Mochental Castle

Mochental Castle is a Renaissance-style castle near the large district town of Ehingen in the southeast of Baden-Württemberg.

The castle is located above the Danube in the Kirchener Valley, about eight kilometers west of Ehingen on the southern edge of the Swabian Jura. Directly below the three-winged castle is an agricultural estate, which together with the castle forms an almost enclosed quadrangle.

Around the year 1000, the Counts of Mochental built Mochental Castle and a chapel. This was consecrated to Saint Nicholas in 1049 by Pope Leo IX. In 1192, Count Ulrich I of Berg donated the castle with the chapel to Zwiefalten Abbey. Mochental became its provostry.

From the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century, the provostry and the Nikolaus Chapel were repeatedly renewed and expanded in place of the decaying castle. In 1730, the main building of the provostry was destroyed by fire. In the following three years, the brothers Joseph and Martin Schneider, under Abbot Augustin, built the castle with its 365 windows in its present form.

In 1734, the church painter Franz Josef Spiegler painted the chapel with scenes from the life of Saint Nicholas.

In 1737, the Riedlingen painter Joseph Ignaz Wegscheider painted an oriental banquet in the Hubertussaal.

As part of the secularization, Zwiefalten Abbey and thus Mochental fell to the Duchy and later Kingdom of Württemberg on November 25, 1802. In 1816, the last abbot of Zwiefalten died at Mochental Castle.

Between 1822 and 1976, the castle was used in various ways. It served as a forestry office, as accommodation for labor service, then as the administrative seat of the French military government, and later as a boarding school. After a privately financed interior renovation, the Mochental Castle Art Gallery was opened in 1985, directed by curator and art Karlsruhe founder Ewald Karl Schrade.