Burg Lützelbach

Burg Lützelbach stands where the Lützelbach stream meets the Mümling in the north-eastern Odenwald. Its ruins lie on a spur above the village of Lützel-Wiebelsbach, now part of the municipality of Lützelbach. The site overlooks the valley from a height of about 290 metres. The Evangelical church and cemetery occupy the same hill today. A medieval spur castle once crowned this spot before the village grew around it. The place matters because it was the ancestral seat of the Reiz von Breuberg family. Written records from the 12th century show them calling themselves after Lützelbach. In 1229 Conrad I moved his name to the new castle at Breuberg, marking the family’s rise. By the 13th century they ranked among the region’s most powerful dynasties. The Lützelbach stronghold lost importance after the Breuberger line died out in 1323. Archaeologists found a 4.2-metre-wide sandstone foundation in 2001 while digging near the cemetery. The wall, still standing 1.3 to 1.4 metres high, may have belonged to a bergfried. Stones from the old buildings were reused in the 18th-century church and the modern cemetery wall. Today only a small plaque on the cemetery gate mentions the vanished castle.