Assenheim Castle

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Assenheim Palace is a palace complex of the Counts of Solms-Rödelheim and Assenheim in Niddatal - Assenheim in the Wetterau district in Hesse . The present castle from the 18th and 19th centuries goes back to a medieval castle owned by the von Munzenberg family.

View of the main building in 2015

history

The place Assenheim is topographically favorable on a loop of the Nidda and the mouth of the Wetter . In the Middle Ages the area belonged to the County of Malstatt in the center of the Wetterau , which was subordinate to the Counts of Nürings . When they died out, Assenheim fell to the Lords of Hagen-Münzenberg in 1170/71 . The Munzenbergers succeeded in converting parts of the judicial district into their own property, which they secured by building castles. 1184 a first appears Erchiboldus de Assenheim as coins bergischer Burgmann , so that a construction from 1170 to 1184 under Kuno I of Münzenberg is close. In the following Staufer period , numerous other castle men from the Munzenberg family, later occupied by their heirs, mostly came from ministerial families in the immediate vicinity.

When the Lords of Hagen-Münzenberg died out in 1255, the inheritance was divided. As part of the Munzenberg inheritance , the Falkensteiners succeeded in taking 5/6 of the property, 1/6 went to the Lords of Hanau . This proportion later increased to 1/3. Assenheim received city rights under this joint property in 1277, a city wall was probably built in the years before that. In the feud of Ulrich III. von Hanau , bailiff of the Wetterau, against Philip the Elder von Falkenstein 1364-1366 ( Falkensteiner feud ) probably also Assenheim was affected, but later the castle was renewed. When the Falkensteiners died out in 1418, their share in the castle was again divided between Anna von Sayn and Dieter von Isenburg-Büdingen .

Disputes led to a division of the castle grounds in 1443. The people of Isenburg had a castle built in the southwest, but it was demolished at the end of the 16th century. An Isenburg administrative building was built in its place, but it has also not existed since 1910. As a pledge, the share of the Counts of Sayn in 1446 came to Frank "the rich" von Kronberg . 1461 inherited his grandson Kuno von Solms-Lich Assenheim together with the Rödelheimer Schloss . Count Friedrich zu Solms-Rödelheim , whose descendants are still the owners of the castle today, founded the County of Solms-Rödelheim in 1607 .

Rear side facing the Nidda

North of the castle near the Nidda, the Counts of Solms-Rödelheim had a new castle built as a residence in 1574/75. Assenheim has been used as a permanent residence since 1722. In 1786, Count Johann Karl Ernst commissioned the Frankfurt architect Georg Friedrich Mack to convert it into a contemporary, three-winged palace complex, which was only partially realized. The medieval parts of the Assenheim Castle, tower and ring wall, were demolished in 1750 and 1779, with the exception of a few remains. Some of the stones were used to build churches in Assenheim and Bruchenbrücken .

The Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel , heir to the Counts of Hanau, who died out in 1736, had the last medieval components of the Hanau part torn down. Around this time he must have given his share in the castle to Solms-Rödelheim.

In the time after Napoleon , Assenheim belonged to the Grand Duchy of Hesse . The civil privileges continued to exist, in particular the civil jurisdiction. The civil office of Assenheim existed until 1821 .

Count Maximilian zu Solms-Rödelheim acquired the Isenburg part of the castle in 1851. He had some older buildings demolished and the neo-Gothic archive building erected within the remaining wall of the castle.

Between 1924 and 1932, Max Graf zu Solms had a meeting place for scientists set up in the palace ( see main article: Assenheim Research Center ).

From 1946 to 1951, Assenheim Castle was rented by the Evangelical Michael Brotherhood as an order house and held spiritual weeks under the direction of Horst Schumann and various liturgical forms were developed and tried out. The relief organization of the Evangelical Churches in Germany , headed by Eugen Gerstenmaier , maintained a branch here, in which in 1947 a research group led by Klaus Mehnert a . a. (the "Assenheimer") on behalf of the relief organization created an informational publication "The living conditions in Germany 1947", which in an edition of 2,500 copies, especially in the USA, explained the conditions in post-war Germany.

