Kloster Heilsbruck

The monastery was founded between 1230 and 1232 by the Würzburg canon Salomon, supported by the Speyer citizen Elbewin Schwarz, who donated land in Harthausen. The first nuns came from the Alsatian monastery of Königsbruck. Due to unfavorable conditions such as marshy ground and a lack of drinking water and firewood, the sisters moved around 1262 to Watzenhofen on the edge of the Haardt. There, the monastery developed successfully, partly through the acquisition of vineyards. King Rudolf of Habsburg placed it under imperial protection in 1281, and later rulers such as Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian and King Ruprecht confirmed its rights and freedoms. In 1525, the abbey was plundered and devastated during the Palatine Peasants' War. Under Abbess Sophia Kistel von Dürkheim, reconstruction took place with a new Gothic church and convent buildings. Nevertheless, the monastery did not fully recover financially. In the course of the Reformation, Elector Friedrich III dissolved the convent in 1560, and the assets were assigned to the electoral administration. During the Thirty Years' War, Speyer Jesuits settled there from 1636, and in 1646, the Cistercian nuns returned. However, by 1648, monastic life was definitively ended by the Peace of Westphalia.

The former monastery is located in the Southern Wine Route region in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

After the demolition of the monastery church in the early 19th century, the monastic complex was converted into a winery. The preserved buildings and the entire area of the former monastery, including the monastery mill and the associated open and green spaces, have been protected as a cultural monument since 1981 and as a monument zone since 1996.

• Rhodt Castle (Castle, approx. 1273 m away)
• Kropsburg (Castle, approx. 1985 m away)
• Castle of the Hund von Saulheim (Castle, approx. 1991 m away)
• Adelshof der Schlichterer von Erfenstein (Manor and estate, approx. 2018 m away)