High bastion
The high bastion was the central bulwark of the former Hohenzollern fortress Plassenburg ob Kulmbach in Upper Franconia . The bastion served as a defense against artillery attacks between around 1530 and 1806 and was the largest single bastion in the German Empire when it was built.
Religious, military and political background to the construction of the first high bastion
Margrave Georg the Pious of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach began during his reign from 1515 to 1543 with the expansion of the Plassenburg into a state fortress. The previous medieval castle complex was reinforced with roundels and bastions made of sandstone. The Niederburg was built with what was then modern defenses. The Buchberg rising east of the Plassenburg became a problem for the fortress due to the cannons that had been getting bigger and more effective since the 15th century.
In the center of the east wall of the castle, the high bastion was built as a bullet trap to protect the stronghold and as the most important artillery position. Walls up to seven meters thick emerged from the curtain eastward as straight flanks and were connected by a semicircle. According to the Augsburg artist de Necker, who recorded the appearance of the castle and the bastion in a woodcut in 1554, the sandstone wall is said to have been ten meters thick on the front.
The images of this bastion on drawings from the 16th century and a floor plan or building plan from 1530 are very similar to Albrecht Dürer's proposals for building a bastion in his fortification theory from 1527. Dürer had dealt intensively with fortress building and, as a result of the Peasant War and the increasingly threatening Turkish threat, published a textbook with numerous drawings and plans.
A contemporary woodcut by Hans Glaser from Nuremberg shows the burning Kulmbach on November 23, 1553. The Hohe Bastei is clearly recognizable as a massive stone block pushed forward to the east. This bulwark was built around several grown sandstone cliffs that still break through the walls on the south and west sides. According to de Necker, there is a "swelling prunn" under the bastion. In fact, an opening in a cistern system, closed by a granite slab, is still preserved on the northern edge of the building, which apparently feeds itself independently from the direction of Buchberg through seepage water or water-bearing layers in the sandstone.
The work under George the Pious is directly related to his conversion to the Lutheran creed. Knowing well that questions of faith should often be resolved by force, as the Hussite Wars showed, it seemed to him to build at least two fortresses to protect his principalities. A strong and modern national defense therefore had to be a central point of his policy. The work was probably well advanced in 1541 when the power of government was handed over to Albrecht Bellator , later called Alcibiades.
Even more than his uncle Georg, Albrecht had to rely on strong national defense. Already at the beginning of 1552 he put the Plassenburg in a state ready for defense. The Plassenburg had been besieged since November 1553 and, after several defeats by the margrave in field battles, had to be handed over to the federal troops. A detailed model in the Hohenzollern Museum at the castle shows the expansion of the bastion under Albrecht Alcibiades.
After the handover in June 1554, the federal estates used the castle as a camp for about four months and then grinded it with "artistic Nuremberg machines", so-called "Danner breakers" , which brought the walls up to five meters thick to collapse. A contemporary plan of such a break screw is exhibited in the Obermain Landscape Museum. The high bastion was also largely destroyed. It was not until after 1603 that it was rebuilt under Margrave Christian.
Completion of the high bastion in 1607 under Margrave Christian
After the sudden death of Albrecht Alcibiades, who was under imperial ban, in Pforzheim in 1557, his cousin Georg Friedrich, who ruled in Ansbach, inherited the Oberland with the Plassenburg . On January 6, 1562, Caspar Vischer took up his position as pawmaister at the Plassenburg. The so-called “Bastion Plan” from 1562 has been preserved in the Bamberg State Archives . The plan clearly shows the high bastion in the center of the eastern defenses. The former lid watchtower, a roundabout probably built under Albrecht Alcibiades in the northeast of the castle , appears here for the first time as a small bastion in the plan north of the high bastion. It was converted into a small bastion in the course of the construction work in the following years. The small bastion was built by Vischer from 1568 on over a large vaulted cellar, which served as a storage room for the Niederburg.
To a large extent, this plan shows the fortress as it was actually built between 1562 and 1608. Only a few plans were not carried out or carried out in a different way. In place of the simple wall in the east, the massive “long battery”, including a stretcher weir and works in front of the two bastions.
