Domeneck Castle

Domeneck Castle near Züttlingen, a district of Möckmühl in the Heilbronn district in northern Baden-Württemberg, was built not far from the ruins of a medieval castle.

Domeneck Castle is located about one kilometer upstream and north of Züttlingen, which lies on the left bank of the Jagst, on a relatively flat mountain spur between two ravine streams flowing into the river from the northwest (Seehofer Schluchtbach) and northeast, which unite before their right-bank confluence at the foot of the castle.

A few meters north of today's Domeneck Castle lay the castle of the Tumminge von Domeneck, first documented in 1270. The castle came into the possession of Engelhard von Berlichingen in 1420, who was married to the sister of Poppo von Domeneck. In 1424, the Lords of Berlichingen sold Domeneck Castle with Assumstadt to the Lords Stumpff von Schweinberg. The castle was originally a fief of the Lords of Weinsberg, who, however, had sold it early to the Counts of the Electoral Palatinate, from whom it passed to Duke Ulrich of Württemberg in 1504 during the War of the Landshut Succession. The castle was stormed and burned down in the Peasants' War in 1525.

After the Lords Stumpff von Schweinberg died out shortly thereafter, Duke Ulrich granted the fief of Domeneck Castle and estate to the Lords of Hardheim in 1534. After the death of Georg Wolf von Hardheim in 1607, Württemberg repossessed the fief and granted it to the Lords of Herda in 1628. Through inheritance and sale, numerous other changes of ownership occurred in the subsequent centuries. The current buildings were largely erected during the Baroque period. In 1889, the Lords of Simolin-Bathory were the owners of the complex.