Rethem Castle

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Rethem Castle
Rethem Castle as a new building from 2004 with a historic ring wall in red brick

Rethem Castle as a new building from 2004 with a historic ring wall in red brick

Creation time : 1200 to 1300
Castle type : Niederungsburg, location
Conservation status: Burgstall
Standing position : Dukes
Place: Rethem (Aller)
Geographical location 52 ° 47 '6.4 "  N , 9 ° 23' 8"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 47 '6.4 "  N , 9 ° 23' 8"  E
Rethem Castle (Lower Saxony)
Rethem Castle

The castle Rethem is formed in the 13th century lowland castle in Rethem (Aller) in Lower Saxony , directly on the Aller is. The moated castle , which was expanded like a bastion in the 16th century , had an important position for the dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg . It was on the state border and on an all crossing point that was important for the Lüneburg salt trade . After the destruction of the war, fires and overbuilding, there were only a few remains of the walls of the castle in the 20th century. After archaeological explorations in 2000 and 2001, the castle foundations have been overbuilt since 2004 by the new Rethem castle courtyard , which presents itself as a cultural event center with historical buildings.

location

The castle is located east of the old town of Rethem near the Aller. The river flows past about 50 meters east of the castle site in a south-north direction. North of the castle is the B 209 , which leads over a bridge over the Aller.

history

Rethem Castle with Allerbrücke as a detail of the Merian copper engraving from Rethem around 1650
Inner courtyard with a new building from 2004
Historic masonry of the courtyard, the half-timbered building was only moved there in the 20th century

A forerunner to Rethem Castle, which was probably built around 1200, was the Altenburg . The remains of the earth and walls are located about 2.5 km southwest of Rethem. Duke Heinrich the Lion is said to have transferred it to the Count of Wölpe , who then transferred it to one of the von Rethem families as a fief. This family probably founded Rethem Castle in the 13th century. Extensive archival documents with documents, inventory lists, site sketches and official registers have existed for the castle complex since it was built. The first documented reference to the castle dates from the beginning of the 14th century. In 1311 a captain of the duke and castle man is named. In 1314 Count Otto II met at the castle with Count von Hoya and representatives of the city of Nienburg to settle a dispute. According to another documentary mention, Duke Magnus von Braunschweig pledged the castle to the Bishop of Verden in 1371 . The pledgee was given the duty to fortify the castle. Craftsman bills from 1383 testify to this.

Castle and town of Rethem were badly affected by the War of the Lüneburg Succession (1370-1388), in which in 1371 Rethem was imposed an imperial ban. In 1373 the castle passed to Duke Albrecht of Saxony , who fought from here against the Knights of Mandelsloh . In 1383 he moved from Rethem with an army against the Count of Hoya.

In 1386 the castle and town of Rethem were pledged to the city of Lüneburg , in whose possession it remained for over 200 years. Rethem had a crossover which was important for the salt trade of the Lüneburg salt works .

Site plan of the castle from 1750, then the official court

In the 14th century, the castle was also of strategic importance for the Lüneburg dukes. They secured the national border against the warring neighbors with their castles in Hoya and Nienburg.

During the Schmalkaldic War , the castle was conquered and looted in 1548. There was also destruction of buildings and a bridge, which were soon repaired by the then pledgee Dietrich von Mandelsloh. In 1552 he made the first drawing of the castle. Then it was surrounded by a moat, over which a bridge led. The castle had a kennel as a forecourt, three towers, a smaller stone building (brushwood stables) and a larger residential and defense building. The Merian engraving of the castle and town of Rethem around 1650 shows a similar picture .

In 1565 the Dukes Ernst and Wilhelm von Lüneburg founded the Rethem office , which had its seat in the castle. In 1859 the office was dissolved.

The expansion of the castle into a bastion took place around the 16th century. In the middle of the 17th century it was in a poor structural condition. In 1661, Duke Christian Ludwig von Braunschweig ordered the building to be repaired.

Decline

In the 18th century there was major renovation work on the castle grounds, during which older buildings were also torn down. A new office building was built. The brushwood stable served as a horse stable. The large residential and defense building was only used as a harvest store during this time. When it was demolished at the beginning of the 19th century, the complex lost its fortified character as a castle. The decline of the facility continued with the withdrawal of the official residence in 1865. When the area became the property of a family in 1874, the farm only consisted of individual buildings. City fires, most recently in 1930 on the castle grounds and war damage in 1945, contributed to the fact that only a few parts of the previous building stock were left. In 1974 the city of Rethem acquired the property and used it as a road maintenance facility and as a municipal building yard with a green waste dump.

Rediscovery and new construction

Uncovered medieval castle foundations that were integrated into the new building

At the end of the 1980s, when an inventory was made for a list of monuments, the 50 × 50 meter courtyard - as the structural remnants of the castle complex - as well as wall remains, a barn and two half-timbered houses came into the focus of monument protection , which placed the complex under protection as a precaution. Although the situation with the fallow land was harmless from a monument preservation point of view, it was unsatisfactory from an urban planning point of view. When a village renewal plan was drawn up in 1998, considerations began for a use and renovation of the castle courtyard. In 1999 the city of Rethem submitted a LEADER II application to build a new event center under the name Kulturforum Burghof . Among other things, prehistoric finds from the river landscape should be shown. The monument protection responded to the renovation plans and demanded a historical analysis of the facility. This was followed by excavations in 2000 and 2001 . They only affected the area of ​​the new building, so that large parts of the castle grounds have not yet been archaeologically examined. The excavations laid 2.4 meters wide from boulders existing foundations of a residential and fortified building free. The stone foundations and remains of brick walls remained permanently exposed and were integrated into the new building. Two pieces of oak timber found were examined dendrochronologically . It turned out that the tribes were felled in 1331 and 1337. Other finds were old wells, late medieval ceramics, glass and animal bones, roof tiles and a crossbow arrow. Complete horse skeletons were found in the floor of the brushwood stable, which also served as a horse stable. Slaughterhouse waste from cattle, pigs and poultry was also found in the floor of the building.

Before the new building for the Kulturforum was erected in 2004, the 50-meter-long, two-meter-thick and sometimes 5-meter high ring wall was secured, which was considered indispensable from the point of view of monument protection. The crooked, cracked and bulging wall was secured with injections into the subsoil and repairing the masonry. Sections of the wall were integrated into the new building, which was completed in 2005 for 3.4 million euros. As a castle attribute, it was given a lookout tower as a turret, stepped gable, crenellated parapets, natural stones on the building corners, historical emblems and old hollow pans on the roof.

Similar fortifications in the vicinity

In the lower part of the Aller there were a number of other medieval castles in the vicinity. However, they did not have the meaning of Rethem Castle and only existed for a much shorter time. These included fortifications in Ahlden (Aller) ( Bunkenburg ), Essel ( Blankenburg Castle ), Hodenhagen ( Hodenhagen Castle ), Bierde ( Bierde Castle ), Grethem ( Blankenhagen Castle ).

The remains of these castles were examined in more detail between 2003 and 2005 as part of the Burgenlandschaft Aller-Leine-Tal (BALT) project . The project was supported, among other things, by the European LEADER + funding program , as the castle complexes are located in the Aller-Leine-Tal region .

literature

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