The castle was the property of the Eltz family for centuries, and is still owned by a descendant of one of its branches.
This day in 1965 marked the issuing of West German 500 DM (German mark) banknotes. Their dimensions were 170 mm x 85 mm, and their reverse contained a picture of the famous Eltz Castle, one of the most famous castles in medieval Germany. It is located in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz, on a hill near the river Mosel, a tributary of the Rhine. The castle was the property of the Eltz family for centuries, and is still owned by a descendant of one of its branches.
The obverse of the 500 DM banknote showed a man from a portrait painted by the German artist Hans Maler zu Schwaz around 1521. According to a report of the German Federal Bank (German: Deutsche Bundesbank), the depiction of Eltz Castle was supposed to represent the age of chivalry in Germany.
