Rodersen Castle (Ruin) (Wolfhagen)

The castle ruin Rodersen (formerly called Roderikessen) is a castle ruin north of the town of Wolfhagen in the district of Kassel, Hesse (Germany). From the castle, dating from the 12th century, wall and foundation remains and the moat are still visible. Its ruin is freely accessible.

The castle ruin Rodersen is located in the Habichtswald Nature Park, not quite halfway as the crow flies between Wolfhagen and Volkmarsen. It lies between the core town of Wolfhagen, 4.6 km to the south, the Wolfhagen district of Niederelsungen, 2.7 km to the north-northeast, and the Volkmarsen district of Ehringen, almost 2 km to the north-northwest. Entirely on Wolfhagen territory, it is located approximately directly east of the Erpe, through whose valley the Volkmarsen-Wolfhagen section of the Volkmarsen–Vellmar-Obervellmar railway line runs, and about 700 m east of the state road L 3075, which connects Wolfhagen and Ehringen.

About 600 m west-southwest of the castle ruin Rodersen, which can be reached on foot from a parking lot located almost 1.5 km south-southeast of Ehringen on the L 3075, is the deserted town of Landsberg.

The castle "Roderikessen" was built around 1180/1200 under the feudal lordship of the Archbishop of Mainz, probably to secure the claims of Mainz in the border area with the then Thuringia of the Ludowingians. Around 1231, it was destroyed, along with the then Landsberg, by troops of Landgrave Konrad of Thuringia during his feud with Mainz.

Around 1240, the castle "Roderikessen" came, presumably as a sub-fief, to the family of Gudenberg, ministeriales of the Archbishop of Mainz, who then named themselves after the castle.

In the Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession, it was finally destroyed around 1261 by Landgrave Heinrich I of Hesse and remained a ruin thereafter. Stones from the castle are said to have been incorporated into the church tower of Niederelsungen, built in 1262.

Between 1960 and 1972, the ruin of the castle, now called "Rodersen", was excavated.