Old Castle (Dillingen)

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The old castle in Dillingen, view from the southwest

The old castle in Dillingen , like many castles, goes back to a medieval castle . Its origins are believed to be in the 14th century. As the owner, Dillinger Hütte has leased the castle to the city, which uses it for cultural purposes, among other things. A development association has been supporting the restoration of the castle since 1983 .

history

middle Ages

The Lords of Siersberg and Dillingen

The castle was first mentioned in 1357. The proximity to the confluence of the Prims and Nied in the Saar made it possible to control the traffic flows. The castle in the valley was also protected by watercourses and is therefore also known as a water castle . Even today, the castle is still surrounded by a tributary of the Prims. The first owners were the lords of the Siersburg , a hilltop castle not far on the other side of the Saar .

The Siersburg on the other side of the Saar

The nobleman Arnold I. von Siersberg (1232–1276) appears as the first documented owner of Dillingen. Dillingen was not a rulership of its own, but belonged to the Siersburg. In 1262 Arnold von Siersberg handed over the patronage rights and the tithe in Dillingen to the Mettlach monastery . According to documented statements by Arnold, Dillingen had belonged to his family for thirty years, who would have bought it from the Odilienberg monastery in Alsace . Under the heirs of Arnold's son Johann von Siersberg, Dillingen was separated from the Siersburg as a special area and handed over to Volkmar von Siersberg. Volkmar is first called Herr von Dillingen in 1329. After Volkmar's death, the rule of Dillingen was bequeathed to Arnold II von Siersberg (probably Volkmar's brother). Arnold II is mentioned in a document for the first time in 1340/41 as lord of Dillingen and Siersberg. From then on, all the descendants of Arnold II family called. To extinction in the male line of Lords of Dillingen.

Probably under Arnold II at the latest, the Dillinger Castle was built around 1340 as a moated castle. The castle was first mentioned in a document in 1357, when Arnold II's son, Eberhard von Dillingen, transferred half of his Dillingen property to Count Heinrich von Veldenz as pledge for 400 guilders . In 1387, half of this pledge seems to have been released again, as in that year only a quarter of Dillingen Castle was in the fiefdom of the Count of Veldenz .

In 1421 Philipp von Siersberg was enfeoffed by Count Philipp von Nassau-Saarbrücken with the castle and the village of Dillingen including a mill there. The reason for this was that Philipp von Nassau-Saarbrücken had redeemed the debts of Philip's father Eberhard to Veldenz with 300 guilders and received Dillingen as a feudal lordship in return. However, this financial move was not legal, as Dillingen was not an allod , but a Lorraine fief.

In the years 1471, 1490, 1507, 1535 and 1547 these enfeoffments were repeated. The last representative of the Lords of Dillingen, Ladwein and Ludwin von Siersberg was appointed to the Herzoghof in Nancy in 1535 . The House of Nassau-Saarbrücken then turned to the Imperial Court of Justice , which, however, decided the matter in favor of the Duke of Lorraine. Ladwein / Ludwin compared himself in 1554 with his subjects Dillinger because of guilty to the castle Dillingen compulsory labor .

Early modern age

In 1558, the noble lords of Siersberg died out with Ladwin von Siersberg.

The Lords of Braubach

Alexander von Braubach, son of Ladwein's / Ludwin's sister Lisa (Lisas von Sierberg and Dillingen married in 1527 to Johann von Braubach, the Lorraine bailiff in Saargemünd ), inherited the rule . Alexander von Braubach was raised to the status of a baron , probably through the acquisition of Dillingen .

Alexander's grandson Wilhelm Marzloff von Braubach, who married the wealthy Margarethe von Wiltz, became lord of Dillingen in 1591. He was also responsible for the possessions around the castle in Fremersdorf , Roden , Siersberg, Büren, Wahlen and Mörsberg as well as the rights of patronage in Dillingen and Wallerfangen . In addition, he was councilor of the Duke of Lorraine, president of the Assisen zu Wallerfangen and governor of the fortress Wallerfangen and Lord zu Heiligenmohr in Lorraine .

