Upper Castle (Kranichfeld)

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Kranichfeld Upper Castle

The Upper Castle Kranichfeld is a Renaissance palace of the former royal house Reuss , above the town of Kranichfeld in Thuringia , which consists of an older castle emerged. It is owned by the Thuringian Palaces and Gardens Foundation .

description

Kranichfeld Upper Castle
View through the outer bailey to the upper castle
View from the thick tower to the southwest into the Ilm valley
View from the thick tower to the east

The palace complex emerged from a medieval castle to secure the trade routes through the Ilm Valley . Today it still reflects the division into outer bailey and core bailey. Surrounded by a partially preserved curtain wall , it still has the palace and the ruins of the keep . The building is of Romanesque origin and was changed in the 16th century. The 27 m high keep, also known as the "Big Tower", has been used as a lookout tower since 2002walkable. A glass dome provides a panoramic view of the Middle Ilm Valley and the wider area. A museum in the Palas shows the history of the upper castle, especially the time after the fire of 1934.

history

"Leaky ass" on the bay console

A castle of the Lords of Kranichfeld is first mentioned in the 12th century. The sex died out around 1380 in the male line . Their inheritance fell to the burgraves of Kirchberg . In the middle of the 15th century the castle and manor of Ober-Kranichfeld were sold to the Reuss family , where a daughter from the Kirchberg family had married. The sub-rule (Nieder-Kranichfeld), however, came to the Counts of Gleichen . From 1530, under the Reuss younger line, the conversion to a Renaissance castle began. From 1615 to 1920 the local rule came to various Thuringian principalities, most recently from 1826 to the Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen .

The renaissance complex, which essentially still exists today, is characterized by the Thuringian Palaces and Gardens Foundation as a fortified castle, a so-called " castle castle ". In the 17th century, the castle complex was to be expanded like a fortress with bastions, but this was not implemented. In the following centuries there were several changes of ownership. In 1898, Count Bopp von Oberstadt bought the castle and had extensive restoration work carried out. In 1906, the historicist new buildings of the gatehouse and the tower next to the gatehouse (with connecting wall) - at the entrance of the main castle of the upper castle - were created according to designs by Bodo Ebhardt . It was probably burned down by arson in 1934. The last owner gave it to the Reichsführer of the SS , Heinrich Himmler . He wanted to develop it into a place of worship. Concentration camp prisoners from an external unit of the Buchenwald concentration camp rebuilt parts of the upper castle under inhumane conditions.

In 1945 the facility began to slowly deteriorate, and in 1970 it was even threatened with demolition. An interest group began in 1981 with stabilization and renovation work. In 1994 the Thuringian Palaces and Gardens Foundation took over the upper castle and continued the renovation work.

The upper castle was used, among other things, for outdoor shots for the TV fairy tale film The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs .

literature

  • Elmar Altwasser: From the castle to the castle and back again. The upper castle at Kranichfeld . In: Heiko Lass (Ed.): From the castle to the castle. Sovereign and aristocratic secular building in Thuringia in the 15th and 16th centuries . 1st edition. quartus, Bucha bei Jena 2001, ISBN 3-931505-80-4 , pp. 179–191.
  • Ludger Fischer : The gate system of Kranichfeld Castle . In: Castles and Palaces . Vol. 37, No. 3, 1996, ISSN  0007-6201 , pp. 126-129.
  • H. Köber: The upper castle at Kranichfeld a. Ilm . In: Thuringian flag . No. 9. 1940, pp. 125-131.
  • Paul Lehfeld: Architectural and art monuments of Thuringia. Booklet VII. Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen. District court districts Kranichfeld and Camburg . Gustav Fischer, Jena 1890, pp. 150–158.
  • Emil Ose: The Upper Castle in Kranichfeld . In: Thuringian monthly sheets . No. 42, 1934, pp. 108-110.
  • Klaus Wagner: The upper castle at Kranichfeld . In: German architecture . No. 17, 1968, pp. 734-737.

Web links

Commons : Oberschloss (Kranichfeld)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thick tower at the Oberschloss Kranichfeld accessible again in Thüringer Allgemeine Weimar from August 25, 2010 accessed on April 16, 2015
  2. ↑ schlossarchiv.de: Kranichfeld - castle ruins, palaces, manors and town
  3. ↑ Brochure: "Oberschloss Kranichfeld", Thuringian Palaces and Gardens Foundation, 2nd edition 2015
  4. ↑ Information board in the courtyard of the first outer bailey, August 2017, author: Thuringian Palaces and Gardens Foundation
  5. ^ Exhibition in the Oberschloss Kranichfeld, August 2017
  6. ↑ Brochure: "Monuments of the two-castle town of Kranichfeld", Tourist Information Kranichfeld, around / before 2017

Coordinates: 50 ° 51 ′ 4.9 ″  N , 11 ° 11 ′ 39 ″  E