Gardelegen Castle
The castle Gardelegen - in documents also Isenschnibbe called - was founded in the 10th century country castle in Gardelegen in today's Saxony-Anhalt . It was owned by the von Alvensleben family from 1378 to 1857 .
history
Early history
Under the protection of the castle, the town of Gardelegen developed from 1100, which brought it to economic importance, had a cultivated patriciate and joined the Hanseatic League . The " Garley ", Northern Germany's oldest export beer, was brewed in 250 breweries . During the Ascanian period , the Isenschnibbe served the Margraves of Brandenburg as one of their residences. A grandson of Albrecht the Bear , Count Heinrich († 1192), founder of important churches, was named after Gardelegen Castle. He first appeared in a document in 1186 as "Count of Gardelegen". This is also the oldest mention of Gardelegen. The Ascanians were followed by Welfen , Wittelsbach and Luxembourgers and the House of Hohenzollern .
Gardelegen Castle under Alvensleben rule
For a long time the rule was not denied until the later Emperor Sigismund Burg und Amt , who was always in need of money, pledged the White Alvensleben on Klötze in 1378 . Gebhard XIV. Von Alvensleben (mentioned 1393-1425) belonged to the nobility fronde around the Quitzow brothers , who opposed the Hohenzollern who was appointed as Margraves of Brandenburg in 1411 . In 1414 Margrave Friedrich I conquered the castle and thus fortified the rule of the Hohenzollern in the western Altmark . In 1448, Elector Friedrich II. Eisenzahn gave the castle, which was previously only a pawn, to Werner II. Von Alvensleben as a hereditary fiefdom .
With customs and half municipal jurisdiction, the castle had a semi-sovereign relationship with the city until the 16th century. The lords of the castle owned significant houses within Gardelegens. They also owned large forests and of the 31 surrounding villages some wholly, others partly, including Kunrau with the vast Drömling moorland . In addition, before and after the Reformation , there was the protection vogtei over the Cistercian convent Neuendorf with rights in the numerous localities of the abbey district. Almost all places in the area were related to the Lords of Gardelegen and Calbe . In procession , the men of Isenschnibbe used to appear with his entourage to the services of the Guard Leger Nicolai church in which even their dating from Roman times Domination is empore was. The inheritance of half of the wealthy court Erxleben in 1554, which increased the prosperity, found a visible sign in the artistic Gardeleg epitaph for Valentin von Alvensleben (1529–1596), created in 1597 by Jürgen and Hans Röttger, a major work of Braunschweig renaissance art . It was located in the Nicolaikirche until 1945 and was re-erected in the Marienkirche after its destruction.
The Thirty Years' War , in which the castle and town saw garrisons from changing powers such as their commanders, including Pappenheim , within their walls, hit Gardelegen hard. With a housewife, daughter of the Venetian Stechinelli , Guelph Drosten and imperial baron on Wieckenberg , the Catholic creed temporarily returned to the Isenschnibbe around 1700.
1783, the castle was demolished, a few years before even the dungeon . Instead of the castle, a two-story half-timbered building was built in a simple country house style. The von Kröcher family later lived there. The house was rebuilt by the Bloch von Blottnitz family. (See Isenschnibbe Castle)
Reconstruction image
The reconstruction picture, developed from an engraving by Matthäus Merian , shows the city in the wreath of its fortifications with Nicolaikirche, Marienkirche and the town hall tower. The approaching streets lead into the still existing Salzwedeler Tor. About the powerful Wasserburg is Kloster Neuendorf visible founded 1230th The Alvensleben were buried there as patrons until the Reformation, later in the Askaniergruft of the Gardeleg Nicolaikirche. On the right edge of the picture you can see the Boitzendorfer Teich, which was laid out by the lords of the castle before 1447, a reservoir three kilometers in length, on whose banks the Baroque gardens of Polvitz were created from 1692 ; in the background forests of the Brandenburg court hunting area Letzlingen , which - once known as the "Gardeleger Heide" - belonged to the castle. A double system of ditches protected the Isenschnibbe. The oldest landmark in the inner courtyard was the bulky round tower, next to it the fountain adorned with a columned pavilion. The spacious mansion was three stories high and housed the castle chapel that was still preserved in the basement. All buildings leaned against the polygonal castle wall, which was enclosed by the round inner moat, and consisted of half-timbered timber on the upper floors on the courtyard side. Isenschnibbe, Calvörde and the original Calbe represented the older type of castle with their mantle wall rings surrounded by water, to which the buildings were attached in a circle, and round mountain peace in the inner courtyard . Nothing certain is known about their pre-forms. The rectangular systems shaped the landscape, but appeared to be of later date. Since the economic areas were included, an actual outer bailey was missing. Access from the south was via four drawbridges . In front of the gate house on the wall , flanked by round bastions, there was a ravelin-like kennel . The castle mill was rebuilt in 1684. The pleasure garden and kitchen garden are attested, but not their location. Like the moats of the city, those of the castle were also fed by the Milde and the Lusbach, which flows into it here. In 1756 the keep was demolished and in 1784 the entire castle. Instead, a late baroque mansion was built.
