Altdöbern Castle

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Altdöbern Castle

Altdöbern Castle is a three-wing castle complex in the Brandenburg town of Altdöbern . The castle is a listed building in Altdöbern .

history

Altdöbern Castle around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection
Back of the lock
View through the park to the salt pond
French garden in the park
Park side
East side of the castle, 2015

The castle goes back to an early German moated castle . After the Electoral Saxon official Hans von Dieskau had acquired the property, it was replaced from 1571 to 1586 by a new Renaissance building - still surrounded by a moat . From 1671 the estate belonged to the von Bomsdorff family . In 1712 Major General Alexander Dietrich von Eickstedt († 1727) acquired the property. Since the old Renaissance building seemed too modest to him, he had the previous building demolished and, from 1717, the current palace built in the baroque style. It had befitting dimensions with two wings facing north and a paved courtyard and has rich interior decorations in the style of the Dresden Baroque . According to the baroque understanding, the park was a strict geometric work of art. By 1750, the new owner, Carl Heinrich von Heineken , had the complex expanded in an extremely splendid way, the garden was enlarged to almost six times and equipped with canals, water basins, fountains, bridges, pavilions and precious sandstone sculptures.

After further changes of ownership, Heinrich Graf von Witzleben-Alt-Doebern acquired the property in 1880. While his predecessor had made every effort to restore the palace and park to the baroque state under Heineken, Witzleben spared no effort to achieve the opposite. From 1880 to 1905 he constantly rebuilt the castle, with the aim of making it a princely seat corresponding to the status of his wife. There were conversions and additions in a strange mixture of styles. The two onion domes on the side wings and the sandstone facings on the facade can be traced back to this. On sketches from the hand of Witzleben's wife Marie, b. Princess Reuss , the neo-Romanesque country house also goes back, which has stuck to the baroque east wing as a strange foreign body since 1888. The baroque garden was also redesigned into a 55 hectare landscape park by Pückler's student Eduard Petzold . Seven lines of sight radiated out from the castle . Only the parts to the south of the castle - then called the French Garden - and the hedge theater have survived from the baroque state, as have the richly furnished rooms inside. Witzleben was a personal friend of Kaiser Wilhelm I , for whom he held festivals at Altdöbern, and confidante of Kaiser Wilhelm II , who made him count in 1886. He also bought a number of other goods. In 1917 he sold Altdöbern again after having thoroughly spoiled it stylistically. The art historian Udo von Alvensleben concludes: “Alt-Döbern, a large property, ruined by Graf Witzleben through extravaganzas that have become famous. He supposedly had whole avenues illuminated in the forest. The baroque palace was impossible to rebuild by him. The park is beautiful. "

In 1917 the cigarette manufacturer Eugen Laib Garbáty acquired the facility and consulted the Berlin garden architect Heinrich Wiepking-Jürgensmann . The numerous rhododendron plantings go back to him. Furthermore, urgently necessary clearing work was carried out. Due to the National Socialist race laws , Garbáty had to sell Altdöbern in 1938 - the entire family emigrated to the USA in 1939.

From November 1943 to 1945, Altdöbern Castle was the alternative headquarters of the Swedish Embassy , which had moved to Lower Lusatia due to increasing air raids on Berlin . The palace and park grounds were formally extraterritorial areas. Remnants of a Swedish flag, which was painted on the castle roof, were still recognizable in GDR times.

After the castle was looted in 1945, the no longer maintained park became overgrown. Both became legal entities of the Altdöbern municipality, which rented the castle to the Caritas Association in 1946 . He first used it as an orphanage and then until 1974 as a children's and old people's home. Due to the precarious condition of the building, the lack of government support and the unclear ownership structure, the house was given up and the employees were transferred to Petershagen. In 1976 the DEFA fairy tale film The Master Thief was shot in the castle . When Caritas moved out, the facility began to deteriorate. After the fall of the Wall , the castle came into the possession of Brandenburgische Schlösser GmbH . In 1991 the water basin in front of the palace was restored, 1991–1993 the Neptune fountain and 1992/1993 the baroque basin in the French Garden . Restoration work on the building is in progress. For example, in July 2012, after a year-long construction period, the former orangery in the palace gardens was rebuilt and now serves as a palace café. Since 2009, the palace park has also been a permanent location of the International Youth Building Garden Monument Preservation of the German Foundation for Monument Protection , whose volunteers are gradually restoring and maintaining the historic park under professional guidance.

The rococo and Wilhelminian-era ballrooms were restored by the Brandenburgische Schlösser GmbH under the project management of the architect Jutta Feige and opened in the presence of the Brandenburg Minister of Culture, Sabine Kunst, by September 2015 .

swell

  1. ↑ Udo von Alvensleben , in: Visits before the downfall, aristocratic seats between Altmark and Masuria , compiled from diary entries and edited by Harald von Koenigswald, Frankfurt / M.-Berlin 1968, page 220
  2. ↑ Sveringes ambassad i Berlin - The Swedish Embassy in Berlin. Ed .: Statens Fastighetsverk Stockholm. 1999.
  3. ↑ Energy region in the Lusatian Lakeland: "Renewal / restoration of the orangery at Altdöbern Castle for later private use as a café"

literature

  • Alexander Niemann: Castle Park, Altdöbern . In: Bund Heimat und Umwelt in Deutschland (ed.): White paper on historical gardens and parks in the new federal states . 2., revised. Ed., Bonn 2005, ISBN 3-925374-69-8 , p. 61f.
  • Vincenz Czech and Nicola Riedel-Bröcker: Altdöbern . In: mansions in Brandenburg and Niederlausitz. Commented new edition of Alexander Duncker (1857-1883), vol. 2, catalog, edited by Peter-Michael Hahn and Hellmut Lorenz, Nicolai Verlag, Berlin 2000, pp. 11-15.
  • Nicola Riedel-Bröcker: Altdöbern, the castle and its interior . In: Brandenburgische Denkmalpflege , Vol. 7, Issue 2. 1998, pp. 4-14.
  • Nicola Riedel (Brocker), Petra Huebinger, Joachim W. Jacobs: Altdöbern Castle , series of publications by the Friends of the Palaces and Gardens of the Mark in the German Society, ed. by S. Badstübner-Gröger, Nicolai Verlag, Berlin 1995.
  • Alexander Niemann: Altdöbern - The Castle Park . In: Brandenburgische Denkmalpflege , Vol. 3, Issue 1. 1994, pp. 38–47.
  • Otto Eduard Schmidt : Castle Alt-Döbern and its surroundings. An average through the development history of Niederlausitz , Verlag W. Jess, Dresden 1930.

Web links

Commons : Schlossanlage Altdöbern  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 39 ′ 13 ″  N , 14 ° 2 ′ 7 ″  E