Gebhardshagen Castle
The castle Gebhardshagen is a former Wasserburg in Salzgitter - Gebhardshagen . With its first documentary mention as Hagen Castle in 1186, it is one of the oldest moated castles in the Braunschweiger Land . After war destruction in 1406 and during the Thirty Years War , the facility was rebuilt. In the 16th century it became the ducal court and official seat. After the castle lost its military importance, it served as an agricultural domain from the middle of the 17th century until 1986 .
location
The castle was built at the eastern foot of the wooded Salzgitter ridge on the military and trade route Minden - Halberstadt . The road led from the castle towards the west, first through the forest then known as Hagen and then on a pass over the elevation.
Building description
Structural beginnings of the castle complex are assumed to be in the 11th century. The oldest building structure still in existence dates from around 1200. Due to the war destruction in 1406 and during the Thirty Years War with respective reconstructions, the original appearance of the castle is no longer known. It should have been surrounded by moats that were fed by the Mühlenbach flowing past. The former official pond next to the castle, which can be seen in connection with the fortifications and the watermill management in the village, is still there today.
According to the description by Matthäus Merian around 1654/1658, the castle measured 75 × 45 m. At that time, it had two towers, the Gray Tower as the keep and the Red Tower , which are no longer there today. The approximately 80 m long north wing with the gatehouse , the castle barn and the palace has largely been preserved .
The hall has a length of almost 30 m and a width of about 10 m. It has an un-vaulted basement originally two floors above it. In the unheated knight's hall , a Romanesque double window faces outwards. At a time that is no longer known, the hall for the domain's farm was converted into a three-storey granary with two additional floors in the attic. Since the floor heights were changed during the renovations, the windows lost their function. In the 19th century the hall was used as a cooper's workshop, then again as the domain's grain store. In 1961, the ceilings were removed in the eastern part of the hall for the installation of seven grain silos , which take up the entire height of the building. Thanks to the grain silos and mixing plants, the inside of the building gives the impression of a mill .
The gatehouse is about 24 m long and about 8 m wide. The gate hall has a lockable arched gate on the outside and an open arched gate on the inside. Inside was the porter's apartment. The gatehouse is accessible from the courtyard via an outside staircase . The court and official rooms of the Gebhardshagen office were housed in it.
The no longer existing red tower on the southeast corner of the hall was built of brown-red sandstone . It was demolished around 1800 and built over with a farm building that served as a laundry, milk and brewery. The underground tower vaults are still preserved as a cellar.
The east wing was renewed in 1906. Today there is a 35 m long manor house on the south side of the castle courtyard , which the respective tenant and bailiff used to live in . There was once a smaller castle building with the 6 × 6 m gray tower at this point . It was removed around 1850.
Today there is a vacant lot in the southern area that was closed on a site plan from 1768. The former domain with its historic stables and farm buildings joins this today without any delimitation. Before that, the Vorwerk was probably the forerunner .
Surname
The name of the castle, the builders of the von Hagen family and the town of Hagen (today Gebhardshagen) was a smaller forest area on the Salzgitter ridge , which has been known as Hagen or Hagenholz since the Middle Ages . This is also indicated by old field names in the vicinity such as Hagenbach, Hagenkamp, Hagenholz. Hagen Castle was built on the edge of the forest at that time , and the forest belonged to their property. It was part of the formerly large Hardeweg forest , which covered the Salzgitter ridge all the way down to the plain and where the surrounding areas had timber usage rights .
During the 14th century, when the Lords of Bortfeld were sitting at Hagen Castle , their name was expanded. Gebhard as the first name of the ancestor and the later lead name of the family was added in 1372, so that the castle has been called Gebhardshagen ever since. In the course of history there were different ways of writing the name, such as Gheverdeshaghen, Gebershagen, Gevershagen, Gefershag. The settlement in the vicinity of the castle was called Hagen until the 16th century and only then took over the name Gebhardshagen.
history
The von Hagen family is assumed to be the builder of the castle. It finds its first, not uncontroversial, mention in a document from June 17, 1129, in which King Lothar III. confirmed a land swap between the Goslar Cathedral Monastery and the Riechenberg Monastery . In this document, a von Hagen is mentioned for the first time as Cuonradus de Indagine (Latin: Konrad von Hagen). Although three families with the name Hagen have been handed down in southern Lower Saxony , it is likely that the mention in 1129 was about Konrad von Hagen from Hagen Castle, as it was about a matter in neighboring Lebenstedt .
