Location: Leibertingen, Baden-Württemberg Map
Constructed 13th century
Wildenstein Castle is situated in Leibertingen, Baden-Württemberg region of Germany. Wildenstein Castle construction started in the 13th century, but most of the structures that you see here date back to the 16th century. It remained almost unchanged since 1554 upon death of its owner Gottfried Werner Graf von Zimmern who undertook a major renovation during his life time. Today it is open as a youth hostel under guidance of German Youth Hostel Federation ("Deutsches Jugendherbergswerk"). Wildenstein Castle is considered to be a haunted structure with multiple eyewitnesses reporting seeing ghost apparitions, strange sounds and cold spots.
The Spornburg, which is one of the best-preserved and best-known castles in Germany, stands a few kilometers downstream from Beuron on a steeply sloping rock at 810 m above sea level. NN visible from afar 200 meters above the Danube.
The documentary mention of the castle in 1077 as the
boundary of the Beuron monastery property is based on a forgery by
the monastery chronicler. The evaluation of ceramic finds showed
that Wildenstein Castle was not built until the 13th century. It
followed the former smaller rock castles Altwildenstein,
Unterwildenstein, Wildensteiner Burg Hexenturm and Wildensteiner
Hahnenkamm Castle in the vicinity.
In connection with a siege
by the Werdenbergs, there is a report of a "monkey's tower" that
must have been near the castle. It is unclear whether this is an old
name for one of the castles mentioned above.
The current
state of construction of the castle, hardly changed since the
renovation by Gottfried Werner von Zimmer, as well as the extensive
information about history and everyday life, which the Zimmer
Chronicle reproduces on over 1500 pages, lead to the current
perception of the castle as the castle of the Lords of Zimmer. The
historical representation of the work of this family, originally
from the upper Neckar valley, is correspondingly broad in scope in
the history of the castle. But the prehistory of the castle and the
subsequent period in the possession of the Fürstenberg family should
also be honored here.
The
castle at its current location was built in the 13th century as the
successor to a chain of castles built by the Lords of Wildenstein,
which consisted of four castles (all between 1100 and 1200). The
construction was probably related to the transfer of ownership to
Anselm von Justingen after 1263. He was the son or possibly grandson
of Anselm von Justingen, who accompanied Friedrich II from Italy to
Germany after his king's election. After Anselm fell out with the
king and supported the latter in the dispute between Friedrich II
and his son Heinrich VII, he fell out of favor, his ancestral castle
Justingen was razed and the family lost its importance. The Lords of
Justingen-Wildenstein were mentioned for the last time in 1317.
In 1319 the castle came to Rudolf von Ramsberg. But even this
sex was not granted a long lifespan. Around 1390 Burkhard von
Lichtenstein and Wilhelm Schenck von Stauffenberg became co-owners
of the castle. The latter, however, had to hand over the castle as a
ransom to the later King Ruprecht of the Palatinate as early as 1395
after a lost armed conflict.
From
King Ruprecht I, John the Elder of Zimmer, known as the Lapp,
received half of the castle as a man fief in 1397/98, the other half
for administration. In 1415 he got the whole castle from Count
Palatine Ludwig im Bart "out of special grace". In 1462 the entire
castle was handed over to Johann Werner the Elder of Zimmer “for
free and undisturbed enjoyment for himself and his heirs”.
From 1441 the castle was expanded from the rooms under Werner the
Younger (circa 1423–1483). According to the Zimmerischer Chronik, he
spent 20,000 guilders on the expansion. In order to secure the
annual maintenance amounting to 120 guilders, he bought a valid for
3000 guilders in the city of Überlingen. The construction of the
cistern in the castle courtyard also fell during the time of Werner
the Younger. This could not be sealed at first, as the water
repeatedly found crevices and crevices in the karst underground. The
Zimmerische Chronik reports that Werner solved the problem by asking
a magic crystal for advice and telling the foremen the solution he
found.
In the course of the Werdenberg feud, during which the
imperial ban was pronounced over Johannes Werner the Elder in 1488,
the latter initially secretly stowed Zimmer's documents, silver
dishes, the best household items and whatever other valuable movable
property in barrels and chests at night drive from his residence in
Meßkirch to the Wildenstein. When the Werdenbergers took more and
more parts of the Zimmer property and a Werdenberg attempt to take
the castle through betrayal failed, the castle was sold to Count
Andreas von Sonnenberg for 4,000 guilders in 1491 with a right of
return that was also binding on the heirs. Only the brother
Gottfried (1425–1508) with the estates in front of the forest and
castle Herrenzimmern was not affected by these developments.
