Although Siersberg Castle was first mentioned in 1178, it was probably already built in the 11th century. It was built atop an almost 300-meter-high mountain overlooking the valleys of the rivers Saar and Nied.
During the Thirty Years' War, in 1634, the castle was taken by French troops. In the next decades it was taken and retaken several times by both parties, which of course caused damage to the castle. In 1670 the French again occupied Lorraine. When they retreated again in 1677 they partly blew up the, by then already dilapidated, castle. After that, Sierberg increasingly lost its military importance and its decay progressed.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.