Forschungsstätte für Frühromantik und Novalis-Museum, Schloss Oberwiederstedt, Renaissance château museum in Arnstein, Germany

Forschungsstätte für Frühromantik und Novalis-Museum, Schloss Oberwiederstedt is a three-winged Renaissance castle in Arnstein, Saxony-Anhalt, that now functions as both a research center and a museum. Its rooms hold permanent exhibitions on the early Romantic movement and on the poet Novalis.

The castle incorporates parts of an Augustinian convent founded in 1256 for nuns moved from Kupferberg. It was built in the 16th century and came to the von Hardenberg family in 1634 through marriage. Novalis was born here in 1772; the family kept the estate until their expropriation in October 1945.

The castle was the birthplace of Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg, the poet who wrote under the name Novalis. Visitors today can walk through rooms that connect directly to the world that shaped his writing and his thinking.

The castle sits in Arnstein and is most comfortably reached by car, as public transport connections to the area are limited. Checking current opening times before you go is a good idea, since guided tours run at set times and not all day.

In 1985, five of the eleven bays of the west wing were demolished, along with a Gothic corbel latrine, before a citizens' initiative formed in 1988 around craftsman Gerald Wahrlich. Volunteers repaired the roof as an emergency measure, and experts then confirmed the building could be saved, so funds meant for dismantling went to consolidating the west gable and east wing instead.