Burg Plettenberg

Burg Plettenberg stands on the southern tip of the Plettenberg mountain west of Hausen am Tann in the Zollernalbkreis. It was built in the high Middle Ages as a spur castle on a narrow ridge that drops steeply on the east and west sides. Only two earthwork ditches remain from the former stronghold. The site once measured about seventy metres long and forty-five metres wide. The castle’s existence is documented from the late 12th century through pottery finds analysed by Christoph Bizer. Between 1228 and 1314 the local lords of Dotternhausen, Eberhard, Werner and Dietrich, held the fortress as ministeriales of the counts of Urach. In 1309 the castle was destroyed during a war between King Henry VII and Count Eberhard I of Württemberg, possibly demolished by its own garrison to deny it to the enemy. A later record notes the site was ‘levelled to the ground so that no part could be used’. Visitors today see a triangular spur with steep slopes and a flat terrace on the west. A forty-five-metre ditch and low inner bank once sealed off the outer ward, now partly levelled. A second ditch separates the outer ward from the inner stronghold, where a shallow depression marks the former keep. The remains of mortar and masonry lie embedded in the bank, and nearby a prehistoric fortification is faintly visible near the modern telecommunications tower.