Burg Schlaining

Stadtschlaining, Austria, Austria

---

Burg Schlaining is a medieval castle in the town of Stadtschlaining in the Austrian state of Burgenland, situated at 378 meters above sea level on a strategic point at the intersection of several important trade routes linking Székesfehérvár (Steinamanger in German), Graz, Wiener Neustadt, and Sopron (Ödenburg), and it was first mentioned in 1271 as “castrum Zloynuk”.

Originally built as a defensive fortress in the 12th–13th centuries, the castle was owned in the 13th century by the Counts of Güssing, later acquired by the 15th-century noble Andreas Baumkircher, whose name is still linked to local legends and the “Baumkircher feud” against Emperor Frederick III, and passed in the mid-16th century to the powerful Batthyány family, who held it for centuries until the early 20th century, while the surrounding settlement eventually grew into the small town of Stadtschlaining (Hungarian: Városszalónak).

In the turbulent 20th century, the castle was used first as a prisoner-of-war camp for Russian officers during World War I, then as a POW and labor camp between 1939 and 1945, and after 1945 briefly as a prison for captured Nazis, before being taken over by the state of Burgenland in 1980, restored, and transformed into a “Friedensburg” (Peace Castle) that now hosts the Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR) and Austria’s only Peace Museum.