Rothschild Castle
The Rothschild Castle or Castle Waidhofen is located in the town of Waidhofen an der Ybbs in the southwestern Lower Austria .
The originally medieval castle with a building core from the first half of the 13th century was the seat of the Freising carers for centuries. The most famous owner of the castle was Albert Salomon Anselm von Rothschild (1844–1911), who made it the seat of the administration of his extensive estates from 1875 onwards. At his instigation, a profound neo-Gothic renovation took place with the participation of the Viennese cathedral builder Friedrich von Schmidt (1825–1891) .
Today owned by the city, the building underwent a thorough renovation by 2007, during which the architect Hans Hollein set new architectural accents. In 2007 it was the scene of the Lower Austrian provincial exhibition next to Sankt Peter in der Au Castle . Today it houses the “5e-Museum” , which is dedicated to the history of the city, along with various other institutions in the city of Waidhofen .
location
Waidhofen Castle is located on a conglomerate rock above the River Ybbs , in the mouth gusset between Ybbs and Schwarzbach . It forms the tip of an acute-angled triangle, the area of which corresponds to the historic, formerly fortified city center of Waidhofen an der Ybbs. In the immediate vicinity is the area of the parish church , which is still fortified today by walls and the tower of the former armory . Together, these buildings form the most impressive ensemble in the city , especially if you come from Amstetten by train or car .
building
Exterior
The most striking part of the building is the 9-storey, 33 m high, dating from the second half of the 14th century keep with striking dealing in the field of defense platform . On top of the crenellated top floor is a 9 meter high, tapered, cuboid glass structure built in 2006 that can be effectively illuminated.
All of the buildings in the palace are grouped around a picturesque inner courtyard: the most striking feature on the courtyard side is the former medieval manorial residential building, which with its twelve window axes is the largest building in the palace. Its façade is formed by the neo-Gothic arcades in front, which, curiously, have a pointed arch on the ground floor and a round arch on the upper floor. The parapets of the upper floor have delicate neo-Gothic tracery .
A strong counterpoint is the opposite, although much smaller, its historicizing details but no less eye-catching neo-heeled building with attached tower, whose highest peak is surrounded by four smaller towers. The two gates of the castle, built in the neo-Gothic style in the 19th century, lead towards the city center or across from the formerly fortified city area by means of a stone bridge over the Schwarzbach.
The huge structure of the main building can best be viewed from the other bank of the Ybbs, where a footbridge leads that connects the Zeller Schloss opposite (today Hotel Schloss an der Eisenstrasse) with the city center. Since the outer wall of the main building reaches almost down to the foot of the rock, it is 5 storeys high. Behind it, however, there are only very narrow basement rooms on the bottom floor, which are in front of the rock. Clearly visible, roughly in the center of the wall of the main building, is a lighter spot where the Gothic apse of the castle chapel , which fell like a bay window , was originally located in the 19th century . On the ybb side, the neo-Gothic Söller catches the eye. It has also been provided with a glass structure since 2007, and in 2006/2007 a conspicuous walk-in extension that protrudes far beyond the Ybbs was created.
The oldest surviving part of the wall of the castle, from the first half of the 13th century, is located below the upper edge of the second basement in the foundation of the narrow northeast corner tower (corner towards Ybbs and downtown) and at the same height in the masonry of the east facade next door. The roof of the medieval corner tower is now also designed as a conspicuous, pyramid-shaped steel and glass construction. A modern tourist entrance was created on the front side of the former palace building towards the city center, again made of steel and glass.
Interior
The most conspicuous room inside the former stately residential building is the multifunctional event room created in 2006/2007 - called the Crystal Hall - which extends over two floors from the upper floor to the roof.
The only remains of the medieval interior are a belt arch and part of a ribbed vault on the ground floor, both remains of the small Gothic castle chapel, the larger front part of which, a bay-like porch, crashed into the river bed of the Ybbs in the first half of the 19th century. There are also various remains of frescoes that were uncovered in 1878: several consecration crosses are visible on the former chapel walls. The art-historically most interesting finds come from a somewhat younger layer, from the second half of the 14th century, and are located on the belt arch. These high-quality images of saints, church fathers and music-making angels are most likely the work of a northern Italian artist. The best-preserved parts were removed in 1922 and attached to a similarly designed but newly constructed arch that you walk through at the beginning of the middle staircase.