With the construction of a renaissance castle by Wilhelm Marzloff, large parts of the castle were demolished. Parts of this building are still present in today's building.

With the death of Wilhelm Marzloff von Braubach, the Dillinger rule of Braubach died out in the male line.

Lordship of Savigny

Matthias Gallas

Wilhelm Marzloff's son-in-law Franz de Savigny, Seigneur de Laymont, Mauraige, Chardogne and Brabant , inherited the castle through marriage to Anna Magdalena von Braubach. During the reign of Franz de Savigny in 1635, it was besieged and sacked by Gallas ' troops .

After Franz de Savigny's death, his wife Anna Magdalena von Braubach managed the castle until her death in 1657. During this period of decline, the Savigny family became impoverished.

Lordship of Lénoncourt-Blainville

The Marquis Franz de Lénoncourt-Blainville, Seigneur de Gondrecourt, Savigny's son-in-law and husband of Dillingen's only heir, Antoinette, inherited the troubled rule. After the breakdown of the marriage, Antoinette and her son were left alone in the Dillingen Castle, while Franz de Savigny went to the court of the Duke of Lorraine in Nancy and stayed there until his death in 1664. His son Charles Henri de Lenoncourt was in 1664 with the reign invested and founded in 1685 Dillinger Hütte .

During the Dutch War , the castle was occupied by the French in 1674 and looted by Imperial and Lorraine troops in 1677. The Austrian Count of Starhemberg conquered the castle on May 15, 1677. Starhemberg had the previous French occupiers (130 men) locked up in the Merzig Church and the commandant of the Dillingen Castle, a native of Lorraine, hanged on behalf of the Duke of Lorraine. The rich stocks of grain and ammunition in Dillingen Castle went into the hands of the Austrians.

Charles Henri de Lénoncourts eldest son and successor Charles Louis Henri Francois sold after his marriage with Terese Angélique Countess de Ligneville in 1721 most of the reign Dillingen including the tithe law to the Seigneur Hordal du Lys and Cussigny de Tailfumyr.

Dominions of Toussaint de Vira, Cussigny de Tailfumyr, Lasalle, de Mandell

When Charles Louis Henri Francois de Lénoncourt died in 1731, his childless widow Térèse Angélique sold the last remaining part of the Dillingen estate, including the castle, to Claude Francois Toussaint de Vira, Lord of Aboncourt, for 150,000 Lorraine Francs and 60 new Louisdor. Already three years later (1746) he gave the rule and castle of Dillingen to his brother-in-law Cussigny de Tailfumyr for 100,000 francs.

Charles Francois Dieudonné de Tailfumyr, Seigneur de Cussigny et Président à Mortier was a high official in Lorraine. He was a baptized Jew and showed his Jew-friendly policy by the permission granted in 1755 to create a Jewish cemetery on the edge of the Dillinger Forest on the Dieffler border in an area of ​​approx. 90 ares . The initiative came from the Saarlouis Jews Hayem and Zerf von Worms and Elias Reutlinger, who had to pay an annual interest of 25 Lorraine francs for it.

During the rule of Tailfumyr, the Dillinger rule rose in value. He sold the barony in Metz on May 27, 1762 with the castle, righteous persons and rents from 421 acres of fields and meadows and 1675 acres of land for 147,710 francs to Albert Lasalle from Saarlouis.

