Ebersburg Castle

The Ebersburg, originally called Ebersberg, is the ruin of a hilltop castle in the municipality of Herrmannsacker in the Nordhausen district, Thuringia.

The ruins of the Ebersburg are located in the South Harz in the South Harz Nature Park, about 1,000 m north of the village of Herrmannsacker, above the Krebsbach stream, a tributary of the Thyra, on the Burgberg (387.5 m above sea level).

In a document issued in 1189 or 1190, Archbishop Konrad of Mainz acknowledges that he redeemed the pledged Ebersberg Castle and its revenues from his relative, the Count Palatine of Saxony, and gave it to him as a fief. The widespread assumption that the Ebersburg was expanded or rebuilt around 1182 as part of the active acquisition policy of the Count Palatine and later Landgrave Hermann I of Thuringia against Nordhausen cannot therefore be maintained. It is more probable that this castle was originally built to protect the Mainz court of Rottleberode into the formerly royal forest and at the same time served as a threat to the imperial city of Nordhausen. The Ebersburg near Nordhausen and Großfurra in the Wippertal are fortifications of the Thuringian Landgraves in North Thuringia. This is probably why the hereditary marshal also came from this castle. However, he was replaced in 1246. With the death of Heinrich Raspe (anti-king from 1246 to 1247), the older Thuringian Landgrave house died out in 1247. The dominion passed to the Wettins by inheritance.

In 1249, Count Siegfried of Anhalt, who claimed the castle as his wife's dowry, succeeded in taking possession of the castle after a feud. After further battles, the castle was again in the possession of the Wettins, and in 1326 it came as a fief to the Counts of Stolberg.

The decline of the castle began as early as the 16th century.

The castle ruin has been undergoing restoration by the "Verein für lebendiges Mittelalter e.V." (Association for Living Middle Ages) since 2006.