There are also only remnants of the neo-Gothic, romanticizing renovation in the castle: on the ground floor, the Rothschild ambience can still be experienced in three rooms through the preserved design of the walls and stucco ceilings. In the future, one of the rooms will house the city's wedding hall. The showpiece is a splendid marble fireplace from the French late renaissance . A representative wooden staircase comes from the period of historicism. The most beautiful room is certainly the baron's small but exquisitely designed former work room.
The main building houses the “5e Museum” : The history of the city is made tangible by working out the themes of fire, earth, water, wood and metal. The library, the Eisenstrasse library, the city archive, the tourist office and rooms for medieval events are also located in the castle.
Also worth seeing is the interior of the keep, which was built in a double-shell construction in one go. Between the two walls is the medieval staircase, which originally could only be reached from the courtyard side via a high entrance. Today you enter the tower at the level of the ground floor and climb the lower floors via a neo-Gothic staircase running in the center of the keep. The 9 floors are divided by well-preserved vaults, which, in contrast to the walls of the tower, were made of light tufa to save weight. As a curiosity, the boiler on the first floor should be mentioned: For this, the water had to be carried upstairs by servants in order to manage the water supply of a bath on the upper floor of the adjoining main building. A small exhibition documenting the history of the castle is shown in the keep. A highlight of a tour through the castle is probably the stay inside the glass structure at the top of the keep with a view of downtown Waidhofen.
A restaurant is housed inside the high-rise building.
history
Built during the reign of the Peilsteiner
Today it is assumed that Waidhofen Castle and its market town were founded by the Peilstein Counts. As bailiffs, these were the vassals of the bishops of Freising , but also had considerable property in other parts of what is now Lower Austria and evidently pursued a conscious policy to increase their economic and political power. Above all about the Konradsheim Castle, which no longer exists today, which was far more important at the time (it was about 4 km from today's city center), a complex legal dispute over several generations broke out between the bailiffs and bishops from 1190 to 1218 over the ownership structure. A related note from the beginning of the 13th century, in which "another" is mentioned in addition to Konradsheim Castle, is probably the oldest written source on Waidhofen Castle. The oldest parts of the wall also date from the first half of the 13th century. Incidentally, the dispute was only ended when the successors of the Peilstein Counts died out and the property finally fell to Freising, where it was decided not to entrust them to any more bailiffs in the future. However, mention should also be made of the reference made by some researchers to the one-sided source situation regarding these events: only documents that have been preserved by the Diocese of Freising are available and, according to the political interests, these of course substantiate the Freising territorial claims.
Freisingisch episcopal official seat
The increasing importance of Waidhofen Castle in the second half of the 13th century, probably due to the steadily growing settlement, can be seen in the frequent visits of the Freising bishops. They issued 1264, 1277, 1279, 1283, 1296, 1310 and 1312 documents here. There is no such evidence for Konradsheim Castle.
Two inventory lists from 1313 and 1316 give interesting insights into the equipment of a medieval castle, which include:
Crossbows, arrows, lances, breastplate, helmets, iron gloves, a powder sieve, bear skewers , fishing hooks, falcon hoods, saddles and bridles for war horses, 6 iron bowls, 46 jugs, 4 frying pans, 4 copper basins, bottles made of iron, copper and pewter iron candlestick, a collapsible table, an episcopal armchair, three tablecloths, 18 towels, pillows, bed sack, feather pillows, 2 chamber pots, carpentry tools, carving tools, ropes, anvil, iron club, iron nails, two peacock fronds, a large and a small cube, Laurin's chair, two scales: one with Viennese, one with Cologne weights.
From the same decade, there are registers that show that the castle contained considerable sums of money and more than a hundred documents and privileges of the bishops.
We are also informed about the castle occupation of the 14th century through a received report from the castle administrator: The family of the caretaker, who was responsible for the official business of the rulership, and the castner's family, who collected the taxes from the population, lived in the castle Hunter, a tower keeper, a gatekeeper and two guards.
