Plau Castle
| Plau Castle | ||
|---|---|---|
 Keep with office building |
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| Alternative name (s): | Plau Castle | |
| Creation time : | 1287 | |
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg | |
| Conservation status: | Keep, ramparts | |
| Place: | Plau am See | |
| Geographical location | 53 ° 27 '34.4 " N , 12 ° 15' 58.3" E | |
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The Plau , including Castle Plau , was named a lowland castle on the west side of Lake Plau in Mecklenburg . Apart from the castle tower, the rampart and remnants of ramparts, there are hardly any remains of the original complex.
Plau Castle from 1287 to 1448
The founding of a castle-like “princely house” on the north-eastern edge of the old town of Plau goes back to Nikolaus II von Werle , who has ruled since 1283 . It was first mentioned on a document issued here from May 6, 1287, where express reference is made to the recently completed castle: "... in castro Plawe, tempore prime fundationis eiusdem castri". Even in the run-up to the construction there were obviously disputes between the prince and the city, which had to give up part of their urban area with several houses for this. In 1288 the reconciliation took place; The Plauer paid a heavy fine for proven insult . In return, Nicholas II confirmed the town charter and assured his support to replace the town fortifications, which until now had mainly consisted of wooden palisades, with a massive town wall. A Vogt is named as early as 1273 with Johannes Koß, but Lisch suspects the builder of the castle in the Vogt Johannes (Henning) von Plau named 1303/04 .
Nicholas II pledged his Plau property from 1293 to 1295 to the knight Hermann Ribe, then to Wizlaw II , Prince of Rügen , until 1298 . After his death, the property fell to his brother Johann II (Werle) in 1316 , and to his son Nikolaus III in 1337 . (Werle) In 1356 he and his brother Bernhard II. (Werle) pledged the castle, town and country of Plau to Duke Albrecht II. (Mecklenburg) In a conflict with Duke Erich II of Saxony-Lauenburg , he took it on August 24th 1358 the palace complex. The peace agreement took place in October of that year, but it was not until March 31, 1359 that Albrecht II released Erich II's claim to ownership for 200 "soldering marks". On June 2, 1361, Albrecht II pledged Plau Castle to the knights Heinrich von Stralendorff , Otto von Dewitz and the squire Danquardt von Bülow . As a result, the castle remained in their lien until the von Bülow renunciation in March 1403.
With a contract dated May 8, 1442, Duke Heinrich IV. (Mecklenburg) , who after the extinction of Werle in 1436 by agreement with his co-heirs Johann III. von Mecklenburg-Stargard and his cousin Heinrich von Mecklenburg-Stargard had reunited the country, from the town of Plau a few rods of land in order to expand the moat to the north.
Plau Castle 1448 to 1538
In 1448, Duke Heinrich IV commissioned his previous Vogt in Stavenhagen Lüdeke Hahn (Ludolf III Hahn, † March 17, 1480) to develop the palace complex into a fortified castle. The reason for this measure was the numerous robberies from the Mark Brandenburg, which is only a few kilometers south of the city . The raids by the brothers Dietrich and Johann von Quitzow were notorious .
On May 30, 1448, the Duke and Lüdeke Hahn met in Plau for a viewing and building agreement. The handover of Schloss and Land Plau to Hahn as the new Vogt took place on August 24th. A year later, construction had progressed so far that Lüdecke Hahn was able to take up residence at the castle on October 21, 1449. The castle tower that has been preserved to this day also originates from the first construction phase.
After completion of the castle complex, Lüdeke Hahn was compensated on January 13, 1463 with a ducal bond for the remaining sum of 1,600 marks and returned to his headquarters in Basedow (Mecklenburg) . A year later, on February 16, 1464, Heinrich IV. Left Plau Castle to his eldest sons Albrecht VI for six years . (Mecklenburg) and Johann VI. (Mecklenburg) . Already little later, on June 4, 1464 assured Herzog Heinrich (Mecklenburg-Stargard) was the 1436 co-heir of Werl ash possessions become his third wife Margaret her jointure , for which the Plau should belong as their subsequent widow's residence (1466-1471) .
