Sonneberg Castle
| Sonneberg Castle | ||
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| Alternative name (s): | Sonneberg Castle | |
| Creation time : | before 1150 | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg in spur location | |
| Conservation status: | Burgstall, remains of a wall, recently built over | |
| Standing position : | Reichsministeriale | |
| Construction: | Remnants of humpbacks | |
| Place: | Sonneberg | |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 22 '14.3 " N , 11 ° 10' 21.9" E | |
| Height: | 502.3 m above sea level NN | |
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The Burg Sonnenberg , also Schloss Sonnenberg or Schlossberg Sonneberg , is an Outbound Spur castle on the territory of the present city Sonneberg in Thuringia . It was the seat of the noble lords of Sonneberg , who in the 13th century established and maintained a manorial administration on the domain of the Dukes of Andechs-Meranien in the Coburg area between the Thuringian slate mountains in the north and the episcopal possessions in the Volkfeldgau in the south.
location
The castle complex is located at 502.3 m above sea level. NN on the eastern edge of the summit plateau of the Schlossberg about 70 meters above the narrow valley of the Röthen and the Sonneberg old town. It is located about 1.8 kilometers north of the main train station . The castle was located on a pass road over the ridge of the Thuringian Slate Mountains on a trade route from Leipzig via Saalfeld to Nuremberg and was therefore of strategic importance.
history
The current Schlossberg building
The Augustenverein, founded in honor of the newborn daughter of Duke Bernhard II of Saxony-Meiningen , built a rifle house with an economy and dance hall in neo-Gothic style with an observation tower on the site of the old castle from 1844 to 1850 according to plans by the architect Carl Alexander Heideloff was once again increased to 20 m and got its characteristic tower hood. The complex on the Schlossberg quickly became a popular destination. The rifle house was demolished in 1950 when local architects Richard Marsiske and Hans Malsch rebuilt the entire building complex by 1953. In doing so, they were guided by the so-called style of national tradition, a kind of neoclassicism that determined post-war architecture until the mid-1950s. The interior of the hall was designed by the artists Otto Keil , Karl Staudinger and Karl Müller . During the time of the renovation, Milo Barus lived briefly in Sonneberg and unsuccessfully applied to the city to manage the building. Because of his unsteady lifestyle as an artist, the responsible authorities in Sonneberg considered Milo Barus unsuitable.
In 1997, a group of entrepreneurs from Sonneberg added a hotel wing to the building complex and has been privately owned by the Thomas Häfner family since 2007. The Schlossberg building was run as a hotel, restaurant with fine cuisine and a party location until 2014. The daily catering business was discontinued in 2014. The Matthias Maier family has been running the property as a pure event location since 2015. Since then, the complex has been operated exclusively as a "Schlossberg event location" for weddings, events, birthdays or company events. There are 16 overnight accommodations available to guests - be it in one of the 5 hotel rooms or in the tower suite with a panoramic view of Upper Franconia.
In 2018 Matthias Maier was honored with the Thuringian Founders Prize: "Successful corporate succession"
The earliest mentions
According to a controversial account of the history of the Franks by the abbot Johannes Trithemius from 1514, the castle is said to have been used as a "protection against the Duringians " by the East Franconian Duke Sunno, a hypothetical descendant of the Franconian general Sunno , in the 5th century . but no serious evidence or evidence exists for its existence, stay and work in the Obermain region. Presumably a Gothic-Terwing garrison was actually located there, which secured an old, possibly prehistoric military and trade route, the most important north-south connection from the Saale over the otherwise more or less insurmountable ridge of the Thuringian-Franconian low mountain range to the Main .
