Hohenberg Castle, located high above the Egertal, was, after Plassenburg ob Kulmbach, the most important fortress in the Hohenzollern Margraviate of Brandenburg-Kulmbach-Bayreuth and secured the Schirnding pass, which was once important in terms of transport and strategically, which provided access from the Fichtelgebirge plateau to the Eger Basin and thus to Bohemia mediated. The castle was built in the Hohenstaufen period in connection with securing the imperial castle of Eger; The place name first appeared in 1222 with Berchtoldus de Honberg appearing as a witness. Around 1300, Hohenberg came to the burgraves of Nuremberg, who combined their oldest acquisitions in Egerland in the Wunsiedel/Hohenberg office. However, the first burggraval bailiff on Hohenberg, Rüdiger von Sparneck, did not appear until 1341. A good hundred years later, in 1433, Hans von Kotzau defended Hohenberg against the Hussites. When Bohemian troops invaded during the Bavarian War in 1462, the Egerer Beckenknecht Haußner set fire to a tower of Hohenberg Castle. The main parts of today's Hohenberg Castle (circular wall, round towers) were built around 1480. The construction of the outer bailey was reported in 1499 and 1504. In 1621 and 1622, Margrave Christian had massive earthworks with seven bastions built around the castle, which were additionally fortified with palisades. However, these precautions were of little use when imperial troops took the Schirnding pass in June 1632, captured the Hohenberg border house and occupied it for three years. After the Thirty Years' War, Hohenberg Castle lost its strategic importance. Margrave Christian Ernst built the Prince's House in 1666, a building used as a hunting lodge with an attached kitchen wing and a house for the bailiff. In 1945, a large part of the town of Hohenberg and parts of the castle, namely the outer bailey, the gate tower and the stork tower, were destroyed by American artillery fire. Today Hohenberg Castle serves as a youth hostel and meeting and conference center for the Sudeten German Social Works.
The town and Hohenberg Castle were granted the privilege of an imperial sanctuary until 1799. Four stone pillars (can now be seen in the castle courtyard) stood at the entrance paths to the town and demarcated a protective area. If lawbreakers managed to reach the protected area, they were in the emperor's asylum and were initially free from persecution.
The Margraviate of Ansbach-Bayreuth became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1791. After four years of French occupation, the town and the castle became part of the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1810.
Since 1936 the castle belonged to the Nazi teachers' association and was a country school center. At the end of the Second World War in April 1945, some defensive towers, the outer bailey and a third of the town fell victim to fire by American troops when SS troops defended the town. In 1951 the gradual reconstruction by the Bavarian state began. (Source: Wikipedia)