Burg Frankenstein — the castle, the alchemist and the dragon

OVERVIEW

Burg Frankenstein stands at 370 m on a spur of the Odenwald above Darmstadt-Eberstadt, in the municipality of Mühltal, Hesse. It is first recorded in 1252 in a document of Konrad II Reiz of Breuberg, who called himself 'of Frankenstein'; the wording shows the castle was already built and in use. It was never besieged.

HISTORY

The Frankenstein family split the castle between two lines in 1363 and enlarged it around 1400. Staunchly Catholic and in constant legal conflict with the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt, they sold the lordship to Hesse in 1662 for 109,000 guilders. The castle served as a refuge and invalids' home, then fell to ruin — helped by treasure-seekers who tore down walls and cellar vaults. Grand Duke Ludwig III had it partly restored in the mid-19th century, badly: the gate tower got one storey too many. On Halloween 1952 John Keel sent three American Forces Network reporters there for a live broadcast, having rigged a statue in the crypt to move and topple as a prank. From 1977/78 to 2023 American servicemen's Halloween festival made it one of the largest in Europe; it has since moved to Burg Königstein.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The legend of Knight George and the dragon (recorded by August Nodnagel, 1803–1853): a dragon terrorised Nieder-Beerbach until the knight killed it, dying of its poison; his tomb in the church shows him fighting a dragon — though the German article says the legend is much later than the tomb, whose dragon probably alludes to his patron, Saint George. A variant adds three mysterious lights in an abandoned house, seen again each Advent after George's death. In 1763 legends and crystal-ball readers set off a chaotic treasure dig the village priest could not stop; it went on until Johann Heinrich Drott was killed when his dig collapsed. The alchemist Johann Konrad Dippel was born at the castle in 1673; stories that he experimented on corpses there and inspired Shelley were spread by a 1999 book by the self-styled castle scribe Walter Scheele, whose sources have been called faulty or invented, and are rejected by the local history society. In 2008 the SyFy programme Ghost Hunters International filmed an episode there and reported recordings it interpreted as 'Arbo is here' in Old German.

VISITING

The ruin is normally open to the public and free; tram stop 'Frankenstein' (lines 1, 6, 7, 8) is a steep 3 km walk below. The chapel is used for civil weddings. The magnetic stones of the Ilbes-Berg are a 1.1 km walk from the car park.