Château du Haut - Kœnigsbourg The château du Haut - Kœnigsbourg ( German " Hohkönigsburg " ) is located at Orschwiller , Alsace , France , in the Vosges mountains just west of Sélestat . The castle is situated in a strategic location on a rocky spur overlooking the Alsatian plain ; as a result it was used by successive powers from the Middle Ages until the Thirty Years ' War when it was abandoned . From 1900 to 1908 it was restored under the direction of Emperor Wilhelm II . Today it is a major tourist attraction , located on the Alsace wine route . History . It is unknown when a castle was first built on the site . The first explicit mention that is known dates from 1147 . It took its name from the original " Königsburg " ( German , " King ' s Castle " ) in 1192 . In the early thirteenth century the castle passed from the Hohenstaufen family to the Dukes of Lorraine , who entrusted it to the Ratsamhausen family ( knights from Middle Alsace ) , who held the castle until the fifteenth century . Another family , the Hohensteins ( family from the Bruche Valley ) , also held the Koenigsbourg in fief from the Empire . But the Hohensteins allowed some brigand knights to use the castle as a hideout , and their behaviour began to exasperate the neighbouring powers . That is why a coalition of cities ( The Palatine Elector , the Duke of Austria , the bishops of Strasbourg and Basel , the Abbot of Murbach ) attacked and burned the castle in 1462 . The Emperor Frederick III from Habsburg granted the ruins in fief to the Thiersteins who rebuilt them after 1479 with a defensive system suited to the new artillery of the time . In 1517 the Thierstein died without an heir and the castle came into the possession of the Hapsburg Maximilian I , Holy Roman Emperor . In 1633 , during the Thirty Years ' War which opposed Catholics to Protestants , the castle ( a catholic holding ) was besieged by the Swedes ( on the Protestant side ) . After a 52 - day siege the castle was burned and looted by Swedish troops . For several hundred years the castle was left unused and became overgrown by the forest . Various romantic poets and artists were inspired by the castle during this time . In 1899 , it was given to the German emperor Wilhelm II by the city of Sélestat . Wilhelm wished to create a castle lauding the qualities of the medieval time of Alsace and more generally of German civilization . He hoped it would reinforce the bond of Alsatians with Germany , as they had only recently ( 1871 ) been incorporated into the German Empire . The management of the restoration of this fortified castle was entrusted to Bodo Ebhardt . Work proceeded from 1900 to 1908 . On May 13 , 1908 , the restored castle was inaugurated in presence of the Emperor . A historic cortege entered the castle , under a torrential downpour . Ebhart ' s aim was to rebuild it , as near as possible , as it was on the eve of the Thirty Years ' War . He relied heavily on historical accounts , but , occasionally lacking information , he had to improvise some parts of the stronghold . For example , the Keep tower is now reckoned to be about 14 metres too tall . Wilhelm II also encouraged certain modifications that emphasised a romantic nostalgia for Germanic civilization . For example , the main dining hall has a taller roof than it did at the time , and links between the Hohenzollern family and the Habsburgs of the Holy Roman Empire are emphasized . The Emperor wanted to legitimate the house of Hohenzollern at the head of the Second Empire , and to assure himself as worthy heir of the Hohenstaufens and the Habsburgs . After World War I , the French state confiscated the castle . For many years it was considered fashionable to sneer at the castle in France because of its links to the emperor . Many considered it to be nothing more than a fairy tale castle . However , in recent years many historians have established that , although it is not a completely accurate reconstruction , it is at least interesting for what it shows about Wilhelm II ' s ideas of the past and the architect ' s work . Indeed , Bodo Ebhardt restored the castle following a close study of the remaining walls , archives and other fortified castles built at the same period . Parts of the 1937 movie " The Grand Illusion " by Jean Renoir were shot at Haut - Kœnigsbourg . The ruins had been listed as a " monument historique " since 1862 . In 1993 , the restorated castle was officially designated as a national historic site by the French Ministry of Culture . Today , it is one of the most famous tourist attractions of the region . References . 1 . Monique FUCHS et Bernhard METZ , " The Castle Of Haut Koenigsbourg " , éd du Patrimoine , Paris 2001