A steeply rising curtain wall stretched between the high and small bastions, which enabled the direct connection of both bastions with a staircase and probably also via ramps. Two or three paragraphs on this curtain wall were used to position guns. The high bastion itself was no longer completed under Vischer. After his death in 1579, construction work continued, which lasted about thirty years.
After the death of Margrave Georg Friedrich in 1603, he was followed by his nephew Christian von Brandenburg-Kulmbach . Christian held his inauguration and wedding in Kulmbach and then moved the residence of the principality to Bayreuth as early as 1604 and his place of residence in the city palace there.
According to his own statements, Christian used another 70,000 guilders to finally restore the high bastion, which has also been called "Christianin" since then. The high bastion was given the appearance it had before 1554. But with the small bastion attached to it, the southern curtain wall and the two wall bars in the direction of Buchberg, it no longer appeared as a lonely tower facing the castle to the east. It was ideally integrated into the fortress of the castle. Albrecht von Haberland , as a master builder, completed the rebuilding of this largest bulwark of the Plassenburg between 1606 and 1608.
While the woodcuts by de Necker from 1554 on display in the Hohenzollern Museum on the Plassenburg show the bastion still open at the top, it was now closed with vaults. This created a much larger gun platform. The wall thickness in the east was about twelve meters, together with the walled rock in the base it was actually probably stronger. The two flanks were made about seven to eight meters thick. In height, the bastion towered over at least the roof ridge of the stronghold, and according to some reports and illustrations from the 18th century even the clock and bell tower. So it was probably about 25 meters higher than its stump standing today.
The west side was also massively drawn up and provided with loopholes, so the bastion could defend itself independently in all directions, it formed the center of the defense of the Plassenburg and at the same time represented an effective deterrent due to its enormous size. With this bulwark, the expansion of the Plassenburg into the state fortress of the margravate Brandenburg-Kulmbach was completed.
To the decoration of the bastion from 1607
.jpg)
As a stately symbol and artistic completion of the construction work, the margrave had the Christian tower named after him built in 1607, which was in front of the high bastion in the northwest and was given a magnificent portal in mannerist forms. The great portal was created by the sculptor Hans Werner .
Four wide steps lead to the two-story portal. In the center of the total work of art, the margrave is shown in equestrian armor on a horse rising to the right. He is flanked by two warriors in antique clothing. The goddess Minerva stands above the margrave in a blown gable, surrounded by warlike attributes. The wooden gate is decorated with a painted lion soaring behind bars, a representation of the burgrave lion of Nuremberg.
In the crown stone of the archway, a sandstone lion's head looks down. In its open mouth, the four canine teeth hold a golden ball, the volume of which is said to correspond to an old legend according to the annual gold yield from the margravial gold mines in the Fichtel Mountains. In the center of the portal, above the lion head and directly below the equestrian statue of the margrave, a coat of arms with the Brandenburg eagle is attached in an oval cartouche as a national emblem.
When you have passed the gate, which is painted with a larger than life-size Nuremberg burgrave lion, you stand in a roughly square room more than 15 meters high, from which a door leads to a narrow spiral staircase to the left. Parallelogram-like windows let light into the spiral staircase and the shaft-like high room, the function of which is still unclear.
The magnificent portal is solely a dazzling work to glorify the builder, who found a suitable place here to immortalize himself as the builder on this fortress and to be artistically celebrated. A double inscription in the architrave of the prince reflects the prince's intention. The left inscription is Latin, the right one is German and reads:
- "Margrave Christian the Noble Hero / Duke of Prussia Highly Chosen /
- Burggraf zu Nurnberg has the new / Aufgericht dis beautiful Gebew /
- And started in the year / When it was from the laudable stend /
- To the colonel of the Frankenkreiss / Elected with a special price /
- Guard the noble prince from Noht / And dis Portall o trever God / "
Christian was also artistically portrayed on the east side of the bastion. At the apex of the curvature, which is now walled, once stood a large, oval, stone heraldic plaque with an inscription, which unfortunately has not survived. Above it, the margrave was erected as a sandstone figure in ancient clothing as the god of war Mars . It was flanked by two obelisks. This statue should also be a work of Hans Werner. Russian prisoners of war recovered this figure from the ruins of the bastion during the First World War and placed it on the western roundabout, where it can still be seen today. The stone coat of arms of Margrave Christian, the obelisk and the plaque with the inscription are still hidden in the rubble between the High Bastion and the Long Battery.
