Gleißenburg Castle

The Gleißenburg ruin is the ruin of a hilltop castle on a 640 m above sea level rock outcrop above the Hölle Valley west of Beiningen, a district of the city of Blaubeuren in the Alb-Donau-Kreis in Baden-Württemberg.

The Hölle Valley begins as a narrow dry valley with beautiful rock formations in the east in the vicinity of the ruin, flows into the Riedental and later opens into a wide, cultivated plain into the Achtal opposite the Sirgenstein. From the Sirgenstein, which also bore a castle, all movements through the Achtal and from the Hölle Valley could be monitored.

The Lords of Wernau are named as the oldest owners of the castle. The castle is said to have been built around 1376. In 1408, Eitel Werdnau von Glißenburg is mentioned as a witness. In 1424, "Eitel von Werdenow gives Duke Friedrich of Austria his half of Veste Gleyssenburg" including accessories as a fief. Further owners were the Lords of Altmannshofen, von Villenbach, the sub-bailiff of Blaubeuren Albrecht Heinrichmann, and finally Hans Späth von Schülzburg. The latter finally sold the castle in 1506 to the Blaubeuren Hospital, where it remained until its end. As late as 1662, the tenant farmer on the neighboring Gleissenburg estate was supposed to cover the building maintenance of the castle. However, over the course of the following 100 years, the castle seems to have been abandoned, as there is no mention of it in 1772.