Rotenburg Castle (Ruin)

The castle ruin Rodenberg, also known as Rotenburg on the Alter Turm, is located on the mountain Alter Turm (), covered with deciduous forest, mostly beech, about 2 km north-northeast of the old town of Rotenburg an der Fulda in North Hesse. The name of the city is probably derived from the former castle.

The hilltop castle was first mentioned in a document in 1170, and in the years 1170, 1182, and 1197, the first Rotenburg castellans, the ministerial family "von Rodenberc", are named in connection with the castle. It is assumed that the Ludowinger, Landgraves of Thuringia, had the castle built after 1122, when the Vogtland over the Hersfeld Abbey had come into their possession from the Hessian Gisonen. However, it is possible that the Gisonen had already erected the first fortified buildings on the mountain, which Matthias Merian the Elder called Hausberg or Haußberg. Even today, Hausberg is the local place name.

After the death of the last Ludowinger, Heinrich Raspe IV, in 1247 and the Thuringian-Hessian War of Succession (1247-1264), the Hessian possessions and the Vogtei rights of the Ludowinger there fell to Heinrich I, the first Landgrave of Hesse. This also concerned the Vogtei castle Rodenberg, with which the gradual alienation of Hersfeld territory to the Landgraves of Thuringia and, in their succession, the Landgraves of Hesse began. The castle subsequently became a Hessian fief of the families von Trott, von Baumbach, von Reichenbach, von Berlepsch, Vullekopf, and von Hattenbach, who resided there as castellans or sub-vogts.

The castle was destroyed in the Sterner War, the armed conflicts that broke out in 1372 between the knightly league vom Sterne and Landgrave Hermann II of Hesse. A reconciliation document from 1389 stipulated that the castle should no longer be fortified. It subsequently fell into disrepair, but was probably still at least partially habitable until the 16th century, when it was owned by the Lords Trott zu Schwarzenhasel.

The castle complex was very large, with an area of about 110 meters by 40 meters. Today, only parts of the up to 6 m high ramparts, remains of the moats, and the rest of a ring wall are preserved. Little remains of the larger northeastern tower. Better preserved are the foundations of the polygonal keep in the center of the complex.

The castle ruin is located north above the Rotenburg Cardiovascular Center (HKZ). It is freely accessible. To the right of the last public parking lot of the HKZ, the path goes well signposted northwest uphill. After the ascent, past the White Cross of the Expellee Memorial, a little-used path branches off to the right. This then divides, with the right branch leading very steeply directly to the ruin, while the left branch goes as a drivable path to the western main entrance of the former castle.