Because of the small remains from the 13th century, nothing certain can be said about the size and appearance of the castle. The Palas at that time was in any case in the area of the city-side (eastern) half of today's main building. For the beginning of the 14th century, minor alterations are documented by means of construction accounts. The castle was largely expanded in the second half of the 14th century, presumably because from 1365 the official seat of the Freising rulership was officially relocated to Waidhofen Castle. The reason was the destruction of Konradsheim Castle in the context of a conflict with the sovereign Duke Rudolf IV. There was even permission to rebuild it, which, tellingly, never happened. The construction work in Waidhofen Castle included the construction of the keep and the extension of the palace building to the keep (the boundary between the two different old building parts of the palace is still easily recognizable today through the stepped gable that towers above the roof). The construction of the Gothic castle chapel with its art-historically valuable frescoes also fell during this period. A first chapel is mentioned as early as 1316.
The Freising bishop chronicle names the famous Freising Bishop Berthold von Wehingen (Bishop from 1381 to 1410) as the builder of the keep and enlarger of the castle, who was able to decisively promote the Freisingian possessions in Lower Austria through his simultaneous activity as Chancellor of the Austrian dukes. Whether the entire expansion of the complex can actually be attributed to him seems questionable, but at least three stays in the castle are documented.
The great city fire of 1515 destroyed not only the castle but also the church and the entire Upper City. On Holy Saturday 1571, the episcopal fisherman set off a fire with a shot at jackdaws , which also reduced the castle and large parts of the city to rubble. During this time there were extensive renovations and some changes to the castle buildings. From the 15th century, Waidhofen Castle was referred to as the "Castle".
The martyrdom of the town clerk Wolf Ebenperger
In Waidhofen, the Counter-Reformation was enforced with great severity: in addition to the disempowerment of the city council, which had become completely Protestant (1587), the town clerk Wolf Ebenperger, leader of the Protestant community, was imprisoned for life in the dungeon of the keep, probably to make an example. His bad luck was that his personal enemy and longstanding, bitter opponent, the caretaker Christoph Murhammer, the administrator of the Freising landlord, had to watch over him.
His repeated petitions tell us shockingly of the inhumane conditions of his imprisonment: without ever being able to change his clothes, he lay in the dark hole in summer and winter. He reports of vermin and of the restricted freedom of movement due to the ankle cuffs that have never been removed. He repeatedly asked for medicine because he was in excruciating pain from a kidney stone problem. He was not allowed to talk to anyone, not even the clerks from the nurse who brought him his food every day. Once when he tried to communicate with passers-by through a window, he was threatened with being chained to the wall in case of recurrence. In the very short last letter he wrote that the cold was so great that he could hardly write any more. He died within two years, presumably in May 1589 or shortly thereafter, the exact date of death was not disclosed.
Decay
Due to the debts of the Freising cathedral chapter , it was decided in 1796 to lease the Waidhofen estate to Johann Josef Graf von Stielbar. However, this proved to be a failure and was reversed two years later. After that, the administration of the Waidhofen rule took place from the also Freisingian rule Ulmerfeld . In 1802 the bishopric of Freising was secularized by the Bavarian state, which also ended the rule of the Freising in Waidhofen (which was confirmed in 1803 by the Reichsdeputations-Hauptschluss , which abolished all spiritual principalities of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation ). It was not until 1806 that it was finally regulated that all parts of the spiritual property located in Austria fell to the Austrian state. You probably didn't notice much of this turbulence in the castle itself: The last Freising nurse practically became the first Austrian administrator.
In 1822 the castle was in such bad shape that the rulers' offices had to be moved to the city. It is assumed that around this time the apse of the castle chapel collapsed and so larger parts of the ybb-side wall of the main building became unstable, but precise records are missing. From 1840 onwards, the most urgent damage was repaired and the mansion's office returned. The bridge over the Schwarzbach was built of stone for the first time and the buildings on the Schwarzbach side that were in danger of collapsing were completely rebuilt. In 1848 the moat between the church and the castle was filled in. From 1850, the district college court and the tax office also moved in for a few years.
But from 1864 the building was no longer properly used. It was pledged to the state bank along with the rulership and sold to private investors that same year. In the following years, until 1875, the owners changed four times: 1864: Hermann Mayer Löwy from Fürth in Bavaria, 1865: Gebrüder Götz timber trading company in Strasbourg, 1869: Public limited company for the forest industry in Vienna.
