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Origin and history

Hartmannswiller Castle, located in the Haut-Rhin in Alsace, has its origins at least since the 12th century, although its beginnings remain poorly known. As of 1308 as a property of Dietrich de Haus, the fortress was ceded that year to the Church of Basel for 100 marks of silver. The bishop then invests the owner with his ditches and his orchard. This castle, probably the seat of a local noble family, as evidenced by the acts mentioning Jordanus de Arthemanswihr (1288) or Pierre de Hartmannswiller (1322), becomes a strategic fief of the bishopric of Basel.

In the 15th century, the castle passed into the hands of the Waldner family of Freundstein, who held it in episcopal fief. Hermann V de Waldner was invested in 1450, and in 1453 gave him to Jean Henri Mewart as a lifesaver. After the latter's death, the bishop reinvested Hermann XI of Waldner and his heirs in 1476. The monument suffered destruction during the Thirty Years' War, before being restored in the 17th century by Philippe Jacques I of Waldner, then by his grandson Chrétien Charles-Philippe in 1718, who reused materials from Weckenthal Castle, destroyed, with the permission of the Bishop of Basel. The Waldner family kept the castle until the French Revolution.

In the 19th century, the castle changed hands: bought by the horticulturalist Joseph Baumann in 1850, it was sold in 1855 to Constant Zeller, a prosperous industrialist thanks to his innovations in the manufacture of clay pipes. Zeller, a member of the Académie nationale de Paris and awarded at the Universal Exhibition of 1867, turned the castle into a place of intellectual encounters, an Alsatian tusculum. The monument, spared during the two world wars despite the proximity of the front of the Old Armand in 1914-1918, was inscribed in the Historical Monuments in 1988. Its architecture today reflects a superposition of styles, from the medieval (circular tower dated 1562, 13th century arches) to the classical (windows seen in the 18th and 19th centuries).

The castle is composed of a large square house, partially datable from the 14th century, with characteristic defensive elements: round road, 16th century cannon trees, and a spiral staircase integrated into a 3 meters thick wall. The vaulted cellar in a crib, raised to avoid flooding, and a vaulted room (perhaps an old chapel or a cartrier) testify to its use both residential and strategic. The bosses, protruding stones symbolizing the nobility, adorn the corners of the building, while medieval lapidary marks recall the work of stone tailors. Nearby, Hartmannswiller's fortified cemetery, with its 15th century flanking towers, completes this unique defensive heritage in Alsace.

The history of the castle is also linked to the local Jewish community. After their expulsion from the episcopal seigneury in the 14th century, the Jews of Hartmannswiller were allowed to reside only in the enclosure of the castle, subject to royalty, until their emancipation at the Revolution. By 1808 the community had 68 members. During the First World War, the village, evacuated in 1940 due to the fighting of Hartmannswillerkopf, saw the castle as a refuge for the inhabitants. Three remarkable trees, planted around 1810 by Baumann nurseries (bald cypresses, purple beech, chestnut tree), add a landscape dimension to this site full of history.

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