Koenigsberg Castle

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Königsberg Castle (1895)
Side view of the castle before 1900

The Königsberg Castle was next to the Königsberg Cathedral a landmark of the East Prussian capital Königsberg , today's Kaliningrad in Russia . During the Second World War , the Royal Air Force carried out two night air raids on Königsberg in late August 1944 . Burned out in the process, the castle suffered further destruction in the Battle of Königsberg in 1945. In the post-war period the castle ruins were left to deteriorate. Individual parts of the ruin complex were laid down from 1953 (castle tower). The Soviet party and state leader Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev had the ruins completely blown up and removed in 1968.

meaning

The building was 104 m long and 66.8 m wide. The tallest tower at 84.5 m was on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz . The historical events have always given rise to changes or new buildings. In 1312 Königsberg became the seat of the order marshal. During the whole of the 14th century military campaigns against the Lithuanians started from here. In 1457 Königsberg became the residence of the Grand Masters after the Marienburg was lost, and in 1525 the castle became the residence of Duke Albrecht (Prussia) from the House of Hohenzollern . In 1618, the Electors of Brandenburg followed. On January 18, 1701, Elector Friedrich III was crowned in the audience hall of the palace. to King Friedrich I in Prussia. As the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia in the Prussian monarchy , Königsberg has now become the second residence after Berlin.

The palace church , built from 1584 to 1595 by the builder Blasius Berwart sent to Königsberg by the Duke of Württemberg , was the coronation church of the Prussian kings Friedrich I and Wilhelm I in 1701 and 1861 given up. Therefore, only the southeast wing of the palace, the so-called Unfriedtbau (also called Friedrichsbau) was completed in baroque style. In the period that followed, the palace became more and more a building for authorities and a museum.

Building ensemble

The closed wing of the building had four wings:

Of the towers were preserved:

  • Castle tower on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz (southwest corner of the castle)
  • Haberturm , the oldest (octagonal) tower on Münzplatz (northeast corner of the castle)
  • Round tower on the southwest corner of the palace (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz)
  • Berwart Tower on Gesekusplatz (northwest corner of the castle)
  • Lidelauturm on the north wing

  • The Königsberg Castle, seen from the northeast. Aerial photograph 1925

  • View over the old town to the south side of the castle

  • North-east corner of the castle with Haberturm at Münzplatz

  • East side of the castle with main guard and Albrechtstor on the castle square

  • South wing with palace terrace and unpeace building on the old town mountain road

  • Northwest corner of the castle with Berwart Tower on Gesekusplatz

  • Castle courtyard with a view of the west side (castle church)

  • North wing (courtyard side) with entrance to the historic "Blutgericht" wine bar

  • Königsberg Castle around 1840 (steel engraving after a drawing by B. Peters)

use

Museum of the Ordinary Rooms

The rooms of the Teutonic Order were preserved as a museum in the north wing of the castle. The oldest component was the rectangular tower, which the Bailiff of the Samland Diderich von Lidelau had built between 1278 and 1292. This was attested by a clay record inscription in Gothic capital letters in the basement. On both sides of the tower were the remterers , in which the Order Marshal and, from 1457, the Grand Master lived. Duke Albrecht 1526 celebrated his wedding with Dorothea of ​​Denmark in these rooms, in which he lived with her until 1533.

To the west, the museum extended to the tower of the furrier , the north-western round corner tower of the Georg Friedrich Building. When it was erected, Blasius Berwart had demolished a tower of this name a little further to the east; its name was transferred to the new round tower. The silver library lay in it . The goldsmith J. Freudner, who came to the Kneiphof from Ulm in 1527, made the famous Albrecht sword in silver for the duke in 1541. The museum also had a chiseled armor from Duke Albrechts and the carved picture by Hans Schenck . It was saved in an adventurous way and came to the Grunewald Castle Museum . Charles V's letter of safe conduct (HRR) for Martin Luther when he requested it from the Diet in Worms in 1521 was in the former archive of the order . Luther's third daughter Margarete von Kunheim brought this document to East Prussia, first in the possession of Chancellor Martin von Wallenrodt and then in the castle museum.

Building history

Religious time

In 1242 negotiations were held between the Teutonic Order and the Lübeckers about the construction of a port city in “Portu Lipze” on the river called “Pregore or Lipza”. Initially, one thought of the establishment of a city-state by Lübeck. In 1246 there were agreements according to which the order should take over the founding of the city itself and build a castle next to the city. Several military campaigns were also undertaken into Samland. But the implementation of the plan was delayed by other political and military events. It was not until 1255 that a large crusader army of King Ottokar II. Přemysl penetrated from Balga across the ice of the Fresh Lagoon into Samland under the leadership of the order . This bypassed the seeds that had occupied the pregel line in anticipation of this attack. The troops of the Order marched far and wide, devastating everything, turned south and defeated the defenders of the Pregellinie.