The imperial ban against Johannes Werner the Elder
was lifted. He died in 1495. Most of the room property was still in
the hands of the Werdenbergers. In 1497 Gottfried von Zimmer is said
to have bought back the castle from Andreas von Sonnenberg at the
request of his nephew Veit Werner von Zimmer, who pushed for the
return of the family property after his father's death. This had
retained the above-mentioned validity until the income from this had
covered its accrued costs. At this time, the castle must have been
bequeathed by Gottfried to his nephews before the court in Rottweil.
With the support of Andreas von Sonnenberg, the brothers
Albrecht and Eberhart von Klingenberg as well as many other southern
German aristocrats and with Wildenstein Castle as a base, Johannes
Werner the Younger - his older brother Veit Werner died in 1499 -
succeeded in 1503 Messkirch and the lordship of Zimmer recaptured by
the Werdenbergers.
The return of the castle to carpentry
ownership was still connected with a few legalistic stumbling
blocks. When the inheritance of Johannes Werner the Elder was
divided up after regaining power and after the death of Uncle
Gottfried, Wildenstein Castle initially fell into the joint
ownership of the brothers Johannes Werner and Gottfried Werner von
Zimmer in the inheritance contract of 1508. The Klingenberg brothers
raised a claim to the castle, as their mother and Gottfried's mother
were sisters and they are therefore one degree closer to the
inheritance than the Zimmer brothers. After an arbitration
proceeding under the direction of Count Heinrich von Lupfen, captain
of the Sankt Jörgenschild company and Jos von Reischach zu Ach, the
Klingenberg brothers abandoned their inheritance claims and were
compensated with 200 guilders and a horse for their support in
reclaiming the property.
On May 12, 1511, Felix von
Werdenberg murdered the aforementioned Andreas von Sonnenberg. The
motive for the murder was that Andreas von Sonnenberg had insulted
Felix von Werdenberg at the wedding of Duke Ulrich von Württemberg
because of his small stature. Wildenstein Castle came into play when
Johannes Werner von Zimmer gave shelter at the castle to the member
of the von Werdenberg family, who had just been hostile and who had
come from their possessions in Brabant for this murder. So he didn't
have to stay in Sigmaringen Castle, his family's ancestral castle.
From Wildenstein he was able to secretly scout out the movements of
Andreas von Sonnenberg, who had been one of the biggest supporters
of the rooms in the recapture of their property, and from there on
the morning of May 12th he could start his act. The chronicle does
not offer a motive for this change in Johannes Werner's attitude,
irrational from today's perspective.
Gottfried Werner von
Zimmer, the younger brother of Johannes Werner, now brought the
castle into his sole possession. The exchange of the rulers
Falkenstein for Messkirch as well as the sweep-like sole possession
of the castle by Gottfried Werner can be explained by the uncertain
position that Johannes Werner, as a helper and possible confidante
of the crime, assumed in the subsequent investigation into the
murder. The chronicle explains the exchange with the increase in
rank of Gottfried after his advantageous marriage to Apollonia von
Henneberg in the same year. After the outer bailey burned down in
1512 and the brothers could not agree on the reconstruction, in 1513
Gottfried Werner ordered Karlin Pfeiler, the castle captain of
Wildenstein, to only give him allegiance. In 1514 the division of
power between the brothers was sealed again. From this point on,
Gottfried Werner, who developed a passion for castle building,
converted Wildenstein into a fortress, in line with the state of the
art in early modern times. Although Messkirch was the royal seat,
Gottfried Werner enjoyed staying on Wildenstein. He therefore had
the living quarters decorated over a large area with ceilings and
wall paintings containing Renaissance ornaments, but also with
graphic retellings of heroic stories popular at the time. In the
open space in front of the castle he planned to found a new city,
for which he had already recruited nobles whom he wanted to include
in their castle rights. He rejected this plan again when he had no
legitimate sons.
Gottfried Werner's nephew and heir, Count Froben
Christoph von Zimmer (author of the Zimmerische Chronik, an
outstanding source of aristocratic and folk culture in the 16th
century) also worked there in addition to his residence in Meßkirch.
