Hüneburg (Alsace)

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Hueneburg
Hüneburg from the northwest

Hüneburg from the northwest

Alternative name (s): Hünenburg,
French Hunebourg
Castle type : Höhenburg, rocky location
Conservation status: modern partial reconstruction
Place: Dossenheim-sur-Zinsel
Geographical location 48 ° 50 '0 "  N , 7 ° 21' 50.6"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 50 '0 "  N , 7 ° 21' 50.6"  E
Height: 425  m
Hüneburg (Bas-Rhin department)
Hueneburg

The Hüneburg (also Hünenburg , Château de Hunebourg ) is located in the northwest of Dossenheim-sur-Zinsel (German: Dossenheim) in the French department of Bas-Rhin on a 425 meter high sandstone rock . The rock castle is accessible from the valley of the southern Zinsel .

history

middle Ages

The castle was originally fully or half an imperial property , but the Bishop of Strasbourg also had rights here, as did the Electoral Palatinate .

The Counts of Hüneburg, who probably come from a branch line of the Counts of Dagsburg-Metz, are mentioned in documents in 1125 that prove the existence of the castle and the first two Counts Theoderic and Folmar. This family died out at the end of the 12th century. In the following years the castle was owned by a knight family who also named themselves after the castle "von Hüneburg". This family, who subsequently lived in the castle, also exercised the patronage of the Neuwiller Monastery and the Honau Monastery . The best known member of the family was Konrad von Hüneburg , Bishop of Strasbourg from 1190 to 1202.

At the end of the 13th century, ownership of the castle was divided between the knightly family of those von Hüneburg and the lords of Lichtenberg . In 1288 Johann I von Lichtenberg bought Walter von Hüneburg's share and then gave it to him as a fief . This made the castle part of the Lichtenberg territory. The Lords of Lichtenberg assigned the castle to their office in Buchsweiler . In 1335 the land was divided between the middle and younger lines of the House of Lichtenberg . The castle fell to Ludwig III. von Lichtenberg , who founded the younger line of the house. This was also the reason for a new internal organization of the Lichtenberg rule: the Ingweiler office was spun off from the Buchsweiler office. The Hüneburg castle came to the Ingweiler office. In 1466, the ¼ of the castle to which the Electoral Palatinate was entitled was given to the Lords of Lichtenberg as a fief.

There have been no reliable sources of the castle's structural condition since the middle of the 15th century. It is believed that it became increasingly dilapidated and was no longer inhabited.

Early modern age

After the death of the last Lichtenberger, Count Jakob, the rule was divided among the heirs and the office of Ingweiler initially fell to Zweibrücken-Bitsch . However, there was another inheritance in 1570, which brought the Ingweiler office, and thus also the Hüneburg, to the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg . During the time when the Neuweiler office was spun off from the Ingweiler office, the Hüneburg was part of the Neuweiler office.

As a result of France's reunification policy , around 1680 , the parts of the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg in Alsace fell under French suzerainty , including the Ingweiler and Hüneburg offices.

1736 died with Count Johann Reinhard III. the last male representative of the Hanau family. Due to the marriage of his only daughter, Charlotte (* 1700; † 1726), with the Hereditary Prince Ludwig (VIII.) (* 1691; † 1768) of Hesse-Darmstadt , the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg fell there. As a result of the French Revolution , the left bank of the Hanau-Lichtenberg county - and thus also Hüneburg - fell to France.

19th century

The ruins were confiscated during the French Revolution, sold as a national property and acquired in 1809 by the Napoleonic general Henri-Jacques-Guillaume Clarke , who from then on called himself "Comte de Hunebourg". He left the medieval dungeon tear down to make room for new construction projects and materials. However, he only stayed very rarely on the Hüneburg. The property was converted into a park with a hunting lodge. After the general's death in 1818, the Hüneburg was sold by his heirs and was owned by the Feyler family from Neuwiller-lès-Saverne from 1823 to 1932 .

20th century

At the end of the 1920s, the Alsatian autonomist Friedrich Spieser came across the ruins of the Hüneburg while hiking, and he was very drawn to them. In the early 1930s, Spieser tried to purchase them with his wife's financial means, but they were allegedly unable to take their funds out of Germany. Therefore, the Hamburg businessman Alfred Toepfer stepped in with his FVS Foundation (today: Alfred Toepfer Foundation FVS). He met Spieser several times and lent him the amount of 60,000 French francs for the purchase of the property, which took place on September 17, 1932. During the expansion of the ruin, he found further donors, such as the Volksbund für das Deutschtum Abroad and expanded the Hüneburg from 1934 to 1935, made more difficult by harassment from the French authorities. Spieser was able to neutralize this somewhat by setting up a hiking hostel on the Hüneburg, which was affiliated to the official French youth hostel association (LFAJ).