The son of Georges Theodore and Ursule Catherine de Lasalle, Albert de Lasalle (born May 11, 1722 in Saarlouis, † June 26, 1769 in Niederlimberg, buried in the old parish church in Dillingen), took over together with his wife Charlotte (née d´ Osquet) took over the parental estates in Bettingen, Limbach and Saarlouis, served as city councilor and mayor in Saarlouis, and increased his fortune as an army supplier. In 1755 he is mentioned as "avocat en Parlement" and as a fiefdom holder in Berus, Berweiler, Edelingen and a Schmittenburg Unterlehens. From 1757 he was Inspector General of the Three Bishoprics ( Trois-Évêchés et de la Lorraine). As a result of the acquisition of the Dillingen rule, he succeeded on July 11, 1763 on the recommendation of the Trier Elector Johann IX. Philipp von Walderdorff was raised to the German nobility by the German Emperor Franz I. Stephan as a baron . This title was recognized as a hereditary title of nobility after Lorraine was annexed to France in 1766. In the same year, the imperial city of Cologne granted him its council and citizenship rights. When he died in the castle in Niederlimberg in 1769, he was buried at his own request in the old Luzienkirche in Dillingen.

A Latin inscription in the successor to the Luzienkirche, today's Dillingen parish church of St. Johann, reminds of him. It remains unclear whether his bones were exhumed and buried in today's church or whether they are still in the leveled area of ​​the old church. The Latin inscription reads in German translation:

“To the best and highest God. Albert Lasalle from Dillingen rests here. As an army supplier, he served his office with honesty. He was faithful to the Lord and entirely devoted to the honorable. He, who was more concerned with honor than money, gifted the Senate and the citizens of Cologne with citizenship . On the recommendation of the Elector of Trier , the Holy Imperial Highness raised him to the nobility . Him who loved the poor, the poor loved again. Intercessions were made in his name and at his expense. Since they had pleaded in vain to avert his death, they almost made up for the grief and pain of the grieving wife. Oh old belief! Oh calm being of his manners! What an honorable and brilliant life uninterrupted. May the sons also seek paternal praise one day! He died on June 27, 1769, the year of the Lord, nearly 47 years old. Pray to God for him. "

Lasalle's heirs sold Dillingen and his castle in 1787 for 200,500 francs to Phillipp Wilhelm Juste, Baron de Mandell (1779–1787: Lieutenant-Colonel in the Nassau-Saarbrücken Cavalry Regiment / 1790: Lieutenant-Colonel in the Chasseurs de Flandre Regiment), the court marshal at the Fürstenhof in Saarbrücken .

Latest time

Elevation of Dillingen to a duchy under Ludwig von Saarbrücken

Probably because of disputes with the hut owners, the Baron de Mandell sold the estate and Dillingen Palace on January 22nd, 1789 to his employer, Prince Ludwig von Saarbrücken, for 225,000 francs.

Katharina Kest

The prince wanted to equip his second morganatic wife Katharina Kest ("Gänsegretel von Fechingen") with the Dillingen estate , who had previously been the maid of the prince's previous mistress , Frau von Dorsberg. Katharina now bore the title Baroness von Ludwigsberg. In 1784 she became Countess of Ottweiler. On February 28, 1787, a few years after the death of Ludwig's wife Wilhelmine von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt in 1780, Prince Ludwig married Katharina Kest. Between 1775 and 1789 she had seven children, five sons and two daughters; most of them died young.

The Dillingen rule also included rights in the localities of leasing , Itzbach (today Siersburg ), Fickingen (today Saarfels) , Bettingen (today Schmelz), Diefflen and Nalbach .

Prince Ludwig von Nassau-Saarbrücken reached the French King Louis XVI. by "lettres patentes" of April 1789 from Versailles the elevation of the previous barony of Dillingen to the duchy and was able to raise his unequal wife Katharina again in rank.

As a result, Balthasar Wilhelm Stengel , the son of the princely general builder Friedrich Joachim Stengel and foreman Johann Adam Knipper the Elder , began to convert the previous Dillingen Palace into a ducal residence. Nevertheless, the palace was rarely used by the royal family. However, Katharina Kest came to the castle in Dillingen for the birth of her youngest son Adolph in order to underpin his future claim to rule over Dillingen. Adolph died in the Napoleonic campaign in Russia .

