About 40 miles south of Stuttgart lies the inpenetrable fortress of the Hohenzollern family. Also known as Hohenzollern Castle. It is situated high on a hill in the Swabian Alps, kinda like the rest of the Alps, but not nearly as impressive. Much of the state of Baden-Württemburg (which is in south western Germany. Germany is made up of 14 federal states, similar to our states, as are many other countries.) is flatlands, with huge hills breaking up the landscape. One one of these hills sits the 1000 year old castle…well at least the original base foundation. The castle today that remains is only about 150 years old and is the third incarnation of the castle. It was originally built in the 11 century and sat safe for 400 years. It was considered one of the most well built and defensible fortresses around and remained safe until the 1400s and the 30 Years War where it was captured looted, pillaged and plundered and destroyed by the Countess of Württemburg. However the castle was so defensible it could not be taken outright with force. Instead the castle had to be surrounded, and there the armies on both sides waited…and waited…and waited for 9 months until the defenders in the castle ran out of food, where most starved and died. When only about 3 dozen were left (I don’t know original number of people in castle) they surrendered and were allowed to leave without being harmed. Then the armies rushed in and did their looting and destroyed the castle almost completely.

Just walking through the main entrance you could see why it would be so hard to take, you go around in a large figure 8 shape meanwhile arrows are coming from everywhere along the whole path with secret tunnels for hiding, surprising, and moving supplies, and a large inner-keep with another huge wall and drawbridge inside the main walls. And after the figure 8 is a third circular loop around.

So it was captured and held for a while before the armies moved on. It was rebuilt by the kings who needed the castle and lived in for a while. Another army came and took it. The details of the whats whys and hows are a little fuzzy, but they came in, lived there for a while and the castle crumbled and fell into disrepair as it was never maintained or kept in order, until the 1800s when one of the Prussian Kings visited it and was amazed with what he saw, and wanted it reconstructed yet again, (though by this time it had no military significance or purpose, he just wanted a big gothic castle.

The Hohenzollern family is alive and well today, 1000 years later (and often live in the castle) having recently brought Princess Anne Marie of Prussia into the world. This is also the same family whose crypt is under the Berlin Cathedral I posted pictures about early in my trip.

A very impressive castle, especially aesthetically, though even much of what is there now are modern concrete reconstructions not even 150 years old. It has a protestant as well as catholic church as one of the kings who lived there was actually quite tolerant of both religions (a rare thing then). Inside the chambers on a tour you walk though the absolutely splendid grand ballroom, library, the kings bedroom, work places, and a couple auxiliary rooms, all extremely fancy loaded with very old paintings of kings and queens, and statues, decorations etc. The original kitchen you visit on the tour is now the treasure vault loaded with tableware, jewelry, dresses, uniforms worn by the kings and queens of Prussia, inluding things worn by Germany’s most famous ruler, Kaiser Wilhelm I. There is also an armory like the others with armor, helmets and a huge selection of weapons. It also has the ultra fancy and jewelled and gem encrusted gold crown of Prussia. A thief somehow broke into the vault and took 3 of the ‘snuff boxes’ (tobacco boxes) that were there placed along side the crown, apparently leaving the crown alone “out of respect” or he just didn’t want to be royally punished, as he was later caught. Stealing the royal crown of the Prussian dynasty, while an extremely impressive feat is not a good resumé booster. I also met a nice older woman, and we talked a lot, she in her spotty English, and me, in my patchwork German.

I wandered around town for a while afterwards, got lots of neat photos, including going back to Feuersee, the lakeside church, nothing special going back this time.

Use google images to see just how impressive the castle is from multiple aerial shots.