Friedewald Castle

The center of the community is a castle with a Renaissance facade. Friedewald received the same city rights from Louis the Bavarian as Frankfurt am Main, but has remained considerably smaller.

The Counts of Sayn were only able to secure their territorial sovereignty in the High Westerwald and the Daade Valley in the 14th century; the castle, medieval in its origins, bears witness to this endeavor. The town enjoyed city rights from 1324, which Count Gottfried von Sayn obtained for it. The castle played an important role during the Thirty Years' War as the last refuge for the county. In 1671, Friedewald became part of the Imperial County of Sayn-Altenkirchen, which had its main seat here until 1791. Count Heinrich von Sayn erected a Renaissance castle in place of the medieval fortress around 1580. Its ruin was bought in 1885 by Alexander Count of Hachenburg (from the noble family Sayn-Wittgenstein) for five Prussian thalers from the treasury, rebuilt historically accurately, and he moved into it ten years later, expanding it further in the following years. According to Dehio, the castle is considered "a particularly striking example of German princely castles of Mannerism". In 1912, he sold the castle for 450,000 Marks to Prince Otto von Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg; the crypt he built (Count's Crypt) above the village, however, remained empty.

Since 1949, the castle has been used by the Evangelical Social Academy Friedewald and since 2004 also by the Foundation for Social Protestantism. Since around mid-2000, the castle has been used as a hotel, and weddings are also performed in its chapel.