Haimburg Castle

Haimburg, often also called Heunburg, is a castle ruin in the village of Haimburg in the municipality of Völkermarkt, Carinthia.

The castle is situated on an isolated rock.

The castle was first documented in 1103 as Huneburch. The Counts of Heunburg have been known by name since 1070. They were a family important for Carinthian regional history in the 12th and 13th centuries, but died out in the male line in 1322.

Their heirs here were the Counts of Pfannberg, whose last representative Johann died in 1362. The castle came to the Counts of Görz in 1362, and to the Habsburgs in 1460 after the Peace of Pusarnitz.

Where the Diexer Bach flows into the plain of the picturesque Jauntal, the Heunburg or Huneburch, first documented around 1070, rises on a slate block.

Located in the heart of that center of power which, after the Migration Period, stretched south of the Drau from Griffen to Brückl, Haimburg forms a remarkable cultural-historical center with finds from the Neolithic Age as well as from Celtic and Roman times. Here are testimonies to the mixing of the resident population with Germanic peoples and Slavs. To protect them from the Avars, castles like the Heunburg were built.

The Counts of Heunburg, originally from Saxony, who built the Heunburg as their ancestral castle around 1000, previously used the Rauterburg from the Carolingian period (9th/10th century) located northwest of Haimburg and became one of the most powerful families in Carinthia in the 13th century, until Ulrich III of Heunburg was defeated by the Habsburgs in the Battle of Wallersberg in 1293. From the 14th century, the Lords of Sanneck (gospodje Žovneški) and then the Counts of Cilli (Celjske grofje) inherited the Heunburg. Their coat of arms, the three golden stars on a blue background, followed the same path and can now be found in the state coat of arms of the Republic of Slovenia.

From 1990, the castle, which is privately owned, was restored by the association "Rettet die Heunburg" (Save the Heunburg). From 1995 to 2009, theater performances by "Theater k.l.a.s." took place at the castle in summer.

Since 2011, the Heunburg Theater has been performing at the castle during the summer months.