Neues Schloss

The Neues Schloss stands in Plößberg, a small market town in the Upper Palatinate region of Bavaria. It occupies a gentle rise above the Schloßstraße, where a medieval castle once guarded the Golden Road between Nuremberg and Prague. The present building is a two-storey plastered stone structure with a hipped roof, rebuilt after a fire in 1751 using parts of an earlier castle from 1614. A high cellar supports the main floors, and a sturdy curtain wall of rough-hewn stones still encloses the courtyard. The site is protected as a monument and listed in the Bavarian heritage register.

Plößberg’s history is woven into the power struggles of central Europe. The town belonged to Bohemian feudal lords in the 12th century, then passed through the hands of the Sulzbach counts, the Wittelsbachs and the Bohemian kings. In 1531 the notorious robber knight Stephan Prenger’s son was executed in nearby Floß for raids on Nuremberg merchants. After the Landshut War of Succession the area became Protestant, though the Bohemian crown still claimed feudal rights until the Pressburg Peace of 1805 settled the matter.

Visitors find a quiet square framed by the castle’s plain walls and the rebuilt main block. Inside, the ground floor rooms retain the layout of the 17th-century residence, while the upper hall once served as the courtroom for the local lord’s patrimonial court. Outside, the market’s coat of arms—lilies of the Sulzbach counts and the black-and-silver quarters of the Gleißenthal family—hangs above the street. Beyond the curtain wall, the gentle hills of the Upper Palatinate stretch towards the Fichtelgebirge, offering long views across the old trade route that once brought merchants and armies past Plößberg’s walls.