Schloss Donaumünster

Schloss Donaumünster stands in the village of Donaumünster, part of Tapfheim in the Donau-Ries district of Swabia. It began as a medieval knight’s stronghold on the right bank of the Danube, first recorded in 1256. After passing through the hands of the Oettingen counts and the Heilig Kreuz monastery, the present small Baroque building with its curved gables was erected between 1720 and 1730 as an administrative house. In 1803 the Fürsten von Oettingen-Wallerstein took possession and the estate became known as Schloss Donaumünster. The building is reached along Alexander-von-Bernus-Straße in a quiet riverside landscape. The house is worth the journey for its literary and alchemical past. In 1921 the writer and alchemist Alexander von Bernus bought the property as a summer retreat. After his Stuttgart home and laboratory were destroyed in 1943, he moved permanently to Donaumünster with his wife Isa and their daughter Marina. Von Bernus built a laboratory called Soluna next to the castle, researching the works of Paracelsus and producing spagyrical medicines with Conrad Johann Glückselig. The firm’s move to the castle in 1939 kept the business alive through the Second World War. Visitors find a modest Baroque manor surrounded by gardens beside the Danube. The main building still shows its 18th-century Schweifgiebel façade. Inside, traces remain of von Bernus’s private library and the Soluna laboratory, though most alchemical books now belong to the Badische Landesbibliothek in Karlsruhe. The artist David Sohl acquired the property in 2016 and continues to restore it. The riverside setting offers calm walks along the water meadows, with views across the wide Danube valley.