Hohenegg Castle (Ruin)

Hohenegg Castle is a castle ruin in Westallgäu on the Hoheneggerberg above the Eistobel valley of the Upper Argen, north of the hamlet of Schüttentobel in the municipality of Grünenbach in the Swabian district of Lindau in Bavaria.

The exact time of origin of the hilltop castle is unclear; it was mentioned in 1171 and was owned by the Lords of Rettenberg and the Lords of Trauchburg. From about 1240, the castle was the ancestral seat of the Lords of Hohenegg, a collateral line of the Lords of Trauchberg, who were considered noble-free already in the 12th and 13th centuries. Rudolf von Trauchberg called himself nobilis vir de Hohenegge in 1244.

In 1359, the Hoheneggs, who had also resided at Vilsegg Castle since 1313 and made it their future seat, sold the castle to Count Wilhelm III of Montfort-Bregenz. On July 12, 1451, Countess Elisabeth of Montfort-Bregenz sold the castle to Duke Sigmund of Tyrol, who pledged the castle to the bailiff Kaspar von Laubenberg (Laubenbergerstein Castle) in 1456.

Around 1525, during the German Peasants' War, the castle was severely damaged, last mentioned in 1559, and left to decay during the Thirty Years' War. In 1730, the remainder of the castle was demolished and the stones were used to build an ironworks. In 1805, the Lordship of Hohenegg came to Bavaria, and in 1898, the ruin was acquired by the Barons of Nostitz.

Only minor wall remnants of the former 15 by 50 meter castle complex remain. In the northeast corner of the castle site, there is a chapel from 1897.