The castle is still inhabited today by the Count's family from Solms-Rödelheim and cannot be visited.

investment

Assenheim in the Topographia Hassiae by Matthäus Merian with the castle tower half left
Neo-Gothic archive building with parts of the medieval curtain wall

Medieval castle

The medieval, Münzenberg moated castle essentially consisted of a residential tower on a square floor plan with a side length of around 11.5 m and walls around three meters thick. The tower was formative for the townscape for a long time and is visible on numerous older views of Assenheim until it was demolished in 1779. The view of Matthäus Merian in the Topographia Hassiae shows him with wich houses at the corners. In front of it, on the southeast corner of the city wall, there is already the first palace building by the Counts of Solms from 1574/75.

The core of the castle was surrounded by an equally square curtain wall, of which small parts have been preserved in the castle park. A recently enclosed fountain may also have belonged to the original castle.

Modern lock

The main building of today's castle consists of two wings, which still take up the shape of the older castle complex and include part of the outer walls and two cellars. 1788–1790 only two axes of the central wing were realized. They are accessed by a three-flight staircase whose forecourt is equally spacious on all floors. On the ground floor there is an arcade porch from 1874 in front of the entrance.

The interior decoration of the palace largely corresponds to the Louis-Seize style of the time it was built. Older furniture comes from Solms houses. There were also purchases, for example from the estate of the Frankfurt historian Benedict Jacob Römer-Büchner , from whom a seal impression collection also comes. The paintings include works from the 18th century, including those by the Frankfurt landscape painter Christian Georg Schütz the Elder. Ä. , Anton Wilhelm Tischbein (the so-called Hanauer Tischbein ), Januarius Zick and the Laubacher court painter Johann Friedrich Dryander .

The park was initially laid out in 1786, probably as an Anglo-Chinese garden. Around 1850 it was redesigned as an English garden by the Frankfurt garden architect Franz Heinrich Siesmayer . The castle also has an economy courtyard (Hauptstrasse 38). It has been traceable since the Middle Ages and was later in shared Solmisch-Isenburg possession. A three-sided courtyard with two baroque half-timbered houses from the 18th century has been preserved. A stable with a risalit-like projecting structure with a tent roof and clock tower was probably built after 1876.

literature

  • Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 3. Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2000, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 , p. 319.
  • Dierk Loyal: The Solms residence in Assenheim: an architectural historical study. In: Wetterauer Geschichtsblätter 41, 1992, ISBN 3-87076-070-2 , pp. 141-303.
  • Heinz Wionski: Cultural monuments in Hessen. Wetteraukreis II, Part 2, Friedberg to Wöllstadt. Published by the State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen, Vieweg, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-528-06227-4 (=  Monument Topography Federal Republic of Germany ), pp. 819–822, 827–829.
  • Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , pp. 273f.
  • Hans Carl von Haebler: History of the Evangelical Michaelsbruderschaft. From its beginnings to the complete convention in 1967, self-published in 1975, pp. 81–86.

Web links

Commons : Schloss Assenheim  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Knappe p. 319.
  2. ↑ Angela Metzner: Reichslandpolitik, aristocracy and castles - studies on the Wetterau in the Staufer time. Büdingen 2008/2009 , ISBN 978-3-00-026770-3 , pp. 198-202 ( Büdinger Geschichtsblätter 21 ).
  3. ↑ Monument topography, p. 820.
  4. ↑ Monument topography, p. 829.
  5. ^ Klaus Mehnert: A German in the world. Memories 1906-1981. Stuttgart: DVA 1981. P. 316 f.
  6. ↑ Matthäus Merian: Topographia Hassiae, et regionum vicinarum: That is: Description and eygentl. Fig. Of the noblest place u. Places in Hessen a. their neighboring landscapes as Buchen, Wetteraw, Westerwaldt, Löhngaw, Nassaw, Solms, Hanaw, Witgenstein and others. 2nd edition, Frankfurt 1655, p. 22.

Coordinates: 50 ° 17 ′ 54.4 ″  N , 8 ° 49 ′ 0.5 ″  E