The Castle in the Middle of the Danube

 MAGYARUL

Spielberg castle on the Danube / Litography of Jacob Alt

It's not necessarily the Inség (Hunger) stone at Budapest that comes to mind when talking about rocky islands on the Danube, but rather the Babakai cliff on the Lower-Danube, or Jochenstein on the German-Austrian border. There were also island forts on the Danube, Ada Kaleh was perhaps the finest example, with its ramparts and bastions almost occupying the entire island on which it was built, until it was sunk by the "progression". However, there is another island in the Danube that fulfils both criteria, a rocky promontory and a castle, built in the middle of the Danube. Today, Spielberg's castle is a little difficult to find; it has been moved from the middle of the Danube by river regulation and is hidden in the middle of a riverine forest on the left bank of the Danube at river km 2116, opposite to the town of Enns in Austria.

 Ruins of Spielberg in 1840. (W. Mossman, W.H. Bartlett)

Spielberg castle on Matthias Vischer's engraving, 1674 (source)

Spielberg castle in 1650., sr. Matthäus Merian's engraving (source)

Without the river regulation works, it could be a true castle for hydrologers, ideal for landlords exploring the Danube, as an icebreaker fixed point in the middle of the ever-changing floodplain archipelago between Linz and Mauthausen. On the slower-flowing stretch behind the granite cliff jutting out of the riverbed, gravel bars, sandbanks and islands have formed and transformed after each flood, taking on a new shape. The Danube's turbulent, swirling course over the smaller reefs made navigation in the northern tributary difficult, as did the construction of the castle. 

Originally, Spielberg's granite cliff may have been closer to the right bank of the Danube, as evidenced by the Roman archaeological atrifacts found on it. The legionary camp of LAURIACUM at the mouth of the river Enns, where the veteran Roman soldier St Florian was pushed off the bridge with a millstone around his neck, was situated opposite. The discovery of Roman relics is no less sad a story, as the 1940/41 excavation season was carried out by prisoners from the Gusen concentration camp, a part of the Mauthausen Lager. Prior to that, in the 1930s, in keeping with the spirit of the times, the courtyard of the ruin had been the site of so-called knightly ceremonies held by local Nazis.

The Enns estuary and Spielberg Castle in the middle of the river (drawn by Charles de Feignet)

Spielberg Castle is almost a thousand years old, the earliest part of it dating back to the first decades of the 12th century. It was probably already on an island in the Danube when it was built, as its owners used it primarily as a castle of refuge rather than a residence. In times of war, this impregnable fortress was used by its lords as a refuge for their families, treasures and other valuables. Perhaps that is why its owners treated it like a hot potato, its first half-millennium of history being one of constant changes of ownership. It has been privately owned, owned by ruling families, the Babenbergs, the Habsburgs, and has been owned by various ecclesiastical estates, of which Regensburg was perhaps the most distant, with St Florian's monastery the closest. In 1619 it was a Danube toll-house, but the inhabitants of the castle were fond of plundering Danube sailors shipwrecked on the granite cliffs. Interestingly, the destruction of the castle was not due to siege, fire or frequent changes of ownership, but to the neglect of the longest-standing Weissenwolff family, who owned the castle and later its ruins until 1961. 

The oldest part of the castle is the late Romanesque tower, originally five storeys high, which was added two storeys higher in the early 1500s when the outer castle wall was built. The age of the engravings in the entry can also be determined from the collapsed roof structure in 1840. The best preserved part of the castle is the outer castle. A forester still lives here and carries out basic maintenance work.

The castle on the 1st military survey (1773-1781)

The castle on the 2nd military survey (1809-1818)

The castle on the 3rd military survey (1869-1887)

Parallel to the gradual destruction of the castle in the 18th century, a process was taking place in the Danube riverbed that was slowly removing the castle from the middle of the river. The main riverbed was shifted by the development of the bends to the Enghageni branch, south of the castle, and the 19th century river regulation preserved this situation, which was made worse by the construction of the hydroelectrical power plant between Abwinden and Asten, where the floodplain forest that was home to Spielberg Castle was located directly below the dam, and the drying out of the river had a major impact. The small tributaries forming the archipelago were filled up and the forest covering the different levels of geomorphology grew on the alluvium. To complete this process, Spielberg Castle was officially transferred administratively from Enns to Langenstein on the left bank on 1 January 1997. Spielberg Castle is still privately owned and a local NGO was established in 2013 to maintain and preserve it.

Spielberg castle as it seen today, south from the Gusen bridge (Google)

However, even if they succeed in restoring the castle, the Danube is unlikely to be diverted back to the lonely granite cliff, so the floodplain castle will not again become a unique hydrological curiosity; an island castle on the Danube. 

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)