Scheuerberg Castle

The Scheuerberg near Neckarsulm in the Baden-Württemberg district of Heilbronn is a 310.2 m above sea level high mountain of the Sulmer Bergebene, on which a castle with a chapel once stood and which is considered the local mountain of the city.

A chapel on the Scheuerberg was first mentioned in 1264 in connection with a donation by Engelhard IV and Engelhard V of Weinsberg. In the same document, which regulated the rights of the pastor on the Scheuerberg, a castle on the mountain was also mentioned, the construction of which is dated to the period between 1218 and 1250. The main castle is said to have been on the west side of the mountain facing the Neckar, with the outer bailey to the east. The Lords of Weinsberg, who as chamberlains of the Staufer were enfeoffed with the lordship of Scheuerberg, are considered to be the builders. Engelhard VII of Weinsberg sold the castle on May 2, 1335, to Archbishop Balduin of Trier, who at that time was also administrator of the Archdiocese of Mainz and appointed a Mainz bailiff on the Scheuerberg. On May 7, 1484, the Scheuerberg came under Grand Master Reinhard von Neipperg to the Teutonic Order. On April 19, 1525, the castle was burned down in the German Peasants' War.

After the German Peasants' War, the castle on the Scheuerberg was not repaired. The chapel is said to have been in good condition, as services were still held there in 1529. Initially, the keep and extremely massive walls of the castle were still present. Under Grand Master Walther von Cronberg, who after 1530 also had the likewise destroyed Heuchlingen Castle restored, there were plans in the 16th century to rebuild the castle on the Scheuerberg as well, but this was rejected. In the following decades and centuries, the stones of the castle were used for the construction of several large buildings, including the Amorbach Hof, the Neckarsulm parish church, and in 1655 the Neckarsulm Capuchin monastery. In 1705, an official Stipplin ordered the demolition of the keep, which was still standing at the time, and the leveling of the area for use as a vineyard, but stones from the ruin were still being removed in 1785 for the construction of vineyard walls.

Until the land consolidation between 1970 and 1974, numerous stones with stonemason's marks from Romanesque times could be found in the vineyards on the Scheuerberg. In 1974, a massive stone wall of the former castle complex was also uncovered, the dimensions of which have led historians to state that the castle on the Scheuerberg was possibly the most powerful of the numerous medieval castles in the Heilbronn area.