Wespenstein Castle

Wespenstein Castle is located in the town of Gräfenthal in Thuringia, directly on the border with Bavaria. It secured the pass section of a medieval military and trade route from Leipzig via Saalfeld to Nuremberg over the ridge of the Thuringian Slate Mountains and thus had strategic importance.

Built around 1250 by the Counts of Orlamünde, presumably on the site of an old Ludowingian manor house, as a toll house, it was first mentioned in a document in 1337 as Hus Greventhal. The Counts of Orlamünde first enfeoffed the Lords of Gräfendorf with it, but eventually used the castle themselves as a residence in the southern Orlagau, alongside their castle Lauenstein, as they gradually lost their ancestral lands in the Orlagau to the Wettins. Otto XI. of Weimar-Orlamünde-Gräfenthal came into possession of the castle after an inheritance division in 1414 and lived here until 1424. In 1426, he sold the castle to Duke Frederick I of Saxony, after his father Otto X. of Weimar-Orlamünde-Lauenstein had already offered it as a fief to the Wettins in 1394, along with all associated towns and rights, due to increasing economic decline, and spent the rest of his life on the Motte Lichtentanne and on the property of his deceased wife at Beichlingen Castle.

In 1438, the Imperial Hereditary Marshals of Pappenheim acquired the castle and the lordship. The first owner and founder of the Gräfenthal line was Conrad von Pappenheim. Sebastian von Pappenheim, married to Ursula von Wallenrod, extensively expanded the residence from 1517 to 1541. In the now stately castle, he received Martin Luther and the Saxon Elector Johann in 1530, and Emperor Charles V and Duke Alba in 1547. Joachim von Pappenheim died here in 1575; his tombstone is preserved in the town church of St. Marien. On December 19, 1599, the last member of the Gräfenthal hereditary line, Imperial Marshal Christoff Ullrich von Pappenheim, died here.

From 1612, Philipp von Pappenheim from the Rothenstein line, together with his nephew Maximilian, held the lordship of Gräfenthal. With Philipp's death in 1619, it fell entirely back to Maximilian von Pappenheim. He sold the lordship due to debt in 1621 for 130,000 guilders to the House of Wettin, which still held the feudal sovereignty acquired from the Orlamündes.

After 1621, the castle was the residence of the Dukes of Saxe-Altenburg and the seat of a ducal-Saxon bailiff and castellan. In 1679, it came into the possession of the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha, in 1680 of the Duchy of Saxe-Saalfeld, and from 1735, Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. In 1686, it largely burned down and was only partially rebuilt. From 1826, the castle served as a district court for the Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen. From 1826 to 1829, the official residence received its current appearance. In 1920, the castle became the property of the state of Thuringia.