Duttenberg Castle

Duttenberg Castle was a manorial estate in Duttenberg, a district of Bad Friedrichshall in the Heilbronn district in northern Baden-Württemberg. The complex, presumably a manorial estate, originated around the year 800, gained particular importance in the 14th century, and in the 17th century, along with its associated lands, came into the possession of the Teutonic Order, which sold the complex to private owners in 1769. The complex, located in the east of Duttenberg, is only vaguely recognizable as a castle area due to centuries of use as a farmstead. A stately residential building, an old wine press, and the once-walled Duttenberg Church essentially mark the extent of the former castle area.

The Duttenberg district was first mentioned in 778 as Tutumer marca, and the castle as Dudunburc in 798/799. It is assumed that the original settlement was probably established around 600 during the Frankish land acquisition on the remains of Roman buildings near the Kreuzkapelle in Duttenberg. Around the year 800, a manor house was built about one kilometer northeast of it on a ridge above the Jagst valley, from which the medieval Duttenberg Castle then developed. In the 14th century, the Lords of Weinsberg held it as an imperial fief and granted it to various nobles, including the Lords of Bieringen in the 14th century and the Lords of Wittstatt in the 15th and 16th centuries.

The significance and former extent of the castle can only be guessed at. The castle formed a walled rectangle in the easternmost part of the village. To the west of the castle area, with its manor house, wine press, farm buildings, and a tower preserved as a stump, lies the equally walled Kilianskirche, and further west, the village, which was also partially walled in the 16th century. The village wall dates back to Hans von Sickingen around 1460. Remains of the various walls and the moat laid out to the northeast are preserved.

After the extinction of the Wittstatt family in 1586, the successors of the Weinsberg family, the Electors Palatine, took over the manor house and granted it to Duttenberg residents. In 1599, the Teutonic Order came into possession of part of the complex. After the Thirty Years' War, the Order was able to acquire the entire complex with 90 Morgen of associated lands in 1668. In 1673, the originally taller manor house was damaged by fire, losing two half-timbered upper floors.

After the Teutonic Order had leased its Duttenberg property in the 18th century, parcelled into 20 hereditary fiefs, to Duttenberg farmers, it sold the manor house in 1769 to Joseph Reichert, while the wine press remained with the Order. From the Reichert family, the estate then passed to the Reiß family in 1860, after whom the castle area is also called Reißenhof. In the year of the change of ownership, a dilapidated distillery on the site was demolished, and around the same time, a Renaissance oriel window on the west facade of the manor house, which had been preserved until then, was removed, and the building essentially acquired its present appearance with the simple, uniform sandstone windows.