Description : The Hardenburg is the ruin of a hilltop castle on the eastern edge of the Palatinate Forest near the Rhineland-Palatinate district town of Bad Dürkheim . It is one of the most powerful castles in the Palatinate. At the latest in the period between 1205 and 1214, the Hardenburg was built by the Counts of Leiningen , who had their ancestral castle Altleiningen 10 km further north. For this purpose they illegally appropriated land that belonged to the Limburg monastery. Count Friedrich II von Leiningen is considered the founder . In 1237 the castle went to his son Count Friedrich III during a first division of the lineage . In 1317, the Leiningen-Hardenburg line was created under Count Jofried during a further division of the estate . During the inheritance dispute after his death, the Leiningen-Rixingen line split off in 1345 . After the imperial ban was imposed on Count Emich IX. in 1512 the Hardenburg was besieged by the Elector of the Palatinate , Ludwig V. The Leiningers handed over the castle before it was damaged and got it back in 1519. At the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century, the castle was expanded and fortified even more against enemy gunfire. So it offered refuge to the population of the surrounding places even during the Thirty Years' War . From 1560 to 1725, the Hardenburg was the headquarters of the Leininger family and was expanded into a residential palace during this period. It survived the War of the Palatinate Succession (1688–1697), in which troops of the French "Sun King" Louis XIV under General Mélac devastated the Palatinate on the left bank of the Rhine, but only destroyed the fortifications of Hardenburg in 1692. In 1725 the Counts of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Hardenburg moved their residence to the nearby Dürkheim Castle . In 1794, the residential buildings of Hardenburg were set on fire by French revolutionary troops , and the valuable interior was destroyed. Gradually the castle deteriorated into ruins. The Dürkheim Castle also went up in flames. In 1801, all German areas on the left bank of the Rhine fell to France, which is why Prince Carl zu Leiningen was compensated by the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803 with former Kurmainzer and Würzburg possessions in the Odenwald and now briefly ruled the new Principality of Leiningen , based in the former Amorbach Abbey , which is still owned by Princely house is. In the Palatinate Forest, in addition to the Hardenburg (and the medieval castle Landeck located further south ), the remains of the former hunting lodges Kehrdichannasst , Murrmirnichtviel and Schaudichnichtum to the former rule.
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