Söllheim Castle

The first known owner of Söllheim in the 12th century was Adelheid de Saldersheime. By the end of the 14th century, ownership passed from the Tanners to the Archbishopric. In 1455, Friedrich Gauchsperger sold the estate to Hans I Prätzl, whose descendants held the property until the early 16th century. In 1539, Cardinal Matthäus Lang enfeoffed Jakob Strasser with Söllheim, who had acquired it from the Prätzl heirs. After its return to the Archbishopric for debt settlement in 1576, the butcher Matthias Reitsamer bought Söllheim in 1650. His widow Eva Reitsamer sold the property in 1684 to Johann Kaufmann, who had the estate built in its current Baroque form between 1689 and 1702, based on a medieval predecessor. Kaufmann was ennobled in 1694, and his daughter married Johann Christoph Pauernfeind von Eys, thereby transferring ownership to this family. The entailed estate established in 1710 was abolished by the Bavarian government in 1812. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the castle changed hands several times before passing to Eleonore Gruchmann-Bernau in 1968.