There was a lasting change in the appearance of the castle in 1868 when it was decided not to repair the pyramid-shaped roof of the keep, which had collapsed a year earlier. Instead, in order to improve the appearance of the tower, the uppermost platform, now visible for the first time, was raised by approx. 3m and provided with battlements.
Rothschild estate administration
In 1875 the Waidhofner Schloss was bought by the powerful Austrian banker Albert Salomon Anselm Freiherr von Rothschild (1844-1911) at the same time as the former lords of Waidhofen an der Ybbs, Gaming and Enzersfeld for 2.9 million guilders. This made him the largest landowner (31,000 ha) in Lower Austria. In the castle he intended to set up the management of his domains in the Ybbstal.
The neo-Gothic renovation began in 1881, was discontinued for a short time, resumed from 1885 and ended in 1890. From 1887, the builder of the Vienna City Hall and Viennese cathedral master builder Friedrich von Schmidt (1825-1891) participated in the renovation. He was responsible for the designs for the court arcades and the heeled building, which were Rothschild’s main interests. Since the population had been allowed to use the castle as a passage for a long time, Baron Rothschild had an additional bridge built over the Schwarzbach at his own expense as an extension of the ditch between the castle and church, which had been filled in for several decades in order to be able to block this passage .
The interior of the castle was appropriately furnished with a high-quality historicist-romanticized interior. The representative rooms were located in the basement and the private area on the upper floor. In addition, there was still space for housekeeping, storage rooms and administrative offices for the forest property. It should be mentioned that housed in the building stiletto darkroom (the Baron and his children were avid photographer) and the smoking room in the tower of stiletto building (though paradoxically 's Tower referred was).
After Albert Rothschild's death in 1911 (then the richest man in Europe), his son Louis Nathaniel Freiherr von Rothschild (1882–1955), President of Creditanstalt and one of the most influential men in the monarchy , took over the property. He had the interior of the private rooms on the upper floor redesigned in the Louise Francais style with characteristic white furniture by de Cour (Paris). In 1938 he was arrested by the SS . An enormous ransom was extorted for his departure, the castle and land were expropriated and became state property (Reichsforstmeister).
From the Second World War to the present
In 1943 the Gauleitung transferred the castle to the city of Waidhofen.
Colonel-General Lothar Rendulic , Commander in Chief of Army Group South and Army Group Ostmark had his last headquarters in Waidhofen Castle. Here he discussed the terms of the armistice with American negotiators on May 6, 1945, and on May 7, the Surrender of Army Group South was signed in Steyr with the Commander-in-Chief of the Third American Army . The next day, Rendulic left the castle for good and went with his staff into American captivity.
In the first few weeks after the end of the war, the castle was badly damaged by looting by the population and was then confiscated by the Soviet occupying forces for several years, which ultimately completely destroyed the interior. In addition, in 1946 part of the castle tower collapsed on the roof of the main building. In the end it was returned to its rightful owner, Louis Rothschild, who gave it to the Austrian state in return for a promise to take over the pensions of his former servants.
From 1949 one of the three Austrian Federal Forestry Schools was established in the completely renovated castle. The popular Schlosshofspiele of the Volksbühne Waidhofen have been taking place in the courtyard since 1953.
As part of a school reform, the only forest warden's school in Austria was built here in 1974/75. In 2002 the castle was sold to the city of Waidhofen in order to use it for cultural and tourist purposes, and the school was relocated to replacement quarters. Since then, the old name “Rothschild Castle” has been used again and again to clearly distinguish Waidhofen Castle from the opposite hotel and event center “Schloss an der Eisenstrasse”.
The well-known Austrian architect Hans Hollein (e.g. redesign of the Haas House and erection of the canopy in front of the Albertina , both in Vienna) was engaged for the adaptation of the palace, which was carried out in record time from 2006 to 2007 . In addition to the complete redesign of the interior, a notable but extremely controversial reinterpretation of the castle building was achieved by means of several interventions that clearly stand out from the historical building fabric by using the materials glass and metal. This conflict attracted attention across Austria through the state exhibition held in the palace in 2007 and also became the most important campaign topic in the municipal council elections in March 2007.
