Ifflinger Schloss

The Ifflinger Schloss is a medieval residential tower castle in Fridingen an der Donau, a town on the Danube in south-western Germany. Built around 1330 by Heinrich von Hohenberg with walls and a moat inside the town fortifications, it once served as the administrative centre for the Hohenberg county. Later expansions added storeys to the tower and introduced stepped gables, while farm and servants’ buildings were added to the enlarged courtyard. The castle passed from Austrian hands to private owners after 1536 when Hieronymus Ifflinger von Granegg acquired it. By 1793 the Ifflinger family sold the estate to Fridingen, which turned it into an almshouse, school, clubrooms, factory and fire station. A fire in January 1942 gutted the upper floors and destroyed the staircase; the castle bell has never been found. During 1970s renovations workers uncovered a band of Gothic windows in what had been the main hall. Today the castle houses the local heritage museum, opened in 1987 after restoration. Visitors walk through rooms where medieval officials once worked and where schoolchildren later learned their lessons. Outside, the stepped gables rise above the old moat, and the Danube flows just beyond the town walls.