Katz Castle

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Katz Castle
View from the south-southeast (from the direction of Loreley)

View from the south-southeast (from the direction of Loreley)

Alternative name (s): Neukatzenelnbogen Castle
Creation time : around 1360 to 1371
Castle type : Höhenburg, hillside location
Conservation status: Received or received substantial parts
Standing position : Count
Place: St. Goarshausen
Geographical location 50 ° 9 '6.5 "  N , 7 ° 43' 26.9"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 9 '6.5 "  N , 7 ° 43' 26.9"  E
Katz Castle (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Katz Castle

The Katz Castle is a right bank hillside castle in St. Goar , Rhineland-Palatinate .

The castle was actually called Burg Neukatzenelnbogen . The vernacular has shortened this at Katz Castle .

Katz Castle has been part of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2002 .

history

Katz Castle above St. Goarshausen - Excerpt from the Topographia Hassiae by Matthäus Merian 1655

The castle was built between 1360 and 1371 by the Counts of Katzenelnbogen . The reason was probably the immediate vicinity of the Kurtrier castle Maus , which had been under construction since 1356. Furthermore, the castle together with Rheinfels Castle on the other side of the Rhine formed a customs bar and thus strengthened the network of castles that the Lords of Katzenelnbogen controlled in southwest Germany .

The male line of the Katzenelnbogen family died out in 1479. The count's office - and with it the castle - went to the Landgraves of Hesse , since Landgrave Heinrich III. von Hessen-Marburg had married the daughter of the last Count von Katzenelnbogen. As a result, Katz Castle and Rheinfels Castle became a bone of contention in the event of inheritance disputes between the Hessen-Kassel and Hessen-Darmstadt lines . It was besieged in 1626 and 1647 and partially destroyed. During the dispute it was reinforced several times by fortifications and gun emplacements.

In 1692 the castle was destroyed again during the Palatinate War of Succession during the siege of Rheinfels Castle by the conquering armies of Louis XIV . In the Seven Years' War it was conquered by the French in 1758 and returned in 1763. Napoleon finally had the castle , which had not been destroyed before, blown up in 1806, as did Gutenfels Castle above Kaub .

In 1816 the castle ruins got to the Duchy of Nassau , went in the 19th century by various private hands and finally in 1896 by the then District Administrator of St. Goar , Ferdinandberg acquired. He had the castle rebuilt as a place of residence according to plans by the Cologne architects Schreiterer & Below , based on the medieval inventory. Little consideration was given to the medieval remains. The building on the Rhine side is only reminiscent of the former Palas . The real Middle Ages are still preserved in the ruins of the keep and in parts of the shield wall on the mountain side and the Zwinger .

In 1928 Katz Castle was auctioned. In 1936 she fell to the Reich Labor Service . A training camp was set up at the castle.

After the Second World War, the Federal Republic of Germany became the legal successor to the German Empire and became the owner of the castle. It initially served as a provisional school building for the Hofmann Institute .

The boarding school was opened in 1948 under the direction of the Altgelt family. Since the school in St. Goarshausen was partially destroyed during the war, the grammar school was relocated to specially built barracks on the castle grounds. After renovations in 1950–1951, the institute in the city became a secondary school again. Boarding school students continued to use the barracks for preparation.

Until 1966, students from the Hofmann Institute's boarding school were housed at the castle. In 1964 they moved into the newly erected building of the now nationalized Wilhelm-Hofmann-Gymnasium in downtown St. Goarshausen.

Up until the end of 1987, Katz Castle was a recreation center for the Federal Finance Administration's social welfare organization . Due to the lack of a fire escape, the recreation site was closed and the castle was put up for sale. The Japanese management consultant Satoshi Kosugi acquired Katz Castle in 1989 for 4.3 million DM and originally wanted to convert it into a hotel especially for Japanese tourists. The expansion did not take place.

Today the castle is privately owned by Japan. It is not possible to visit the castle.

investment

The castle stands out due to its unusually small footprint and thus its compact design. The central element of the fortification was the originally 40 meter high main tower on the attack side of the castle. It was additionally secured by a neck ditch broken into the rock and a triangular bastion in front . The residential tower was three stories high.

Trivia

The second comic by “ Yoko Tsuno ” takes place at “Burg Katz” and in the surrounding area.

Picture gallery

  • Postcard (before 1896)

  • Southwest view (2014)

  • Northwest view, in the background Loreley (2016)

  • Katz Castle from the Loreley (2016)

  • Night view of the castle

literature

  • Castles, palaces, antiquities, Rhineland-Palatinate (Hrsg.): State castles, palaces and antiquities in Rhineland-Palatinate . Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2003, ISBN 3-7954-1566-7 .
  • Michael P. Fuhr: Who wants to be the keeper of the river? 40 castles and palaces on the Middle Rhine. 1st edition Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2002, ISBN 3-7954-1460-1 .

Web links

Commons : Burg Katz  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Castles - Wildly Determined . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1989, pp. 116 f . ( online - April 17, 1989 ).
  2. ↑ Horst-Johannes Tümmers: The Rhine: a European river and its history . 2., revised. and updated edition. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-44823-2 .