Waldstein Castle (Silesia)
Waldstein Castle (also Waldstein Castle ; Polish Zamek Leśna ) is a castle-like building in the district of Borek (German Walddorf ) in the town of Szczytna ( Rückers ) in the powiat Kłodzki in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship in Poland. It is a listed building and houses a home for mentally handicapped people.
Location and description
Waldstein Castle is located on the edge of a wooded sandstone slab belonging to the southeastern foothills of the Heuscheuergebirge ( Góry Stołowe ) , which, with the Steinberg ( Kamiennik ), reaches a height of 580 m above sea level. Waldstein Castle is located at a height of 555 m and thus about 100 m above the beginning of the Hell Valley ( Piekielna Dolina ) of the Bystrzyca Dusznicka (German Reinerzer Weistritz ). It can be reached via a driveway.
A short distance to the south is the rock formation Adler ( Orlik ) with a viewpoint and to the south-east an unfinished Calvary ( Kalwaria Górska ) with representations of stations of the cross carved into sandstone rocks .
The building is a four-wing complex around a rectangular inner courtyard. The external dimensions are around 60 m by 40 m. The corners of the three-story building are reinforced in a tower-like manner, except for the south-western one, where a round tower rises. Waldstein Castle is built in a neo-Gothic style, partly with battlements, machicolations and pseudo-defense elements, such as the former moat, over which a drawbridge led. The facility is surrounded by a small park.
history
At the strategically important point for controlling the transition from Bohemia to Silesia , the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II. , As in other parts of the County of Glatz , left Fort Waldstein in 1790/1791 because of the deteriorating relations between Austria and Prussia , erect. It was manned by 12 men and could be increased to 120 in the event of a conflict. It was never used and was taken without resistance during the Napoleonic campaign against Prussia in 1807 and partially razed .
From 1831 to 1837 Leopold von Hochberg , who had acquired Rücker's rule in 1827, had Waldstein Castle built as a mansion on the remains of the fort according to plans by the Prussian master builder Carl Friedrich Schinkel . After his death in 1842, Leopold von Hochberg's sister inherited the property, which she sold in 1843 to the Prussian general August Ludwig von Nostitz . He was followed by Hermann von Pückler-Muskau . After further changes of ownership, it came to the Rohrbach brothers in 1860 , who owned the glassworks in Friedrichsgrund ( Batorów ). After the death of Franz Rohrbach in 1880, who at that time was the sole owner of the hut, his only daughter Helene inherited his property, who was married to Captain Bruno Klein. Helene and Bruno Klein rebuilt Waldstein Castle in 1892–93 and built a tower chapel with a family crypt . At the beginning of the 20th century, Waldstein Castle was opened to the public.
In 1929 the order received missionaries from the Holy Family Waldstein Castle and opened the Regina Pacis Mission School , which had up to 900 students and was closed by the National Socialists in 1940 . The design of the Calvary has started. From 1941 until the end of the Second World War , the house was used as a hospital for war wounded. After the transition to Poland in 1945, the German missionaries were expelled along with most of the German population on March 10, 1946 . Waldstein Castle was handed over to Polish friars, who in turn were expelled by the communist authorities in the 1950s , who set up a home for mentally handicapped people here. In 2006 the order received property rights again.
Except for the chapel, which serves as the parish church for Borek, the complex can only be viewed from the outside.
literature
- Aloys Bernatzky : Lexicon of the county Glatz. Marx Verlag Leimen / Heidelberg 1984, ISBN 3-931019-06-3 , p. 287.
- Marek Staffa (ed.): Słownik geografii turystycznej Sudetów. Vol. 13: Góry Stołowe. Warszawa-Kraków: Wydawnictwo PTTK “Kraj”, 1992, ISBN 83-7005-301-7 , pp. 143/144.
- Dehio Handbook of Art Monuments in Poland. Silesia. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich et al. 2005, ISBN 3-422-03109-X , p. 902.
- Peter Güttler: The Glatzer Land. A travel guide to the landscape, art and culture of the Kłodzko Mountains / Ziemia Kłodzka in Silesia. Aktion West-Ost eV, Düsseldorf 1995, ISBN 3-928508-03-2 , p. 96.
- Karl-Helmut Klose: Castles and palaces of the County of Glatz . Marx Verlag 1997, ISBN 3-87854-128-7 , pp. 181-193.
Web links
- Szczytna - Waldstein Castle on the Szczytnik. Retrieved May 27, 2018 .
- Historical and current recordings of Waldstein Castle. Retrieved May 27, 2018 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl Baedeker: Silesia . Leipzig 1938, p. 187
- ↑ ID number 593122
- ^ Aloys Bernatzky: Regional studies of the county of Glatz . Marx Verlag Leimen, ISBN 3-931019-06-3 , p. 123
Coordinates: 50 ° 24 ′ 44.2 " N , 16 ° 27 ′ 27.9" E