Dietfurt ruins
| Dietfurt ruins | ||
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 Dietfurt ruins in the Upper Danube Nature Park |
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| Creation time : | around 1095 | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg, summit location | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Standing position : | Free nobles | |
| Construction: | Humpback cuboid, quarry stone | |
| Place: | Inzigkofen - Dietfurt | |
| Geographical location | 48 ° 4 '41.7 " N , 9 ° 8' 22.1" E | |
| Height: | 620 m above sea level NN | |
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The Dietfurt ruins are the ruins of a hilltop castle in the hamlet of Dietfurt , which belongs to the municipality of Inzigkofen in the Sigmaringen district in Baden-Württemberg . The Dietfurt Castle Cave under Dietfurt Castle is one of the most important sites in southern Germany from the Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic .
location
Dietfurt is located between Beuron and Sigmaringen in the Upper Danube Nature Park .
The keep of the summit castle at 620 m above sea level. NN , the remnant of the former castle visible from afar, rises in an exposed position and strategically favorable on a free-standing rock surrounded by the Danube . It probably served to protect a ford through the river. The ford can still be seen around 110 meters below the bridge.
It is forbidden to enter the castle area owned by the Sigmaringen Mountain Rescue Service. Access to the castle cave is secured by a locked massive steel door. Visits are limited at your own risk if you register in the mountain guard house near the ruin.
history
In the 1920s and 1930s, the area around the Dietfurt ruins was a meeting place for the New Templar order . This elitist men's association was considered to be one of the pioneers of Nazi ideology. The castle cave is of particular archaeological importance because from the Paleolithic to the 16th century there is evidence of constant human use.
Early settlement
The castle is one of the early foundations of castles in the 11th century. However, the rock was settled much earlier. Excavations in the castle cave yielded finds of the late Paleolithic (Paleolithic), the Neolithic (Neolithic), the Middle Bronze Age , the younger Urnfield Age , the Middle and later Hallstatt Age , the Roman Era and the Middle Ages . The name "Dietfurt", Old High German as Diota , the people, indicates an early settlement.
middle Ages
The name Dietfurt was first mentioned in 1095 in connection with the founding of the Alpirsbach monastery , when the brothers Heinrich, Eberhard and Hermann von Dietfurt were named as witnesses. Another mention of the Dietfurt brothers from 1125 is mentioned in a document concerning the Alpirsbach monastery. In 1132, in the presence of the king, the head sess of Waldburg , Berthold, renounced the Dietfurt imperial fief in favor of Count Mangold II of Nellenburg . By this time the nobles of Dietfurt had already died out.
In 1253 Dietfurt was owned by the Waldburg Truchsessen. A short time later, in 1257, Dietfurt became a fiefdom of Hugo von Montfort . The castle was first mentioned in a document from 1274.
In 1421 the brothers Egg and Heinrich von Reischach sell Dietfurt as a Nellenburg fiefdom to Anna, Countess von Werdenberg, daughter of Baron Johann von Zimmer . Anna Countess von Werdenberg zu Dietfurt died on March 1st, 1445 and was buried in the Inzigkofen monastery . In 1468, Dietfurt was referred to as a permanent castle in the protective and defensive alliance of the high nobility against the ardor and feudal lust of some noblemen. After the Counts of Werdenberg died out , the castle passed to the Fürstenberg family in 1534 , and in 1806 it passed to Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen .
The castle was already described as a ruin in 1593 .
From 1850 this ruin is owned by Dietfurt farmers. In 1927, two of the farming families who owned most of the castle hill including the ruins sold it to the German branch of the New Templar order of Adolf Joseph Lanz . The Order ( Ordo Novi Templi ) established its German headquarters here, the “Neutemplererzpriorat Staufen” and was dissolved at the beginning of the Second World War . After the war, first accommodation for a bombed-out New Templar family and later a refugee family from Bessarabia , in 1964 the DRK Bergwacht Ready ( DRK Bergwacht Sigmaringen ) took over the entire area. Leased until 2005, the mountain rescue service acquired the property in the same year.
Sigmaringen mountain rescue service
The hut, built by the Neutemplern in the moat, was still inhabited by evacuated family members of an order member from bombed-out Berlin during the war. After the war, refugees from the east lived in the hut before the mountain rescue service took over the hut in the 1950s after it had stood empty for a long time . In 1959, the Sigmaringen Mountain Rescue Service leased the ruins. In 2004 the entire area including the hut, ruins and castle cave was bought by the DRK Sigmaringen. In the same year, the willingness to renovate the hut itself and to take safety measures on the tower made it its business. A year later, the ruin restoration began.
