Sooneck Castle (Germany)

According to new investigations, the first mention must probably be set to the year 1271. Just like the neighboring Reichenstein Castle, it was the Lords of Hohenfels who, as bailiffs of the imperial abbey Kornelimünster near Aachen, administered the castle. The siege of 1282 by King Rudolf von Habsburg is secured. His troops conquered and destroyed the castle, which was banned from being rebuilt. The king expressly confirmed this again in 1290. The ban was only lifted in 1349 by King Charles IV after the property and bailiwick had fallen to Kurmainz.

In April 1346, the Archbishop of Mainz, Heinrich III. the knight Johann Marschall zu Waldeck with Sooneck Castle, who had the facility rebuilt in the following years. After his death it fell as a joint fief to four of his heirs; Sooneck thus became a Ganerbeburg.

The branches of the family living there were sometimes not very friendly and fought over their inheritance. The truce had to be concluded several times among the residents of Sooneck Castle.

When the von Waldeck family died out in 1553 with the death of Philipp Melchior, the von Breidbach zu Bürresheim family (previously co-owners of the complex) were given the castle alone. When this aristocratic tribe also became extinct, Sooneck began to decline.

In the course of the Palatinate War of Succession, Sooneck - like all castles on the left bank of the Rhine - was destroyed in 1689 by the troops of the French King Louis XIV.

In 1774 the Mainz cathedral chapter ceded the ruins to four residents of Trechtingshausen, who planted vineyards there. The plant later came into the possession of the Niederheimbach community.

In 1834, the then Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm IV. And his brothers, Princes Wilhelm, Carl and Albrecht, bought the completely dilapidated Sooneck Castle and had it rebuilt as a hunting lodge between 1843 and 1861. Sooneck Castle was largely rebuilt while retaining the historical structures and adding romanticized buildings. The royal Prussian coat of arms above the northern castle gate (original entrance on the other side) dates from this time. Due to royal family disputes and the effects of the March Revolution in 1848, the castle could never be used as a hunting lodge. In 1861 the reconstruction was completed according to plans by the military architect Carl Schnitzler.

With the compensation for the prince after the First World War, Sooneck Castle became state property. After the Second World War she came to the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and from 1948 to the State Palace Administration of Rhineland-Palatinate (today: General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate Directorate Castles, Palaces, Antiquities Rhineland-Palatinate). It can be viewed as part of guided tours.