The stronghold was founded by Henry the Fowler on the Elbe as a bulwark against the Wends. In the Middle Ages, Arneburg was a strategic possession of Brandenburg, whose ElectorFrederick II (the "Iron Elector") mortgaged it for "100 good Rhenish gilders" to Hans von Blumenthal, who was appointed Vogt of Arneburg, a post which he still held long after 1450, when the Hohenzollerns had repaid the mortgage. Arneburg was an important Hohenzollern possession and, indeed, the Elector John Cicero died there in 1499. The ruins are now part of a park surrounded by the town.