The Lower Austrian provincial exhibition in 2007 took place under the title “Fire & Earth” at two locations in the Mostviertel: In Rothschild Castle in Waidhofen an der Ybbs, which represented Eisenstrasse , the element “fire” was represented in cultural history from mythology to modern art. Various physical and technical aspects were also considered. In the castle of St. Peter in der Au , it was about the element "earth" , according to the local Moststrasse . A total of 401,000 visitors were counted at both venues.
After a further adaptation in the winter of 2007/08, the castle now serves various purposes for the city of Waidhofen: It houses the city-historical "5e-Museum" , the city archive, the Eisenstrasse library, the library, the wedding hall, a multifunctional event hall, and rooms for medieval events and the tourist information.
Legends and anecdotes about Waidhofen Castle
Burgrave's hunting yard
The traditional but blank interpretation of the name Waidhofen assumes that Count Konrad von Peilstein at the site of the castle Waidhofen first one Jagdhof (Waidhof) have built in order to pursue undisturbed in the game-rich valley below his residence hunting.
The tunnel to Konradsheim
The story of the existence of a medieval connecting corridor between the now disappeared fortress Konradsheim and the castle in Waidhofen, between which there was a distance of four kilometers, persists in the population of Waidhofen.
Baroness von Rothschild and the dungeon
When Baron Rothschild visited the Waidhofen Castle, which he was planning to buy, with his wife Bettina, they went down to the basement of the keep, where the two-story dungeon had previously been. When the baroness finally saw the remains of the bones of deceased prisoners, she was so shocked that the sales contract was almost canceled. Ultimately, the business was saved by agreeing to completely fill up the basement of the tower. It was not until the 1990s that attempts were made to dig up the basement of the tower again. In the end, however, they had to give up because the endangered statics of the neo-Gothic staircase made the company too expensive.
literature
- Peter Maier: Waidhofen ad Ybbs. Traces of history . Magistrate of the City of Waidhofen an der Ybbs, Waidhofen an der Ybbs 2006.
- Gerhard Stenzel: From castle to castle in Austria . Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1976, ISBN 3-218-00288-5 , p. 239.
Web links
- Information about Rothschild Castle on the official website of the city of Waidhofen
- Entry about Burg-Schloss Rothschild Waidhofen on NÖ-Burgen online - Institute for Realienkunde of the Middle Ages and the early modern times, University of Salzburg
- Entry via Rothschild Castle on Burgen-Austria
swell
- ↑ (for the new spelling of the name) news. Official news and information ; Magistrate Waidhofen an der Ybbs, 08/2006 No. 144 December 2006.
- ↑ a b c d Helga Hinteregger: Waidhofen / Ybbs Castle and the Rothschild family ; 1981, in the Waidhofen town archive on the Ybbs DB III / 6
- ↑ a b c d e Peter Maier: Waidhofen an der Ybbs. Metropolis of the Ybbstal ; Published by the municipality of Waidhofen an der Ybbs, 2003
- ↑ DEHIO manual. The art monuments of Austria. Topographical inventory of monuments. Lower Austria south d. Danube Part 2, M to Z ; Published by the Federal Monuments Office 2003, Berger Verlag, Horn / Vienna. ISBN 3-85028-365-8 .
- ↑ a b c d e (This book is the main source for this article) Peter Maier: Waidhofen adYbbs. Traces of history ; Published by the Waidhofen an der Ybbs magistrate, 1st edition 2006
- ↑ a b c Wilfried Bahnmüller: Castles and palaces in Lower Austria ; Niederösterreichisches Pressehaus Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 2005, p. 179 ff.
- ↑ Inge-Irene Janda: For God's barmhertzigkhait's sake - Wolf Ebenperger's life in the light of his letters from imprisonment in 100 Years of the Museum Association Waidhofen / Ybbs 1905-2005 ; Media owner: Musealverein Waidhofen an der Ybbs, p. 150ff
- ↑ aeiou cultural information system ; TU Graz. Article: Louis Nathaniel Rothschild, Baron von
- ^ Waidhofner voices yesterday and today 1186-1986 ; Edited by Gernot E. Hierhammer, Waidhofen an der Ybbs, 1986, p. 141.
Coordinates: 47 ° 57 ′ 46.6 " N , 14 ° 46 ′ 25.1" E