Rauschenberg Castle (Ruin)

Rauschenberg Castle is a medieval castle ruin at around 324 m above sea level on a summit above the town of Rauschenberg in the Hessian district of Marburg-Biedenkopf.

The hilltop castle was probably built in the 11th/12th century on behalf of Fulda Abbey. In 1219, the castle was mentioned for the first time. It was the seat of the Ziegenhain office of Rauschenberg and at times the dower house for Ziegenhain countesses. After 1300, parts of it came into the possession of the Münzenbergers. In 1434, it became a Ziegenhain fief of Landgrave Ludwig I of Hesse, and after 1450, when the County of Ziegenhain fell to the Hessian Landgrave as an inheritance, it continued to be used as a hunting lodge.

In 1646, during the Thirty Years' War, the castle was blown up at the behest of a Hessian-Kassel colonel and partially demolished in 1830.

The former structure was based on an almost circular layout but was enclosed by an angular curtain wall. A keep, two main buildings, and several small outbuildings belonged to the core of the castle. After its destruction, only rubble cone remains of the keep, parts of the walls of a presumably three-story residential building with various vault remains, and a barrel-vaulted cellar in remnants have survived.