Burgruine Heitnau

Burgruine Heitnau stands above the municipality of Braunau in Switzerland and was established in the medieval period by the feudal authorities connected to the Counts of Toggenburg.

The place-name first appears in a document of 4 July 1209, where Arnold von Heitnau is recorded as a ministerial, a knight in service to Count Diethelm II of Toggenburg. The castle served as the local seat that managed Toggenburg holdings in the upper Lauchetal. Its older name likely derived from the phrase “Au eines Heito,” an early form that evolved into the modern toponym.

During the 1200s control of the local lordship passed progressively to the Tobel commandery. In 1258 the commandery obtained the vogtei, or protective authority, over certain goods at Tägerschen, and in 1275 Diethelm IV of Toggenburg formally bequeathed the castle together with its rights and possessions to the Tobel commandery. In the mid-13th century the castle was damaged by fire and then rebuilt, but after that rebuilding it entered a period of gradual decline.

Occupation continued until about the middle of the 14th century. The estate remained under the authority of the Herrschaft and the Tobel commandery through the centuries that followed, up to the political changes of 1798. In 1807 stones taken from the castle’s defensive structures were used in construction of the evangelical church in Braunau and were later incorporated in the village schoolhouse. Between 1950 and 1954 the ruins were cleared under scientific supervision using penal labour; those excavations revealed building phases despite strong disturbance of the occupation layers by earlier, undocumented digging.