Colmberg Castle

On the Heuberg (formerly Eichelberg), located just above the village of Colmberg, traces of Neolithic hunters were found. During Celtic times, there may have been a small settlement there. The entire upper Altmühl valley consisted at the beginning of the Middle Ages of primeval forest on the heights and swamp near the river and streams. After 720, the local area was taken possession of by the Frankish kings and used as a hunting ground. Charlemagne is also said to have hunted aurochs here, to which the place name Auerbach still refers today.

The history of the castle can only be reconstructed from the 13th century based on documents; all claims about the preceding period are purely speculative. The castle first explicitly appears in 1269 in the possession of the Counts of Truhendingen, who had the castle administered by bailiffs, who exploited the then lawless state for their own arbitrary abuses. The oldest court records of the imperial city of Rothenburg testify after 1274 to an almost endless chain of complaints about crimes committed by the Colmberg officials before the local court, e.g., about unpaid debts, unfulfilled guarantees, trespassing, robbery, deprivation of liberty, theft, and arson. Finally, in 1293, not the then Truhendingen bailiff but the entire Colmberg Castle was outlawed. Because the Counts of Truhendingen got into increasing financial difficulties, they parted with this so ill-reputed fortress, a documented robber baron castle. Colmberg was finally sold on July 13, 1318, together with the town of Leutershausen and the surrounding area for 6200 pounds (Swabian) Haller pennies to Burgrave Friedrich IV of Nuremberg.

For almost 500 years, this fortress with its surroundings was an important possession of the Hohenzollerns, which they pawned three times due to debts but always redeemed again. Their bailiffs monitored the access to the imperial city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber from here, with which the burgraves maintained a very tense relationship. Thus, in 1407, the castle became the gathering place of all Hohenzollern vassals and their allies in a military conflict arising from a feud with Rothenburg and its mayor Toppler. An estimated 10,000 men marched under the leadership of Burgrave Friedrich VI to besiege the imperial city. Rothenburg finally had to negotiate and dismantle five castles in its possession. Due to the enormous costs caused by the victorious war against Rothenburg, Friedrich VI then moved his main residence to Colmberg Castle. Here, the maintenance costs were significantly cheaper than at Cadolzburg or in Nuremberg. After the successful campaign against the Turks, in which he saved Sigismund of Luxembourg, who was elected German king in 1410, Friedrich was granted on April 30, 1415, the hereditary dignity of Margrave and Elector of Brandenburg as thanks: Burgrave Friedrich VI became Margrave Friedrich I of Brandenburg. Due to the newly acquired territory, he was often in northern Germany and left the government of the local margraviate to his wife Elisabeth of Bavaria-Landshut ("Beautiful Else"), who still resided here. When Friedrich died in 1440, the castle became the widow's seat of the "Beautiful Else" for two years. The portraits of the famous couple can still be found today in the castle chapel above the harmonium.

After the death of the "Beautiful Else," the castle remained the center of the margravial Oberamt Colmberg. The administrators of the Oberamt Colmberg were called Oberamtsleute or bailiffs (their deputies in the local bailiwick). However, the Hohenzollerns also had problems with their castle bailiffs because they could not adequately supervise them from Berlin or Ansbach. Allegedly, the Colmberg bailiff Rüd captured a Rothenburg councilor passing by with a wagon train and let him rot in the castle dungeon. In any case, in 1449, Rothenburg soldiers plundered 18 margravial villages throughout the upper Altmühl valley and burned them down along with the upper suburb of Leutershausen. Because they could not storm the fortress walls—which were bombarded with catapults—the village of Colmberg was also laid to ashes. In return, Margrave Albrecht Achilles had his soldiers burn down many Rothenburg villages within the so-called Landhege from here. However, not only the Rothenburg offensive of 1449 but also all later attacks, including those during the Peasants' War, failed at the well-fortified rings of walls and moats of Colmberg Castle. In 1525, the "Red Konrad," who had previously destroyed about 200 castles and palaces in Franconia, had to surrender to the strong walls. Shortly before the Thirty Years' War, the projecting bastion with small guns was added to the southern outer ring wall. The imperial field marshal Tilly, who wanted to conquer the castle in 1631, was unsuccessful in his attempt to capture the fortress. During the Thirty Years' War, the castle was a reliable refuge for the surrounding population. However, during the following Baroque period, the castle lost importance. The margravial Oberamtmann was mostly in Ansbach and was represented by the bailiff or steward.

After the abdication of the last margrave Alexander in 1791, Colmberg was under Prussian administration until 1806. When the Kingdom of Bavaria reorganized the territory of the former margraviate handed over by Napoleon I, Colmberg Castle became the seat of a rent office in the Leutershausen district court in 1810, which saved the castle from being sold for demolition.