Harburg Castle

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Harburg Castle
Aerial view of the castle from the west

Aerial view of the castle from the west

Creation time : before 1100 (naming of Kuno de Horburc)
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: completely preserved
Standing position : Princes
Place: Harburg (Swabia)
Geographical location 48 ° 47 '5.9 "  N , 10 ° 41' 13.1"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 47 '5.9 "  N , 10 ° 41' 13.1"  E
Height: 480  m above sea level NHN
Harburg Castle (Bavaria)
Harburg Castle

Above the town of Harburg (Swabia) is the Harburg Castle of the same name , an extensive medieval complex from the 11th / 12th. Century. The condition of the 18th century has largely been preserved. The hilltop castle at 480  m above sea level. Like the castles Wallerstein and Baldern , NHN belonged to the princely house of Oettingen-Wallerstein . The Harburg has been owned and owned by the non-profit Fürst zu Oettingen-Wallerstein Cultural Foundation since 2000. The purpose of this foundation is to preserve the unique facility in the present and future.

View of the castle complex and town from "To the beautiful view"

History of the castle

The first written mention of Harburg can be derived from the mention of Cuno de Horburc in sources for the foundation of the Berchtesgaden Benedictine monastery around the year 1100 at the latest. Kuno von Horburg / Harburg was half-brother of the Berchtesgaden monastery founder Berengar von Sulzbach and apparently the owner of the Harburg at the end of the 11th century. The first mention of the castle itself dates back to 1150 AD. At that time, the 13-year-old Staufer Heinrich (VI.) , Son and co-king of King Conrad III. and Gertrud von Sulzbach , a letter to Constantinople to his aunt, the Empress Eirene of Byzantium , and her husband Manuel Komnenos , in which he reported on the battle of Flochberg . He mentioned that he was at the Harburg at the time. In 1299 the castle was pledged by King Albrecht I from the House of Habsburg to the Counts of Oettingen . After the line died out, it went to the Oettingen-Wallerstein family in 1731. Since 2000, the castle has belonged to the non-profit Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein Cultural Foundation .

In 1530 Hieronymus Wolf was a scribe on the Harburg.

The fortifications of the castle

The main castle is surrounded by a wall ring with six towers, which is one of the oldest buildings. It includes the Bailiwick , the two keep , the Palas (prince's building), the box house, the draw well , the castle church and the crypt chapel. A little lower down is the outer bailey with the farm buildings, to which the red stables belong. It is said to have been sketched by Carl Spitzweg during a visit (1858).

The fountain

On the Harburg there is a castle fountain that was once 129 meters deep and is said to have reached down to the Wörnitz mirror. About half an hour you had the standing next to treadmill press to draw a bucket of water to the top. Today the well is only 48 meters deep. It has previously been suspected that the well collapsed in the course of the tunnel construction work between 1955 and 1957, because at that time almost 15,000 blasts shook the rock. It is now known that the well collapsed earlier. In 1955, the engineer Leopold Müller drove down the well shaft and documented the collapse before the tunnel work on the castle tunnel began. A rock sample taken from below the tunnel floor indicates that the material was broken up, which presumably also impaired the stability of the shaft.

For a long time it was also believed that the castle tunnel runs through the fountain and that it was simply “cut through” during the construction of the castle tunnel. On aerial photographs, however, one can clearly see that the distance between the tunnel tube and the well is almost 50 meters and thus the well was not "cut through".

Battlements and kennels

The covered battlement built in the 15th century served to defend the castle. The side of the castle facing the plateau was the most vulnerable to attack. Here the walls were particularly strong. In addition, the castle was protected at this point by a kennel with semicircular wall towers.

In the defensive wall there are loopholes , loose holes and bullet-holes. A bounce block is attached to the loopholes so that hook boxes can be attached. Lime or pitch could be poured through the pouring holes that point downwards. The ball notches are movable wooden balls with a hole that have been walled in. They are also called "wooden eyes".

The keeps

There were two keeps on the Harburg , the “Diebsturm” and the “Faulturm” . They are among the oldest buildings on the Harburg and date from the 12th century. Originally, the keep was intended as the last refuge for the residents of the attacked castle after the enemies had already entered the castle.

The older, western keep, the Diebsturm, is very high and very thick for this reason. Its walls are three meters thick at the bottom. The large stones required for this were brought to the place by ox carts over a ramp. The entrance to the thief tower used to be five meters above the ground on the first floor. The Harburgers climbed into the keep with a ladder. The keep was not only used for defense, however, through a hole on the first floor, supplies were lowered nine meters in the theft with a winch. This cellar was an important storage room as it was always cool inside the three meter thick walls. Later it was used as a prison. There were two torture chambers in the thief storm. One torture chamber could be made very hot, but the other was very dark and cold in winter. The old storage cellar became the dungeon into which prisoners were let down and was therefore also called the " fear hole ".

The eastern keep, the digestion tower, was turned into a staircase for the hall construction in the 18th century. The roof, the "snail hood", also dates from this time.

More buildings

Harburg Castle silhouette

Vogtei, Kastenhaus and Pfisterbau

In 1562 the Bailiwick was built as a half-timbered building, which was inhabited by the bailiff . Today it houses an inn and the castle hotel. The box house was also built in the 16th century. It originally served as a granary, later it was used as a stables and armory . Right next to the castle church is the Pfisterei, the former bakery in which the flour was processed into bread. Today the castle shop is located there.

Hall construction

The hall building originally served as accommodation for the castle team. In the years 1717–1721 it was increased by Prince Ernst Albrecht and supplemented by a large, representative hall. Since then, the digestion tower has served him as a staircase. The ceiling paintings were brought to the Harburg from the abandoned Tiergarten Castle near Schrattenhofen. They show representations from Greek mythology.

Princely building

The Princely Building

The prince's building, which contains the remains of the palace , served the count's family as a residence in the 16th century. The building was later used as a quarter for hunting parties and at the beginning of the 19th century as a granary.

Prince Eugen had the Oettingen-Wallerstein library and art collection housed here in 1948/49 . The library was sold to the Free State of Bavaria in 1980 for DM 40 million and is now housed in the central library of the University of Augsburg .

Castle Church of St. Michael

The single-nave castle church, which is characterized by the Baroque today , is the oldest church in Harburg. It was created in the 18th century from the Romanesque castle chapel. Three larger-than-life figures adorn the church. They depict Count Gottfried and his two wives. Other statues depict Louis XVI. and his two wives Salome and Elisabeth. The entrance to the crypt chapel of the evangelical line Oettingen-Oettingen is guarded by two warrior statues. In addition, you can see carvings from the late Gothic period depicting a Mother of God and the Archangel Michael .

Harburg Castle Festival

From 1996 to 2010 the Harburg Castle Festival, which lasted several days, was held in the summer on the castle grounds. All proceeds went to charity. The organizer was the Kiwanis Club Donauwörth.

  • More pictures

  • Harburg around 1700

  • Defense devices at the gate

  • The battlement

  • A wooden eye

  • Harburg Castle with theft tower

  • The portcullis on the Upper Gate

Web links

Commons : Burg Harburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Harburg Castle  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jürgen Dendorfer: Noble group formation and royal rule. The Counts of Sulzbach and their network of relationships in the 12th century. In: Studies on Constitutional and Social History . tape 23 . Munich 2004, p. 32-48 .
  2. ↑ Paul Soldner: Kiwanis: Historienspektakel on the Harburg is now history. In: Augsburger Allgemeine . December 2, 2011, accessed September 25, 2018 .