Apart from minor skirmishes, the castle was never the scene of
major armed conflicts. In the course of the Werdenberg feud, the
Werdenberg troops succeeded in overcoming the first gate by
betraying the gatekeeper. However, it was possible to throw it back,
so that, as mentioned, the castle could be handed over to befriended
Andreas von Sonnenberg with the right to buy it back. During plague
epidemics, for example in 1519, it served as an isolated shelter
where even food deliveries were only made to the castle gate in
order to avoid personal contact. In the Peasants' War of 1525 as
well as in the Schmalkaldic War, the rooms sought refuge in
Wildenstein together with their noble friends, the Counts of
Helfenstein, the Truchsessen von Waldburg, the Land Commandery of
Altshausen, the Beuron Abbey and other nobles. The most threatening
situation arose in the Princely War of 1552, when many aristocrats
from the area sought protection at the castle and took their movable
assets to safety there. There are said to have been well over
100,000 guilders on Wildenstein. The enemies were in Ulm and were
about to make a train to Hegau and Lake Constance. Count Friedrich
von Castell planned to force Gottfried Werner to hand it over with a
few men. Ablach and Göggingen had already been looted and the castle
crew prepared for the worst. She recognized the deficiencies in the
defense preparations and, in particular, found that the morale of
the teams was very low as they worried about their families left
behind. Gottfried Werner also wanted to bring his blind daughter
Barbara, who was a nun in the Inzigkofen monastery, to safety in the
castle, but she wanted to stay true to her vows in the monastery.
Unexpectedly, however, the enemy troops withdrew to the Allgäu.
Due to its ability to defend itself, the castle repeatedly
attracted the attention of various war opponents in later years. But
even then, concrete disputes about the castle did not go beyond
anecdotal episodes.
After the Count of Zimmer died out in
1594 with the death of Wilhelm von Zimmer, the surviving sisters
sold the castle for 400,000 guilders to Count Georg von
Helfenstein-Gundelfingen, the husband of the second oldest sister
Apollonia (1547-1604).
After the Helfenstein-Gundelfingen family died out, Wildenstein came to this house in 1627 through her husband Johanna Eleonoras, Freiin zu Gundelfingen, Wildenstein and Meßkirch, Count Wratislaus I von Fürstenberg. In 1639, after the Peace of Prague, the Thirty Years' War had turned into an open war between France and the imperial estates, Wratislaus von Fürstenberg approached the imperial court with a request for 8,000-10,000 guilders in order to increase the garrison of the fortress enable. As this money did not materialize, Wildenstein was only manned by four musketeers under the command of Jacob Bürklin. On Sunday, August 10, 1642, he and three of the musketeers went to a festival in Messkirch. The remaining musketeer was attacked by Hohentwiel troops smoking a pipe and lying in the sun in front of the castle. One of the women in the castle still managed to close the gates, but the other women prevented her from using armed force against the conquerors who only entered individually through an embrasure. It seems to have been betrayal, because Bürklin and the other three musketeers fled. Bavarian troops advanced, but the assault attacks were successfully repulsed with losses for the attacking. But when a siege was initiated and the new castle garrison was not sure when supplies and relief could be expected, an honorable surrender was agreed. On September 4, 1642 the fortress was in the hands of Bavarian troops under Lieutenant Colonel von Marmont. Wildenstein remained in Bavarian hands until 1649.
In the War of the Palatinate Succession, the
castle was once again placed under imperial occupation, and the
Fürstenbergers sought protection on Wildenstein during the War of
the Spanish Succession.
After that the castle was mainly used
as a prison. In 1744, the carelessness of a guard who had knocked
out his tobacco pipe burned the bridge down. In 1756 lightning
struck the gable of the armory, which caused great damage to the
walls of the entire west wing.
When Princess Marie Antoinette
traveled to France for her wedding in the spring of 1770 and stopped
in Donaueschingen, the remaining guns were withdrawn from
Wildenstein in order to be able to fire a salute at the reception.
Obviously, there was no longer any military need to bring them back
to the castle.
The castle deteriorated more and more, and in
1802 the regional administration in Meßkirch proposed that it be
demolished. In the period of mediatization, however, between the
Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803 and the Rheinbund act 1806, when
Fürstenberg was still fighting for its independence, the castle was
renovated and repaired from 1804 to 1806 instead. In 1867 the castle
chapel was renovated by the building officer Weinbrenner.
On
November 16, 1911, the castle was badly damaged by an earthquake in
the Albstadt shear zone. There were strong cracks in the surrounding
wall and on the commandant's tower. The top of the gable and parts
of the cornice broke off.
