Falkenberg Castle

Rapoto von Schwarzenberg-Nöstach called himself Rapoto de Valchenberch from 1144 onwards. He is considered the ancestor of the Falkenbergs and the builder of the castle. Between 1190 and 1209, a Walchun von Valchenberch appears. He belonged to the retinue of Duke Leopold V.

When Ulrich von Falkenberg married Gisela, the daughter of Hadmar II von Kuenring, in 1208, the previously high-ranking Falkenbergs were demoted to ministerials. Rapoto V and Hadmar II von Falkenberg participated in a noble uprising against Duke Albrecht I in 1295, which was led by Leutold von Kuenring. After it failed, the brothers had to submit to the sovereign. A little later, they attacked a farm of Zwettl Abbey in Kammern, which gave Duke Albrecht a pretext to intervene against the Falkenbergs. He commissioned his son Rudolf III with the siege of the castle. In 1299, Falkenberg was shot to ruins in a five-month siege by heavy throwing machines. After the capitulation, Rapoto V was allowed to withdraw honorably. However, the castle was razed.

With the death of Rapoto V in 1355, the Falkenbergs died out. His brother-in-law Ulrich von Kapellen took over the ruin along with the entire inheritance. In 1429, the lordship passed to Otto IV von Maissau, in 1441 to Ulrich von Eytzing, and in 1495 to Siegmund von Prüschenk. After the Scherffenberg family (1526), Falkenberg came into the possession of the Thurzo in 1578. They united it with their lordship Grafenegg. Through marriage, it passed to the Saurau family in 1607. In 1622, Karl Freiherr von Saurau sold the lordship to the Freiherren Johann Baptist and Johann Peter von Verdenberg. Johann Baptist became sole owner in 1633.

In 1689, the lordship passed to Johann Ferdinand Graf von Enckevoirt, who incorporated it into a fideicommissum. Via Maria Antonia Gräfin Rottal and her daughter Maria Franziska Emanuela, the ruin came to Count Anton Breuner. Anton's son Borromeus Graf Breuner-Enckevoirt took over the fideicommissum in 1769. With August Johann Graf Breuner-Enckevoirt, the Breuner family died out despite his seven children. His eldest daughter married Victor Herzog von Ratibor, Fürst von Corvey, Prinz zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst in 1877.

In 1945, the lordship was confiscated by the Russian occupation forces as "German property" and administered as USIA property until 1955. After the return of the ruin to the family, Franz Albrecht, the son of the Duke of Ratibor, who died in 1945, became the new owner. He had been adopted in 1926 by his great-aunt Clementine Prinzessin von Metternich-Sandor. The ruin still belongs to the Princes Metternich-Sandor today.