Schloss Jettingen

Schloss Jettingen stands in the village of Jettingen in Schwaben, a powerful four-storey four-wing building topped with a high hipped roof. The castle is surrounded by an extensive park laid out in the English style. Before the present structure a small water castle occupied the site, built in 1480 by Hans von Stain with four massive round corner towers. The castle gained fame as the birthplace of Isabella Braun, children’s and youth writer, on 12 December 1815, and of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg on 15 November 1907. In the 18th century the Stauffenberg family acquired the estate, but by the early 19th century only one storey remained habitable while the rest fell into ruin. Franz Schenk von Stauffenberg, known as the Exzellenzherr, took over in 1833 and rebuilt the castle in 1841, filling in the moat and removing the fourth storey. Visitors enter a long corridor lit from two sides where life-size portraits of Roman emperors line the walls. The rooms beyond open one into another, framed by tower bay windows on east and west. The inner courtyard, once sunless and damp, now opens to the sky. The park offers wide lawns and mature trees in the English manner.