The fortifications were first mentioned in a document in 1186 as the "castle that is called Hagen" , together with its owner, a Ludolf von Hagen. The castle complex became the headquarters of the von Hagen family. Sheltered by the ramparts, probably originated from a front castle , a castle settlement. It was first mentioned as Hagen in 1235 with the naming of the Nikolaikirche .
After the von Hagen family died out in 1280, Gebhardshagen Castle became the property of the Dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg . In times of financial difficulties they pledged the castle to other noble families, but they always redeemed it. Duke Albrecht II gave it to the brothers Gebhard and Ludolf von Bortfeld as a fief in 1293 . They made the castle their headquarters. They held the fiefdom until 1354 and then moved their seat to Oelber Castle in Oelber on the white road , where their family died out in 1686. Gebhardshagen Castle belonged to the Guelph Duke Wilhelm II from 1354 .
In 1373 the Brunswick-Lüneburg Duke Otto I acquired the castle and his family kept it until 1435. In 1396 the castle was pledged to the von Cramm brothers and, with small interruptions, from 1404 to 1503 to the von Saldern family .
In the Lichtenberger Bedestreit (tax dispute ) in 1406, Gebhardshagen Castle became the border castle of the Dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg against the Bishops of Hildesheim in the struggle for supremacy . On May 22nd, 1406 troops of Hildesheim bishop Johann III shot at. von Hoya under the leadership of Heinrich von Bortfeld and Burghard von Cramm with modern cannons and captured Gebhardshagen Castle. The arsenal and the red and gray towers were destroyed. The ducal feudal people Burchhard and Johann von Saldern fled from the castle. After long negotiations about compensation for the lost castle, reconciliation came about in 1407. Then the ducal men Jan and Burchhard von Saldern were commissioned as pledges to rebuild the destroyed buildings and towers. In 1429 the castle came to the dukes Wilhelm I and Heinrich II of Braunschweig.
The castle was spared from destruction during the Hildesheim collegiate feud (1519–1523). In 1568 Duke Julius sold the castle to Melchior von Steinberg for 8,000 thalers for 30 years . Then he redeemed the system again.
In the Thirty Years' War Gebhardshagen was seized and destroyed first by the imperial and lastly by the Swedes. When the castle was last captured in 1637, it was destroyed and burned down. The reconstruction then took place in the second half of the 17th century. After that, the castle complex lost its military importance and has been used as an agricultural domain since then. In addition, new agricultural buildings were built in the southern part.
Court and official seat
In 1539 a ducal judicial office was set up in the castle , which exercised jurisdiction over the nearby villages. The last execution took place in 1750.
In the middle of the 16th century, Duke Heinrich the Younger of Braunschweig established the Gebhardshagen office, which had its seat in the castle. To this end, parts of the Salder office were transferred. After Engerode , Calbecht , Leinde and Lobmachtersen were added in 1542 , and Heerte followed in 1647 . The bailiff was later also the tenant of the domain. The office lasted until 1807. At the beginning of the 19th century during the French era , the area of the Gebhardshagen office belonged to the Kingdom of Westphalia , which existed from 1807 to 1813 . It became a separate canton in the Braunschweig district within the Oker department . After the withdrawal and restoration of the Duchy of Braunschweig , the office was not re-established.
domain
After the castle lost its military importance in the middle of the 17th century and the surrounding moat was filled in, it served as an agricultural domain. Duke Rudolf August wrote the first public tender for the leasing of the Gebhardshagen domain and office in 1671. The Secret Chamber Council and Chancellor Hermann Höpfner from Kronstedt was awarded the contract. Numerous other tenants followed, who improved and expanded agricultural production. In the middle of the 19th century, almost 40 workers were working around 800 acres of arable land. At that time there were around 30 horses, 60 cows, 50 pigs and 1,100 sheep in terms of livestock.
