Wendelstein (Memleben)
Wendelstein is a part of the municipality of Kaiserpfalz in the Burgenlandkreis in southern Saxony-Anhalt , which is named after the medieval castle ruins of the same name from the 14th century , which have been partially renovated and inhabited . The castle was at times expanded into the Wendelstein fortress.
location
The castle and village of Wendelstein are located on a hill that drops steeply directly on the Unstrut . The location on the 30 m high gypsum rock makes a castle complex as a border fortress of the Saxons against the Franks likely for the early Middle Ages ; It is also discussed whether the Ottonian imperial palace Memleben could have been located here. Wendelstein lies east of Wiehe in Thuringia .
history
The castle is documented for the first time in 1312 under the inherited possessions of the Counts of Rabenswalde , as Wendilsteyn in 1322.
It initially belonged to the Counts of Weimar-Orlamünde, but they lost them in the Thuringian Count War (1342/1345) to the Wettin landgraves of Thuringia . Landgrave Friedrich II pledged the castle to his court judge Christian von Witzleben († 1374). Through this the expansion took place. The oldest part of the castle with defiant walls and towers is in front of the west wing, here you can also see the remains of a Romanesque chapel. When Leipzig was divided in 1485, the castle fell to the Albertine Duchy of Saxony. After the Wittenberg surrender in 1547, the castle belonged to the Albertine Electorate of Saxony ( Thuringian district ).
In 1560 and 1590 further modifications were made to the residential palace. The north wing, which dates from the late Renaissance period , is only partially preserved, but still offers an impressive picture. The castle complex is surrounded by a stately moat that descends in several steps , which in turn is delimited by a wall with casemates .
Wendelstein Castle and its scattered property belonged to the Wendelstein line of the Lords of Witzleben until 1619. In 1623, Wendelstein and the associated rulership came into the direct possession of Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony as the Wendelstein office . During the Thirty Years' War the castle was devastated by the Pappenheimers in 1632 and by the Swedes in 1632 and 1640, after which only simpler half-timbered buildings were built. From 1657 to 1746 the Office for Wendelstein Albertine belonged Sekundogenitur -Fürstentum Saxe-Weissenfels , which is from 1686 in terms of the economy and the Principality of Justice Sachsen-Querfurt shelter.
In the 18th century, a well-known horse breeding from horses of Polish, Turkish and Tatar breeds arose. During the wars of freedom the stud was robbed of its horses on May 26th, 1813 by Lützower hunters under the command of Theodor Körner . The stud was not reoccupied; after Wendelstein was slammed into Prussia by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 , the domain fell into disrepair . In 1981, renovation work was carried out on the castle ruins and apartments were set up in the remaining buildings in the west wing and the south wing facing the Unstrut.
In 2004 the castle was sold. The current owner was originally from Berlin.
State of the fortress today (2016)
In late Gothic and Renaissance was Burg Wendelstein to Fortress Wendelstein expanded. The huge fortress moat, remains of a rampart with ruins of several bastions penetrating through it, remains of casemates and the two fortress gates that run underground through the ramparts have been preserved. Castle and fortifications are in a very ruinous condition. Foundation walls on a high rock and ruins below the rock have been preserved from the medieval Wendelstein Castle. The castle rock can still be climbed through a Renaissance stair tower. A roundabout is said to have been on the rock during the fortress period. In addition to the aforementioned ruins of the castle chapel below the rock, a castle kitchen (chimney vent) and an apparently Gothic rondel (ruin) as well as the two underground fortress gates are particularly worth seeing. Parts of the casemates / cellars were closed to visitors. On the slope of the Unstrut is the ruin of a water art (tower ruin), with which the fortress was once supplied with water from the Unstrut. The castle complexes, some of which are again used for residential purposes, are used privately. The castle courtyard is currently (2016) as freely accessible as large parts of the ruins.
The formerly defensive image is now softened by lush, thriving green growth, ramparts and ditches are overgrown with grass and surrounded by trees that block the view of the Wendelstein district; on the other hand, the view from the south is characterized by the bare, steep gypsum rock . From the Wendelstein, the visitor has a view of the Unstruttal and Thuringia.
Archaeological evidence
Archaeological finds indicated that there was already a Bronze Age hilltop settlement in Wendelstein . Triggered by the discovery of the Nebra Sky Disc , the Department of Prehistory and Protohistory of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena carried out an excavation in 2006 as part of the DFG- funded project “The Departure to New Horizons. The finds from Nebra , Saxony-Anhalt , and their significance for the Bronze Age in Europe ”. Initially the focus of the investigations was on the hill settlements. In the end, twelve sites in the macro-region around Nebra (40 km radius) were also included in the investigations. The aim was to fathom the actual appearance of these hilltop settlements and to clarify whether they were central locations which, as suspected, had the function of fortified control points for trade at topographically favorable points and whether they were representative signs of an upper class. During the excavations in Wendelstein which were targeted to defile hemming Wall structure and two other geophysical promising sites uncovered. The layer structure of the wall could be clearly understood. It is formed from a layer under the humus that covers the prehistoric findings and is therefore younger than these. Among the findings, an Iron Age storage pit with the skeleton of a goat was uncovered. Other finds indicate that the site was already used in the late Bronze Age.
The place Wendelstein
There is currently only one sheep farm in the village. The horse breeding was stopped after a dispute over the property.
literature
- Fritz Kühnlenz: Cities and castles on the Unstrut. Greifenverlag, 1st edition 1992, ISBN 3-7352-0293-4 or special binding - Verlagshaus Thüringen 1999, ISBN 3-89683-121-6
- Castles and palaces in Saxony-Anhalt; Edited by the Saxony-Anhalt regional group of the German Castle Association, booklets 7 & 8
Web links
- Castle world
- Blue ribbon - Unstrut Wendelstein
- History of the Wendelstein
- Reconstruction drawing
- Wendelstein Castle at Burgenarchiv.de - Description of the existing building stock Oct. 2014
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 51 ° 17 ' N , 11 ° 28' E