Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, Prussian fortress on Rhine riverbank in Koblenz, Germany
The fortress rises 118 meters (387 feet) above the Rhine and overlooks the confluence of Rhine and Moselle rivers near Koblenz, featuring massive stone walls and multiple defensive levels.
A castle built around 1000 by the noble Ehrenbert passed to the Archbishops of Trier and was enlarged by Hillin in 1152–1169. French revolutionary troops blew it up in 1801. Prussia rebuilt the citadel between 1817 and 1828 under engineer officer Carl Schnitzler as part of Festung Koblenz, and it was ready for service by 1834.
The state museum inside presents rotating exhibitions on technology, archaeology, and military subjects through interactive installations and object collections spanning multiple centuries.
The fortress is reached from the Rhine bank past the Helfenstein outwork, or from the hill plateau to the north; a cable car also links it with downtown Koblenz. The site holds the Koblenz State Museum, a youth hostel and the Memorial of the German Army. Parts of the grounds and the foreland were laid out as a landscape park with a viewing platform for the 2011 Federal Horticultural Show.
The 9-tonne Greif cannon was cast in 1524 by Master Simon of Frankfurt. French troops took it to France in 1799; it returned briefly in 1940 and went back to Paris in 1946. In 1984 it came to the fortress as a permanent loan, agreed by François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl.
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