Memelburg

Memelburg (16th century)

The Memelburg was a Teutonic castle at the mouth of the Curonian Lagoon in the Baltic Sea . In today's Klaipėda it is being excavated and, after long preparatory work, is being rebuilt in stages.

history

Built by the Order of the Brothers of the Sword as a wooden castle in the marshland between Memel and Dange , the castle served as an outpost for the mission in Courland and Lithuania . The 1253-built stone castle was in 1379 by Lithuanians and Samogitians destroyed in 1393 with a dungeon rebuilt and in the same year by Lithuanians destroyed again. It was continuously renewed and expanded, especially from 1408 by Ulrich von Jungingen . It retained its importance even after the defeat of the Teutonic Order in the Battle of Tannenberg (1410) . It was armed against Lithuanian gunfire and expanded into a fortress by French engineers in the middle of the 16th century . With the main building and the five towers, it was devastated by Swedish troops in 1629 during the Polish-Swedish War . Badly damaged by fire and the Seven Years' War (1757), it was renovated for the last time in 1763.

When it lost its strategic importance at the end of the 18th century, it was partially canceled. The remains were removed between 1872 and 1874.

See also : Prussian Lithuania , List of Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order and List of Castles, Palaces and Fortifications in Lithuania

literature

• Bernhart Jähnig : The development of the sacred topography of Memel in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period. In: The Prussia as a research task. A European region in its historical references. Festschrift for Udo Arnold (= individual publications of the Historical Commission for East and West Prussian State Research. 20). Lüneburg 2000, ISBN 3-932267-23-0 , pp. 209-226 (first published in Lithuanian).

Web links

• History of Klaipeda. (No longer available online.) In: klaipeda-tourism.lt. Klaipėda Tourism, 2011, archived from the original on January 14, 2014 . 
• Location in Klaipeda. (GIF) (No longer available online.) In: krantas.lt. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007 (Lithuanian, English). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dankwart Guratzsch : The Memelburg is to rise again. Lithuania wants to reconstruct the facility built in 1252 at the mouth of the Curonian Lagoon for 42 million euros. In: The world . December 29, 2008, accessed December 11, 2018.
2. ↑ Klaipėdos piliavietėje atkurta šiaurinė kurtina (Lithuanian), July 30, 2018, accessed on September 17, 2019

Coordinates: 55 ° 43 ′ 0.4 ″  N , 21 ° 5 ′ 59.2 ″  E