The beginnings of the castle and thus the town of Stolberg go back to the 12th century. The von Stalburg family, who named themselves after the castle and whose name was passed on to the settlement, built a castle complex at that time, the appearance of which is completely unknown to us but can be assigned to the type of a high medieval hill or spur castle.
After the castle was besieged, captured and razed in 1375, Wilhelm von Nesselrode, feudal man of the Counts of Jülich, built a new, late medieval complex on the same site in 1445, which met both the requirements of a defensible fortress and that of a representative residence.
An expansion in the 16th century gave the castle complex a more castle-like character, which is a typical phenomenon of the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. The fortification building elements (shield walls and eastern towers) were not included in this expansion; they fell into disrepair over time, while the residential and administrative functions were modernized and expanded.
In 1888, the Stolberg manufacturer Moritz Kraus bought the castle, which had now fallen into disrepair, at auction and had it rebuilt by the two architects Carl Schleicher and Alfred Müller-Grah in the style of historicism in the spirit of the castle renaissance. The focus was on the ideal of a medieval castle complex according to the ideas of the time, similar to what was pursued at the time with Neuschwanstein Castle, Stolzenfels or Wartburg. In 1909, Moritz Kraus gave the rebuilt castle to the citizens of Stolberg as a non-saleable inheritance.
Source:
stolberg-erleben.de/sichtswert/burg