Tapiau Castle

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Tapiau Castle

The Tapiau Castle was a Teutonic castle in Tapiau in East Prussia , today (Russian) Gwardeisk . The location marks the southeastern end of Samland , as the Deime separates from the Pregel here . In the Duchy of Prussia, the castle was the second residence of the Dukes in Prussia. In the 18th century a reformatory and from 1879 a prison were established there.

history

In the corner between Pregel and the west bank of the Deime was the Prussenburg Sugurbi. On the site of a wooden castle with ramparts and palisades, a stone castle was built in 1351 under the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order and Commander of Königsberg , Siegfried von Danenfeld . The outer bailey was already fortified with a castle gate and portcullis. In the middle of the main floor was a square room with a barrel vault, the living room of the master. This was followed by a simpler apartment of the house commandery with Remter . The magnificence and importance of the former castle can be gauged from the fact that in 1377 Duke Albrecht of Austria stayed there with an entourage of 5 counts and 50 knights and squires, as did King Henry IV of England , while he was Earl from 1390-1391 of Derby led a crusade against the Lithuanians .

When the Grand Master's seat was relocated to Königsberg, the Grand Commandery, which was in charge of the internal administration of the state, moved there in 1457 together with the "Ordensliberei" - that is, the library and the archive. In 1474, the Samland bishop Dietrich von Cuba was killed as a prisoner of Grand Master Heinrich Reffle von Richtenberg under circumstances that were not fully understood. In 1506 part of the order library was destroyed by fire, and the silver library was expanded with the remaining parts .

Albrecht von Brandenburg-Ansbach often stayed in the castle and died there of the plague on March 20, 1568 .

The castle was successively the seat of a commander, a caretaker, a governor and a domain tenant. Under King Friedrich Wilhelm II , it was converted into a rural poor and reformatory . In 1879 the building was extended by two floors and the castle was also used as a prison. The outer bailey was completely demolished and a supply house was built in its place on the river side in 1792.

Beginning in 1893, beggars, the blind and the deaf and dumb were also accepted, and in 1902 it became the state nursing home and insane asylum of the East Prussian province . It consisted of a large building complex with various workshops and social facilities for more than 1,500 people. After the Russian general mobilization on July 30, 1914 and the German declaration of war the next day, the castle and especially the palace church were badly damaged by Russian troops. In 1943 the castle was rededicated as a hospital .

Current condition

In the Kaliningrad Oblast , the castle is used by the Soviet and Russian authorities as a prison. Tapiau Castle still houses around 500 prisoners. The north-west wing with the gateway and old rooms as well as the barrel-vaulted cellars of the south-east wing have been preserved from the former four-wing complex. There is also the portcullis niche above the arched entrance. On the ground floor the rooms are supported by yokes and ribbed vaults as well as octagonal granite pillars. The main floor is designed according to the model of the marshal's building of the Königsberg Palace . As in Königsberg, the rooms to the north are designed with star vaults and animal heads on the consoles.

In 2013 it was decided to transfer the convicts to the new penal institution, to hand over the castle to the ownership of the Kaliningrad Oblast, to carry out restoration work and to open its doors to tourists.

photos

  • Tapiau Castle in the Middle Ages

  • Tapiau Castle

  • Tapiau Castle

  • Tapiau Castle to Deime

  • Tapiau Castle to Deime

  • Tapiau Castle to Deime

  • Tapiau Castle front

  • Tapiau Castle main entrance

  • Tapiau Castle at the back

  • Destruction in the war in 1914

  • Destruction in the war in 1914

  • War destruction in 1914 at the Pregel

literature

Web links

Commons : Tapiau Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Arno Mentzel-Reuters : Arma spiritualia - libraries. Books and education in the Teutonic Order . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2003, pp. 287–289 ( restricted preview ).
  2. ↑ cf. z. B. Otto von Rutenberg : History of the Baltic provinces of Liv, Esth and Kurland from the oldest times to the end of their independence . Volume 2, Leipzig 1860, pp. 200-203.
  3. ↑ Замок Тапиау могут открыть для туристов March 26, 2013 07:52 (Russian)

Coordinates: 54 ° 38 ′ 42 "  N , 21 ° 4 ′ 23.7"  E