French Revolution, Napoleon and sale to the Dillinger Hütte

Photographed around 1900

Before the troops of the French Revolution , the princely family fled first to Mannheim , then to Aschaffenburg . Ludwig died here in 1794. Katharina returned to Mannheim, where she died in 1829. The French state pulled in the Duchy of Dillingen. Under Napoleon, Katharina Kest got the rule and Dillingen Castle back, but in 1806 she sold all goods (1,600 acres of forest and 400 acres of gardens, fields and meadows as well as the castle) to Dillinger Hütte. The castle then had the hut converted for residential purposes. The castle, the land and the forest have been owned by the Dillinger Hütte ever since .

During the Second World War, the castle was completely bombed out. The gate and outer bailey survived and were restored after the war. One wing of the main building was also rebuilt, while the other two wings have been in ruins since then.

Excavations (1953-1960)

In 1953, on the initiative of its General Director Jean Mesqui , the Dillinger Hütte began planning the reconstruction of the Dillinger Castle, which had been destroyed in the war. The building was completely burned out and the bridge over the artificial branch of the Prims, which flows past the northwest wing, had collapsed.

In a first phase of construction, the north-west wing with the larger representative rooms was rebuilt by 1957. The work was doing by the State Conservator Office of the Saarland historic preservation supervised and funded by the Saarland state government.

During the first investigations for the reconstruction of the other two wings, the remains of the wall of a round tower that came from an older building were found in the south-east wing . The archaeological excavations initiated by Jean Mesqui in 1958 and 1959 by the State Conservator's Office revealed that the outer walls of the south-east wing had an old castle wall as a foundation over a length of 17.16 meters. It then runs to the north-northeast, changing direction, towards the round tower that has already been found. From this round tower the castle wall then continues in a north-west direction. The tower thus only fitted into a bend in the castle wall without protruding outward from the wall connection. Starting from the round tower, after five meters the wall ran radially towards a second round tower, which means that the second castle tower protruded from the castle wall by about half.

A continuation of the castle wall could not be excavated. Presumably it was destroyed. Both the two round towers and the castle wall are 1.80 meters thick. The round towers have an outer diameter of six and an inner diameter of 2.40 meters. The castle wall also forms the foundation for part of the outer wall of the south-west wing and otherwise runs diagonally through the wing with a wall thickness of 2 to 2.10 meters.

The medieval castle complex has to be imagined as an asymmetrical polygon . The head of the excavation and restoration work and director of the State Conservatory Office Martin Klewitz suspects a hexagonal floor plan. Whether and where there is a great hall has given and a keep, remains unclear. Further excavations were not possible due to the proximity to the stream (artificial Primsarm), as the terrain would have filled up very quickly. The small castle may have stood on an island.

The archaeological investigations revealed several parts from the Renaissance period: a fragment of a column with fittings, a shell crown, remains of the Renaissance painting with fittings-like ornament , shards of stove tiles, vessels and crockery made of glass and ceramics. Pottery from the late Gothic period was found increasingly.

Klewitz's investigations assume that Wilhelm Balthasar Stengel only renewed the existing Renaissance building.

The Dillinger Hütte refrained from rebuilding the two wings that had been in ruins since the Second World War. These were only secured and their walls protected against the weather with cement smears. But it is possible to keep the remains of the medieval castle visible.

  • Entrance to the outer bailey

  • Front of the castle

  • Rear of the castle with the chapel tower

  • Art installation curtain

Legend of the walled-in woman in Dillingen Castle

The legend handed down by the folklorist Karl Lohmeyer from Saarland tells that earlier at night in Dillingen Castle one often heard piercing wailing sounds and bitter weeping. A light figure of a white woman floated over the castle courtyard and disappeared into one of the castle towers. This white woman was the spirit of the beautiful but faithless wife of the Dillinger knight. She had often betrayed the knight in his absence. When the repeated adultery came to light, the angry Dillinger knight had his faithless wife walled up alive in one of the thick castle towers, where she then perished in her damp and dark dungeon.

