Neudahn Castle Ruins

Neudahn was destroyed like almost all castles in Wasgau in the course of the peasants' war in the 16th century. Nevertheless, it belongs to one of the best preserved castles of the Palatinate Forest and was fortunately restored in the 70s true to the original.

The name "Neudahn" is somewhat confusing because the castle is older than Grafendahn in the Dahn Castle Group, although younger than Altdahn. Its location enabled it to protect and block the road that ran through the Wieslauter Valley, on the route of which the B 427 and the Wieslauterbahn now run side by side.
The castle was probably built shortly before 1240 by order of the Bishop of Speyer; because this was from 1233 to 1236 Konrad IV von Dahn. The executive ministerial was Heinrich von Dahn, who is also known as Heinrich Mursel von Kropsberg. He probably received the castle as a hereditary fief from the start. His second name as well as later inheritances indicate that family ties existed in the southern Palatinate - Kropsburg, Burrweiler.

Source: Wikipedia

Neudahn is 2 km northwest of Dahn on the right side of the Lauter, which is still called Wieslauter here at the upper reaches, on a foothill of the Kauertberg about 90 m above the valley floor. The castle rock reaches 310 m, the lower castle 290 m. Directly below the castle, the Moosbach, which is dammed to form a small Woog for the former operation of a mill, flows from the right into the Wieslauter.
The name "Neudahn" is somewhat confusing because the castle is older than Grafendahn in the Dahn Castle Group, although younger than Altdahn. Its location enabled it to protect and block the road that ran through the Wieslauter Valley, on the route of which the B 427 and the Wieslauterbahn now run side by side.

The castle was probably built shortly before 1240 by order of the Bishop of Speyer; because this was from 1233 to 1236 Konrad IV von Dahn. The executive ministerial was Heinrich von Dahn, who is also known as Heinrich Mursel von Kropsberg. He probably received the castle as a hereditary fief from the start. His second name as well as later inheritances indicate that family ties existed in the southern Palatinate - Kropsburg, Burrweiler.

The castle was first mentioned on May 3, 1285 as Than Castle, whereby the listing of the associated goods in the document makes it clear that it must be Neudahn[1].

Mursel's family died out just a hundred years after the castle was built, and the castle passed into the possession of the related Altdahn line. Presumably burned down in 1438 in the War of the Four Lords and then rebuilt, the complex was badly damaged again in the Peasants' War of 1525. However, since King Henry II of France stayed at the castle in 1552, it must have been thoroughly renovated beforehand. After the last knight of Dahn, Ludwig II, died in his castle in Burrweiler in 1603, Neudahn reverted to the Speyer diocese. From then on, the castle served as the official seat of the bishop's bailiff until French troops finally destroyed it in 1689 at the beginning of the Palatinate War of Succession.

Today it presents itself to the visitor essentially in the form that it took on during the renovation and expansion phases after 1525 and after the last destruction.