Rohan Castle

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Park facade with colonnade and central projection , in front of it the Marne-Rhine Canal

The Rohan Castle (French: Château des Rohan ), also known as Château Neuf (New Castle), is a classicist monumental building in the city of Saverne (Ger. Zabern) in Alsace . The 140 meter wide park facade made of red Vosges sandstone is one of the most impressive examples of its kind.

Entrance side of the castle, which at that time served as Prussian barracks, during the Zabern affair in 1913

The building was built from 1780 to 1790 by the architect Nicolas Salins de Montfort on the site of the previous building from 1670, which burned down in 1779 and which in turn replaced the small Château Vieux (Old Castle) from 1417, which is still preserved . The architect's client was the Strasbourg prince-bishop Louis René Édouard de Rohan-Guéméné , who also resided in the splendid Palais Rohan in his official city as well as in the more modest Rohan Castle in Mutzig . When the French Revolution broke out , however, the palace was only externally completed. With the dissolution of clerical rule, the building lost ownership and function.

The gradual decline of the building was only under Napoleon III. Put a stop to it, which had it renovated and expanded towards the city. However, in 1853 the park was irrevocably cut up and destroyed by the Marne-Rhine Canal . Since 1858 the castle has housed a city museum (history, arts and crafts, rich archaeological section), to which the art and ethnographic collection of the politician Louise Weiss was added in the 20th century .

The castle had previously served temporarily as a home for officer's widows and, in the time of Alsace-Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War , as a Prussian barracks. In the cellar dungeon of the castle, the so-called Pandurenkeller , known from Cagliostro's pseudo-alchemical gold prospecting experiments , at the end of November 1913 during the Zabern riots, Alsatian demonstrators illegally arrested by the military authorities were kept overnight in custody.

Today one of the wings of the building is used as a youth hostel. The Espace Rohan event hall with five hundred seats is located in another wing .

literature

  • Henri Heitz: The Rohan Castle in Saverne . Societé d'Histoire et d'Archeologie de Saverne et Environs, Saverne 1997
  • Kerstin Joost-Schäfer: Why Saverne was good for a farce - the collar affair . In: Saarbrücker Zeitung . Supplement Heimat from 21./22. August 2010.

Web links

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

Coordinates: 48 ° 44 '32 "  N , 7 ° 21' 48"  E