MARKSBURG
A knight's castle straight out of a textbook! It was first mentioned in documents in Braubach in 1231. However, it probably already existed in 1219.
Marksburg Castle is the only hilltop castle on the Middle Rhine that has never been destroyed.
There is a castle about every 2.5 kilometres in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Middle Rhine, between Koblenz and Bingen. However, most of the castles on the Rhine were reconstructed at some point.
They were mostly destroyed, whether by the Swedes in the Thirty Years' War or by Louis XIV in the War of the Palatinate Succession in 1689. Many castles were then rebuilt in the Romantic era.
After a chequered history, the German Castle Association acquired Marksburg Castle for 1,000 gold marks following the intercession of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
For 70 years now, the Romanesque Palas has housed the headquarters and office of the German Castle Association, a heritage protection initiative that has set itself the task of saving castles and palaces from decay and improper renovation.