Germany · Demolished
Burg Wittelsbach
Wittelsbach Castle was the medieval ancestral seat of the House of Wittelsbach near Aichach in Bavaria, first mentioned around the year 1000 and occupied by the counts from the early 12th century. The medieval castle was abandoned in the later Middle Ages and its masonry was quarried away; a 15th‑century Gothic church (Beatae Mariae Virginis) now stands on the former site and a Wittelsbach family monument was placed there in 1834. Archaeological excavations were carried out in 1978–1980.
Its prime
1150
Today
Demolished
As it stood in 1150
What Burg Wittelsbach looked like in its prime.
The castle occupied the raised site now marked by the 15th‑century Gothic church of Beatae Mariae Virginis; no medieval masonry survives above ground because the former walls were quarried away. In its 12th‑century prime the site consisted of a compact stone enclosure sited on the slight rise, with contiguous masonry wall lines and clustered domestic and service buildings around a central open area. The footprint is attested by later archaeological trenches and by the position of the later church and monument.
Its story
The story of Burg Wittelsbach.
Ancestral Seat of the Counts Palatine, c. 1000–1120
Burg Wittelsbach near Aichach in Bavarian Swabia is first recorded around the year 1000. In 1119 Otto IV, Count of Scheyern, moved his seat here and converted his former castle into Scheyern Abbey — though a charter of King Henry V from 1115 already names "Witilinesbac" as Otto's place of origin, suggesting the site carried the name before his recorded move. From 1120 the counts styled themselves Counts Palatine of Wittelsbach, and the castle became the ancestral seat of the House of Wittelsbach, later Electors and Kings of Bavaria and Electors of the Palatinate.
The Bamberg Murder and the Demolition Tradition, 1208–1980
On 21 June 1208 in Bamberg, Count Otto VIII of Wittelsbach murdered King Philip of Swabia. Tradition holds that the castle was destroyed the following year in reprisal, and names Otto's cousin Duke Ludwig I of Bavaria — himself a Wittelsbach, but aligned with the Staufer dynasty — as party to its demolition. Archaeological excavations carried out from 1978 to 1980 found no trace of fire or sudden destruction, however: no burnt debris turned up, and the walls appear instead to have been quarried away gradually once the castle was abandoned.
Church and National Monument, 15th Century–1834
In the 15th century the Gothic church Beatae Mariae Virginis rose on the ruined castle site and became the nucleus of the village of Oberwittelsbach; a later tradition credited it as an atonement church for the Bamberg killing, though no document bears this out. In 1834 the Wittelsbach family raised the neo-Gothic Wittelsbacher-Nationaldenkmal on the spot, designed by Joseph Daniel Ohlmüller; the unveiling on 25 August 1834 was witnessed by hundreds of onlookers, while over twenty thousand visitors — including a thousand mounted farmers — were in and around Aichach for the wider festivities. King Ludwig I did not attend in person, sending the government president Franz Arnold Ritter von Linck to represent him. Parts of the surrounding district are still known today as Wittelsbacher Land in the castle's memory, and the site is now protected as an architectural heritage monument.
Step inside
4 places to explore in 1150.
The record describes 4 distinct spots at Burg Wittelsbach, including the full exterior approach. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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Clans who held Burg Wittelsbach.
The families that held Burg Wittelsbach for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Wittelsbach
Ancestral seat of the House of Wittelsbach from 1119, when Otto IV of Scheyern moved in, until the castle's destruction or abandonment in the early 13th century.