After the First World War and the end of the monarchy , the Free State of Braunschweig confiscated the domain owned by the Welfenhaus . In 1926 the Welfs received them back and leased them again. When the tenant got into financial difficulties in the 1920s due to German inflation , a state management company from Braunschweig ran the property from 1929. In 1938 the Reichswerke Hermann Göring took over the domain, which gave up large parts of their lands for the construction of industrial plants and apartments. From 1942 onwards, 25 prisoners of war worked on the estate every day .
After the Second World War , the domain system belonged to successor companies such as Salzgitter AG . Farming continued due to food shortages during the post-war period . In 1946, 80 people were employed, mostly displaced persons . In 1955 the company cultivated around 260 hectares of land. The takeover of arable land from the Salder Castle estate , which was closed in 1969, increased the area. As a result, the Gebhardshagen domain managed around 700 hectares of land in the 1970s, mainly with grain and sugar beet cultivation . In the course of the mechanization of agriculture , a rationalized large-scale enterprise developed, which in 1980 only employed eight people. This included six tractor drivers , the director and an economist. In 1978 the unprofitable sheep farming was given up, in 1980 dairy farming for the same reason . In 1986, the domain business was shut down because the owning steel company parted with non-branch activities.
today
Since 1986, the castle and domain buildings have been owned by the city of Salzgitter . They are looked after by the "Förderverein Wasserburg Gebhardshagen", which was founded in 1998 and has 120 members and is based in the refurbished Hofmeisterhaus of the domain. The neighboring horse stable was restored in 2004 with the help of vocational students and “ one-euro jobbers ” and converted into an event center. The castle's former official residence was also renovated. Its vaulted cellars can be used for private celebrations. As early as 1986, the manor barn on the estate was demolished to make room for the construction of a gym . Events such as the shooting festival and music concerts take place regularly in the castle courtyard . It also serves as a practice area for the Gebhardshagen volunteer fire brigade and as a place to stay for young people.
As before, a significant part of the building fabric is threatened with decay. In 2007, a commercial use concept for the historic facility became known. Then a Brunswick project development company suggested setting up the Burgarkaden shopping center and an old people's home for an investment of 10 million euros. The search for an investor only started in 2009.
literature
- Paul Jonas Meier and Karl Steinacker : The architectural and art monuments of the Wolfenbüttel district , Wolfenbüttel 1906
- Friedrich Stolberg: Gebhardshagen in: Fortifications in and on the Harz from early history to modern times , Hildesheim, 1968, pp. 105-107
- Alfred Meinecke: The history of the castle and domain Gebhardshagen , Salzgitter 1988
- Margret Zimmermann, Hans Kensche: Castles and palaces in Hildesheimer Land . Hildesheim, 2001, pp. 46-48
- Thomas Dahms: The Hagen von Salzgitter-Gebhardshagen, Braunschweig, Gandersheim and the Klützer Ort , Salzgitter 2003
- Reinhard Försterling: The Gebhardshagen Castle in: Braunschweigische Heimat, 2/2005
Web links
- Entry by Gudrun Pischke and Stefan Eismann on Gebhardshagen Castle in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute
- Website of the Förderverein Wasserburg Gebhardshagen
- Description of the castle by the city of Salzgitter
- Description of the castle ( memento from October 1, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) as a neighboring castle of Lichtenberg Castle
- Description of the castle during tours in the Braunschweiger Land
- Photos of Gebhardshagen Castle at the Photo Archive Photo Marburg
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thomas Dahms: The Hagen von Salzgitter-Gebhardshagen, Braunschweig, Gandersheim and the Klützer Ort, p. 127
- ↑ Thomas Dahms: Die Hagen von Salzgitter-Gebhardshagen, Braunschweig, Gandersheim and the Klützer Ort, p. 44
- ^ Alfred Meinecke: The history of the castle and domain Gebhardshagen , p. 16
- ↑ New life in the old stable at: newsclick.de of March 18, 2007
- ^ New life in old castle at newsclick.de from February 18, 2007
- ↑ A supermarket in the castle walls at: newsclick.de from March 6, 2009
Coordinates: 52 ° 6 ′ 15.2 ″ N , 10 ° 21 ′ 31.2 ″ E