Langenstein Castle

Langenstein Castle is located in the Hegau region and is owned by the Count Douglas family. It houses a Carnival Museum and is known beyond the region due to the affiliated Golf and Country Club.

Langenstein Castle is located in the municipality of Orsingen-Nenzingen, south of the municipality of Eigeltingen, between Stockach and Singen in the Hegau. The origins of the castle date back to the Middle Ages. Around 1100, the keep, which still exists today as a basement, was built by Reichenau Abbey on an elongated rock of Jurassic limestone. Langenstein was then the seat of ministeriales of Reichenau Monastery in the 12th and 13th centuries, who named themselves after the castle. After the Langenstein family died out at the beginning of the 14th century, numerous nobles owned the castle in the following centuries.

The main building of the current castle complex was essentially built between 1570 and 1605 around a square tower. Later, the complex was expanded by the so-called New Castle and connected with an intermediate wing. Further buildings such as the Ludwigshof and the Reichenau Tithe Cellar complete the complex.

In 1826, Grand Duke Ludwig of Baden bought the castle as private property. After the Grand Duke's death in 1830, his son Count Ludwig Wilhelm August von Langenstein und Gondelsheim (1820–1872) inherited it, along with the other properties his father had privately acquired in the Hegau, Linzgau, Danube Valley, and Kraichgau and consolidated into the Comital Langenstein Family Estate. Since Count Ludwig August's mother, the actress Katharina Werner at the Karlsruhe court theater, was not of noble birth, he was not eligible for succession to the Grand Dukes. Furthermore, he was born "pre-maritally."

Since Count Ludwig Wilhelm August remained childless, his sister Luise von Langenstein und Gondelsheim (1825–1900) inherited the properties, including Langenstein Castle. In 1848, she married the Swedish nobleman Carl Israel Vilhelm Count Douglas (1824–1898). His ancestor was Robert Count Douglas (1611-1662), a Scottish field marshal who served in Swedish service during the Thirty Years' War and founded the Swedish line of the Counts of Douglas, which produced several important politicians and military figures.

Langenstein Castle has served as the main residence of the Douglas family since 1906. The living quarters of the Counts of Douglas are located in the former Ludwigshof inn.

After the end of the First World War, the abdicated Grand Duke Friedrich II of Baden, with his wife, his mother Luise, and his sister Viktoria, then Queen of Sweden, temporarily resided at Langenstein Castle as guests of Count Douglas.

The castle is inhabited by Axel Graf Douglas. It features a castle chapel.