Burg Reichenberg

Reichenberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, Germany

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Burg Reichenberg is a well-preserved medieval hilltop castle in Reichenberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, within the UNESCO-listed Upper Middle Rhine Valley, constructed around 1319 by Count Wilhelm I von Katzenelnbogen atop Mount Richenberch to secure trade routes.

By Wilhelm's death in 1331, it featured a massive shield wall with two 40-meter flanking towers and an outer bailey, later expanded with Germany's oldest residential building boasting Syrian Crusader-style columns, a chapel altar endowed in 1371, and farm structures by 1385 before passing to Hesse-Kassel after sieges in the Thirty Years' War.

Damaged by artillery in 1945 and a 1971 tower collapse, this privately owned monument—highlighting late medieval architecture like its hall with cube capitals—underwent preservation efforts since 2010 but remains viewable only from outside.