German Castles

When I was stationed in Germany, I had the good fortune to fly low level over the country in a helicopter on a daily basis. The scenery was awesome from the air, and I got to see many things most people never get to see.

My favorite aerial "sight-seeing" activity was checking out medieval castle ruins, of which there are literally hundreds if not thousands in Germany alone. Many of the ruins I saw had long since been bypassed by latter day transportation routes, leaving them sitting out in the middle of nowhere, apparently forgotten by all but a few local inhabitants.

It seemed sad that these interesting old ruins could not be admired by most people because of their isolated locations. Many of them appeared to be nearly intact.

One of my dreams was to be able to buy a ruin and the property immediately surrounding it, build an unobtrusive caretaker's cottage nearby to live in, and encourage tourists to visit and enjoy the site much as it had been done at Hohen Rechberg (pictured above) near where I was stationed at the time. I wanted to research the history of the castle and publish a book about it to help defray costs. It would be "my castle."

Every time I saw one of these ruins, with perhaps a destroyed wall or parapet, I would wonder just what caused that particular bit of damage and when it happened - an important battle, subsequent modifications, local scavenging for building materials, or whatever. Also, I couldn't help but wonder why it had been abandoned. The whole idea of learning and documenting what all the castle had witnessed fascinated me.

My intent was not to renovate the castle, but simply to preserve it as best I could in its current state of ruin. I know that my dream was not practical (for me), but it did give me some pleasure to imagine the possibilities.