As early as 1902, a princely
auxiliary forest worker was running a pub at the castle. On November
11, 1922, a lease agreement was signed with the forest warden's
widow Katharina Fecker, nee Stehle, which included the establishment
of an inn in addition to agriculture. The Fecker family ran this for
almost 50 years until 1971. At the same time, in the course of the
expansion of the pilgrimages in the neighboring Beuron Abbey, a
hostel was set up in the outer bailey, even then in cooperation with
the Swabian branch committee of the Association for German Youth
Hostels.
During the Second World War, many pictures and
treasures were stored in the knight's hall, including the panel
painting of the main altar of the collegiate church of St. Martin in
Meßkirch (Adoration of the Magi) by the master of Meßkirch.
After the air raid on Freiburg in November 1944, the philosophy
faculty of the university there moved to the castle with ten
professors and 30 students in early 1945 to continue teaching there.
Martin Heidegger, born in Meßkirch, was probably the initiator for
this choice of location. The return to Freiburg was celebrated on
June 24, 1945 with a farewell dinner.
On December 21, 1971
Princess Theresa von Fürstenberg sold the castle to the Swabian
section of the German Youth Hostel Association for 150,000 DM.
The castle represents a transition from traditional medieval castle construction to modern fortress construction. The formerly exposed keep was demolished. On the main attack side, which, as a broad plain sloping slightly towards the castle, offered an ideal staging area for attackers, both the outer bailey and the so-called main bastion took on the function of a kind of shield wall. Both also differed from the traditional form in that instead of building in height, they were built in width and depth. Due to this crouched shape, the most endangered side offered a small area to be attacked by artillery fire, while at the same time there was a free field of fire from the castle. The artificially carved deep trenches secured with drawbridges provided further protection, which resulted in freedom from storms in the sense of the old castle construction. Such mixed forms between castle and fortress are rarely found in Europe. These changes were mainly due to Gottfried Werner von Zimmer, who built another 40,000 guilders on the castle. As a cost comparison, Piper points to the acquisition of Falkenstein Castle with a meadow, a fishing water, three villages and a mill for 4880 guilders by Gottfried Werner.
The outer bailey can be reached via an outer neck ditch on average 15 meters wide, which is walled up on the attack side like a countercarp. This trench is connected to the inner section trench, so that the outer bailey is practically on a rock island. On the attack side, the outer bailey, more than 100 meters wide but barely 10 meters deep, is secured with a 74-meter-long and three-meter-thick shield wall. This has a covered battlement with a one meter thick parapet wall. The shield wall is covered on the sides by two flanking round towers, from whose mouth holes the apron, the ditch and the drawbridge could be coated with gunfire. There is no defensive wall on the side of the castle in order to prevent intruders from being fired at from the main castle. The crew quarters and stables were housed in the outer bailey: the bailiff in the west tower, the guards and teams in the east tower. The interiors of the buildings were redesigned for the youth hostel. The castle gate of the outer bailey was a little lower than the edge of the outer ditch. It's located a little west of the center of the shield wall. The bridge piers towering from the outer moat indicate a drawbridge with swing rods.
The imposing 40 meter long section trench is located between the
outer bailey and the main castle. Completely broken out of the rock
by human hands, it is 20 meters wide and today's depth of 13 to a
maximum of 16 meters. Originally, this inner trench was up to 10
meters deeper than it is today and tapered to a point at the bottom
so as not to give attackers the opportunity to use the bottom of the
trench as a base for siege machines and the like. Today a
comfortable driveway leads into the trench to give suppliers the
opportunity to reach the gate below the east battlements. This was
installed together with a modern freight elevator to facilitate the
supply of the youth hostel, otherwise, as was the case when it was
used as a castle, each basket would have to be carried several
hundred meters over two bridges and a narrow, sloping gate.
