Siege of court
The siege of Hof was a historical event of the Second Margrave War . The city of Hof was successfully besieged in 1553 by the opponents of Margrave Albrecht Alcibiades .
Starting position
In the Second Margrave War and the Prince's Uprising, Albrecht Alcibiades feuded his neighbors, including Würzburg , Bamberg and Nuremberg , but also more distant bishoprics and princes. After questions of faith, which played a decisive role in the prince uprising, could be settled in negotiations such as the Passau Treaty , Albrecht Alcibiades continued his acts of war unchanged and isolated himself from his previous allies. He was also unable to maintain the advantages he had gained over his neighbors over the long term. As the siege of Kulmbach and the Plassenburg show, the war shifted to the own state of Brandenburg-Kulmbach and ultimately led to the defeat of the margrave. Despite the lost war, the House of Hohenzollern managed to maintain its claims to the destroyed margravate. Georg Friedrich followed as margrave .
Siege of court
The siege of the city of Hof is documented in great detail by the historian Jacob Schlemmer . There is also a woodcut by the Nuremberg artist Hans Glaser , who has summarized the most important events in a city view. The city was defended by Captain Christoph von Zedtwitz . Heinrich IV von Plauen was one of the leaders of the besiegers , who appointed Georg Wolf von Kotzau as governor of Hof after the siege . In addition to the city wall, Hof Palace was also part of the defense system.
The sisters of the Hof monastery under Abbess Amalie von Hirschberg had fled to Eger . The church of St. Lorenz was looted during the siege and burned down. The Hofer watch tower , although strategically of little importance, burned out. The hospital church served the besiegers as a war camp and was shot at and destroyed by the margravers.
exhibition
A true-to-scale model of the city of Hof at the time of the siege is in the Hofer Museum Bayerisches Vogtland . Striking buildings, streets, the city fortifications and the city limits of that time are largely reproduced exactly. Based on and in collaboration with the German Tin Figure Museum on the Plassenburg in Kulmbach , a diorama of the besiegers is exhibited, as well as some items of equipment belonging to the warriors. Stone cannonballs were also built into several house walls within the city, including the Michaeliskirche .
Immured ball on the tower of St. Michaelis (left)
Enlargement of the ball on the tower
Back of St. Michaelis with ball in the arched window at the top right
Enlargement of the sphere on the window frame
literature
- Kurt Stierstorfer: The Siege of Hof 1553 . Hof 2003. ISBN 3-928626-43-4 .
- Kurt Stiersdorfer, Walter Wirth (ed.): Jacob Schlemmer - Historia of the Margrave War and the siege of Hof . Hof 2011. ISBN 978-3-928626-62-0 .