Olbrück Castle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aerial view of the castle ruins

The Olbrück Castle , colloquially often referred to as the Olbrück , is a ruined castle in the Eastern Eifel near Hain in the Rhineland-Palatinate district of Ahrweiler .

More than 15 families have owned the complex since the castle was founded around 1100. It was destroyed several times and rebuilt again and again - at least partially. The Höhenburg is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the Eifel . It stands since June 24 in 1980 under monument protection and is the largest visible landmark of the valley Brohltal .

description

Floor plan of the castle from 1904
Main tower and ruin of the residential building

The castle stands in the East Eifel on the approximately 460 meter high phonolite cone of the castle hill, which rises west of Hain, southwest of Niederdürenbach and south-southeast of Holzwiesen . The Olbrück nature reserve , which was designated on January 13, 1986, is located on the mountain .

The Olbrück is a hilltop castle with a diamond-shaped floor plan. The castle is dominated by the 34.10 meter high main tower in the middle of the complex. It is dated to the middle of the 14th century, making it the oldest surviving part of the complex. Its top floor consists of a today as observation deck used weir plate whose battlements is a reconstruction of the 19th century. The residential tower , often referred to as the keep , has rounded corners and a floor plan measuring around 8 × 12.5 meters. Its plastered masonry is up to five meters thick. The rooms of the five tower floors have vaulted ceilings and are accessed by a spiral staircase in the northeast corner. Today they serve as museum rooms in which the visitor can find out about the building history and function of castles. The tower entrance is now on the ground floor, but previously the high entrance was on the second floor and could only be reached via a drawbridge from a neighboring residential building. It can still be seen today as a narrow arched opening on the north side. The half-timbered bay window on the outside of the third floor is a free reconstruction from 2001. From the roof of the tower the visitor has a good view of the Rhine in the east, the Ahr mountains in the north and the landscape of the Vulkaneifel in the south . In good weather you can even see Cologne Cathedral .

To the south of it are the remains of a rectangular residential building, the long side of which was divided into seven axes by windows. Its two corners on the south side were marked by massive round towers . The building dates from the end of the 17th century and was constructed using older foundations. To the northeast are the remains of a medieval residential building, including a room that still has vaults and is therefore interpreted as a former chapel . The entire inner castle is still surrounded by remains of the former curtain wall and had a kennel in the east, west and north .

Access to the castle area is from the south through a lower, neo-Gothic gate, which is flanked by a thick, round tower. Its current upper floor was not added to the tower stump until 1875.

history

The hilltop on which the castle ruins are located was already used by the Celts and Romans to monitor the Brohl valley. The medieval fortification was the center of a ten-village rule , which appears in the oldest documents as Oleburg and Holebriche .

A Burchardus von Ulbrucke (Burkhard von Olbrück) is mentioned in the first deed of foundation of the Laach Abbey (today Maria Laach ) from 1093. Numerous pieces of evidence indicate that this document is a forgery from the 13th century. Only the second deed of foundation of the abbey from 1112, in which a Burghardus de Oreburch is mentioned, is a reliable reference to a noble family who had their seat at Olbrück Castle. Burkhard von Olbrück came from the family of Wied , in whose sole possession Olbrück was until 1244, before the main line of the family died out.

Around 1190 Dietrich I von Wied gave the castle complex to the Archbishop of Cologne, Philipp I von Heinsberg, for 400  marks .

When the older line of the House of Wied died out in 1244, half of Olbrück fell to the brothers Bruno II von Braunsberg and Dietrich von Isenburg , while the other half went to their cousins ​​Gottfried and Gerhard von Eppstein . The Eppsteiners sold their share in 1271 to a knight named Peter I von Eich, who also acquired half of the Isenburg property.

A remnant part of Olbrück was still in Eppsteiner's possession until 1306, before it was sold to Count Rupprecht II of Virneburg . 1318 Eich'sche share of the castle was distributed between the different family lines, which Olbrück the status of a final Ganerbenburg received. The Virneburg stake in the complex changed hands several times from 1319, before Agnes von Virneburg married Wilhelm I von Isenburg-Braunsberg in 1329 and the latter gave his wife the castle as a wedding present, which brought the complex back into Virneburg ownership.

Through marriage, part of the Olbrück castle complex came to Friedrich and Philipp von Schöneck in 1373 , while the heiress Katharina von Eich married in 1390 and brought her inheritance to the family of her husband, Wilhelm von Orsbeck. In 1422 the ownership shares were further split up through the marriage of Elisabeth von Eich with Godart von Drachenfels . His son sold his part to the von Wied family in 1469.

In the first quarter of the 16th century, ownership of Olbrück Castle had ramified so widely among the most diverse families through purchase, pledging, marriage, inheritance and transfer that it was difficult to keep track of them. More than a dozen noble families could come up with shares in Olbrück, so it is not surprising that disputes about ownership dragged on for decades. This did not change until April 22, 1555, when after tough negotiations, small family wars and various arbitral tribunals, the castle and lordship of Olbrück came into the sole possession of the Waldbott von Bassenheim family for 15,000  gold guilders .

During the Thirty Years' War the complex was captured and devastated by Swedish troops under Wolf Heinrich von Baudissin in 1632 . But already in January 1633 they were able to recapture Spanish and Electoral Cologne troops under the command of Count Ernst von Isenburg-Grenzau. Partially collapsed in 1660, the castle was then restored under the direction of Capuchin Father Bonitius from Linz.

