The first documentary mention of any of the constituent communities came in 852 when Aua (
Owe) was named in one of the
Hersfeld Abbey’s donation documents. The abbot at Hersfeld founded a
monastery here in 1190, although this moved to Blankenheim, now an outlying centre of
Bebra, in 1229. The community of
Salzesberg had its first documentary mention in 1190. There is however a document from 782 about this place, but its authenticity is in dispute. All other places had their first documentary mentions in the 12th and 13th centuries. Most constituent communities were long under the
Hersfeld Abbey’s or were fiefs of the Lords of Wallenstein. Albert I of Wallenstein built a castle above Saasen that had its first documentary mention in 1267 as Neuwallenstein (the family’s ancestral seat was Wallenstein Castle – now a ruin – in
Knüllwald-Wallenstein). On 24 July 1318, the castle, which had since become a den for
robber barons, was destroyed by Hessian Landgrave
Otto’s troops as well as the Hersfeld Abbot Simon I of Buchenau’s and Count Johann I of Ziegenhain’s men, and also Eberhard von Breuberg’s, who was the state justice of the peace and Imperial state
Vogt. Only in 1357 was the castle restored by Simon von Wallenstein. Neuenstein Castle is nowadays used as a conference and event centre.
Amalgamations The above-named constituent communities merged into the new greater community of Neuenstein with effect from 1 January 1972, with the exception of Obergeis, which was only merged, forcibly, in the course of municipal reform on 1 August 1972. The new community’s namesake was the castle, whose
mediaeval name was Neuwallenstein Castle (it is now called Neuenstein Castle, or
Burg Neuenstein in
German). == Politics ==