Burial chapel Württemberg

Former ancestral seat of the Wuerttemberg noble family

Rotenberg, which is above the vineyards of the Neckar Valley between Obertürkheim and Untertürkheim, today no longer has a fortress but when you speak about Stuttgart's fortresses and castles, you cannot forget it - especially since it gave the dynasty and the state its name. On this Rotenberg, then still called Wirtemberg, there was one of the oldest stone mountain fortresses of the state, the ancestral fortress of the Wuerttemberg noble family as early as in the 11th century. From here, it was possible for them to win territory in the Rems Valley up to Waiblingen, in Cannstatt and up the Neckar to Marbach by the end of the 12th century. Through marriage, Count Ulrich I won Stuttgart. Now the mountain fortress was too small, the seat of the Wuerttemberg counts was moved at the beginning of the 14th century to the more representative and more comfortable city castle in Stuttgart. In the following period, the fortress was only inhabited and administered by the overseers. It remained however the possession of the house of Wuerttemberg. Several times it was the victim of wartime disputes and was rebuilt again and again - if for no other reason then in order to retain the tradition of the ancestral fortress which gave the royal house its name.

King Wilhelm I broke this tradition in 1819. After the early death of his beloved wife, the Russian princess Katharina, the fortress was razed. The court building master Giovanni Salucci was commissioned to build a burial chapel for the queen on the Rotenberg. This monument of Swabian classicism was built in the years 1820 to 1824. In 1907, King Wilhelm II ordered by decree that the official name of the mountain was Wuerttemberg - the common name Rotenberg has however remained until today.

One of the most beautiful viewing points in Stuttgart.