Sausenburg Castle is a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

 ruin at the foot of the Black Forest

Black Forest

The Black Forest is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. It is bordered by the Rhine valley to the west and south. The highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres ....

, just north of the city of Kandern

Kandern

Kandern is a town in southwestern Germany in the state of Baden-Württemberg, in the Kreis of Lörrach. During the Battle of Schliengen, in which the French Revolutionary army fought the forces of Austria, the battle lines of both armies terminated in Kandern...

 in Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...

, between the villages of Sitzenkirch and Malsburg-Marzell. The castle was originally the stronghold of the lords von Sausenburg. It sits on a hill 665 meters high, known as the Sausenberg.

History

At the beginning of the 12th century, the area was given to the Benedictine

Benedictine

Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...

 monks of the Monastery of St Blaise

St. Blaise's Abbey in the Black Forest

Sankt Blaise's Abbey in the Black Forest was a Benedictine monastery in the village of St. Blasien in the Black Forest in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.- 9th–12th centuries :The early history of the abbey is obscure...

. The counts von Hachberg acquired the property in 1232 from the monastery. They built the castle there in order to secure the area and inhabited it from 1246 on. In the year 1306, the counts founded the Sausenberger dynasty. From that point on, they called themselves the Markgrafen von Hachberg-Sausenberg.

In 1315, Liuthold II of Roetteln, the last male member of his dynasty, bestowed Roetteln to the counts of Hachberg-Sausenberg. He died in 1316. The counts of Hachberg-Sausenberg moved to the castle Roetteln and established Vogt

Vogt

A Vogt ; plural Vögte; Dutch voogd; Danish foged; ; ultimately from Latin [ad]vocatus) in the Holy Roman Empire was the German title of a reeve or advocate, an overlord exerting guardianship or military protection as well as secular justice...

s on the Sausenberg.
Johann, the last of the counts of Freiburg

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...

, bestowed his property Badenweiler

Badenweiler

Badenweiler, a health resort and spa of the Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald district of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, historically in the Markgräflerland. It is 28 kilometers by road and rail from Basel, 10 kilometers from the French border, and 20 kilometers away from Mulhouse...

 to the Markgrafs of Hachberg-Sausenberg in 1444; the merger of Badenweiler, Rötteln, and Sausenberg marked the beginning of the Markgräflerland

Markgräflerland

Markgräflerland is a region in the southwest of Germany, in the south of the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg, located between the Breisgau in the north and the Black Forest in the east.-History and geography:...

.

In 1503, through inheritance, the Sausenburg and the Markgräflerland became part of the Markgrafschaft Baden

Baden

Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....

. The castle was destroyed in 1678 during the Franco-Dutch War

Franco-Dutch War

The Franco-Dutch War, often called simply the Dutch War was a war fought by France, Sweden, the Bishopric of Münster, the Archbishopric of Cologne and England against the United Netherlands, which were later joined by the Austrian Habsburg lands, Brandenburg and Spain to form a quadruple alliance...

 by the army of French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

Marshall Creque. At this point, medieval fortifications could not have lasted long against the advances in artillery and siege warfare.

Today an old ring barrier, a tower and several wall segments remain of the former castle.