Olbrück Castle on a drawing by Renier Roidkins , around 1725

In the course of the Palatine War of Succession , a French garrison of 26  dragoons and 52 soldiers was in the castle. When they finally left on April 30, 1689, the castle administrator Engelbert von Keiffenheim made a payment of 236 guilders, so that the complex was not razed as usual . But the relief of the castle residents did not last long, because when the French general Marquis Henri d'Escoubleau, comte de Montluc with his troops passed Olbrück on May 3rd and found the complex intact, he gave the order to still open it to destroy. Large parts of the building were torn down and fires were set in several places. But the residents of Olbrück did not despair and began to rebuild as early as 1690. The chapel and the representative, often incorrectly referred to as the Palas , were built in the Baroque style .

When French revolutionary troops occupied the Rhineland , Olbrück Castle was given up as a residence in 1797. The complex was confiscated and declared national property before being sold for demolition by the French administration in 1804 and then used as a quarry . Another round of changing owners began. In 1878, the German-Russian nobleman Baron Oskar Otto von Ekesparre , who came from the Baltic Sea island of Oesel , acquired the complex, the main tower of which had been renovated in 1874/75 by the Ahrweiler district architect Hermann Cuno . In the course of these measures, the building had a new crenellated wreath and wooden stairs on the ground floor. Eckesparre had the four rooms of the tower expanded and made comfortable. But when he lost interest in Olbrück Castle due to family conditions, he sold it again.

From 1956, the Düsseldorf architect Rainer Maria Schlitter was the owner of the facility. Due to a lack of funds and official requirements, he could not realize his plan to build a large residential complex or a hotel. Despite some restoration work and renovation measures, the castle complex - also due to vandalism - visibly fell into disrepair. After the Brohltal community took over the ruin on lease in November 1998 at the instigation of the then mayor Hermann Höfer, it was included in the concept of the Brohltal / Laacher See volcanic park as a museum and memorial and renovated with considerable financial means between 1999 and 2001 . Archaeological investigations were also carried out. The castle complex with restaurant has been open to the public for a fee since September 1, 2001 and has around 20,000 visitors annually.

In 2012 Schlitter sold Olbrück Castle to the Slovak financial advisor Pavol Pavlovic after sales talks between himself and the association had failed.

literature

  • Wolfgang Dietz: 1689/90 to 1989/90 - Destruction and reconstruction of Olbrück Castle . In: Kreis Ahrweiler (Ed.): Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Ahrweiler 1990 . Weiss, Monschau 1989, ISSN  0342-5827 , pp. 117 ff ( online ).
  • Wolfgang Dietz: Castle and Lordship of Olbrück. The rise and fall of one of the oldest castles in the Eifel . 3. Edition. Self-published, Galenberg 2001.
  • Joachim Gerhardt, Heinrich Neu: Art Monuments of the Ahrweiler District (= The Art Monuments of the Rhine Province . Vol. 17, Section 1). L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1938, pp. 268-274.
  • Hermann Höfer, Wolfgang Dietz: New perspectives for Olbrück Castle . In: District Ahrweiler (Hrsg.): Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Ahrweiler 2000 . Weiss, Monschau 1999, ISSN  0342-5827 , p. 50 ff ( online ).
  • Michael Losse : High Eifel and Ahr Valley. 57 castles and palaces . Theiss, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-8062-1775-0 , pp. 112-114.
  • Hans-Peter Splendor: Olbrück Castle . Helios, Aachen 2001.
  • Hans-Peter Pracht: The Olbrück Castle. From the history, development and career of one of the oldest Eifel castles on the southern border of the Ahrweiler district . In: Kreis Ahrweiler (Ed.): Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Ahrweiler 1982 . Weiss, Monschau 1981, ISSN  0342-5827 , p. 74 ff ( online ).
  • Martin Röcke: Castles and palaces on the Rhine and Ahr . 1st edition. Are, Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler 1991, ISBN 3-9802508-3-0 , pp. 41-44.

Web links

Commons : Olbrück Castle

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ H.-P. Splendor: Burg Olbrück , 2001, p. 37.
  2. ^ A b W. Dietz: 1689/90 to 1989/90 - Destruction and Reconstruction of Olbrück Castle , 1989, p. 117 ff ( online ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kreis.aw-online.de
  3. ↑ a b H. Höfer, W. Dietz: Neue Perspektiven für die Burg Olbrück , 1999, p. 50 ff ( online ).
  4. ↑ a b c H.-P. Splendor: Die Burg Olbrück , 1981, p. 74 ff ( online ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kreis.aw-online.de
  5. ↑ a b c d e Entry by Jens Friedhoff about Olbrück Castle in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute.
  6. ↑ M. Losse: High Eifel and Ahr Valley. 57 Castles and Palaces , 2003, p. 114.
  7. ↑ H.-P. Splendor: Burg Olbrück , 2001, p. 88.
  8. ↑ a b Angelika Pfotenhauer, Elmar Lixenfeld (Ed.): Eifel (= Monumente Edition . Volume 12). German Foundation for Monument Protection , Bonn 2013, ISBN 978-3-86795-068-8 , p. 36.
  9. ↑ M. Röcke: Burgen und Schlösser an Rhein und Ahr , 1991, p. 41.
  10. ^ Günther Binding : Rhenish high castles in sketches of the 19th century . JP Bachem, Cologne 1973, ISBN 3-7616-0264-2 , p. 75.
  11. ↑ castle Ohlbrueck. Brohltal Verwaltung, accessed on May 26, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Uli Adams, Jan Lindner: Pavlovic: Yes, I bought the Olbrück castle ruins . In: Rhein-Zeitung . Edition of July 20, 2012 ( online ).


Coordinates: 50 ° 27 '2.5 "  N , 7 ° 10' 11.8"  E