Destruction of the high bastion in the 19th century
In the winter of 1806/07, the main parts of the high bastion were razed on the orders of Napoleon as part of extensive demolition work. The Bavarian Lieutenant General von Ysenburg was initially responsible for this work after King Maximilian I of Bavaria and Napoleon Bonaparte had agreed to destroy it. The Bavarian army moved on to Saxony and Prussia, and at the end of the year a captain von Pusch and around 40 soldiers were left behind to oversee the further destruction. The fortifications facing east and the neighboring small bastion were destroyed, the top combat platform of the high bastion was demolished and the large vaults smashed. Miners from what is now Bad Steben , who had experience with blasting and stone masses, were brought to Kulmbach for this work. Together with hundreds of farmers, laborers and day laborers - according to contemporaries more than 1000 men - the fortifications were torn down for months, while the residence in the high castle remained largely untouched. The cost of demolition was 13,500 guilders . The greatest damage occurred to the Hohen Bastei when it was prepared in 1862 for the construction of a cell prison for the Plassenburg prison. The upper vaults were demolished, the outer walls were stabilized with walls in front of them, and a level plane was created on the remaining stump that was to support the new cell prison and the walls of the prison yard.
The current state of the high bastion
The high bastion is only preserved as a stump today. Contrary to the originally rounded front, it was expanded in the 19th century by retaining walls at an obtuse angle to one another in the east, which today give the building a bastion-like appearance. In the east and north, heaps of rubble and rubble reach up to twelve meters and hide the base of the bastion here. A cell prison for the prison on the Plassenburg was built on the bastion in the 19th century, which was demolished at the instigation of Hitler's chief builder Fritz Todt at the end of the 1930s. The bastion has since been closed at the top by a partially concreted platform with numerous large and small holes, which can only be viewed in the western part as part of an external tour of the Bavarian Palace Administration.
The entrances to the interior of the bastion
There are four entrances to the interior, but none of them can be used. On the north side, an unusable, dilapidated brick staircase leads at a height of about five meters to a vaulted supply tunnel and staircase that leads up to the platform of the bastion. A second access would be possible from inside the arsenal building. Its easternmost part was only erected between 1940 and 1942 in place of a previously existing curtain wall. A staircase leads inside the walls to the Buchwaldtor and from there to the Hohe Bastei, but after about 30 meters it is walled up with large sandstone blocks. It used to lead into the large, lower west vault of the bastion. A third access was previously possible via the Christiansturm, the stairs of which the platform can still be reached today. An iron door in a hole on the platform blocks access to the upper staircase and supply tunnel. The area is not safe and must not be entered. Until 1937, the fourth former entrance was accessible from the stronghold via a bridge that spanned the barracks yard. Today the entrance on the west side of the bastion is walled up.
swell
- Eight-page leaflet from 1554 from the Kulmbach city archives with the title Truehftige anzeigung / what masses the city of Colmbach has conquered / and burned. , without signature.
- The repairs and buildings of the Plassenburg 1557/90 , Bamberg State Archives Rep. C2, 3166.
- Theodor Dorfmüller: Fates and description of the destroyed fortress Plassenburg , Bayreuth 1816.
- Albrecht Dürer: Several erections / to fortify the Stett / schlosz / and spots . Reprint of the Nuremberg 1527 edition, Unterschneidheim 2nd edition 1985.
- SW Oetter: De situ et origine castri Plassenburgi , Erlangen 1746.
Image sources and original plans
- View of the Plassenburg Fortress from the east , colorful pen drawing on cardboard, after 1650, Bamberg State Archives, Rep. A 241, no. 3145 / I
- David de Necker: Basically the foundation and the actual design of the very solid house and the well-known fortress Blassenburg / located on the mountain in Voyttlandt / As the same with all its walls / Pasteyen / Pollwerckern / doors / given and others located ... confessed ... afterwards to the customer Ferando and ultimately related to the Franconian unification destroyed etc. , views of the Plassenburg, three colored woodcuts from 1554, printed in Augsburg 1554, originals in the "Landscape Museum Obermain" and in the museum "The Hohenzollern in Franconia", (G-30 plan)
- Hans Glaser: The Blassenburg Castle, sampt the burned stat Kulmbach. Which Margrave Albrecht Kriegsvolck set himself on fire in the deduction, with all due , Nuremberg 1554, Kulmbach City Archives.
