Neuhaus Castle

Neuhaus Castle is a castle ruin in Neuhaus-Schierschnitz in Thuringia. In the 13th century, it was the seat of the noble family of Schaumberg.

Neuhaus Castle was probably built in the 13th century as the "Newe Hus" of the Lords of Schaumberg. With its rather modest dimensions, the complex secured their interests in this part of their dominion against the Vicedomini of Würzburg, who were also active in the region, and controlled an old military and trade route from Leipzig to Nuremberg. Around 1310, it was the allodial property of Eberhard von Schaumberg, and in 1317, the castle passed to the princely County of Henneberg, whose feudal lords the Schaumbergers became. The castle was the seat of a small district of high justice. In 1355, with the takeover of the Coburg bailiwick by the House of Wettin, it became the Vogt's residence, and the judicial and administrative seat of the Saxon office of Neuhaus.

During the time of the bailiffship of the Lords of Gottsmann, Neuhaus Castle became their enfeoffment. Kunz Gottsmann (c. 1482 - 1542) and Hans Friedrich Gottsmann (1532 - 1611) expanded the medieval castle complex into a representative noble residence. After their extinction, the castle and office reverted to the feudal court of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg, the then sovereign.

During the Thirty Years' War, the militarily insignificant complex briefly served as the staff headquarters and provisions magazine for the Swedish-Coburg troops who were besieging Catholic Bamberg's Kronach and Rosenberg Fortress. In revenge, the castle, along with the market town, was destroyed in 1634 by the victorious imperial allies of Bamberg, particularly by Croatian mercenaries.

In the following centuries, the castle was used as a quarry, and parts were converted into a tithe and storage barn for the neighboring Saxe-Meiningen administrative building. After the final dissolution of the Neuhaus office in 1829, the ruin fell into disrepair. In 1903/1904, the Sonneberg merchant and banker Baron Hermann von Walther, who transformed the administrative building into a "castle" in the Neo-Renaissance style, had romanticized half-timbered structures in the Nuremberg style placed on the castle walls. From the 1960s until its relocation in 1980, the local history museum of the municipality of Neuhaus-Schierschnitz was housed in the castle. Today, it is owned by the DRK-Landesverband Thüringen.