Thierstein Castle

Burg Thierstein stands as a ruined spur castle on a narrow basalt spur 615 metres above sea level. The spur juts north-east from the Fichtelgebirge ridge and overlooks the village of Thierstein in Upper Franconia. A deep neck ditch once cut it off from the plateau behind. A second ditch, now filled in, once separated the outer ward from the inner castle. The ruin is reached by a short path from the village below. The castle was built in 1340 by Albrecht XI. Nothaft as his seat while he served as imperial forester. His family soon sold the fortress to pay for feuds with the city of Eger. Later it passed to the Hohenzollern burggraves of Nuremberg and then to the margraves of Brandenburg. In 1462 the village at the foot was set alight by its own defender to deny shelter to enemies. The keep later became part of a network of watch-towers and a rallying point for the Six-Cantons country militia. After a fire in 1725 only the massive round keep and fragments of the curtain walls remained. Visitors climb the keep’s spiral stair to a viewing platform. From there the eye travels across the whole Fichtelgebirge and into the Egerland. The inner ward still shows sections of three-storey walls where living quarters once stood. Old drawings by Paul Reinel, Johann Stierlein and Johann Helfrecht record the castle’s gradual decay and allow experts to reconstruct its former appearance. The ruin is a quiet place today, its stonework weathered by centuries of wind and rain.