literature

  • Georg Baltzer: The history of the city of Saarlouis and its immediate surroundings, Saarlouis 1865.
  • Georg Colesie: witch trials at the high court of Nalbach, in: Journal for the history of the Saar region, 17/18, 1969/1970.
  • Robert Furgaux: Lenoncourt en Lorraine, St. Nicolas-de-Port 1979.
  • Adam Goerz: Mittelrheinische Regesten of the two administrative districts Coblenz and Trier, 4 volumes, Coblenz 1879–1886.
  • Maximilian Gritzner: The nobility of German Lorraine, in: Siebmacher's Wappenbuch, Volume 2, 11th Department, Nuremberg 1873.
  • Hermann van Ham: "Contributions to the history of the Dillinger Hüttenwerke stock corporation - 1685-1935", Astra-Werke, Saarlautern 1935.
  • Kurt Hoppstädter : The castle in Dillingen , in: Geschichtliche Landeskunde des Saarlandes, From the hand ax to the winding tower, ed. v. Kurt Hoppstädter u. Hans-Walter Herrmann , Vol. 1 with the assistance of Erhard Dehnke, Saarbrücken 1960, pp. 148–151.
  • Kurt Hoppstädter: The Saarbrücker Hofadel in the 18th century, in: Journal for the history of the Saar region, 16, 1968.
  • Anton Jakob: The Siersburg through the centuries, Saarlouis 1958.
  • August Hermann Jungk: Regesta on the history of the former Nassau-Saarbrückische Land, 2 parts, in: Communications of the historical association for the Saar area, issue 13 (1914) and issue 14 (1919).
  • Martin Klewitz : Castle and Palace Dillingen / Saar , Dillingen 1974.
  • Aloys Lehnert : History of the City of Dillingen / Saar , Dillingen / Saar 1968.
  • Karl Lohmeyer : Balthasar Wilhelm Stengel, the chief building director of Prince Ludwig von Saarbrücken, Saarbrücken 1910.
  • Karl Lohmeyer: Southwest German gardens of the Baroque and Romantic periods with their domestic and foreign models based on the working material of the Saarland and Palatinate court gardener family of the Koellner, Saarbrücker Abhandlungen zur Southwest German art and culture, Volume 1, Saarbrücken 1937.
  • Announcements of the historical association for the Saar area, issue 5–7, Saarbrücken 1890–1900.
  • Nicolas Bernard Motte: Manuscrit tiré des archives mêmes de Sarrelouis et de ses environs par Nicolas Bernard Motte Seigneur d'Altvillers (1777–1860), Sarrelouis 1922/23.
  • Walter Petto: Alleged Jews in the Saarland Economic History of the Princely Period, in: Saarheimat, 10, 1986.
  • Carl Pöhlmann: Regesta of the feudal deeds of the Counts of Veldenz, Speyer 1928.
  • Barbara Purbs-Hensel: Vanished Renaissance castles in Nassau-Saarbrücken, (publications by the Institute for Regional Studies of the Saarland. Volume 24), Saarbrücken 1975.
  • Alheidis von Rohr : Architectural drawings by Balthasar Wilhelm Stengel, in: Berliner Museen, NF 18, 1/1968.
  • Albert Ruppersberg : History of the County of Saarbrücken, After Friedrich and Adolf Köllner, revised and expanded by Albert Ruppersberg. 4 volumes. Part I: From the earliest times to the introduction of the Reformation. With illustrations in the text and a collotype plate. Part II: From the introduction of the Reformation to the unification with Prussia. 1574-1815. With 23 illustrations in the text and 2 maps. III. Part: History of the cities of Saarbrücken, St. Johann and Malstatt-Burbach. With 2 views, 4 plans and 38 illustrations in the text. III. Part, Volume 1: History of the cities of Saarbrücken and St. Johann up to the year 1815. (folding map), Saarbrücken 1899–1903.
  • Eckart Sander: The most beautiful castles and palaces in Saarland , Hamburg 1999.
  • Schmitt, Philipp: History of Dillingen, document book of Dillingen in the archive of the parish Holy Sacrament, Dillingen.
  • Gertrud Schmidt: Castle and Castle Dillingen, From the Lorraine domination to the French duchy , Dillingen 1990.
  • Friedrich Toepfer: Document book for the history of the count and baronial house of the bailiffs of Hunolstein, 3 volumes, Nuremberg 1866–1872.
  • Margit Vonhof: Balthasar Wilhelm Stengel, the chief building director of Prince Ludwig von Nassau-Saarbrücken, in: Festschrift for Wolfgang Götz on the occasion of his 60th birthday on February 12, 1983, Saarbrücken 1984.
  • Walter Zimmermann: The art monuments of the districts Saarlouis and Ottweiler, Düsseldorf 1934.

