The settlement of Titamanninga was first mentioned about 790 AD, then a possession of St Peter's Abbey, Salzburg. After the Archbishops of Salzbug had achieved immediate status in the late 13th century, Tittmoning Castle was built as a border fortress against the incursions by the Dukes of Bavaria. The episcopal administrator of the castle and its environs was called burgrave, as was Ulrich von Wispeck in 1282. Tittmoning was occupied by the forces of the German king Louis the Bavarian during his conflict with the papacy in 1324; nevertheless, he restored it to the Salzburg archbishops three years later.
Temporarily given in pawn to Bavaria, the unlucky Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich Raitenau had to cede the castle to the Bavarian duke Maximilian I in 1611; it was repurchased by his successor Archbishop Mark Sittich von Hohenems and rebuilt as a hunting lodge according to plans designed by Santino Solari. By the 17th century the castle had finally lost its character of a fortress and became the summer residence of the Prince-Archbishops. Upon the Congress of Vienna, the Rupertiwinkel region finally fell to the Kingdom of Bavaria and Tittimoning Castle, damaged by French troops during the Napoleonic Wars, passed under state-ownership.
In the early years of World War II the castle was used as a prisoner-of-war camp for officers, Oflag VII-D. British and American citizens were also interned there. Today Tittmoning castle is a museum.
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.