Weteritz Castle
In 1831 the lords of the castle moved their residence from Isenschnibbe to Weteritz near Gardelegen, where a garden architect from Peter Joseph Lenné's surroundings surrounded the newly built manor house with a landscaped park . The deterioration in assets led to the sale of the Weteritz manor in 1857 to the ducal-Anhalt councilor Carl Heinrich Theodor Roth, whose family managed the property until it was expropriated in 1945. Adolph Menzel portrayed the last lady of the castle as the royal high stewardess for the Königsberg coronation picture from 1863. Weteritz Castle with its park is noticeably deteriorating. The park is hardly under visible maintenance, as is the castle, which has already been renovated. Furniture that was in the castle until 1945 was discovered in 2009 by the heirs of the Roth family in the town hall of Gardelegen. A dispute broke out over the furniture. No purchases are said to have taken place and the city asks for loans. The clarification of the problem is open. The Roth family has left their traces in the park to this day. Some of the trees that were gathered from many countries in four continents are still in the park.
In 2016 the castle was sold to two entrepreneurs. According to the Volksstimme of March 3, 2016, these are planning the furnishing of apartments, possibly partly for age-appropriate living .
Isenschnibbe Castle
From the country seat to the end of the GDR
Isenschnibbe Castle was owned by the Bloch von Blottnitz family from around 1905. She donated a town hall door in Gardelegen, which can still be seen today. The castle was also owned by the von Kröcher family, well-known people were Bertha von Kröcher and Jordan von Kröcher, both born on the Isenschnibbe. The Blottnitzens sold the castle in 1939 to the Prince of Lippe, who had never seen it himself. The last residents were the Bloch von Blottnitzens, who fled with the Americans to Lüchow-Dannenberg in 1945. Inventory and other valuable items are said to have been saved.
The Isenschnibbe Castle estate also included the Isenschnibber field barn on the northeastern outskirts of Gardelegen, in which the concentration camp guards, members of the Wehrmacht, the Reich Labor Service , the Volkssturm and other local actors in the night of April 13-14, 1945, a massacre of 1016 Perpetrated by concentration camp inmates. American forces, which reached Gardelegen on April 14, 1945, discovered the crime scene in the manor's barn the following day.
On the eve of the land reform of 1945, the Isenschnibbe was in the possession of Prince zur Lippe. Then the Soviet headquarters moved in. After the Soviet headquarters, an SED party school moved into the castle. The coat of arms was turned off on the sandstone fireplace in the foyer. But one forgot the representation in the dining room and on the sandstone facade outside. After the party school, the VEB Saatgutbetrieb moved into the castle with its offices and an apartment. It was largely maintained and heated. A heater was installed in the late 1980s. This has caused damage that is difficult to correct.
From the turning point until today
After the return to the Prince of Lippe failed in the early 1990s (he should have bought it), the trust auctioned it. It became the property of a gardener and a nurse, who apparently bought the castle as an investment property. It fell into disrepair and was forgotten. Some of the historical parts that still existed were lost or sold, for example candlesticks.
In 2007 the Rothermel family bought the castle. Since then she has tried to renovate the house. It is the family's third monument that they are renovating. In 2014 the roof renovation was completed with the support of EU funds. This was followed by the renovation of the stairs and the restoration of the roof terrace, which had caused great damage to the house's residences through years of water ingress. The same thing happened at the back of the house, here through an initial hole in the gutter. The dry rot was removed and the wall removed up to the upper floor and rebuilt again. The owner had the idea of founding a development association beforehand. The members started by exposing the park area and organized an Easter bonfire and guided tours. The income was invested in cleaning the sandstone cultivation and thus benefited the house in full. By exposing the park area, a line of sight to the city was created, which had been overgrown for many decades. The ACZ site, which was redesigned from the city to a park, contributes a large part to the integration of the castle into the city. After the owner's death, his wife and son took over the property. Those are currently without a sponsorship association (which was deposed after death) and try to save the property from deterioration with the help of subsidies (only affect the shell of the house) without large funds.
In 2016, the outside staircase and the roof of the terrace were refurbished with EU funding. This further helps to secure the historically valuable building for the next few years. The neighboring "Gut Isenschnibbe" is for sale this year and is expressly no longer part of the castle.
literature
- Edwin Nitter (Hrsg.): The white Alvensleben in the castle Gardelegen . Reprint from “Heimatbuch Gardelegen”, Volume 3, 1939, pp. 19–27.
- Udo von Alvensleben-Wittenmoor : Alvensleben castles and country houses . Dortmund 1960.
- Herbert Becker: Gardelegen: A thousand years of a city.
- State archive Magdeburg (Saxony-Anhalt): Manor files of those of Alvensleben
Web links
- Gardelegen Castle on the website of the von Alvensleben family
- Reconstruction drawing by Wolfgang Braun
Individual evidence
- ↑ Online research in the state archive of Saxony-Anhalt , accessed on June 22, 2014
- ↑ Markus Jager (ed.): Palaces and gardens of the Mark. Lukas, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-936872-96-5 , page 102. Extract
Coordinates: 52 ° 32'5 " N , 11 ° 23'19.8" E