Web links

Commons : Schloss Dillingen / Saar  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ altes-schloss-dillingen.de ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.altes-schloss-dillingen.de
  2. ↑ Georg Baltzer: Historical notes on the city of Saarlouis and its immediate vicinity, Trier 1865 (reprint 1911), Part II, p. 135f.
  3. ^ Heinrich Niessen: History of the Saarlouis district, Volume I, The individual districts of the district and statistics, Saarlouis 1893, p. 256f.
  4. ^ Anton Jakob: The Siersburg through the centuries, Saarlouis 1958.
  5. ^ Carl Pöhlmann: Regesten of the feudal deeds of the Counts of Veldenz, Speyer 1928.
  6. ↑ a b State Archives Koblenz, 22/2450: man book of the counties Saarbrücken, Saar Werden and Weilburg etc.
  7. ↑ State Archives Koblenz, 54 / p. 986.
  8. ↑ Kurt Hoppstädter: The castle in Dillingen, in: Geschichtliche Landeskunde des Saarlandes, From the hand ax to the winding tower, ed. v. Kurt Hoppstädter u. Hans-Walter Herrmann, Vol. 1 with the assistance of Erhard Dehnke, Saarbrücken 1960, pp. 148–151, here p. 149.
  9. ↑ Kurt Hoppstädter: The castle in Dillingen, in: Geschichtliche Landeskunde des Saarlandes, From the hand ax to the winding tower, ed. v. Kurt Hoppstädter u. Hans-Walter Herrmann, Vol. 1 with the assistance of Erhard Dehnke, Saarbrücken 1960, pp. 148–151, here p. 150.
  10. ^ Heinrich Niessen: History of the Saarlouis district, Volume I, The individual districts of the district and statistics, Saarlouis 1893, p. 266.
  11. ^ Aloys Lehnert: History of the City of Dillingen / Saar, Dillingen 1968, p. 156.
  12. ^ Theodor Liebertz: Wallerfangen and his story, Wallerfangen 1953, p. 354.
  13. ↑ Günther Bellmann and Armin Jost: The old parish, history of the parish of St. Johann Dillingen, ed. from the history workshop Dillingen / Saar e. V., Dillingen 2010, pp. 56-57.
  14. ↑ Kurt Hoppstädter: The castle in Dillingen, in: Geschichtliche Landeskunde des Saarlandes, From the hand ax to the winding tower, ed. v. Kurt Hoppstädter u. Hans-Walter Herrmann, Vol. 1 with the assistance of Erhard Dehnke, Saarbrücken 1960, pp. 148–151, here pp. 150–151.
  15. ^ Karl Lohmeyer: The sagas of the Saar from their sources to the mouth , anniversary edition for the 100th birthday of Karl Lohmeyer on January 21, 1978, (= 3rd edition from 1952), Saarbrücken 1978, p. 360.

Coordinates: 49 ° 21 ′ 10.6 ″  N , 6 ° 44 ′ 1 ″  E