Sigmaringen Mountain Rescue Hut in the former moat
Walled entrance to the castle cave
Original pulley of the lost chandelier
Stone slab with integrated sacrificial bowl
Since 2007, the mountain rescue service has carried out constant maintenance measures on the castle ruins. Since over the centuries the rock material that had crumbled from the ruins was used for surrounding structures, foreign limestone material had to be brought in from other parts of the Danube Valley and the Heuberg. In order to be able to rule out that this foreign material is hewn stones from other castles, only rocks from rockfalls and freshly broken material are used.
Up to and including July 2010, the Mountain Rescue Service invested over 50,000 euros and thousands of hours in the renovation and maintenance of the walls. In the summer of 2010, work was carried out on fastening a longer piece of the shell wall with trass mortar at the cave entrance. This shell wall made of large rocks protected the actual masonry, which was composed of small stones. The remaining 13 meters of this inner masonry should not get a new wall shell. Previously, the oak flooring in the tower was secured to such an extent that it can be safely entered again. In a next step in the preservation and renovation of the ruins, the entrance area is to be enlarged.
In 2011 alone, a total of 597 working hours were expended, and since 2007 the members of the mountain rescue service have built 73.41 tons of lime mortar, 64.32 tons of limestone and five tons of wall gravel.
Dietfurt Castle Cave
The Dietfurt Castle Cave, a limestone cave, is located under Dietfurt Castle. It is a through cave that crosses the rock and has a portal on both sides. The main corridor is around 40 meters long from one portal to the other. Three larger halls (with a height of up to 8 meters) are connected by a corridor, the way falls from one portal to the other about 10 meters, which made some stairs necessary. The cave has been expanded and used to be electrically lit, but it was never a show cave . It is located at 600 and 610 meters above sea level. NN.
Early history
The cave contains tertiary deposits. Above this is a one-meter-thick sinter layer, over which in turn lake sediments from the crack ice age lie. The Riss glacier had blocked the Danube valley near Vilsingen , which led to the damming of a large lake.
New Templar Order
In 1924, the Neutempler Order also acquired Ordo Novi Templi (ONT) the two parcels "Ruin" and "Burggraben". It traces its name back to the medieval Knights Templar , for which the founder of the order had a particular fondness. The castle was designated as a knight's castle of the Neutempleisenerzpriorat Staufen . The Sigmaringen mountain rescue hut was the location and accommodation of the ONT from 1928 to 1939. He built the hut and, between 1928/1929, expanded the castle cave into a ritual sacred space . The former cave portal was bricked up except for a small window, the three rooms were heavily redesigned. The main hall was furnished with a large chandelier and an altar .
The ONT was founded as an anti-Semitic and anti-feminist secret society by Josef Adolf Lanz (1874–1954) from Vienna, who left the Heiligenstift monastery near Vienna after studying theology and being ordained a priest (religious name: Georg) . Lanz became known as Dr. Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels , doctorate and title of nobility were fictitious, but were brought into the official Austrian register of residents by him.
The Dietfurt castle cave is closed with a wall set by the Neutemplern. Their Romanesque windows are the first evidence of the sacred character of the interior. Above today's massive steel door is the coat of arms of the Silesian noble family von Hochberg. A member of the family financed and ran the branch as the prior of the "Archpriorate Staufen", the alias of the branch. Another member in Dietfurt was very likely the future General Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch , who fell out of favor during the Second World War after a steep career with Hitler. There is no written evidence, but contemporary witnesses clearly remember him.
In the cult room you can still see the redirection of a chandelier with natural candles attached by Neutemplern, which has disappeared on the cave ceiling. Underneath was a stone altar, in the plate of which a sacrificial bowl was incorporated. This is where the “church services” of the New Templars took place, which, since Lanz was a priest and had developed his own liturgy, can be imagined in a way that is quite similar to a Catholic church service.
There is no evidence of the importance of the lower cave hall for the New Templars. The wall that closes the former exit of the cave to the outside (this probably belongs to the escape system of the castle) also comes from the New Templars. In the window there was a glass picture of St. Michael, who had a special meaning for the New Templars. Like Michael the dragon, the New Templars wanted to destroy the "subhumans".
Todays use
The cave was made safely accessible by the Sigmaringen mountain rescue team and equipped with electric light. The entire area and the cave are not open to the public, however, in individual cases visits are possible after consulting the mountain rescue service.
Archaeological research
Robbery excavation
After the Second World War, strangers searched the cave for legendary treasure. This treasure should be a gold bowling game . In doing so, they left a large pit, one meter wide, four meters long and five meters deep, and destroyed prehistoric find layers in the process.
