Burg Heimburg
History
Burg Heimburg was built between 1294 and 1305 by the Archbishop of Mainz, Gerhard II von Eppstein, as a border castle to counter the expanding domain of Count Palatine Ludwig II, the Severe, who acquired and rebuilt the nearby castles of Sooneck and Reichenstein.
The Heimbach stream formed the boundary between the Mainz lands and the Palatinate, and the archbishop acquired a vineyard in 1295 to build on. It was initially called Burg Haneck or Hohneck. It was strengthened in 1315 and again from 1326 to 1328.
On October 14th, 1300, during the Rhenish Toll War, the three Rhenish prince-electors, Archbishop Gerhard II of Mainz, Dieter of Nassau of Trier, and Wikbold of Cologne, met at Haneck and signed a treaty against King Albert. In 1340, Archbishop Henry of Mainz ordered defensive preparations because the Palatinate was a danger again, and the castle received crossbows and a siege catapult that could throw stones weighing 100 kilograms.
In 1344, after an arbitration in which the Palatinate ceded Burg Reichenstein and other holdings to Mainz, Burg Heimburg lost most of its strategic importance. It remained an administrative center and the seat of a Mainz lower court until 1438. In 1354, King Charles IV pledged the castle to Archbishop Kuno of Falkenstein of Trier as security for a settlement with Mainz, and the cathedral chapter redeemed it in 1362. After that, officials of Mainz and castle knights, including members of local families such as those from Lorch and Waldeck, made it home. Archbishop Diether von Isenburg ordered further fortification work in the mid-to-late 15th century, but from the 16th century, it began to fall into ruin. Niederheimbach was devastated in the Thirty Years' War, and in 1641, the archbishop's office leased the damaged castle to Rupert Goldinger. French troops of Louis XIV finally destroyed the castle in 1689 during the War of Palatine Succession or the Nine Years' War, and local residents later used the ruins as a quarry. In 1747, Jacob Mertes received a hereditary lease on the ruin.
The keep and neo-Gothic wing of Burg Heimburg.
In 1808, the ruin was sold to a Niederheimbach vintner named Korn for 61 francs. In 1837, Major General Franz Wilhelm von Barfus, who also owned Schönburg and Reichenstein, bought it, and he sold it in 1841 to a retired captain named Gerpott. In 1865, Baron von Wackerbarth bought it for 5,000 taler, and the district architect Frank of St. Goar, who also restored Sooneck, rebuilt part of the castle in a neo-Gothic style. The family moved in during 1868. In 1882, Eduard Rabeneck bought the castle for 80,000 marks and spent 300,000 marks on a second reconstruction, which included a deepened wine cellar and a garden beyond the moat.
Burg Heimburg above the church of Niederheimbach.
In 1898, Robert Müser, the director of a mining company, bought the castle. In 1920, Nora Dunlop bought it for one million marks, and the industrialist Hugo Stinnes managed it for her. Reportedly, Hermann Göring and Emmy Sonnemann visited Heimburg on their honeymoon in 1935. American troops occupied the castle on March 19th, 1945, and French troops took over that summer and stayed until 1948. In 1987, the Bachmann-Thurn family began a large renovation, and in 1995, the castle received what was then the largest solar installation in Rhineland-Palatinate, mounted on the war tower. The castle celebrated its 700th anniversary in 1996. According to recent reports, Alexander Dragilev bought it in 2022.
Castle Highlights
The round keep of Burg Heimburg.
Burg Heimburg overlooks the River Rhine and the town of Niederheimbach on the northeastern slope of the Bingen Forest. The castle has a roughly square layout, with a curved, bow-shaped shield wall facing the Rhine between two round towers of unequal height. The southern tower was raised into the keep, which stands about 25 meters in height. A modern residential structure is built against the original shield wall.
Burg Heimburg is privately owned and not open to the public. The best pictures of the castle can be taken from the River Rhine on one of the many boats that cruise the river daily.
The nearest castles open to visitors on the same bank of the Rhine are Burg Sooneck, Burg Reichenstein, and Burg Rheinstein, all to the south along the B9.