In addition to the already impressive depth of the trench, the side
walls of the outer and main castle were sloped vertically all around
by an average of 25 meters, which gives the outer walls the
impression of sheer immeasurable height. What impression this made
on contemporaries is conveyed by the engraving by Matthäus Merian
(see above), which depicted the ditch reaching down to the valley
floor. Even today the bridge is an obstacle for people with a fear
of heights. Today's roofing of the rear part of the bridge is a
psychological means to suppress such fear of heights due to its
spatial effect. The bridge rests on a pillar built up from the
bottom of the trench. The drawbridge with swing rods led from this
pillar made it even more difficult to access the main castle from
the outer bailey. For strategic reasons, this bridge was 10 meters
east of the first bridge, the access to the outer bailey, in order
to prevent a straight advance by attacking troops. There was not
enough space for further fortifications on this pillar. Piper also
expressly notes that these otherwise unheard-of proportions rather
give the impression of a wide natural space between two isolated
towering rocks. This construction technique of abrading the rock
walls deeply vertically and building up the masonry directly on this
artificially created rock edge already led to criticism and
skepticism back then. It was hard to imagine that the frequent and
unexpected landslides would not lead to a collapse soon.
The main bastion was the main defense of the
castle. Not only could the bridge immediately in front of it and the
interior of the bailey be secured from it; Paint the apron of the
castle with artillery fire. The main bastion, like another shield
wall, protected the buildings behind it on the mountain spur, palas
and castle chapel as well as the castle courtyard with the cistern.
The dimensions go far beyond those of a normal shield wall. The
ground plan resembles an irregular oval up to 40 meters long and
20-25 meters wide. The grown rock was abraded vertically on the
three outer sides, where it receded from this vertical inward, the
masonry was placed vertically upwards and solidly backed behind it.
The lower casemates have wall thicknesses of almost 5½ meters and
even on the upper floor they are 3.70 meters. In the eastern part,
where it is assumed that the original rock reached higher, there is
no basement and no casemates in the entrance area, the main bastion
is a solid wall almost 25 meters thick. The bastion is measured from
the height of the entrance upwards , only from two floors, which are
provided with cannon loopholes. A few storage and utility rooms are
accessible from the castle courtyard in the western part of the
bastion. The castle gate leads right through this work. It can be
locked at the entrance and exit as well as in the middle through
strong doors. Since the stables were in the outer bailey and it was
certainly not planned to ride into the castle courtyard, the gate
passage is narrowly dimensioned and provided with an offset. On the
one hand, this made it impossible for a cannon to penetrate, and on
the other hand, it made it difficult to use ram beams against the
middle door. In addition, the attackers could still be fought
effectively through a large casting opening above the kink area.
In the so-called commanders' tower in the western part of the
main bastion there are still parts of a medieval tower, possibly the
keep demolished by Gottfried Werner. His office is said to have been
on the upper floor, later it was the eponymous commandant's office.
There are still some wall and ceiling paintings here. After the
castle was sold to the youth hostel, some of the ceiling paintings
were brought to Werenwag Castle. The rooms are now used as bedrooms
and lounges for the youth hostel.
The so-called parade room
takes up most of the top floor. Without a roof, this space is
conceivable as an open gun emplacement. While all loopholes in the
castle were at most suitable for hook rifles and falconettes (which,
according to Günter Schmitt, is also documented for Wildenstein),
extensive, large-caliber artillery could be stationed there (without
a roof). An argument in favor of an open stationing is that the
powder vapor in closed casemates would have made long-term use more
difficult. The open roof construction, which was supported by skids,
is said to have been easy to knock off in the event of war. The
floor construction with large limestone slabs, a slight slope and a
water drainage channel also indicates that the lack of a roof was
included in the planning. Piper points out, however, that removing a
roof in the case of a defense in general and at Burg Wildenstein in
particular was probably not very practical. An easily removable roof
structure would not have withstood a major storm in exposed castle
complexes, and in addition, the warning time in times of war would
hardly have been sufficient for proper dismantling. On the other
hand, the expected effort of rebuilding after an unnecessary
dismantling would certainly have prevented such an approach in
advance. The current roof structure, which has been in existence for
centuries, gives Piper the lie with regard to the lack of storm
resistance, but the arguments regarding the effort are certainly
valid. Even the chronicle does not report a roof demolition during
the war-related retreats to the castle. In Piper's time there was a
barely recognizable mural in the commandant's apartment showing the
bastion without a roof. However, such images are not reliable
sources (see, for example, the exaggerated representation of the
castle by Merian). Piper blames the contradictions described here on
the inclination of Gottfried Werner as a builder, "what he gave a
jar ufgericht and erbawen, if the following jar didn't like it, he
broke off again and did it in a different manner".
