Château du Fleckenstein

A castle on this sandstone spur above Lembach is attested by 1165, raised by the barons de Fleckenstein, a family close to the emperor whose lordship stretched across four separate small territories in the Bas-Rhin; they held the fief until the last branch of the family died out in 1720. The fortress was built in the shape of a 52-metre boat along the rock, with a system that collected rainwater into a cistern and a hoist that lifted water and other loads to the upper floors.

By 1408 the castle's joint owners were bound by charter to keep it stocked with five light cannon, ten crossbows and five suits of armour, together with 7.5 hectolitres of grain and 15 hectolitres of wine at all times; it stood among a chain of castles watching the road between Bitche and Wissembourg.

In the 16th century the castle was shared between the two branches of the Fleckenstein family under a charter, the paix castrale, that set out their joint ownership, and it was modernised between 1541 and 1570. The stairwell tower carries the arms of Friedrich von Fleckenstein, who died in 1559, and those of his second wife, Catherine von Cronberg, whom he married in 1537; a surviving watercolour copy of a 1562 tapestry records the castle's appearance from this period.

During the Franco-Dutch War, French troops captured Fleckenstein in 1674 without resistance from its defenders. In 1689 what remained of the castle was blown up with gunpowder on the orders of Louis XIV, destroyed without a fight being offered.

When the Fleckenstein line died out in 1720, the lordship is recorded as passing to the Vitzthum d'Egersberg family; other accounts instead have the ruin sold, from 1792, to a Wissembourg burgher named Rausch and then to a mining agent named Bertrand, before Jean-Louis Apffel bought it in 1807. In 1812 General Olivier Harty, an Irish-born officer in Napoleon's army, acquired the ruin and took the title baron de Pierrebourg — a Frenchification of Fleckenstein, "stone town."

After Alsace passed to the German Empire in 1871, the sub-prefect of Wissembourg ordered the ruin maintained and opened it to the public, and it became a popular walking destination; the German authorities listed it as a monument historique in 1898, with restoration following around 1908. Alsace returned to France in 1919, when the ruin became French state property, and in 1958 it passed to Lembach's tourist office, with further restoration from that year.

Archaeological excavations on the summit between 1992 and 1997 uncovered filtration cisterns, a kitchen area and the keep, and works to secure and consolidate the ruin followed from 1997 to 2000; the Alsace region bought the surrounding 270 hectares in 1998 and ceded the ruin to the commune of Lembach. Reached today by road or hiking trail, it is the second most-visited castle in Alsace after Haut-Kœnigsbourg.