Kocherburg

Kocherburg
Remains of the shield wall of the Kocherburg
Alternative name (s):	Kochburg
Creation time :	Around 1200
Castle type :	Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status:	Burgstall
Standing position :	Ministerial Headquarters
Place:	Aalen - Unterkochen - "Schlossbaufeld"
Geographical location	48 ° 48 '57.1 "  N , 10 ° 8' 54.2"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 48 '57.1 "  N , 10 ° 8' 54.2"  E
Height:	572.7  m above sea level NN

The Kocherburg , also known as Cooking Castle , is the ruin of a hilltop castle near the district of Unterkochen in the city of Aalen in the Ostalbkreis in Baden-Württemberg .

Geographical location

The ruins of the Spornburg are located about half a kilometer east of the outskirts of Unterkochen on the western tip of a large, on a plateau, called the castle building field , of the Härtsfeld at about 572.3  m above sea level. NN between the source sounds of the White Kocher and its left tributary, the Häselbach. The castle is about 80 meters above the Häselbach stadium at its feet. About 700 to 800 meters further east, section ramparts from the Bronze and Hallstatt Ages cross the approach of the 0.3 km² large castle building area, which plunges noticeably to the west, shortly before a larger step to the Härtsfeld plateau.

history

Coat of arms of the Lords of Cooking, today the coat of arms of the village of Unterkochen

The Kocherburg was built into a prehistoric fortification in the 11th century . In 1136 the Lords of Boiling are mentioned for the first time, who probably sat at Kocherburg. They were followed by the Knights of Ahelfingen , who are mentioned as owners of the castle in 1300.

1317 the castle is in a document in which Konrad von Ahelfingen with the Abbey Ellwangen his property in Unterkochen against the castle Hoheneybach exchanged as Castrum cooking Burch called. From then on, the castle was the seat of the Vogt of the Ellwang district of Cooking Castle .

In 1397 the Ellwang Abbot Albrecht Hack von Wöllstein lived in the castle. In 1461 it became the retirement home of Prince Provost Johann von Hürnheim .

1627–1632, Prince Provost Johann Jakob Blarer von Wartensee had the dilapidated buildings demolished and replaced with a castle at a cost of 8,034 guilders . The builder was Hans Alberthal . Construction plans from 1627 for the construction of a three-wing renaissance castle have been preserved , but after the excavation findings they were not implemented on the mountain spur, which was too narrow for this.

In the course of the Thirty Years War , the Swedes completely destroyed the new castle, which had been completed a few years earlier, in 1645. In 1649 stone material was removed to build a new office building and in 1764 to build the new parish church in Unterkochen. In 1813 the construction site was reforested, and since then the ruins have been hidden in a thick beech forest.

In 1913 the then Albverein chairman and paper manufacturer Adolf Palm (1846–1925) had investigations carried out on the castle. The first re-excavations took place under the direction of the castle painter and researcher Konrad Albert Koch (1869–1945) and exposed part of the masonry. This resulted in a sketch of the floor plan drawn by Koch and a possible view of the Kocherburg. During later excavations in 1914 on behalf of the Ellwangen History and Antiquity Association, a vaulted cellar and the adjacent areas of the escape route and defense room were exposed.

In 2007 the Kocherburg ruin initiative was launched by the Aalen History Association. V. (INKO) as a committee of the Aalen history association. V. founded. In 2008, after security work, a 12-meter-long, well-preserved part of the shield wall in the southeast of the ruin was exposed. The wall was drilled and pressed out with cement to prevent water from entering, then the masonry was sandblasted . In 2015 the south wall was secured.

In 2010 an archaeological inventory of the ruins was carried out by the archaeologist Tilmann Marstaller . The initiative laid out more paths and made more walls visible. Employees at the University of Applied Sciences in Stuttgart designed a three- dimensional 3-D model of the Kocherburg , taking into account the topographical surroundings of the castle, and produced a 3-D animation film . The Kocherburg ruin initiative continues to maintain the castle complex and is preparing further renovation work on the castle.

Today the former castle complex is an archaeological cultural monument that offers an archaeological tour through and around the castle area.

investment

Three systems can be distinguished in the development of the Kocherburg:

• The medieval castle, which may have been built as early as the 11th century and was renewed around 1200 using a humpback square construction.
• The expansion as the seat of the Ellwangischen Obervogts in the 14th century.
• The completely new building from 1627 to 1632 as a renaissance castle.

The neck ditch broken out of the rock , through which a forest path runs today, as well as the partially preserved shield wall secured the facility from the mountain side in the east. The focus was a three- or four-wing building complex around an atrium on a plateau at a height of about 560 m above sea level. NHN. Humpback blocks can be seen on the south wall, which has been preserved in full length, and also in the interior, some of which have been reused. A lower bailey bordered the castle in the west. From the northwest, the castle path led from the valley into the courtyard of the outer bailey and past a round tower through the inner gate, which is still recognizable today, into the core complex with courtyard and kennel.

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  Attempt of a reconstruction by Konrad Albert Koch based on the findings from 1913

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  Remains of the tower to the west

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  Passage from the Zwinger in the north into the interior of the facility

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  Drainage shaft on the outside of the south wall

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  Humpback cuboid on the south wall

Others

The Kocherburg School in Unterkochen, a community school of the Peace School Unterkochen ( elementary and secondary school with Werkrealschule ) and the Kocherburg Realschule , is named after the Kocherburg.

literature

• Günter Schmitt : Castle Guide Swabian Alb, Volume 6 - Ostalb: Hiking and discovering between Ulm, Aalen and Donauwörth . Biberacher Verlagsdruckerei, Biberach an der Riß 1995, ISBN 3-924489-74-2 , pp. 249-254.

Web links

• Website kocherburg.de with a 3D reconstruction experiment and model.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Günter Schmitt : Burgenführer Schwäbische Alb, Volume 6 - Ostalb: Hiking and discovering between Ulm, Aalen and Donauwörth . Biberacher Verlagsdruckerei, Biberach an der Riß 1995, ISBN 3-924489-74-2 , p. 251.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Kocherburg Aalen-Unterkochen . Flyer of the Kocherburg ruin initiative in the Aalen History Association. V. As of 2016.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Schmitt p. 252.
4. ↑ Kocherburgschule Unterkochen on unterkochen.aalen.de.