Schrattenstein Castle

A document from the Styrian Margrave Otakar IV from the year 1182 testifies to a Chalhoch de Sratenstein. His son Ortolf appears in documents two years later. The names Chalhoch and Ortolf are characteristic of the Lords of Schrattenstein.

The Schrattensteiners owned the castle as a free property. They are likely to have died out in the second half of the 13th century. Afterwards, the castle fell to Rudolf I of Habsburg, who gave it to Friedrich von Hohenzollern. At the beginning of the 14th century, it was a fief of the Margraves of Brandenburg or the Burgraves of Nuremberg, which they had granted to the Lords of Hauenfeld, who were related to the Schrattensteiners.

In 1365, Georg von Hauenfeld sold half of the castle to Peter von Ebersdorf, who was able to acquire the other half the very next year. Schrattenstein was initially administered by burgraves. The Ebersdorfers had the fortress expanded and the palas raised in 1416. Later, the complex passed into the possession of the Wallseer. Barbara von Wallsee handed over half of the castle to her husband Siegmund von Schaunberg. Via Erasmus von Scherffenberg, who acquired it in 1542, Schrattenstein came into the possession of Baron Johann Baptist Hoyos in 1559 through purchase. The castle no longer played a role in the Turkish Wars. It was already abandoned and ruinous at that time. It may have been damaged in the battles with the Hungarians under Matthias Corvinus in the 1480s and then abandoned.

Numerous archaeological finds, however, indicate that the castle was at least partially inhabited in the first half of the 16th century. In 1590, an earthquake caused further damage. The ruin has belonged to the City of Vienna since 1937, which acquired the extensive surrounding forest area from the Counts Hoyos at that time.