The
hill castle is first recorded in 1217 as
castrum in Munjoje by Archbishop
Engelbert I of Cologne. It was expanded in the middle of the 14th century into a fortress for the counts of
Jülich and equipped with mighty
ring walls and
wall walks. In 1543 troops of Emperor
Charles V besieged the site with heavy guns, captured it and plundered it together with the town of Monschau. In the early 19th century the French administration declared the castle to be state property and sold it to a private buyer who had the roofs removed in 1836 and 1837 in order to avoid building tax. As a result, the castle fell into
ruins until, in the early 20th century, the government of the
Rhine province secured and repaired it. After the
First World War a youth hostel was opened in the west wing. So Monschau Castle survived as a "
youth castle" (
Jugendburg). In 1971
Christo and others repackaged the castle as a work of art. == Haller ==