From 1934 on, Spieser had Karl Erich Loebell , an architect from the Stuttgart school and student of Paul Schmitthenner , build new residential buildings and a donjon in neo-Romanesque style. During the Nazi era, Loebell was discriminated against as a “half-Jew” by the Nuremberg Laws . After the occupation of Alsace by German troops and security organs in June 1940, Spieser obtained a special permit for Loebell from Gustav Adolf Scheel , the commander of the Security Police and SD in Alsace, which enabled Loebell to continue working on the project and protected him from persecution .

In his autobiographical story “Thousand Bridges”, Spieser describes the principles of reconstruction: obligation to history, closeness to nature, simplicity and objectivity in the furnishings, authenticity of the materials, orientation towards German building tradition. A “hiking hostel” (youth hostel) was integrated into the castle complex. The new keep was built on the small rock of the old inner castle , separated from the outer castle plateau by a cleft bridged by an arch . In contrast to its medieval predecessor, it was not built across the front of the outer castle but at the other end of the rock. As a "Peace Tower" it was dedicated to "the most unknown soldier of World War 1914-18 / those who fell in Alsace-Lorraine / and all the dead fighters from home". Meetings of autonomous Alsatian associations (Erwinsbund, Jungmannschaft) and folk song and folk dance events organized by Spieser took place at the castle . The French-friendly press in Alsace therefore attacked the rebuilt castle in the political disputes of the prewar period as a “bulwark of Germanness”.

At the beginning of the Second World War , the castle was confiscated by the French authorities. After the occupation of Alsace by the German troops, Spieser returned to the castle. At the instigation of the Baden Gauleiter and head of civil administration in Alsace, Robert Wagner , the body of the autonomist politician Karl Roos from Nancy , who was executed in 1940, was transferred and buried in the castle on June 19, 1941 with military honors. In the next few years, the Hüneburg became an obligatory place of pilgrimage for the students of the German-occupied Alsace-Lorraine .

After the liberation of France and the recapture of Alsace by the Allied troops, the sarcophagus is said to have been thrown into the moat by French troops . Where Roos' remains remained is not known. The castle was again confiscated and foreclosed by the French authorities. The Société mutualiste du personnel de l'Enregistrement acquired the property and turned it into a vacation home for its members. Until 2018, the Hüneburg housed a hotel. Today it is used privately.

literature

  • Thomas Biller, Bernhard Metz: The castles of Alsace - architecture and history. Volume 1: The beginnings of castle building in Alsace (until 1200) . Published by the Alemannic Institute Freiburg i. Br., Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-422-07439-2 , pp. 377–386.
  • Jean-Claude Brumm: Quelques dates importantes dans l'histoire… . In: Société d'Histoire et d'Archaeologie de Saverne et Environs (Eds.): Cinquième centenaire de la création du Comté de Hanau-Lichtenberg 1480 - 1980 = Pays d'Alsace 111/112 (2, 3/1980), p 10f.
  • Fritz Eyer: The territory of the Lords of Lichtenberg 1202-1480. Investigations into the property, the rule and the politics of domestic power of a noble family from the Upper Rhine . In: Writings of the Erwin von Steinbach Foundation . 2nd edition, unchanged in the text, by an introduction extended reprint of the Strasbourg edition, Rhenus-Verlag, 1938. Volume 10 . Pfaehler, Bad Neustadt an der Saale 1985, ISBN 3-922923-31-3 (268 pages).
  • Groupe de Recherche sur le château de Hunebourg: Hunebourg, un rocher chargé d'histoire. You Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine . Société Savante d'Alsace, [Strasbourg] 1997, ISBN 2-904920-17-X ( Recherches et documents . Volume 59).
  • Friedrich Hünenburg (pseudonym of Friedrich Spieser): Thousand Bridges: A biographical story from the fate of a country . Hünenburg-Verlag, Strasbourg, Stuttgart, Stockholm 1952.
  • Friedrich Knöpp: Territorial holdings of the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg in Hesse-Darmstadt . [typewritten] Darmstadt 1962. [Available in the Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt , signature: N 282/6].
  • Nicolas Mengus, Jean-Michel Rudrauf: Châteaux forts et fortifications médiévales d′Alsace. Dictionnaire d′histoire et d′architecture . La Nuée Bleue, Strasbourg 2013, ISBN 978-2-7165-0828-5 , pp. 160–161.