In the wall of the
so-called parade room facing the courtyard there is a square hole
with a side length of 40 by 60 cm and a depth of 70 cm. It is the
mouth of a 4–5 meter deep and 2.6–3.3 meter wide windowless room,
which is now called the dungeon. Otto Piper admitted in his castle
studies that in the absence of a keep this would be the logical
place for a typical castle dungeon, but access via a ladder
unnecessarily required special skill. He suspected that it was more
of a storage place for special valuables, a comprehensible train of
thought, the room itself is still the best protected area of the
castle against violent external influences. The wall thicknesses are
over five meters all around.
Nevertheless, the castle also
made sure to accommodate prisoners. So Gottfried Werner had a block
made for Wildenstein.
Behind the main bastion, bounded by a parapet walk (the straight, eastern and curved western one) is the castle courtyard. The 17-meter-deep cistern that was built by Werner the Younger is particularly noteworthy. After initial difficulties in sealing these were resolved, she ensured the water supply to the castle, as spring water was not available on the karst rock. Before Gottfried Werner's renovation, the closed battlement must have been, if not all around, at least on three sides, with a staircase at each end.
The castle chapel with a 3/8 choir and late Gothic
reticulated vault jumps off the eastern battlement. In its keystones
are the coat of arms of Gottfried Werner von Zimmer and that of his
wife Apollonia von Henneberg, in the consoles, among other things,
the coat of arms of Öttingen for Gottfried Werner's mother
Margaretha von Öttingen († 1528).
The chapel was expanded in
1536/37 and equipped with an altar, possibly the so-called
Wildenstein Altar, a major work by the master of Messkirch.
Presumably, during the renovation by the building officer
Weinbrenner in 1867, today's altar was erected with copies of the
altarpieces by the master of Messkirch. The style features of the
carving point to this time. The original paintings came to the
Princely Fürstenberg Collections in Donaueschingen. When the art
treasures there were sold out, they could be saved from being sold
abroad by being included in the Würth Collection. During the
renovation, new windows with the Fürstenberg coat of arms were used.
The chapel has a cellar. There, the castle romance spreads a
secret passage that extends into the valley of the Danube. More
profane, it can be assumed that it is a structurally necessary
basement that had a secondary defense function in that it was
possible to secure the sides of the east side of the castle from
there. In his castle lore, Piper points out that there were similar
rooms in other castles that were used to hide belongings and people.
The room is based on natural rock, a corridor is nowhere to be seen.
In the attic there is a bell from 1525.
At the end of the castle is a two-story residential building with a high roof construction with a dwarf house and gable dormers, not quite correctly called the Palas, although the large hall that is characteristic of it is missing. Today's Burgschänke and ancillary rooms are in the basement, and two large rooms on the upper floor, the western one of which serves as the youth hostel dining room. The right room is now divided into several parts: an anteroom for the reception of the youth hostel, an office and staff room and the kitchen of the youth hostel. A staircase leads from the anteroom into the former bower, today's apartment of the hostel management under the roof. The building has a partial basement. On the valley side, the rocks are, as already mentioned, sloped vertically, so that the outer wall heights are more than doubled.
There are significant wall paintings on the upper floor, e.g. B. in the dining room ornamental leaf tendrils with bird motifs. In some cases, several beginnings of painting can be seen, an indication that if Gottfried Werner did not like work, he often had work stopped and started again, which drove up the building costs of the castle enormously. In the eastern room, the Sigenot saga is reproduced in a huge picture story across the entire exterior, including the window niches. According to the chronicle, Gottfried Werner liked to write himself. So after dinner he often ordered his clerk "with the drinker, and under the drink he makes rhymes of the Berner and the risen, how then so book, so that he can work hard and work, still available at Wildenstain." Froben Christoph asks about the wall paintings here, or about a book that was formerly in the Fürstenberg library as manuscript Donaueschingen No. 74 and can now be found in the Baden State Library. Students from the University of Tübingen have examined this cycle of images, systematically documented it in pictures and sketches and made them accessible on the Internet.
At the time
of Gottfried Werner and his nephew Froben Christoph, life in the
castle was no longer everyday. This had moved to the castle in
Messkirch. If she was still the center of her life a generation
before under Uncle Gottfried, she has now become a refuge, sometimes
also a place of exile. The chronicle reports that Barbara was
banished to the Wildenstein by her older brother Johannes Werner,
whom she ran the household when he was not yet married. She had
fallen in love with Hans von Weitingen and secretly wanted to become
engaged to him. Several friends of the Weitingen and Zimmer family
and even representatives from the city of Rottweil took on the
matter. The marriage agreement was made on an arbitration day in
Fridingen, on the Friday after Martini 1506. Hans von Weitingen
later became Obervogt of Württemberg in Sulz under Duke Ulrich.
