Schloss Sachsenburg

Frankenberg, Germany, Germany

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Schloss Sachsenburg, located near Frankenberg in Saxony, Germany, on a rock above the Zschopau River, originated as a medieval fortress from the early 13th century, initially linked to the Lords of Mildenstein before passing to the Wettin family in 1232.

By 1368, the von Schönberg family took ownership, and around 1480, Caspar von Schönberg commissioned architect Hans Reynhart to transform it into a late Gothic residential palace, completed in 1488 with a three-wing layout around a triangular courtyard.

From 1610, it served as an administrative seat for the Electorate of Saxony, suffered damage and looting in the Thirty Years' War, then functioned as a prison from 1864 to 1926—including for female juvenile offenders and WWI POWs—before later uses as a school home and briefly a detention camp, now preserved as a rare intact Gothic castle open to visitors.