Langenegg Castle (Ruin)

Langenegg Castle is a castle ruin in the Allgäu region. It is located on a wooded hill within a loop of the Iller river, in the area of Martinszell, a district of the municipality of Waltenhofen in the Oberallgäu district of Bavaria.

Around 1250, the main tower of the complex was built. The hilltop castle served three families over time as their ancestral seat and center of power.

When the Lords of Langenegg died out in the male line in 1415, the castle passed to the Lords of Rauns through the heiress. Before they too died out in the male line, they sold part of the castle complex to the patrician Winter from Kempten, who was related to them. He then called himself von Langenegg. After the death of the last Lord of Langenegg in 1647, the castle reverted to the liege lord, the Prince-Abbot of Kempten, who, however, allowed it to fall into disrepair.

From 1734, the complex was converted into a Kempten monastery workhouse and poorhouse. In 1775, a regionally famous trial began there: Anna Schwegelin, imprisoned as a vagrant, was denounced as a witch by a fellow inmate after an argument. She was tried before the court of the Prince-Abbey, which ended with a death sentence. However, the sentence was not carried out; the "last witch of Germany" died in Kempten prison in 1781.