For Gottfried Werner, the castle was not only a refuge in times
of need, but also a private retreat. The chronicle reports that he
had a special love for the castle and often retired to Wildenstein
for four or five days without a wife and court, an event that
everyone looked forward to with joy, as they were happy to see the
strict, often irascible owners to have the house.
The castle
was administered by a Vogt, an absolute position of trust. For
example, Gottfried Werner once had part of the castle team replaced
in the absence of the castle bailiff, whom he no longer trusted. The
regular occupation of the castle, at least when the master of the
house was present, included a priest, who had to read mass regularly
in the chapel, and also a barber for the master of the house. Every
morning he had to smoke out Gottfried Werner's room with juniper and
wait for him.
But it was often times of real hardship that
made a stay in the castle necessary. For example, in an epidemic
like in 1518, the food supply was handled by placing goods in front
of the castle gate, for extra security without direct personal
contact. The self-chosen isolation went so far that soon even the
leather for the shoe repair ran out.
Other occasions were the
Peasants' War in 1525, the Landenberg feud in 1540, the Schmalkaldic
War in 1546/47 and the Prince's War in 1552. In the last two clashes
in particular, not only the rooms were found, but also the
neighboring Catholic nobility sought protection on these, after the
Protestant fortress Hohentwiel, the strongest and most modern castle
in the region. It must have been very tight when, in addition to the
rooms, the Counts of Helfenstein, the Truchsess von Waldburg, the
Landkomtur von Altshausen and members of the Abbey of Beuron came to
the castle with attachments, luggage and the transportable
valuables. One must also assume that there will be no small military
occupation. An escort that accompanied Froben Christoph's son, who
had been left behind in Messkirch due to illness, to the castle when
he was again transportable, consisted of 20 hookers; the total
occupation of the castle should have been many times that.
Some behaviors that Froben Christoph describes in
the chronicle can be described as camp fever. Wilhelm Truchsess von
Waldburg speaks of a mousetrap, and one writer says of himself that
he ran his head against the wall several times out of fear. Since
nobody was allowed to leave the castle, boredom arose, so that
either they ate and drank and did not want to sober up, or they
slept or sang. The bailiff's wife is said to have had an affair with
the organist from Messkirch in the gloomy vaults of the castle. The
castle bailiff declared that he had not killed her just to keep the
peace. Gottfried Werner succeeded in de-escalating the situation to
such an extent that the Vogt admitted that he had made a mistake in
the darkness and so the affair could be resolved while preserving
the honor of all involved.
Gottfried Werner had great
self-doubts whether it would make sense in the case of an actual
siege to withstand and thereby allow the besiegers in the villages
of Zimmer to suffer misery and ruin through the looting that
followed, or to betray his peers in the event of a surrender. These
self-doubts and also the worries about his daughter Barbara, who was
a nun in the Inzigkofen monastery, deprived him of sleep and
disrupted the daily routine, so that meals had to be taken at
impossible times, which the entire castle crew had to adhere to.
Since Gottfried Werner had barred all the windows in the castle, he
couldn't even throw the food he was dissatisfied with out of the
window in his irascibility.
Wildenstein Castle served as a youth hostel for the
Baden-Württemberg regional association of the DJH even before it was
sold by Princess Theresa zu Fürstenberg in 1971. The castle was
already well attended in 1958. Today there are 151 guest beds in the
castle.
After the repair and renovation work started in 1972,
which cost 4.7 million DM, the 900th anniversary celebration took
place in 1977. In 1989 the wall frescoes in the dining room of the
Palas were restored. In 2005, extensive work began on the roof
structure of the main building, as it was getting on in years and
was not heat-efficient. The planning was carried out in close
cooperation with the Baden-Württemberg State Monuments Office. Most
recently, the roofs were extensively re-covered in 2006. The castle
is only partially accessible to the public. The castle tavern, the
castle courtyard and the access to it via the bridges, the open part
of the outer bailey and the castle gate are freely accessible during
the day. All other rooms are reserved for youth hostel guests or
only accessible to staff. The hostel management's apartment is on
the upper floor of the hall. There is the possibility of organizing
a tour of the castle with a tour guide who cooperates with the
hostel management. During the winter months, Wildenstein Castle is
temporarily completely closed to visitors.