On a mountain in a forest, which the Prussians called Tuwangste (also Twangste, Twangst, Twongst, Twoyngst), there was an old Prussian fortress. The name of this castle is derived from the word "wangus" and describes a logging in an oak forest. Since the oak was the symbol of the Prussian god of thunder, Perkunos , and was subject to taboo , the Prussian natives were forbidden to even touch an oak forest. The order founded the castle there, which was named "Koenigsberg" in honor of King Ottokar, and gathered a large army of Prussians to labor for the construction. The first castle, the "castrum antiquum", was located at the point where the outer bailey of the castle later rose, then the cuirassier barracks and, from 1926, the Reichsbank building. During the construction of the Reichsbank building, small remains of a plank fortification were uncovered, as well as piles fixed by stone packings, which probably served as base piles for wooden structures.

In 1260 a great Prussian uprising broke out. The castle was besieged for a long time, but held out. After Marienburg was lost to Poland, the castle was the residence of the Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order from 1457 to 1525. The fortifications and castle constructions of the order began soon after the mountain plateau took possession of the mountain plateau in 1255. As a temporary protection, an earth wall castle was built after the Pregel, which later retained the character of a bailey. At the same time, however, the expansion of the main castle began. Just a few years after construction began, the castle was so well-fortified that it withstood a three-year siege in the great Prussian uprising (around 1260). But only after this uprising had been put down did the construction of the double curtain wall, which was interrupted by nine defensive towers, begin. Of these towers, only the Haberturm on the north side has been preserved. The other buildings, farm buildings, stables, etc., leaned against the curtain wall from the inside of the courtyard.

The area of ​​the Higher Regional Court was occupied by the Kornhaus in the 14th century. The convent house with church, remter and chapter house adjoined to the west. It was the residence for the Order Marshal with an old defense tower on the north side and finally a Firm Arie , a hospital and hospice of religious men, with a chapel. Around 1380, today's castle tower was finally built as a bell and watch tower on the southwest corner of the convent house. With the completion of this castle tower, which is still preserved in its medieval shape up to the approach of the corner turret, the building history of the order's time is essentially over. In 1457, after the loss of the Marienburg, the Grand Master moved to Königsberg and moved into the Obermarschall's apartment, which has now become the Grand Master's apartment.

The defensive walls

Construction began with the erection of the outer defensive wall. In 1263 it encompassed the entire square of today's castle. Its course can be followed precisely on all sides - with the exception of the west side. On the north side, the five to six meter high and two meter thick field stone wall was preserved almost in its entire length. Originally the defensive wall, including the brick walkway, was seven to eight meters high. On this north side, in addition to the north-eastern corner tower, the so-called Haberturm, two strong square towers are preserved, the west of which can be approximately dated by a building inscription. The eastern wall has only survived in its northern part beyond the castle gate, and its further course to the south can be determined by drawings from the 18th century. Like the western wall, it had no intermediate towers. Field stone masonry has been preserved in the lower part of the south wall. This stops very irregularly towards the top.

In the so-called city war in the middle of the 15th century, this wall with four towers facing the old town was torn down by the rebellious citizens. It was not until 1482 that the order rebuilt it. The older wall remnants still standing at that time were used again. The foundation walls of the three square towers and the square southeast corner tower were also used in the reconstruction, as has been determined by excavations. The southwest corner tower from the end of the 16th century was removed when the palace church wing was built. In addition to the four corner towers, there were two northern and three southern towers, a total of nine towers.

The convent house

The time when the convent house and the dancers were built can no longer be determined with certainty. The convent house must have been built earlier than the gentlemen's firm, as this takes the convent house into account in its floor plan and design. The foundation walls of the west wing may have been partially used again in the new building. The foundations of the three other wings, as far as they lay under the current courtyard pavement, were uncovered during the excavation in 1926/1927. If one assumes that the old castle fountain, which was preserved, was roughly in the middle of the courtyard of the convent house, the following dimensions result: courtyard 22.85 × 29 meters, external dimensions of the four-wing house 47.5 × 58 meters. The north and south wings pushed through to the east wall, so that the east wing was connected between the two other wings.

All three excavated wings have two aisles, the north and south wings were originally not divided by any transverse walls. In the wider south wing, the transverse divisions that used to exist in the upper storeys can be recognized by the fact that instead of a central support, two supports are arranged to support them. During the construction of the palace church wing under Margrave Georg Friedrich in the last decades of the 16th century, the parts of the convent house that were still standing at that time, the south and west wings, were demolished.