Web links

Wikisource: Die weisse Jungfrau von Hüneburg (legend)  - sources and full texts
Commons : Hüneburg  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eyer, p. 128.
  2. ↑ Eyer, p. 47.
  3. ↑ Eyer, p. 48, note 1.
  4. ↑ Eyer, p. 166.
  5. ↑ Eyer, p. 29
  6. ↑ Eyer, p. 29
  7. ↑ Eyer, p. 129f.
  8. ↑ Eyer, pp. 57, 129f.
  9. ↑ Eyer, p. 29.
  10. ↑ Eyer, pp. 79f.
  11. ↑ Eyer, p. 238.
  12. ↑ Eyer, pp. 75, 166; Knöpp, p. 14.
  13. ^ Bernhard Metz: Les familles et le château de Hüneburg au moyen age . In: Groupe de Recherche sur le château de Hunebourg: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine , pp. 9–62.
  14. ↑ Brumm, p. 11.
  15. ↑ René Reiss: Hunebourg dans l'armorial du premier empire . In: Groupe de Recherche sur le château de Hunebourg: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine , pp. 103–111.
  16. ↑ René Kill and Jean-Marc Sommer: Le domaine de Hunebourg depuis son acquisition par le maréchal Clarke . In: Groupe de Recherche sur le château de Hunebourg: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine , pp. 113–117.
  17. ^ Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace . Stuttgart 1973, p. 98.
  18. ^ Georg circle : Alfred Toepfer and Alsace . In Georg Kreis, Gerd Krumeich , Henri Menudier, Hans Mommsen , Arnold Sywottek (eds.): Alfred Toepfer. Founder and businessman. Building blocks of a biography. Critical inventory . Christians, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-7672-1373-7 , pp. 87-93
  19. ^ Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919-1947 . The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, pp. 59 .
  20. ^ Georg circle: Alfred Toepfer and Alsace . In Georg Kreis, Gerd Krumeich, Henri Menudier, Hans Mommsen, Arnold Sywottek (eds.): Alfred Toepfer. Founder and businessman. Building blocks of a biography. Critical inventory . Hamburg 2000, pp. 90f.
  21. ^ Frank-Rutger Hausmann: Hans Bender (1907-1991) and the 'Institute for Psychology and Clinical Psychology' at the University of Strasbourg . Ergon Verlag, Würzburg 2006. pp. 106-107.
  22. ↑ In Spieser's autobiographical story “Tausend Brücken”, p. 767, this episode reads like this: After the Gauleiter [= Rober Wagner ] had finally agreed that Paul Schmitthenner should rebuild his place of birth, the shattered town of Lauterburg, I had with him a lot of begging and the usual bite-sized assurances for Karl Erich that he could fully represent the professor [= Paul Schmitthenner] in spite of Nuremberg laws that forbade him to build .
  23. ^ Friedrich Hünenburg: Thousand Bridges: A biographical story from the fate of a country . Hünenburg-Verlag, Strasbourg-Stuttgart-Stockholm 1952, pp. 290-292.
  24. ^ Léon Strauss: Fritz Spieser. Le reconstructeur de la Burg . In: Groupe de Recherche sur le château de Hunebourg: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine , p. 142.
  25. ^ Bernadette Schnitzler: La reconstruction du château de Hunebourg. L'oeuvre de F. Spieser et de l'architecte KE Loebell (1932–1944) . In: Groupe de Recherche sur le château de Hunebourg: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine , pp. 175–236.
  26. ^ PC Ettighofer : One slain victorious homecoming. Karl Roos back in his Alsace . Strasbourg Monthly Issues July 1941, pp. 417–423.
  27. ↑ Photo Roos'
  28. ↑ «The grave of Roos becomes a place of pilgrimage for all German and Alsatian patriots. The body is buried in a tower that was built next to the castle and over which the flag with the swastika flies day and night. » Latest news from Strasbourg , June 22nd, 1941.
  29. ↑ Bernadette Schnitzler: Le château de Hunebourg et ses legends . In: Groupe de Recherche sur le château de Hunebourg: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine , pp. 263–266.
  30. ↑ Gilles Barnagaud: Hunebourg. De l'individualisme à la collectivité . In: Groupe de Recherche sur le château de Hunebourg: Hunebourg. Un rocher chargé d'histoire du Moyen Age à l'époque contemporaine , pp. 249-262.