space for a number of new pavilion-style buildings (designed by architects Heinz Eber and Ernst Jung).