The men's firm

The firm, the infirmary and retirement home of the friars, was built in the northwest corner of the castle. It had two cross-vaulted rooms (rib vaults) separated from each other by a stone wall with wide window niches in the north wall. The eastern of these rooms has been mutilated almost beyond recognition by a renovation in the 15th century, but can be reconstructed from the traces in the masonry.

The Supreme Marshal's apartment

The house was built after older structures that leaned against the outer defensive wall were removed. His spatial program comprised the usual rooms for the main floor: living room, bedroom, servant room, remter and entrance hall. In addition, a chapel for the company was built at the same time, the St. Anna chapel. The dimensions are considerable. The structural system of the building is based on two parallel lines of star vaults. In the 15th century, the vaults over the entrance hall, servants' rooms and remter were replaced by large star vaults that extend over the entire depth of the building, so that the impression is significantly changed. From the courtyard one climbed a staircase to the upper floor with two porticoes. A pointed arched portal led from the upper portico into the entrance hall. The door wall consists partly of unusually high profile bricks, which are inserted into the brick wall like house blocks. The hall was originally not the size it is today. On the east wall there are two pointed arches, but at the same time two doors, one under each arch. Later, when an upper floor was built over the main floor in the 16th century, a larger staircase was also replaced.

The vaults were oddly designed. The limestone beginners' vaults are supported by sculpted limestone consoles: a crouching male, a dog with a bell collar, a ram's head, a tracery console. The meaning remained unclear. The western hope window had a man-high parapet. This was where the doorway to a spiral staircase leading down to the basement was as thick as the wall. Remains of wall paintings from the 15th century have been preserved: the coat of arms of the penultimate Grand Master Friedrich von Sachsen above the entrance door of the living room. The bedroom, like the living room, also had sculpted consoles and vaults made of limestone.

  • Apartment of the Order Marshal

  • Showrooms

  • Archives

  • Corridor of the firm

Time of the Dukes of Prussia

The castle was the residence of the Prussian dukes since 1525 and the secondary residence of the Brandenburg electors since the 17th century. Albrecht , Margrave of Brandenburg, who was Grand Master from 1511 to 1525, transformed the order state into a secular duchy, and at the same time carried out the conversion of the order castle into the residential palace of the Dukes of Prussia. Its first master builder, Friedrich Nussdörfer from Nuremberg, built parts of the east wing, the Albrechtsbau (later the Königsberg Higher Regional Court ) and, in particular , the Albrecht Gate, dated 1532.

Castle tower with an old spire

With the end of the order in 1525 and the establishment of a ducal court, considerable changes to the building stock of the palace were necessary. Administration rooms were increasingly needed, and very soon representation rooms and chambers for the duchess and the court. The medieval rooms will also have been felt to be old-fashioned, especially as the new Renaissance building style began to take hold. At first one began to change the Eastern Front. In place of the medieval gate opening, the east gate was given a round arched entrance gate, which is framed by two pilasters and a flat-round gable field at the top. Albrecht (Prussia) also laid the foundation for the famous silver library . Christian Hoffmann and Christof Römer then realized his building ideas, completed the eastern front and built the entire south wing by 1569. Overall, the castle has been expanded into a splendid Renaissance palace in the east and south wings since 1532. Margrave Georg Friedrich I (Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach) wanted a church and a large festival and reception hall in order to increase the residential palace of the dukes to the representative house of the Duchy of Prussia. In about a decade, the two-aisled low castle church (Königsberg), bordered by two mighty round towers, and above it the huge Muscovite Hall was built . Under Elector Friedrich Wilhelm (Brandenburg) there were early furnishings in the style of the Dutch Baroque.

Time of the Kings of Prussia

In the years following the coronation of the king, the construction of the southern baroque wing, the Unfriedtbau (also called Friedrichsbau), was carried out by the builder Joachim Ludwig Schultheiss von Unfriedt . The plan provided for a three-storey building with a triumphal arch entrance and two protruding side wings to be built on the site of the east wing. The renovation was started in 1705 and carried out to a third (the southern part) by 1712. King Friedrich Wilhelm I had the further expansion stopped in 1713. Since then, the castle has been used predominantly by the state administration (e.g. war and domain chambers, courts). In 1861, King Wilhelm I crowned himself in the palace . The palace tower was given a neo-Gothic spire with four corner turrets in place of the baroque lantern in the years 1864–66, based on a design by Friedrich August Stüler . The tower was now 82 meters high and became a symbol of the city. The royal representation and living rooms in the Unfriedtbau, the castle church and the Muscovite Hall could be visited and the archive and library were open to the public.

  • Coronation procession for Wilhelm I.

