Senftenau Castle

Senftenau Castle is a stately manor house with a park in the Lindau district of Aeschach. The castle was probably built in the 12th or 13th century and was originally a moated castle. Today, the building still borders a small pond to the south.

The former moated castle of Count Ulrich von Montfort was first mentioned in a document in 1344, when Count Ulrich von Feldkirch (Ulrich II von Montfort, 1263?-1350) handed over Senftenau Castle to the Emperor as a fief. The complex consisted of the castle and a mill, and after 1356 it came into the possession of changing patrician families and was used as a summer residence.

Sebastian Kurz (*1551; † 1569 in Lindau on Lake Constance) married the owner of the imperial fiefdom Senftenau Castle, Magdalena Gründlin; they had four sons. In 1533, he had the castle chapel built, and in 1536 he and his children were elevated to the rank of baron, and his grandchildren a hundred years later in 1636 to the rank of count.

Their first son Jacob Kurz von Senftenau (1553-1594) was Imperial Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire. Their son Philipp Kurtz von Thurn und Toblach, Baron von Senftenau (also: Philipp Kurtz von Senftenau) was furthermore the father of Ferdinand Sigismund Kurtz von Senftenau.

The "Kurtz von Senftenau" were also members of the Lindau patrician society Zum Sünfzen between 1540 and 1830. In 1525, Senftenau Castle passed to the Humpis family during the Peasants' War. In 1551, the factor of the Fuggers, Sebastian Kurtz, bought Senftenau Castle from Friedrich Hundtpiss (Humpis line of Siggen-Brochenzell), which was a fief of the convent in Lindau, and now called himself "Kurtz von Senftenau". In 1605, the conventual fief returned to Lindau possession.

In the 16th and 18th centuries, the building underwent alterations. The building complex today consists of the main building, renovated between 1551 and 1569, with baroque outbuildings. In 1918, the writer Bruno Wille (1860-1928) settled in the castle. Since the mid-1980s, the castle has been owned by the Jobst family and is not publicly accessible.

The small pond at Senftenau Castle is fed by a piped inlet and by groundwater. There is no outflow.