Colonel-General Beck barracks / former Ordensburg
Towering over Sonthofen, you can see the tower of the former "Ordensburg Sonthofen", today "Generaloberst-Beck-Barracks", which is only a small part of the large complex on the hill above the town. From 1934 the facilities were built by the German Labor Front as a training castle for the NSDAP and later an Adolf Hitler School was set up. One of twelve Adolf Hitler schools distributed throughout Germany for the training of National Socialist cadres. In the last year of the war, the buildings served as a military hospital and after the takeover were first used by the French troops and a little later by the American occupation as a constabulary school. As Ordensburg Sonthofen, it was one of three Nazi Ordensburgs during the National Socialist period, along with Krössinsee in Pomerania and Vogelsang in the Eifel. As a Bundeswehr barracks, it was named in 1956 after the former Chief of the Army General Staff and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime, Colonel General Ludwig Beck.
The Colonel-General Beck barracks, simply called the castle by the soldiers stationed here and the locals, was used for training and further education until July 2009, for example in the school for military police and staff service of the Bundeswehr or in the sports school of the Bundeswehr, Sonthofen branch.
The school for military police and staff service of the Bundeswehr was relocated to the Emmich-Cambrai barracks in Hanover in mid-2009. After the Federal Ministry of Defense considered giving up the castle and selling it for civilian use, State Secretary Christian Schmidt announced in a press conference on April 18, 2008 that the Bundeswehr would continue to use it.