Dinslaken Castle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dinslaken Castle, view from the southwest

The Castle Dinslaken earlier, also the castle Dinslaken called, is a castle in the North Rhine-Westphalian city of Dinslaken and also its nucleus. Probably erected as a moth on an elevation in the former swamp area between the Rhine , Rotbach , Emscher and Lippe , it was one of the most important Klevian castles in the Middle Ages . Its importance declined in the early modern period , and the complex was almost exclusively used as a residence for rent masters and judges. Damaged several times by fires, the castle was repeatedly expanded and converted in the 17th and 18th centuries before it was acquired by the city of Dinslaken and converted into a district building at the beginning of the 20th century. After severe damage in the Second World War , the fort was rebuilt in modern forms and today serves, among other things, as the town hall. It stands as since April 4, 1984 monument under monument protection .

history

Beginnings

In a document from 1163, Antonius de Dincelachen was named for the first time who named himself after the castle at that time. However, it is possible that this document is a forgery that was only made in the early 1190s. Antonius came from a ministerial family and administered the castle as castellanus , according to another document from the period between 1188 and 1191 . From the documents that have been preserved, however, it is not clear in whose name Antonius exercised the administrator's office. Possibly Dinslaken Reichs was good and the facility at that time was therefore a Reichsburg. Nothing is known about its appearance at that time, but research believes it is likely that it was a moth that was erected in the 12th century - perhaps as early as 1100. However, so far there is no archaeological evidence for this first facility.

Several burgraves for Dinslaken are documented for the 13th century, for example a Rutgerus in 1226 and Heinrich around the middle of the 13th century, who was mentioned several times in documents together with his two brothers Philipp and Gottfried. Their family lost the burgrave office after 1263 and was apparently ousted by Count Dietrich V von Kleve , who incorporated Dinslaken into his domain. Earlier statements that Dinslaken came into the possession of the Count's House through the marriage of Dietrich IV von Kleve to a Dinslaken heir daughter named Mathilde cannot be historically proven. To the south of the castle, a settlement was probably built early on, which was given city rights in 1273 under Dietrich V.

Under the Klever counts and dukes

Dinslaken Castle on the Klevian cadastral map

In the 14th century, the facility served the Klever Count's House as a widow's residence and a pawn. It is said that it was temporarily pledged to Everwin von Götterswick, and Mechthild von Virneburg , Otto von Kleve's young widow , received the town and castle of Dinslaken with several courts and courts in the area as Wittum . She was referring here not only income, but also lived in the castle and practiced the rule of. In 1337 she sold the rights to Dinslaken to her brother-in-law Johann von Kleve , who handed the castle over to his brother, Count Dietrich VII , the following year , so that the complex was again under Klevian rule. Subsequently, it was no longer used as the residence of the count family, but only as an official seat and administrative center.

After the death of Count Johann von Kleve, Adolf III. von der Mark prevailed as his successor, but had to cede the area on the right bank of the Rhine to his two brothers Dietrich and Engelbert . In this way, Dinslaken came to Dietrich I von der Mark in 1371, who once again used the castle as a residence and even had coins minted there. After he had ceded his rights to the castle and town in the spring of 1404 in exchange for compensation to his nephew, Count Adolf II , the castle again belonged to the County of Kleve. From now on it was used again mainly as an administrative headquarters, where Klevian rentmasters sat. Nevertheless, Adolph II had the complex significantly expanded around 1420 and given a striking castle tower. It also served as a bastion on the right bank of the Rhine for the Clever Counts against the Archbishopric of Cologne and was visited by them on occasional hunting trips until the 16th century.

During the Soest feud , Dinslaken Castle was temporarily separated from Kleve territory for the last time in 1444, when the now Duke Adolph II brought his youngest son Johann back from the Burgundian court in order to entrust him with the warfare against the Archbishop of Cologne, Dietrich II von Moers . The son received the Klevischen areas on the right bank of the Rhine from Duisburg to Rees and thus also Dinslaken as befitting their status . The possessions including the castle returned to the duchy only four years later, when Johann von Kleve succeeded his father as duke. For the end of the 15th century it is guaranteed that the buildings were meanwhile badly run down, in 1495/1496 a lot of renovation work was necessary. In addition, a fire damaged the complex in 1517. The north-west wing of the castle was probably built after this incident. The round tower served as a prison several times in the 16th century. Among other things, the supposed witch Ulant Dammartz was arrested there from 1516 to 1521 and the Anabaptist Jan Willemsen imprisoned from 1574 to 1580 before he was executed.

From the 17th century until today

Engraving with the castle and town of Dinslaken, after a drawing by Hendrick Feltman, ca.1660

After the ducal house died out in 1609, the Jülich-Klevische succession dispute followed , which in 1666 finally resulted in Dinslaken falling to the Electorate of Brandenburg . For the 17th century there is evidence that Reformed services were occasionally held in the castle hall from 1612 onwards. The often alleged destruction of the complex in 1627 during the Thirty Years War by Dutch troops is not supported by documents. A report from 1629 only speaks of a generally poor structural condition. Shortly before 1650, the helmet of the main tower was also destroyed by fire, severely damaging the roofs of the gatehouse and office. The castle was rebuilt several times in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is possible that the north-east wing of the complex was built during this work in the 17th century. The southwest wing with its farm buildings was built in 1709.