The earliest mention of the "castrum sonneberg" is in connection with the foundation of the Banz monastery 1069-1071 in a treatise that Heinrich, the abbot of the monastery, wrote after 1295. It is unclear whether Heinrich was referring to a castle that actually existed at the time the monastery was founded or only indicated the location of Sonneberg Castle as a point of orientation. Therefore, this mention cannot be taken as evidence of the existence of the castle and the noble family in the 11th century. Nevertheless, the beginning of the Main Franconian settlement and with it the establishment of a rulership on the imperial estate in the Coburg and Sonneberg area based on the same source in the era of the Margraves of Schweinfurt from around 980. This Franconian conquest of land should have come to a certain conclusion before 1075, in the monks from the Archbishopric of Cologne , whose archbishop Anno II. 1056 former imperial domain land around Saalfeld, in southern Orlagau and around Coburg from the legacy of Richeza , the daughter of the Count Palatine Ezzo von Lorraine , on behalf of the Benedictine Abbey of Saalfeld, began the comprehensive Christianization of the autochthonous Ur-Thuringian or Elbe-Germanic and Slavic population and the Main Franconian settlers from their provost St. Peter and Paul on the Coburg Castle Hill .
The castle as part of the maintenance of Coburg and Saxe-Coburg
In 1317 the county of Henneberg acquired the castle of the now extinct Lords of Sonneberg and gave it to the Lords of Schaumberg, who were related to the Sonnebergs . Countess Jutta von Henneberg pledged the castle in 1350 to her son-in-law, the Burgrave Albrecht the Beautiful of Nuremberg. As part of the maintenance of Coburg , Sonneberg Castle fell to the House of Wettin in 1353 and became a military base. At the latest in this phase, it was expanded to defend itself and received a keep with a square floor plan. In 1361 a castle chapel was consecrated. In 1451, Duke Wilhelm the Brave, with the help of Erfurt troops, drove the knight Apel Vitzthum from Sonneberg Castle and thus from all of Coburg.
Under the rule of the Saxon electors, Sonneberg Castle became the seat of a bailiff and locksmith , whose official seat was moved from the Schlossberg to the estate in the city from 1536. After a fire that completely destroyed the church and a large part of the houses around the market square on March 27, 1596 and severely damaged the castle, it was finally abandoned. The new official residence was a complex of modest buildings that were gradually built on the estate below the castle. The main building, the bower above the mysterious “cella”, the purpose of which was apparently no longer known even then (“cempnatam antiquam et camerum super cellam”… “in castrum”) , was given to the nobleman Dietrich Schott as a fief in 1361 . When the bailiff Matthes von Wallenrod moved from the Schlossberg to the estate, it became a small castle in which, among others, members of the noble families von Götterfahrt, von Rosenau , von Vippach (1694), von Redwitz , von Eyb geb. Egloffstein , von Miespach and von Uttenhoven (1732) resided. In 1689 it was connected to the neighboring house, a residential building belonging to the bower, by an intermediate building and expanded by two half-timbered floors. The building was the office building and district court, the trade school was set up here in 1869/70 and the secondary school from 1883 to 1903. After that it was converted for residential purposes.
On the estate to the east of Untere Marktstrasse, which also owned the Eller ( hallway named after Erlen ) outside the enclosure wall , there were two manor houses that also date back to the time of the Sonneberg rule. They already served Count Heinrich VIII von Henneberg as winter residence and were expanded by Duke Wilhelm, who sought refuge in Sonneberg during a plague epidemic in 1463, to become the widow's residence for his second wife Katharina von Brandenstein , who was withdrawn from this by Elector Ernst . With the relocation of the official seat, the estate became the residence of the official governor. In 1671 the electoral guardianship sold the farm with various rights, freedoms and goods to the merchant and councilor Egidius Friedel, and on December 12, 1764 it was bought by the toy manufacturer Johann Philipp Dressel. In the 19th century, an important toy factory was established on the Dresselschen Hof . In 1914 a fire destroyed part of the building. In 1946 the site was nationalized and subsequently used by various state-owned companies. Almost all buildings were demolished in the late 1990s. The Groschenhof is still built today.
