The castle was probably built in the 13th century by the Hohenstaufen ministerial Wilhelm von Wimpfen, who is attributed to the family of the Lords of Kochendorf. The first documented mention dates from 1326. A nephew of Wilhelm von Wimpfen called himself von Zwingenberg. As the Zwingenberg family were considered robber barons, they were expelled from the castle in 1363 by Count Palatine Rupert I and it was demolished in the name and on behalf of the emperor. The Lords of Hirschhorn, who were granted the Zwingenburg in 1403, rebuilt it. After this family died out in 1632, the castle was the subject of an extensive legal dispute and changed hands between the Electorate of Mainz, the Electorate of the Palatinate and the Grand Duchy of Baden. Zwingenberg around 1850
On November 11, 1918, during the November Revolution, Frederick II, the last Grand Duke of Baden, fled from Karlsruhe to Zwingenberg Castle on the Neckar when armed men broke into his castle. He was followed there by the chairman of the People's Government, Anton Geiß, and the former Minister of State, Heinrich von und zu Bodman. They were able to extract a declaration from him in which the Grand Duke temporarily renounced the exercise of governmental power until a decision was made by a national assembly.[1]
The current lord of the castle is Ludwig Prince of Baden (* 1937), a descendant of the Grand Duke Karl Friedrich of Baden.
Above Zwingenberg Castle there are still remains of Fürstenstein Castle.