Viticulture from 1507 to 1571
On July 28, 1507, the jointly reigning dukes Heinrich V (Mecklenburg) and Erich II (Mecklenburg) appointed Hans Peetz (also Pietsch) as wine-grower and thus established viticulture in Plau. The vineyard created by this was located north of the castle complex and could be reached through a still preserved passage under the wall and crossing a bridge over the moat. In November 1508, Peetz was sent to Franconia to buy vines there . In 1511 Paul Khune (also Köne) got his job as a second winemaker, Peetz rose to become a "winemaker". After the city of Plau had ceded a "field field" on the southwest slope of the Klüschenberg in exchange for participation in the public pasture fattening on the Reppentiner field on December 27, 1513, the viticulture was moved to this more favorable location. In 1527 Khune was named as the “wine master”, followed in 1532 by Hans Brandenburg. In 1571 the ultimately unsuccessful viticulture ended. The reversal of the contract concluded with the city in 1513 dragged on until 1767.
Plau fortress 1538 to 1650
On May 1, 1538, Duke Heinrich V signed a contract with the bricklayer Wulf Krebel to build a new gate and rifle house according to the plan of the builder Gabriel Wulf zu Boizenburg . The necessary stones were obtained by demolishing the St. George Chapel at the gates of the city. In the following years the castle was further expanded into an important fortress ; Among other things, the parapets were raised, the walls reinforced and the northern moat deepened. At the same time, according to the contract of September 7, 1541, the specially employed "water artist" Diedrich Bergmann created a moat on the city side (west and south), which actually turned the complex into an island. A drawbridge was built towards the northern city gate (castle gate) while still inside the city wall. With the excavation, the wall was also increased considerably. With Ludwig Wichtendal an experienced was Rotgießer , gunsmith and armourer invoke the fortress Plau. In 1543 Lüdecke von Maltzahn was commissioned to reinforce the castle walls at Grubenhagen Castle . In 1550, in addition to the captain, the fortress was crewed by an armorer, a sergeant and ten mercenaries . In addition, there were certainly auxiliary staff such as servants and maids. The Burg zu Plau eventually became the first ducal state fortress.
When Heinrich V died on February 6, 1552, his nephew Johann Albrecht I of Mecklenburg-Güstrow had the Plau fortress occupied by his loyal Werner Hahn on Basedow . There followed a bitter inheritance dispute with his brother Ulrich , which only ended in 1556 with the "Ruppin power". The land and fortress of Plau fell to Ulrich's inheritance. In 1582 it was criticized that the long time of peace neglected the service at the fortress. The Duke then issues an “order on peace service”.
After Duke Johann Albrecht II received sole rule over Mecklenburg-Güstrow in 1611 , he also devoted himself to the associated Plau fortress. In 1612 he employed a powder maker and converted the external mill on the Elde into a powder mill. In 1615 a wall master was employed to repair the neglected fortifications. On April 20, 1617, the office and fortress were pledged to Land Marshal Andreas Buggenhagen and to Antoni in 1625 to District Administrator Gregor Bevernest (~ 1578–1636) on Lüsewitz.
Thirty Years' War
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From 1625 Mecklenburg was increasingly drawn into the events of the Thirty Years War . In the winter of 1626/27 a company of Danish horsemen lay in the town and fortress Plau for 24 weeks (see Danish-Lower Saxon War ). On August 9 and 10, 1627, three companies of imperial troops moved into Plau and took the fortress. 300 men "Imperial infantry" under Colonel Rudolph Freiherr von Tiefenbach took quarters for the coming autumn and winter and had to be looked after by the residents. It was the first of a total of eight sieges. Gregor Bevernest, although he belonged to the (imperial) council appointed by Wallenstein , who was Albrecht VIII Duke of Mecklenburg from 1628 to 1631, had to cede his lien on July 10, 1629. An unbelievable period of suffering began for the Plau residents. On September 19th the whole regiment of General Gottfried Heinrich zu Pappenheim lay in front of the city. It was followed only a little later by the 500-strong troops of Colonel Heinrich Johann Guyard Freiherr von Saint Julien, Count von and zu Walsee (1590–1642). The regiment of the imperial general Federigo Savelli , which passed through on November 29, 1629 , finally brought the plague with them to the city, which in the following year claimed around 600 victims (of around 1500 inhabitants). The fortress is continuously under imperial occupation.
