The Reichsburg Castle

 
Cochem's outstanding landmark is its fairytale Reichsburg Castle, an ancient symbol of power and prestige. This came to a temporary end with gunpowder and the French, who pursued a scorched earth policy during the Nine Years' War of the Palatinate Succession.

Even today, there would only be a ruin had it not been for Berlin Councillor of Commerce Louis Ravené. As a businessman, he was involved in the construction of the militarily crucial Koblenz - Metz railway line and saw the Reichsburg Castle as his suitable domicile. Reconstruction was carried out by respected building consultants Hermann Ende and Julius Carl Raschdorff.
 

 
In 1877, the castle’s inauguration was celebrated as the Kaiser Wilhelm Tunnel was being opened in the valley. However, Ravené's young wife was notably absent from the banquet in the Knights' Hall. She was the main protagonist in an adultery scandal that went down in literary history thanks to Theodor Fontane: “L‘Adultera” became his first Berlin society novel, and since the happy ending did not go down well with the public, he wrote a different one: “Effie Briest”.