The burnt down castle in 1909

In 1820 part of the great tower collapsed because it was badly damaged by lightning in 1770 and was not repaired afterwards. In 1820 its remains were completely laid down. On February 19, 1839, the well-known cultural politician Friedrich Althoff was born in the castle . His maternal family, the von Buggenhagen family , owned the Dinslaken fort at that time in the second generation. In 1853 she sold the castle to Friedrich de Fries, who used it for agriculture and set up a schnapps distillery in the buildings. In 1859 there were plans to use the facility as an asylum, but they were abandoned. The plan to house a training school there was also not implemented. In 1906, the city of Dinslaken acquired the castle complex and had it rebuilt from 1907 to 1909 so that it could then be used as the seat of the district administration. Not only was an apartment set up for the district administrator in the north-west wing, but also outbuildings were laid down in order to build a new building with administration rooms and a meeting room in its place. In April 1909 the administration was supposed to start, but the night before the inauguration the plant burned down from April 6th to 7th, 1909. The reconstruction took place immediately, and in the autumn of the same year the district administration was able to move into its new domicile.

During the Second World War, the castle - like the city - was almost completely destroyed in March 1945. From April 1950 to 1952, it was rebuilt on the old floor plan, but mostly in modern forms. Some older components were still preserved. Until the Dinslaken district was dissolved in 1974, the complex served as a district building. Since 1984 it has housed parts of the town hall, the registry office and the city archive.

description

Northeast view of the castle
Gate construction

The castle stands in the middle of Dinslaken and is a four-wing complex with an irregular floor plan. It is surrounded by the Dinslaken city park, in which the open-air theater of the Dinslaken Burgtheater has been located west of the castle since 1934 . Due to the extensive destruction in the Second World War, the old building fabric is now only available on the south-east side with a tower stump, gate and a square tower on the east corner. In front of this side is a pond, which is the only remnant of the former moat.

The Klevian cadastral map from 1734 shows Dinslaken Castle still as a three-wing complex surrounded by wide moats fed by the Rotbach . The moat included a square garden island in the north. In addition, there was a formal garden to the east of the moat . The two-storey north-east wing probably came from the first half of the 16th century and had a stepped gable and a stair tower on the courtyard side . The two-storey north-west wing with its high windows may have been built in the 17th century. It had a hipped roof with a small ridge turret . The most striking component of the castle, however, has been the round main tower since the 15th century, whose height is estimated to be 40 meters. It consisted of three parts, the masonry of which was probably made of brick and which had a smaller diameter with increasing height. They all had covered, protruding battlements and were presumably closed off by a pointed helmet in the past. For a long time, the tower housed a prison, in which embarrassing interrogations were carried out, because Dinslaken Castle also served as the seat of a judge.

Today only a stump of the main tower that was rebuilt in the post-war period can be seen. It is on the south corner of the castle, right next to the gate of the facility. A 46 meter long ramp and a subsequent two-arched bridge lead to this from the south . Like the gate and the foundations of the round tower, they consist of large, roughly hewn basalt blocks . The arched gate is closed by a flat hipped roof and still shows the cover of the former drawbridge . It was probably equipped with a portcullis earlier . The building can be dated to around 1250 and is one of the few remaining castle gates from the 13th century on the Lower Rhine . At the eastern corner of the complex, the massive square tower had a basement with 2.30 meter thick walls and a barrel vault made of tufa slabs until it was destroyed in the war . This part could have originated from the 12th century and was the rest of a residential tower .

literature

Web links

Commons : Burg Dinslaken  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b J. Wroblewski, A. Wemmers: Theiss Burgenführer. Lower Rhine. 2001, p. 44.
  2. ^ Heinrich August Erhard (ed.): Regesta historiae Westfaliae: Accedit Codex diplomaticus. The sources of the history of Westphalia, in chronologically ordered records and extracts, accompanied by a document book. Volume 1. Regensberg, Münster 1847, p. 100, No. 330 ( digitized version ).
  3. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, p. 15.
  4. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, pp. 19-20. Jens Wroblewski, however, suspects that Antonius' family was a noble family that had a local manor . See J. Wroblewski, A. Wemmers: Theiss Burgenführer. Lower Rhine. 2001, p. 44.
  5. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, p. 20.
  6. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, p. 24, note 38 and p. 28.
  7. ↑ a b c G. M. Marzin: Dinslaken Castle. 2010, p. 380.
  8. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, pp. 22-23.
  9. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, p. 23.
  10. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, p. 32.
  11. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, p. 31.
  12. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, pp. 33–35.
  13. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, p. 39.
  14. ↑ a b M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, p. 40.
  15. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, p. 42.
  16. ↑ a b c P. Clemen: The art monuments of the city of Duisburg and the districts of Mülheim ad Ruhr and Ruhrort. 1893, p. 54.
  17. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, pp. 43–44.
  18. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, p. 36.
  19. ↑ M. Hagemann: On the history of Dinslaken Castle. 2015, p. 37.
  20. ↑ a b c d J. Wroblewski, A. Wemmers: Theiss Burgenführer. Lower Rhine. 2001, p. 45.

Coordinates: 51 ° 33 ′ 45.8 "  N , 6 ° 43 ′ 53.3"  E