A little uphill in the direction of the Wehd , a property belonging to the estate on the neighboring Bromberg plateau, was the old office building or mountain house , which, however, fell into disrepair early on. Nearby were the old and later the new Frohnfeste (prison). The old post office , originally a farmhouse, was the seat of the magistrate after the mountain house was demolished. A building next to the castle, which originally did not belong to the estate, was converted into the Oberamtshaus , the seat of the forestry department , in 1778 , which was moved to the forester's house in Bettelheckerstraße in 1828. The buildings that still existed in the 19th century were largely destroyed in a devastating city fire that destroyed the city church, 59 residential buildings and numerous outbuildings in downtown Sonneberg on August 27, 1840. Other buildings were covered by conversions. The new Frohnfeste in Rechtssteig 10 was used until 1963 and has been preserved.
Destruction of the castle
At the beginning of the 17th century repairs were carried out on the castle for the last time. During the Thirty Years War in 1635 imperial troops under the command of General Guillaume de Lamboy sacked the castle and set it on fire. In 1639 a storm destroyed the entire castle complex, which subsequently served as a quarry. After the now dilapidated complex was sold to a nobleman F. A. Kohlhaas zu Mürschnitz , the latter had the remaining parts of the wall removed so that the stones could be used for his new house on the outskirts. The property was then parceled out and sold.
Building description
After the fire in the castle building in 1596, the arson during the Thirty Years' War in 1635 and a severe storm in 1639, the castle complex was badly damaged and subsequently fell into complete disrepair. In the middle of the 19th century only a few ditches and ramparts were visible. Today, the medieval castle complex can still be assigned a remnant of a wall below the Schlossberg plateau, which is, however, very worn and overprinted by recent leveling work. When the modern Schlossberg building was expanded in 1927/28, the Sonneberg teacher, local researcher and founder of the German Toy Museum, Paul Kuntze, was able to secure and document remains of masonry with humpback blocks.
literature
- Michael Köhler: "Sonneberg". Thuringian castles and fortified prehistoric and early historical living spaces . Jenzig-Verlag, Jena 2001, ISBN 3-910141-43-9 , p. 234 .
- Prof. Frieser (Sonneberg): Sonneberg . In: Georg Voss (Hrsg.): Architectural and art monuments of Thuringia. Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen, Sonneberg district. District court district of Sonneberg . Book XXI. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena 1899, p. 36 f .
Individual evidence
- ↑ De origine gentis Francorum compendium, 1514 - An abridged history of the Franks / Johannes Trithemius; AQ-Verlag , Dudweiler 1987; ISBN 978-3-922441-52-6 .
- ↑ At least the section of the pass over the Thuringian Slate Mountains was called Biel / Biehl, probably from the Celtic deity Belenus . The term is preserved as a street name in places. The name “Bühl” of several mountains probably also has this reference. In the extension to the Werra was the Celtic oppidum Steinsburg , a ring wall on the Herrnberg near Siegmundsburg was assigned to the same era ( Hallstatt / Latène period ).
- ↑ Jochen Haberstroh : The rice mountain at Scheßlitz-Burgellern in the time of the migration. Reflections on the 5th century AD in Northern Bavaria. With a contribution by Jörg Faßbinder. GERMANIA 81-1, 2003 Summary ( Memento from February 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 109 kB)
- ^ A b G. Brückner: Landeskunde des Herzogthums Meinigen , Volume 2: The topography of the country , Verlag Brückner and Renner, Meinigen 1853, p. 442 f.
- ↑ a b c Toy town of Sonneberg (Ed.): Historical mile - city tour through the old Sonneberg. Text: Thomas Schwämmlein, Sonneberg, 2005 (PDF; 691 kB)
- ↑ Christian Friedrich Keßler von Sprengseysen: Topography of the Herzoglich-Sachsen-Koburg-Meiningischen Antheils at the Herzogthum Koburg together with a geographical map of this country and some important never-before-printed documents between Saxony and Bamberg from 1471, 1601 and 1608 , self-published, Sonneberg 1781, P. 113
- ↑ The Topographia Franconiae by Matthias Merian , published 1648, p. 126 shows an idealized representation without the destruction of the palace building.
- ^ Prof. Frieser (Sonneberg): Sonneberg . In: Georg Voss (Hrsg.): Architectural and art monuments of Thuringia. Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen, Sonneberg district. District court district of Sonneberg . Book XXI. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena 1899, p. 36 f .