Kyffhausen Castle
The Imperial Castle of Kyffhausen () is a medieval castle ruin, situated in the Kyffhäuser hills in the German state of Thuringia, close to its border with Saxony-Anhalt. Probably founded about 1000, it superseded the nearby imperial palace ("Kaiserpfalz") of Tilleda under the rule of the Hohenstaufen emperors during the 12th and 13th centuries. Together with the Kyffhäuser Monument, erected on the castle grounds between 1890 and 1896, it is today a popular tourist destination. The castle is variously known in English as Kyffhausen Castle, Kyffhauser Castle, Kyffhäuser Castle, and Kyffhaueser Castle. Location. The ruins of the imperial  castle of Kyffhausen are located on the northeastern rim of the range on a hill, the "Kyffhäuserburgberg" (), an approximately long eastern spur. The castle is in the parish of Steinthaleben, about northeast of the village of , in the Thuringian municipality of Kyffhäuserland, near the town of Bad Frankenhausen in Kyffhäuserkreis. The Goldene Aue ("Golden Water Meadows", ca. ) plain to the north, including the villages of and Tilleda roughly 280 metres below, are parts of the municipality of Kelbra in the Mansfeld-Südharz district of Saxony-Anhalt. The castle grounds are part of the – situated about south of its northern boundary . History. Archaeological findings of several shoe-last celts at the summit denote a settlement already in the Neolithic period. Excavated Bronze Age ceramics may stem from devastated tumuli erected on the prominent spur. In the 1930s, remnants of fortress dating from the Hallstatt era were discovered. A first castle high above the Tilleda "Kaiserpfalz" was probably erected under the rule of the Salian emperor Henry IV, in order to protect his royal domains south of the Harz mountains. Nevertheless, it was not mentioned until 1118, when it was demolished by the Saxon duke Lothair of Supplinburg after his forces had  defeated Emperor Henry V at the 1115 Battle of Welfesholz. Reconstruction started shortly afterwards and was accomplished under the rule of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who stayed downhill at Tilleda several times. The rebuilt castle complex of bright red sandstone then spread over large parts of the Kyffhäuserberg ridge; administrated by Hohenstaufen "ministeriales", it was meant as an expression of imperial power in the region. After the fall of the House of Hohenstaufen, the fortress lost its strategic importance. Rudolf of Habsburg, elected King of the Romans in 1273, ceded the premises to the Counts of Beichlingen, who from  1375 held the castle as vassals of the Wettin landgraves of Thuringia. Given in pawn to the comital House of Schwarzburg shortly afterwards and seized by the Counts of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt in 1407, the fortress was already mentioned as a ruin in the 15th century. From the time of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th century, even more in the Romantic era, the picturesque castle ruins became a popular destination for writers such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who wandered in the Kyffhäuser range together with Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar in 1776. The legend of Frederick Barbarossa asleep  in the mountain, perpetuated by Friedrich Rückert in an 1817 poem, became a symbol of rising German nationalism, illustrated by regular meetings of "Burschenschaft" fraternities and finally by the erection of the Kyffhäuser Monument from 1890 onwards. In 1900 the "Kyffhäuserbund" veterans' and reservists' association took its name from the historic site.