Tecklenburg

Tecklenburg Castle stands on the Burgberg, a hill rising 170 metres above the surrounding countryside in the Teutoburg Forest. The ruins occupy the site of a medieval stronghold built around 1100 to control the vital trade route from Lübeck to Cologne. In 1184 the castle appears in a written record as the largest hilltop fortress in northern Germany. Its owners changed several times in the 12th and 13th centuries, passing from the Count of Zutphen to the Archbishop of Cologne. By the late 13th century the Counts of Tecklenburg had died out and the castle passed to the Counts of Bentheim. The castle’s military importance declined after 1400, when a new road shifted trade away from Tecklenburg and improved weaponry made its defences obsolete. In the 16th century Count Conrad strengthened the walls with bastions and widened the windows to turn the fortress into a residence. His daughter Anna continued the work, adding a new entrance and paving the way for the Mauritz Gate built by Count Mauritz in the 17th century. The gate still shows its richly carved coat of arms frieze today. Visitors walk through the two courtyards separated by a moat and embankment. The inner ward contains the remains of the main buildings, while the outer ward hosts the Tecklenburg Open-Air Theatre with 2,300 seats. A tower built in 1884 on the rampart commemorates Johann Weyer, a court doctor who opposed witch trials. Stone from the castle was reused in buildings across Tecklenburg, linking the town’s present to its medieval past.