On June 30, 1631, Swedish troops entered the city and began to besiege the fortress. For this purpose, artillery was placed on the church tower in order to drive away the imperial garrison by shelling. The imperial captain Horchhammer had the city (the castle gate district) set on fire; he fiercely defended the fortress. Only the Scottish troops of Colonel Robert Munro of Obsdale (1601–1680) from the MacKay regiment, called to strengthen the Swedes , brought success; after the assurance of safe conduct, the imperial troops left the fortress. On July 26, a Swedish regiment consisting of French moved into quarters in the city for a month. On August 9th, Duke Johann Albrecht II , who had returned to his country, temporarily appointed his faithful Rickwan von der Lancken as captain of the fortress. From October 7, 1631, Gregor Bevernest was also allowed to take over his pledge ownership from office and fortress. In February and March 1632, Swedish troops again moved into quarters and had to be supplied by the residents. After all the imperial troops were driven out of the country and the Swedes moved south, the dukes were able to rule their country independently again. A time of deceptive calm from the war began. The fortress was almost in ruins and was repaired on the orders of the duke. However, on October 28, 1635, Swedish troops retreating under Field Marshal Johan Banér entered the city and fortress. They looted everything they could get their hands on and holed up. Bevernest, who had to hand over the fortress to the Swedes, fell out of favor with Duke Johann Albrecht II and was "drafted into prison"; he died in June or July 1636.
On November 12, 1635, electoral Saxon troops under the commandant Caspar Haschitz took the city of Plau and conquered the fortress in an assault on November 15. The commandant was Johann Caspar von Rohrscheidt , who on October 3, 1636 had to hand over the fortress to the Swedes under Kaspar Kornelius Mortaigne de Potelles . Troops from Erasmus Freiherr von Platen-Hallermund (1590–1663) and the whole regiment of Colonel Gustav Gustavson followed . For the Plauer it was again an extraordinarily hard time of suffering; For the year 1636 alone, the chronicle reports 13 looting by imperial and 2 looting by Swedish troops. "Many residents leave this same dungeon and emergency stable and flee into wide misery, so that the little town has become almost deserted."
In the autumn of 1637 the imperial forces again expelled the Swedes. Under the captain Erasmus Warasiner , they were able to assert themselves as “war people” with 270 people until the end of July 1639. During this time Warasiner had the fortifications strengthened and expanded. He went so far as to issue the order to demolish the tower of the Plauer Marienkirche in order to obtain building material . General Matthias Gallas, who was present at the imperial headquarters in Grabow , was able to avert this on April 25, 1638 with a counter-order at the last moment; However, Warasiner had 50 houses demolished for this, 50 residents and 5 teams were taken for compulsory labor. On July 23, 1639, it was Swedish troops under Lieutenant Colonel Peder Lindormsson Ribbing, Baron von Zernava (1606–1664) who besieged the fortress again and forced Captain Warasiner to surrender on August 5. The Mecklenburg captain Ulrich Reppenhagen , who had entered Swedish service, was in command until April 14, 1642 , followed by the Swedish majors Erich Turssohn and Christoph Trapman . The latter handed over the keys to the fortress and city gates to the ducal chancellery Joachim von Nessen (1596–1668) on August 18, 1650 , who now took the fortress back into ducal possession. The condition of the buildings and fortifications was already very shabby at this point. When Duke Gustav Adolf, who was under the tutelage of his mother, had the guards withdrawn on January 3, 1651 and handed over the city keys to the magistrate, the Plau citizens immediately began to tear down the palisades and bastions in front of the fortress, but within the city wall brought them the displeasure of the duke.
After the Thirty Years War
Without any military importance, the fortress had been almost deserted since 1651. The razing of the facility, which had already been decided during the war, was initially not implemented. On March 10, 1657, the Duke again ordered the destruction and also appointed a commission to carry out the same, only the unrest of the Swedish-Polish war with the passage of numerous plundering Polish and Brandenburg troops through Mecklenburg, as well as the catastrophic conditions in the city of Plau, the at that time (1649) only had 238 inhabitants left the project to fail. After the Peace of Oliva (May 3, 1660) the demolition of part of the fortifications and buildings began, which lasted until 1668. Prince Christian Ludwig found remains during a visit in 1715 and reported: “As far as the Plau Palace and its construction are concerned, it is similar to a real murderer's cave. Everything must be shaved and made equal to earth. The walls are 14 feet thick and all of fieldstone, which is a right spectacul. If one wants to drive over the miserable and dangerous bridge into the castle, one must first pass under a low and dark vault of 70 paces for which one is quite dreadful. I believe that it could hardly be built with 50,000 thalers in such a way that EFD could live there with pleasure. ”So we started to work on the outer ring wall with the remains of the small watchtowers, the gatehouse with the arched gate and the ruins of the Demolish and remove the armory. Parts of the inner ramparts and the castle tower have been preserved to this day.
