Weilerburg Castle (Ruin)

The Weilerburg (historically: Rotenburg) is a medieval castle ruin near the Rottenburg district of Weiler in the district of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg.

The ruin is located above the former castle hamlet of Weiler on the Rotenberg, also known as Burgberg, an outlier mountain on a northeastern spur of the Rammert.

The hilltop castle was first mentioned in a document in 1225. In it, the son of a Count Burkhard von Zollern, named "Albertus, dominus de Rotinburc" as Lord of Rotenburg, settles a dispute between the monastery of Kreuzlingen and the heir of a farm in the Neckargau. This Albert seals the document with the seal of his deceased brother, a Count Burkhard von Hohenberg.

An earlier construction period for the castle complex is probable. For example, in the mid-12th century, an "Adelbertus de Rotenburg" and his son Konrad are mentioned, who made donations to the Hirsau monastery in Gültstein. The view that these Rotenburgers could be ancestors of the Zollern-Hohenbergs is now considered controversial. Instead, it is suspected that they descended from a possible collateral branch of the Counts of Dillingen. These free lords of Rotenburg are currently considered to be the builders of the castle.

By the 13th century at the latest, the castle was in the possession of the Counts of Hohenberg. The ancestress of the Habsburg dynasty, Gertrude of Hohenberg (* around 1225; † February 16, 1281), later Queen Anna of Habsburg, is said to have spent her childhood and youth at the castle. Her brother, the Imperial Landvogt and Minnesinger Count Albrecht II von Hohenberg (* around 1230; † 1298), who is also called Count of Rotenburg in some documents, is said to have resided at the castle for a time. After the Hohenbergs built a court castle in the city of Rottenburg, which they rebuilt around 1280, or further expanded a castle that may have already existed there, the "old Rotenburg" lost its function and was probably only used for residential purposes.

In 1381, the Hohenbergs also sold the Rotenburg to the Habsburgs. According to a narrative by Nicodemus Frischlin, it is said to have been destroyed in 1407 during a raid by the grey Count Friedrich XII von Zollern, called Oettinger, and then only partially rebuilt. In the 15th and 16th centuries, it temporarily served as an inn and a destination for hunting trips and fell into increasing disrepair.

In 1624, the castle was demolished down to its foundations, and the castle stones were used at the behest of the Austrian Vogt for the construction of the Capuchin monastery in Ehingen (Rottenburg).

In 1874/75, the 24-meter-high observation tower and the castle gate were rebuilt on the initiative of the Sülchgauer Altertumsverein as a "Victory and Love Monument."

Since 1974, the city of Rottenburg am Neckar has owned the ruin.