Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

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Castle Frankenstein

Posted by Alex Turnbull, Tuesday, 23rd August 2005

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This is Castle Frankenstein near Darmstadt, Germany, where a notorious scientist named Konrad Dippel supposedly conducted experiments on human bodies… No wonder then, that some people believe Castle Frankenstein may have inspired Mary Shelly’s literary masterpiece, ‘Frankenstein‘.

Castle Frankenstein

Thanks to Jens Kilian and Nikopol.

8 Responses to 'Castle Frankenstein'

  1. Al Cohole says:

    No comment to the castle, but…

    If you look a few km to the west, you’ll find these strange circles in the wood: Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth Does anyone know what they are for? I guess they belong to the facility north of them, which seems to be some kind of barracks.

  2. Cory says:

    Even cooler than the strange circles in the wood that Al posted is the great loop of railroad track just to the west of them. That thing’s great!

    (Ok, maybe that’s just the train-head in me coming out…)

  3. Bernd says:

    afaik, they are part of an old oil storage facility (Fernleitungs-Betriebsges. mbH, Tanklager Pfungstadt) and the barracks are the “Bundeswehr Frankenstein-Kaserne, Darmstadt”

  4. Al Cohole says:

    Danke, Bernd. I thought the circles were some kind of ammunition depot, or even an anti-aircraft site, maybe because of the near Frankenstein-Kaserne (cool name, btw). @Cory: There is also a track to the barracks. The track which goes south through leads to a bigger one.

  5. Tim Chambers says:

    Read the account of how Shelley conceived her novel at Wikipedia.

  6. Anon says:

    The circles you see are where US warplane bombs exploded during the war, I lived in the Kaserne for 9 months and got to know the area quite well. The area is rich in history.

  7. ceej says:

    The compound is now called “Major-Karl-Plagge-Kaserne” http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/?en/saviors/german2/major-karl-plagge.4524.htm , formerly “Frankenstein-Kaserne”. As a matter of fact I used to serve there in 1992, with 1./SchwBrBtl850, an engineer batallion. German readers can read more about the structures in http://www.cold-war.de/sonstige-bunker/529-bunker-bei-darmstadt-eberstadt.html In short: they are the remains of a worldwar II era ammunitions factory

  8. Tammo says:

    if you read the original post on that German forum, they are actually discussing an overgrown structure NORTH of the base … so nothing to do with the circles.

    Look like some form of ammo dumps / storage to me …