Laneburg Castle (Ruin) (Löhnberg)

The castle ruin Laneburg in Löhnberg is located in the middle Lahn valley between the old imperial city of Wetzlar, where the Nassau counts long exercised the right of Vogt, and Weilburg, the ancestral seat of the Walramian line of the House of Nassau. The ruin lies above the Lahn at the point where the river enters a narrow rocky valley from the wide valley of the Löhnberg basin. In numismatic circles, the Laneburg became known through a coin hoard, the so-called "Treasure of Laneburg", discovered during renovation work in 2000.

The Laneburg, founded by the Ottonian line of the Nassaus, is located at the southern end of their former dominion, which stretched from Siegen via Dillenburg and Beilstein to the Lahn. Its origin goes back to a Frankish settlement in the valley floor, near the Löhnberg junction of today's B 49. This place "Heimau", first mentioned in 1254, already existed around 500 AD, as discovered Frankish graves prove. The place came to the Counts of Nassau after 1100. In the Nassau fraternal division of 1255, the Heimau court fell to Otto I of Nassau, the founder of the Ottonian line of the House of Nassau. His son Johann mit der Haube had the Laneburg built on the rocky spur of the Schletsberg above the village between 1321 and 1324.

As early as 1324, a document was sealed in this castle, on which the name "Laneburg" appears. The document deals with the various rights of the neighbors and cousins of Laneburg and Weilburg. After Count Johann of Nassau-Dillenburg fell in 1328 towards the end of the Dernbach Feud in a battle against Landgrave Heinrich II of Hesse near Wetzlar, the castle came to his brother Heinrich of Nassau-Siegen. In 1344, he pledged the castle and town of Laneburg to Nassau-Weilburg and others.

At the end of the 16th century, the Counts of Nassau-Beilstein/Dillenburg began to convert the castle into a Renaissance palace. This led to disputes with the co-owners, so Georg of Nassau-Dillenburg felt compelled to place soldiers and heavy artillery in the Laneburg to secure the progress of the construction work. The originally planned rectangular building with an inner courtyard was not completed.

In 1773, the House of Nassau-Weilburg exchanged the village and the Laneburg for three villages in the Westerwald from Nassau-Dillenburg. During the conversion of the castle into a tithe barn in 1782, the large windows were bricked up.

During the Nassau administrative reform of 1816, Löhnberg lost its official function. The castle was sold, partly to the municipality and partly to private individuals; it continued to be used as a barn and stable.

On September 5, 1900, the castle burned down and was not rebuilt. Towards the end of World War II, an aerial bomb destroyed the stair tower and the vault of the wine cellar.