Haselstein Castle (Ruin)

Haselstein Castle is a castle ruin near the district of Haselstein in the municipality of Nüsttal in the Fulda district of Hesse. It is located next to the village on a steep basalt cone, which was first mentioned in a document in 780/781 as "Haselahastein".

The hilltop castle, presumably built in the 11th century (or even earlier) by the Lords of Haselstein, was first mentioned in 1119 when it was conquered by the Fulda abbot Erlof von Bergholz to put an end to the brigandage emanating from it. The first known lord of the castle was Wigger von Hasela, mentioned in 1135. From 1156, after another conquest, the castle was definitively in Fulda possession and became the seat of Fulda officials, including the Lords of Haselstein (until their extinction in 1330) and the Lords of der Tann, who administered the Haselstein office from there. The later Saxon court councilor and envoy Eberhard von der Tann, who introduced the Reformation there in 1534 as regent of the Lordship of Tann, was born at Haselstein Castle in 1495.

The castle was last mentioned in 1512 when Dietrich von Ebersberg was the bailiff there. A new administrative building was erected at the foot of the castle hill in 1546, and the no longer used castle fell into disrepair or served as a quarry. Only small remains of the curtain wall and two sides of the former gate tower are still preserved from the former castle complex. The round keep, which has now completely disappeared, once had a diameter of around six meters.