Kalteneck Castle

Kalteneck Castle is a small castle building on the eastern edge of the municipality of Schwenningen in the Swabian district of Dillingen an der Donau. The name was first documented in 1425 as Kaltenegk and probably refers to the east winds that whistled cold around the corner in winter.

The moated castle was built around 1570. The builder was the knight Kaspar Schenk zum Schenkenstein, who at that time held local rule over Bissingen in the Kesseltal valley. The building, on an island in the middle of a spring pond, rests on a foundation of oak trunks that were once rammed into the gravel bed of the pond. Over the years, the castle experienced many changes of ownership. Lords of the castle included Georg Wilhelm von Gundelsheim, Johann Zöschlin, Hans Ernst von Taufkirchen, Hans Erhard von Erolzheim, Karl Albrecht von Becaria, Scipio von Valaise and Felix Joseph von Müller. They altered the castle through renovations, which increasingly led to the loss of its architectural Renaissance form.

In 1830, a guesthouse was opened for the first time in Kalteneck Castle. Local beer from the neighboring castle brewery, which the then owner Baron Franz Xaver von Linder had built, was served there. The entire property soon passed by inheritance to a master brewer from Gundelfingen an der Donau, who sold the area to a master brewer from Bergheim near Dillingen an der Donau towards the end of the 19th century. His descendants are still the owners of the castle today. The castle brewery ceased operations in 1982.