Möckmühl Castle

Möckmühl Castle, also known as Götzenburg, is a high medieval hilltop castle in Möckmühl in the district of Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg.

The Württemberg castle of Möckmühl once protected the intersection of several toll and escort roads at the confluence of the Seckach into the Jagst. The most important of these routes led from Würzburg to Wimpfen and was already important to the Romans for the defense of the Limes.

It is unknown who built the castle. It was probably the noble free Lords of Dürn, certainly not the Lords of Möckmühl, who appeared around 1150 and died out early. In 1258, after the death of Konrad von Dürn, the castle, first mentioned shortly before (1251), passed to his widow Mechtild, the last Countess of Lauffen, for whom Möckmühl Castle served as a residence and dower for 18 years.

Through the marriage of Mechtild's grandson, Count Poppo von Dürn, to Agnes von Hohenlohe, the ownership of Möckmühl passed to his wife's family in 1287. It remained there until 1445. The lord of the castle, Albrecht von Hohenlohe († 1338), killed the son of Duke Ludwig of Bavaria in a tournament in 1290, which he sought to atone for through large donations to churches and monasteries. The Hohenlohe family founded a collegiate church in front of the castle gate in 1379, whose church was destroyed during the French invasion in 1642.

Having passed to the Electoral Palatinate in 1445, Möckmühl became the inheritance of the widow of Elector Ludwig in 1451, who married Count Ulrich the Much-Loved of Württemberg in 1453, whereby the castle and town fell to the House of Württemberg, which was not without fierce conflicts. In 1519, Götz von Berlichingen defended Möckmühl Castle as Vogt of Duke Ulrich of Württemberg against the Swabian League and was captured during a sally, as his records report. He is said to have responded to the demand to surrender with the famous words "Er kahn mich hinden lekhen!" (He can lick my ass!).

In 1781, the castle buildings were demolished, and in 1829, it was acquired by the city, from which Gustav Hermann von Alvensleben (1827–1905), Commanding General of the XIII Army Corps, purchased the "Götzenburg" in 1902. Expanded by him, the castle, with its now raised gable and its keep, towers over the city and is visible from afar.

The building, heavily damaged by artillery fire in 1945, was restored by Achaz von Alvensleben (1888–1976). In the post-war years, the writer Paul Brock temporarily lived in the castle. The castle remained in the possession of the von Alvensleben family until 1996 and is still privately owned today. Since 2011, the castle has been converted into an ashram for the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math group, which belongs to the Hare Krishna movement.