Rockenberg Castle

Rockenberg Castle, rarely also Rockenburg, is located on a small mountain spur at the edge of the old town center of today's municipality of Rockenberg in the Wetterau district in Hesse.

Rockenberg was first mentioned in a document in 1191.

The castle was probably built at the beginning of the 14th century by Knight Johannes von Bellersheim, who increasingly called himself "von Rockenberg". The construction period of the residential tower could be determined dendrochronologically to 1317. At the beginning of the 15th century, the castle was possibly expanded as part of construction work on a village fortification.

After several changes of ownership until the 17th century, the castle was abandoned as a residence. It probably then served as a stable and storage area for a long time. At the beginning of the 18th century, the eastern wall of the castle complex had to make way for a representative building that served as the official and administrative seat of the Electorate of Mainz's Rockenberg cellar, today known as the "Red House".

In the 19th century, the castle first came into the possession of the Hessian-Darmstadt official Baron von Wiesenhütten, whose main residence was in neighboring Nieder-Weisel. Among other things, he had a brandy distillery operated in the castle. After 1860, in family ownership of the Hessian-Darmstadt house, it became a manor. In 1909, it was sold to the local community of Rockenberg, which sold or leased the lands belonging to the castle to local farmers and allocated the southern castle complex as building plots for private buildings. After the First World War, the castle was briefly used by the nearby Butzbach garrison as a horse hospital. Soon after, the castle returned to state ownership. During the Second World War, it was temporarily used for military purposes. Plans for extensive underground bunker systems were not carried out. However, extensive construction measures were carried out inside the residential tower, including the installation of a staircase, which led to the destruction of the late Gothic castle chapel.

After the Second World War, the castle temporarily served as a refugee home. Thereafter, the castle, which was renovated in 1985-87 and has recently been back in the possession of the municipality of Rockenberg, has been and is predominantly used for municipal purposes, as a meeting room for the municipal parliament, as a wedding house, temporarily as a youth meeting place, for exhibitions, lectures and training courses, as well as a municipal archive and every year also as the venue for the final of the reading competition of the Rockenberg primary school (Sandrosenschule). The former Electorate of Mainz's cellar building was used as a residential and commercial building, temporarily also as a police station, and more recently as a catering establishment.