Baltenstein Castle (Ruin)

Baltenstein Castle is a ruined castle southwest of the hamlet of Baltenstein in the municipality of Betzigau in the Oberallgäu district of Bavaria.

The castle was built around 1200 by the Lords of Stein, who later called themselves von Baltenstein, and was mentioned in 1239 with Heinrich von Stein as a Kempten vassal. In 1276, the Lords of Baldenstein were named. The castle was a fief of Kempten Abbey. Shortly after 1289, the Lords of Stein died out with Heinrich von Stein as the last heir of the family, and the castle passed to the Schenken von Sulzberg. After its destruction in 1370, it went to the Kempten citizen Ruf Schellang and in 1439 to the Kempten hospital. In the mid-16th century, the castle was abandoned and fell into disrepair.

The former small castle complex still shows today on an 8-meter-high boulder the foundation remains of ashlar masonry of a pentagonal residential tower with a base area of 8.5 by 15.5 meters and a wall thickness of 1.5 meters, as well as remnants of ramparts and moats.