Burg Odenbach

Odenbach, Germany, Germany

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Burg Odenbach is the ruined remnant of a moated water castle built between about 1150 and 1180 by the Counts of Veldenz at the confluence of the Odenbach stream and the Glan River in the village of Odenbach, Landkreis Kusel in Rhineland‑Palatinate, Germany.

It served as a small regional stronghold and later passed into the hands of the Duchy of Palatinate‑Zweibrücken, remaining in use until the early 17th century when Spanish occupation troops damaged it so badly that it became uninhabitable by 1623.

In 1683 French forces tried to blow up the tower, which caused much of the structure to collapse, and the rest of the buildings fell down in the winter of 1850–51, leaving only the lower part of the late‑Romanesque keep, now known as the Weiherturm, and a restored section of the ring wall.

Today this surviving tower is a freely accessible cultural monument and the visual symbol of Odenbach, standing on the village’s southern edge by the water as a small but historic landmark in the Palatinate landscape.