- Matthäus Merian: Abconterefierung of Blassenburg Castle with sampt its fortifications , copper engraving from Topographia Franconiae , around 1648
- Caspar Vischer: Plan for the reconstruction of the Plassenburg , first draft from 1562–1564 from the Bamberg State Archives, StAB Rep. A 240, T. 200
literature
- Bachmann, Erich: The Plassenburg ob Kulmbach, Munich 1967.
- Bauer, Franz: Kulmbach and the Plassenburg, Kulmbach 1963.
- Burger, Daniel: The state fortresses of the Hohenzollern in Franconia and Brandenburg, in: Die Plassenburg, series for local history research and cultural maintenance in East Franconia, Kulmbach 2000.
- Gebeßler, August : City and District of Kulmbach, brief inventory. In: Bayerische Kunstdenkmale III, ed. v. Heinrich Kreisel and Adam Horn for the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation, Munich 1958.
- Herrmann, Erwin: History of the City of Kulmbach, in: The Plassenburg, series of publications for local research and cultural maintenance in East Franconia, Volume 45, Kulmbach 1985.
- Hofmann, Hans Hubert: Castles, palaces and residences in Franconia, Frankfurt am Main 1961.
- Kunstmann, Hellmut: Castles on the Upper Main with special appreciation of the Plassenburg. In: Die Plassenburg, series of publications for local research and cultural maintenance in East Franconia, Volume 36, Kulmbach 1975.
- Mader, Heinrich: Building and Art History of the Plassenburg, Erlangen 1933.
- Sticht, Ernst: Margrave Christian von Brandenburg-Kulmbach and the Thirty Years War in East Franconia 1618–1635. In: Die Plassenburg, series for local research and cultural maintenance in East Franconia, Volume 23, Kulmbach 1965.
- Stösslein, Hans: Kulmbach and his Plassenburg, Kulmbach 1973.
- Weigand-Karg, Sabine: The Plassenburg - residence function and court life until 1604, Weißenstadt 1995.
- Hofmann, Friedrich: On the building history of the Plassenburg. In: Messages from the Friends of the Plassenburg Association 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 12, Kulmbach 1930–1936.
- Limmer, Fritz: Reports about the destruction of the Plassenburg in 1554 in the so-called federal or margravial wars. In: Messages from the Friends of Plassenburg Association 6, 1934.
Individual evidence
- ^ Article Siege of Kulmbach and the Plassenburg
- ↑ Kulmbach was attacked and destroyed by the Hussites under Prokop the Great in 1430, but the Plassenburg withstood the siege. Matthäus Merian reports on the siege in the description of Kulmbach and the Plassenburg in his Topographia Franconiae 1648: In 1430 the Hussites from Boheimb / Culmbach and Barreut infected / and carried out great cruelty / like the wild animals / on the common mob / and on Perpetrated persons. / The clergy / monks and nuns either laid them on the fire / or performed them on the established eyes of the water and rivers / (in Francken and Bayren) poured cold water on them / and brought them to such a shape pitifully umb / like Boreck in the Bohemian Chronic pag. 450 reports.
- ^ Vischer, Caspar: Plan for the reconstruction of the Plassenburg, original draft from 1562–1564 from the Bamberg State Archives, StAB Rep. A 240, T. 200.
- ^ Text in the architrave of the Christian portal in the barracks courtyard. See Mader, Heinrich: Bau- und Kunstgeschichte der Plassenburg, Erlangen 1933, p. 81.
- ↑ Kulmbach im Autumn 1806. Based on a simultaneous manuscript by Albrecht Schenk, published in: Archive for history and antiquity of the historical association for Upper Franconia, year 1881, pp. 53–60
- ^ Herrmann, Erwin: History of the City of Kulmbach. Kulmbach 1985, p. 270.
- ^ Pierer's Universal-Lexikon, Volume 13. Altenburg 1861, p. 186.
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 28.4 ″ N , 11 ° 27 ′ 55.3 ″ E