Horneck Castle is also known as Burg Horneck, Deutschordenschloss Horneck and Schloss Horneck. A castle located in the town of Gundelsheim, district of Heilbronn,

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

, in southwest

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Its name is thought to mean "over the Neckar," as it is overlooking the

Neckar The Neckar () is a river in Germany, mainly flowing through the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, with a short section through Hesse. The Neckar is a major right tributary of the Rhine. Rising in the Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis near Schwenn ...

River.

History

The castle was built around 1200 and was given to the Teutonic Order by Konrad von Horneck in 1438, thereby making it the seat of the "Deutschmeister" (German Master) until it was destroyed in 1525 by fire during the

German Peasants' War The German Peasants' War, Great Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt (german: Deutscher Bauernkrieg) was a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It failed because of intense oppositio ...

. Despite reconstruction shortly after Horneck Castle's destruction,

Mergentheim Bad Mergentheim (; Mergentheim until 1926; East Franconian: ''Märchedol'') is a town in the Main-Tauber-Kreis district in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It has a population of around 23,000. An officially recognized spa town since 1926, B ...

became the new headquarters for the

Teutonic Order The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was formed to aid Christians on ...

in that region in 1527. , the castle was occupied by an altenheim (a nursing home for the elderly) as well as the

Transylvanian Museum The Transylvanian Museum (German: ''Siebenbürgisches Museum'') is a museum situated in Gundelsheim, Germany, dedicated to the protection, preservation and documentation of the cultural heritage of the Transylvanian Saxons and of their coexisten ...

. {{BadenWürttemberg-struct-stub Castles of the Teutonic Knights