Schloss Weinfelden, Medieval castle in Weinfelden, Switzerland

Schloss Weinfelden stands on the south slope of the Ottenberg above the town of Weinfelden. Its main tower is a tall square stone structure with a steep dark pyramidal roof and a row of corbels below the roofline. Attached on the left is a white-rendered building with a brown gabled roof, chimneys and dark-framed windows, its upper section banded with red half-timbering. A small round turret with a conical roof sits at the far left.

The first castle, Castrum Winvelde, had no recorded builder. In 1180 Hartmann von Kyburg gave a third of it to Berthold von Bussnang, Bishop of Konstanz, and this three-way division made agreement hard for later owners. In 1339 it passed as a Habsburg fief to Friedrich von Bussnang, who lived at Neuenburg and set Weinfelden aside as a widow's seat for his wife Kunigunde. The lords of Bussnang extended the castle; in 1435 Hans von Bussnang sold it with the lordship to Berthold Vogt of Konstanz.

The castle's name derives from the settlement below, and its role as a widow's seat was set in 1339, when Friedrich von Bussnang assigned it to his wife Kunigunde. From 1614 the city of Zurich held the castle and installed a bailiff (Vogt) there, making it an administrative seat until 1798. The Muntprat family granted the community the right to appoint its own council in 1514.

The castle stands on the south slope of the Ottenberg above Weinfelden, so the approach is uphill. The complex is privately owned by the heirs of August von Finck junior and is not open as a public museum; the exterior and the tower with its pyramidal spire can be viewed from the surrounding paths.

The buyer in 1972 was Munich banker August von Finck senior, who paid 340,000 francs for the castle, land and forest. Because the Lex von Moos barred sales of property to foreigners, the purchase needed a permit from the Federal Department of Justice and Police, granted on 1 December 1972 amid nationwide criticism. The tower regained its pointed spire in the rebuild.