  • Unfriedtbau, administration, Albrechtstor (1900)

Weimar Republic and Third Reich

Before the Second World War , the state museum and the painting collection were housed in parts of the palace. Among other things, it housed the 240,000 archaeological exhibits of the Prussia collection , a collection from the state and university library in Königsberg with the famous silver library from the 16th century, and numerous paintings by the painter Lovis Corinth . During the Second World War, the castle served as a depot for captured Russian art, including the Amber Room , which had been missing since 1945, and the erotic furniture of Catherine the Great. The blood dish was famous . During the Second World War, the castle burned down completely during the British air raids on Königsberg at the end of August 1944; the thick walls and the castle tower partially withstood the later Soviet artillery fire in the Battle of Königsberg in April 1945.

From 1920 to 1945 Hans Gerlach was the lead restorer of the palace.

Soviet Union and the present

The largely destroyed Königsberg fell after the Second World War with the entire northern part of East Prussia to the Soviet Union and was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946. Kaliningrad was to be rebuilt as a Soviet model city on the ruins of Königsberg, if possible without recalling the German past. The castle ruins were left to deteriorate in the post-war period. In 1953, the heavily damaged 82 meter high castle tower, which had been one of the most important landmarks of Königsberg, was blown up. At Leonid Brezhnev's instructions , the remaining parts of the castle ruins, which Soviet government circles saw as a rotten tooth of Prussian militarism , were completely blown up despite the protests of Kaliningrad students and intellectuals in 1968.

Instead of the castle on the so-called central square , the house of the Soviets was to be built next to the former moat that was filled in . It was planned as an administrative building in the 1960s but not completed structural reasons, it has long been a Bauruine: The too powerful planned, oversized construction slowly sank into the soft ground, which is why the present inhabitants of Koenigsberg the building a long time even Revenge of Prussia called . The construction was still not completed, although the facade was repainted and windows were installed in 2005 on the occasion of a visit by the then Russian President Putin . For a time, today's Kaliningrad city administration discussed possibilities of rebuilding the castle with financial support from the Russian Ministry of Culture.

Excavations at the former location of the castle (2018)

In contrast to the Königsberg Cathedral , which has been renovated for several years, one would be faced with the difficult task of rebuilding the castle from scratch, so these plans were dropped for the time being. Instead, the central square will be repaved. Since September 2001 the German news magazine Der Spiegel has financed the uncovering of parts of the castle cellar, which is carried out by the Kaliningrad Art History Museum. One hopes to come across buried art treasures from the former castle museum and possibly also the remains of the Amber Room . Thousands of objects have been discovered so far. In June 2005, a hidden silver box with medals and amulets was found, which is considered a sensation in specialist circles. It is planned to make parts of the castle's cellar vaults accessible as an open-air museum after the excavations have been completed. According to press reports, a historicizing reconstruction of the castle as a cultural center is planned in the further course.

literature

  • Robert Albinus: Königsberg Lexicon. City and surroundings . Flechsig, Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-88189-441-1 .
  • Fritz Gause : The history of the city of Königsberg in Prussia. 3 volumes. 2nd / 3rd supplemented edition. Böhlau, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-412-08896-X .
  • Baldur Köster: Königsberg. Architecture from the German era . Husum Druck, Husum 2000, ISBN 3-88042-923-5 .
  • Jürgen Manthey : Königsberg - history of a world citizenship republic . Hanser , Munich 2005, ISBN 3-446-20619-1 .
  • Gunnar Strunz: Discover Königsberg. Between Memel and fresh lagoon . Trescher, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89794-071-X .
  • Herbert Meinhard Mühlpfordt : Immortal Königsberg Castle. Ten essays . Edited by Peter Wörster . Frankfurt am Main 2004
  • Alfred Rohde : The castle in Königsberg (Pr.) And its collections , 1933; 5th edition, Berlin 1942.
  • Wulf D. Wagner : The Königsberg castle. A building and cultural history. Volume 1: From the foundation to the government of Friedrich Wilhelm I (1255–1740). Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-7954-1936-3 ( Publications of the Museum Stadt Königsberg , Vol. 5), (Dissertation University of Karlsruhe, 2005).
  • Wulf D. Wagner, Heinrich Lange: The Königsberg castle. A building and cultural history. Volume 2: From Frederick the Great to the Demolition (1740–1967 / 68). The fate of his collections after 1945. Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7954-1953-0 .
  • Wulf D. Wagner: The Königsberg Castle / Kaliningrad (= Small Art Guide, No. 2711). Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-7954-6787-6 .

Web links

Commons : Königsberger Schloss  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Albinus: Königsberg Lexicon . Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-88189-441-1

Coordinates: 54 ° 42 ′ 36.8 "  N , 20 ° 30 ′ 38.8"  E