After the bankruptcy of the previous tenant family Bevernest in 1658, the Plau office was claimed by their creditors. 1670 followed the pledge to the Hamburg merchant Johann Erlenkamp (1606-1681), the contract was extended to 1710 with his sons Hans Heinrich von Erlenkamp († 1697) and the later Plau bailiff Ernst von Erlenkamp (1665-1718). After this, the Braunschweig-Lüneburg privy councilor Joachim Christoph Stisser von Wendhausen received the pledge agreement and took up residence at Plau Castle. Wendhausen died in Plau on October 11, 1724, the heirs held the pledged property until 1745. In the meantime, the Plau office and the Wredenhagen, Marnitz and Eldena offices had been in Prussian pledges since 1735. From these, the former captain in the Danish service, Gottlieb Heinrich von Brandt († 1770) at Wredenhagen Castle received as bailiff to Plau (since 1749) and tenant of the offices of Plau and Wredenhagen (since 1754), and until 1783 his creditors pledged the Plau office . The Prussian lien ended in 1787.
In 1787, Duke Friedrich Franz I appointed Carl Friedrich Schnell (1758–1821) as a ducal official secretary in Plau. In 1802 Schnell received the qualification for the postmaster position, which he took up in 1807 after the death of the incumbent Carl Georg Rosenow (1741-1807). When Schnell lost his post as official secretary in 1810 due to the relocation of the Domanial official seat to Goldberg, he was given a long lease as compensation for the "deserted office", the old castle grounds. His son Carl Christoph Schnell (1801–1876) initially received the post of postal secretary in 1818. When his father Schnell died in 1821, his son was still too young to succeed him as postmaster. In 1826 he finally got the postmaster position in Plau. In the same year he moved into the new postmaster's house, built by his father on the foundations of the former armory in 1820/21. A post office has now been set up on the site of the former fortress. In 1831 daily mail lines to Krakow am See, Malchow, Meyenburg and Parchim (there twice a day) were driven from here. Six postilons and 16 post horses were in service at the station. With the expansion of the post office, further new buildings were erected, mainly stables and barns, as the Schnell family also ran an agricultural business on up to 40 hectares. In 1883 at the latest, with the sale of the site to an arable citizen, the post office was relocated and the facility was only used for agriculture.
Todays use
By order of the council of the Lübz district , a pig fattening system was installed in the courtyard in June 1952, which had to be relocated at the end of 1953 due to massive sewage problems. The main building was subsequently converted into an outstation of the nearby Plauer hospital with 35 beds in 10 rooms and opened in November 1954. The house was operated until 1994 - most recently as a retirement home since October 1991. After that, it served various purposes, most recently as a city library until the end of 2016. A part of the former outbuildings (former stables) fell into disrepair and was demolished, the barn was still used in various ways, including by the municipal municipal economy (building yard). The Plau Castle Museum has been located there since 2002. The renovation of the main building for future tourist use as the "Haus des Gastes" began in 2017 and was completed in 2019. The design of the outdoor facilities will continue until 2022.
The castle tower was repaired in the course of the emerging " castle romance " after a major wall eruption in 1869. The upper wall wreath with battlements has been redesigned. However, increasing weathering, mainly due to frost damage, led to further deterioration. In 1905 a large piece of masonry broke out again. At the beginning of the 1920s, it was decided to add a conical roof, which gives the tower its current appearance. On the occasion of the celebrations for the city's 750th anniversary, further repairs were carried out in 1985 and the 11 meter deep dungeon was cleared of rubble. Since then, the castle tower has been used as a museum and is open to visitors daily from Maundy Thursday to the end of October from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
See also
literature
- Heidemarie Ruchhöft: Chronicle of the city of Plau am See . Plau am See 2010, 208 pp. (Ed .: Druckerei AC Froh, Inh. Thomas Leppin, Plau am See)
- Georg Christian Friedrich Lisch : History of the city of Plau and its surroundings. Schwerin 1852 ( digitized state library MV )
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lisch 1852, Certificate No. XV
- ↑ Lisch 1852, p. 46 ff.
- ^ Lisch 1852, document XXXV
- ↑ Regiment founded by Donald Mackay of Farr in 1626 (Regimentschronik see http://historyreconsidered.net/14.html )
- ↑ Lisch 1852, p. 237 - However, it is unlikely that he lived in the castle, as it was largely in ruins. (see report from 1715)