Hohenbrugg Castle

The castle was probably built at the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century by a princely ministerial family. The first documented mention was in 1305 with Wulfing von Hohenbrugg. He presumably came from the Fürstenfeld family.

After the death of the brothers Heinrich and Irg von Fürstenfeld, the castle passed to Ulrich the Pessnitzer in 1420. The next lords of the castle were Kaspar von Saurau (1432) and Hermann Hafner (1439). He remained at Hohenbrugg even after the later Emperor Frederick III pledged it to Wolfgang von Wallsee in 1446. Hafner sold the lordship in 1461 to the brothers Andree and Christof von Mindorf. In 1480, Hungarian troops occupied Hohenbrugg.

On behalf of Emperor Frederick III, Friedrich von Stubenberg was able to drive them out again in 1491. During the Turkish invasion of 1532, the castle was also conquered and this time partially destroyed. Siegmund von Mindorf began its reconstruction and expansion in 1551, which his son Bernhardin was able to complete in 1594. The castle had transformed into a Renaissance palace. However, it was already burned down in 1605 by the Haiduks allied with the Turks under Colonel Nemethy. Hohenbrugg was soon rebuilt and better fortified. In 1647, Maria Freiin von Mindorf handed over the lordship to her cousin and guardian of her children, Hans Christof von Mindorf. Through his daughter Maria Elisabeth, Hohenbrugg came to her husband Irg Sigmund Graf Tattenbach.

Even during the Kuruc Wars from 1704 to 1711, the castle was attacked several times. Franz Josef Graf Wagensberg, who had meanwhile inherited Hohenbrugg, sold it in 1780 to Max Graf Batthyány. He was followed by Josef Freiherr Vetter von der Lilie (1788), Antonia Freiin von Schmidberg and Wilhelm Freiherr von Morsey (1874). Finally, the castle came into the possession of the Counts Czernin. In 1945, it was severely damaged by wartime effects. It was also neglected in the decades that followed. The current owner of Hohenbrugg is Jaromir Graf Czernin.