Baruth Castle
The Baruth Castle is a castle in Baruth / Mark in Teltow-Fläming . It is a building complex made up of an old and a new castle. It was the seat of the Baruth estate , which was acquired in 1596 by the Hessian House of Solms , which from 1615 formed its own line of Solms-Baruth .
The old castle
The old castle is a separate building, which was built from 1598 on the foundation of a castle from the 13th century. A multi-wing palace complex was built, which was badly damaged in a fire during the Thirty Years War in 1641. After 1665 it was erected as a two-storey , multi-axis building with a stair tower on the foundations of the previous building, and was therefore later called the Old Castle . From the city side there was a driveway over a bridge that led over the so-called Pestgraben. This moat was built in the 17th century, led around the city and the palace complex and was intended to protect the residents (unsuccessfully) against the plague . Behind the bridge was a castle gate with the castle courtyard behind. The southern end of the building was called the women's refuge in the 21st century . During archaeological excavations on the east side, parts of the castle foundations were exposed. Experts have been able to prove that there must have been a central hall from around 1440, which had a central support and several slotted windows. During the excavations, a wooden floor was also discovered which, through dendrochronological studies , could be dated to the second half of the 12th century. Presumably it was the floor of a previous building, which was presumably a two-story log construction. Remains of the outer stair tower were found on the north side. The women's refuge, like other buildings on the north and east sides, was built around 1671.
The new lock
The extension was built after 1671. The New Palace is an ensemble of three building parts. The baroque central wing, which was badly damaged in the 21st century, is the oldest part of the ensemble. Originally it was a garden house. The building was completed in 1775 at the latest. A two-storey, four-axle building was created. The ground floor was built from field stones, while a construction with a framework was used on the upper floor . There are plaster residues in the gable, which indicate that the building was extended on both sides at an earlier point in time. At the beginning of the 19th century, probably after 1820, the garden house was extended to the east with an extension in the classicism style . A two-story, ten-axis plastered building with a field stone base and hipped roof was created . At first it was not connected to the garden house. The women's shelter was provided on the city side with a neo-Gothic stepped gable and buttresses made of field stones. The cellar was lengthened towards the city side, but no comparable work was done on the park side.
In 1908 the gap between the garden house and the new building was closed. In 1912/1913 there was an expansion to the west. The almost square extension in the neo-renaissance style had a hipped roof; the execution was done by the architect Deutschmann. He designed a three-storey building that shows a central projection and corner pilasters on the city side . Deutschmann placed the coat of arms of the zu Solms family above the main portal; above it is a clock in the gable . Around 1920 the women's refuge was connected to the new castle by a half-timbered walkway. This made it possible to switch from the old part of the building to the new part of the building without crossing the courtyard area, which is exposed to the weather.
The last owner, Friedrich zu Solms-Baruth , was arrested in the course of the assassination attempt on Hitler and entrusted Hans Wichard von Rochow with the administration of his property. Shortly before the end of the Second World War , the apparently empty castle was used as a hospital. The Red Army reached the city on April 20, 1945 . Despite heavy fighting, in which numerous buildings in the city were destroyed, the new castle, the women's shelter and the gardener's house were preserved. The zu Solms-Baruth family was expropriated from all their possessions in 1946 and in 1982 received a burden compensation amounting to around 8 million DM. In December 1948, the castle was handed over to the city council of Baruth / Mark as public property. During the GDR era, the buildings were used communally. There were apartments in the old castle, including 27 apartments for refugees. The large hall in the lower part was used regularly as a cinema from the 1960s. The walkway was demolished in 1960. A kindergarten or crèche (classicist part), a restaurant (baroque part) and a school including school kitchen (historicism part) were housed in the New Palace. Since the necessary maintenance work was not carried out, the apartments gradually became dilapidated and had to be closed in 1985.
The landscape park
The New Palace is embedded in a 22- hectare landscape park, which was designed in 1838 according to a plan by Peter Joseph Lenné east of the town around the palace. Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig zu Solms-Baruth used a brouillon card for the commissioning , in which Lenné could enter his design suggestions. The concept was to divide the park into two areas. It is divided into a northern section, which was planted in smaller pieces and more densely, and a southern, open section. The boggy soil was drained with a trench system; a wide ditch separated the park from the city and the surrounding meadows. Lenné had two ponds and a circular flower garden created. Possibly With the construction of the Berlin – Dresden railway line , the park was extended to the railroad tracks; the prince received his own platform. After the Second World War, an open-air stage was integrated (before that, citizens were not allowed to enter the park until 1944). It was made of rubble from the destroyed houses in the city; the ponds were partially backfilled with additional rubble. The flower garden was no longer tended; some areas used for growing vegetables. Due to amelioration , which also damaged the parish church of St. Sebastian , the park fell largely dry and the tree population withered. Only with the inclusion of the park in the district monument list in 1976/1977 did the situation improve again. The open-air theater was dismantled in 1986 and some of the rubble was removed from the ponds.
State and current use
After the fall of the Wall , the new palace ensemble was sold by the Baruth commune to the Count's family in Solms-Baruth for 50,000 DM. After renovation work on the classical part of the building in the 1990s, the zu Solms-Baruth family withdrew from Baruth. The walkway was replaced by a replica in the early 1970s and used for DEFA film recordings . It was partially rebuilt during the reconstruction work between 2008 and 2013.
On January 19, 2012, a major fire destroyed a large part of the neo-classical part of the New Palace. It is in danger of collapsing and was secured with a temporary metal roof in 2013.
At the moment there is an effort to bring the building complex back into municipal ownership. The project is made more difficult by unclear ownership.
literature
- Georg Piltz, Peter Garbe: Palaces and gardens in the Mark Brandenburg . Seemann, Leipzig 1987, ISBN 3-363-00063-4 , p. 194.
- Hiltrud and Carsten Preuß: The manor houses and manors in the Teltow-Fläming district , Lukas Verlag für Kunst- und Geistesgeschichte, 1st edition, November 29, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86732-100-6 , p. 244
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Jutta Abromeit: Justice: Prince's lawsuit rejected. Administrative court ruled against Solms' request for repatriation / MAZ. Action Group Law and Property e. V., December 8, 2008, accessed November 4, 2014 .
- ↑ Devastating fire in Baruth Castle , BZ from January 20, 2012
Web links
- Entry in the monument database of the State of Brandenburg
- The Solms Castle in Baruth / Mark
- Material on Baruth Castle in the Duncker Collection of the Central and State Library Berlin (PDF; 230 kB)
Coordinates: 52 ° 3 '4.3 " N , 13 ° 30' 25.9" E