State excavation campaigns
After urnfield time , early and high medieval fragments were discovered in this looted grave pit by employees of the Sigmaringen mountain rescue service , the State Office for Monument Preservation carried out extensive excavations between 1972 and 1995 in cooperation with the University of Cologne . These had become necessary because there were repeated large, uncontrolled robbery probes in this cave . Archaeological research has found remains from the Middle Stone Age ( Mesolithic ), later Paleolithic ( Paleolithic ) and Magdalenian times . In 1974 an excavation campaign was carried out by Hartmann Reim in the castle cave. Ten years later, in 1984, an excavation by the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments followed. Due to the findings, another excavation was carried out by the State Office for Monument Preservation in 1987/1988.
The “Burghöhle” became known primarily through the discovery of a late Bronze Age ( Urnfield Age ) clay slab with concentric circular decorations. The object, also known as the altar plate , suggests a cultic use of the cave.
Dating
During the excavations, the layers of finds from the late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods formed a special focus. In the publication by Franz Josef Gietz, the extensive allocation of the finds to the layers is carried out from the not always very simple stratigraphy of the cave. A distinction is made between three main complexes with Late Young Paleolithic , Early Mesolithic and Late Mesolithic / Neolithic find horizons. With this differentiated sequence, the cave is one of the most important sites in southern Germany with findings and finds from the transition from the Ice Age ( Pleistocene ) to the Post- Ice Age ( Holocene ).
Remarks
- ^ Albverein. Dietfurt ruins tell many stories. In: Schwäbische Zeitung. dated April 22, 2009.
- ↑ Burgruine - Höhle - Neutempler , website of the DRK Bergwacht Sigmaringen, accessed on August 2, 2016
- ↑ a b Ute Korn-Amann (uka): Responsible: Rescuers demonstrate their work. DRK Mountain Rescue Service Sigmaringen presents itself to the public on September 25th . In: Schwäbische Zeitung from September 6, 2011
- ^ Bernd Hermann (bh): Historical buildings. Mountain rescue service rehabilitates the wall of ruins. In: Schwäbische Zeitung from August 2, 2010.
- ^ A b Hermann-Peter Steinmüller (hps): Pensioners renew shell wall . In: Südkurier. dated June 23, 2010.
- ↑ a b Walther Paape, status 10/2008.
- ↑ Angela Vielstich, Edwin Ernst Weber: The "Dreiländerkreis" Sigmaringen in a historical overview. In: Dirk Gaerte (ed.), Edwin Ernst Weber (conception): The three-country circle Sigmaringen. A guide to nature, economy, history and culture . Gmeiner, Meßkirch 2007, ISBN 978-3-89977-512-9 , pp. 23-36, here: pp. 23f.
- ↑ Quoted from Franz Josef Gietz: Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic in the Dietfurt castle cave on the upper Danube. ( Memento of March 13, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (= material booklet on archeology. 60). Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1570-7 .
literature
- Franz Josef Gietz: Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic in the Dietfurt castle cave on the upper Danube. (= Material booklets on archeology in Baden-Württemberg; 60). Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1570-7 .
- Walther Paape: That's why we founded a temple house. The New Templar Order (Ordo Novi Templi, ONT) of Lanz von Liebenfels and his Archpriorate Staufen in Dietfurt near Sigmaringen . Gmeiner-Verlag , Meßkirch 2007, ISBN 978-3-89977-205-0 .
- Walther Paape: Dietfurt near Sigmaringen - German headquarters of an obscure men's association . In: Hohenzollerischer Geschichtsverein (Ed.): Hohenzollerische Heimat, 63rd year, September 2013. pp. 25–32.
- Walther Paape: In the delusion of being chosen. The race religion of Lanz von Liebenfels, the New Templar Order and the Archpriorate of Staufen in Dietfurt - an Austro-German story . Gmeiner-Verlag, Meßkirch 2015, ISBN 978-3-8392-1720-7 .
- Günter Schmitt : Dietfurt. In: Ders .: Burgenführer Schwäbische Alb. Volume 3: Danube Valley. Hiking and discovering between Sigmaringen and Tuttlingen . Biberacher Verlagsdruckerei, Biberach 1990, ISBN 3-924489-50-5 , pp. 99-104.
Web links
- Dietfurt ruins on the burgenwelt.de site
- Dietfurt ruins on the Fahrrad-Tour.de website
- Dietfurt ruins on the Sigmaringen Mountain Rescue website
- Burghöhle Dietfurt on the website of showcaves.com
- Historical reconstruction drawing
- 3D model of Dietfurt Castle
- 3D model of the lower part of the Dietfurt castle cave