Schwarzenbourg Castle

About

Schwarzenberg Castle, sometimes also called Schwarzenbourg, is a ruined castle on the border between the communes of Griesbach-au-Val and Munster, in the Haut-Rhin department. The castle was built in 1261 by the Hohengeroldseck family on the lands of Munster Abbey, to control it. Renovated and adapted to artillery between 1496 and 1500, it was gradually abandoned in the seventeenth century, before being destroyed by the French in 1673. It later served in the 19th century as a romantic ruin in a large English park created by the Hartmann industrial family, then, during the First World War, it was fortified by the Germans who built shelters and an artillery observatory there.