Burg Hohengundelfingen

Münsingen, Germany, Germany

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Burg Hohengundelfingen is the ruins of a medieval hilltop castle perched at 725 meters above sea level high over the Lauter River valley near Gundelfingen, a village in Münsingen, Reutlingen district, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Built in the early 13th century (with the keep's ashlar stonework dating to the beginning of the 1200s), it was the ancestral seat and main residence of the noble Gundelfingen family, a free noble lineage documented since the 12th century, with Swigger IV von Gundelfingen (c. 1160–1228) named as the possible builder.

The castle was first mentioned in 1236 and is considered the most impressive of the medieval noble castles in the Lautertal valley, featuring a powerful over-10-meter-high ashlar keep (Bergfried) from the Staufer period that remains well preserved.

The castle gradually fell into ruin after the 14th–15th centuries but was intermittently inhabited even after its decline, including allegedly by monks from Zwiefalten Abbey during the German Peasants' War in 1525, and after being purchased in 1939 by Ulm factory owner Hans Römer, it underwent extensive restoration and repairs from 1949 to 1965 that took 17 years to complete.