Schloss Waldstein, Medieval castle in Deutschfeistritz, Austria

Schloss Waldstein is a two-storey four-winged building grouped around a rectangular courtyard in the cadastral commune of Waldstein, part of Deutschfeistritz. Its oldest section is the two- and three-storey block in the northern part of the west wing; the six-storey tower there is crowned by a hipped roof with a ridge turret, given its present form in 1927. Late Gothic tracery survives on the tower windows, and two-storey columned arcades were later set against the courtyard sides.

Around 1468 Ruprecht von Windischgraetz bought Waldstein; the deed names no building where the castle now stands, so he probably began the first construction, which Pankraz von Windischgraetz enlarged according to a 1555 inscription. Prince Johann Seyfried von Eggenberg completed the south and east wings, and in 1730 the estate passed by purchase to the Dietrichstein counts.

The castle chapel was refurnished after 1730, when the Dietrichstein counts bought the estate. In the stairway to the forest administration a Jewish gravestone from 1363 is set into the wall, inscribed for Rabbi Josua, son of Isak, who died on 23 August 1363. The courtyard walls carry painted stags and full-length portraits of the forest masters Lorenz Gärber (1682) and Martin Danner (1696), painted by Georg Abraham Peichl.

Schloss Waldstein stands in the cadastral district of Waldstein, part of Deutschfeistritz in Styria, and is owned by the family foundation of Prince Heinrich Karl von Liechtenstein. The oldest section is the two- to three-storey block in the northern part of the west wing; the six-storey tower is crowned by a hipped roof with a ridge turret, given its present form in 1927.

In the stairway leading to the forestry directorate, a Jewish gravestone from 1363 is set into the wall. Its Hebrew inscription commemorates Rabbi Josua, son of Isak, who died on 23 August 1363; the stone predates the castle's construction by more than a century.