The poet, jurist and philosopher Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg, known as Novalis, was born in Schloss Oberwiederstedt in 1772. In 1988, the building, which was threatened with demolition, was saved by civic commitment, and four years later it was transferred to municipal ownership. Today, the castle with its neighbouring buildings is an institution with the district of Mansfeld-Südharz in Saxony-Anhalt as responsible body and funded by the state of Saxony-Anhalt, the private foundation under civil law "Wege wagen mit Novalis" and the Internationale Novalis Gesellschaft e. V. based in Oberwiederstedt. The main building and its surrounding grounds were gradually repaired. The first authentic objects - such as a portrait and the poet's christening bonnet - were not returned to the museum until after the turn of the millennium. In the meantime, Schloss Oberwiederstedt houses, among other things, the family gallery of the baronial von Hardenberg family, which has returned to its original location, and a library that collects all the books Novalis is known to have read.