Beichlingen Castle
| Beichlingen Castle | ||
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 Beichlingen Castle, 2006 |
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| Alternative name (s): | Beichlingen Castle | |
| Creation time : | around 1000 | |
| Conservation status: | Renaissance castle | |
| Standing position : | Nobles, counts | |
| Place: | Beichlingen | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 14 '6 " N , 11 ° 15' 37" E | |
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The Schloss Beichlingen located in the village of Beichlingen 9 km north of Kölleda in Thuringia .
history
Beginnings until 1945
To the north and south of the current castle, extensive prehistoric or early historical ramparts have been preserved, which extend well beyond the later medieval castle.
The castle Beichlingen probably by King Henry I created to protect an important pass road to the Unstrut Valley. It was probably originally an imperial estate . Beichlingen was first mentioned as a castle in 1014 in a letter by Bishop Thietmar von Merseburg . His cousin Werner von Walbeck had conquered the castle in order to kidnap the castle mistress Reinhilde, probably a daughter of the Saxon Duke Hermann Billung , and force her to marry. The count was seriously injured in the fighting that took place. His followers brought him to Wiehe , where his stay was betrayed to Emperor Heinrich II . His agents arrested him in order to bring him to the imperial court, but he succumbed to his injuries on the way, at Allerstedt Castle .
During an armed conflict between King Henry IV and the Margrave Dedo II , the castle was captured and destroyed in 1069. In the following years it was rebuilt and around 1080 it was the dowry and residence of Countess Kunigunde von Weimar-Orlamünde . She was first married to a Russian prince and then to Kuno von Northeim , who called himself Count von Beichlingen and was murdered in 1103. After the death of her third husband, Count Wiprecht von Groitzsch , in 1124, Kunigunde only managed to maintain the property with difficulty until her death in 1140. Presumably her daughter Mechthild from her first marriage or her son inherited the property. From 1141 onwards, Count Friedrich von Beichlingen was named as the lord of Beichlingen and founder of the Beichling family of counts , he was probably the son of Mechthild with a Count Günther from the Sizzonen family .
From 1330 the economic decline of the Beichlinger counts began. In 1519 Count Adam von Beichlingen finally had to sell the castle and most of the county to Hans von Werthern from Wiehe (Thuringia). Soon after, Dietrich von Werthern, son of Hans von Werthern, took up residence at Beichlingen Castle. Dietrich's son, Wolfgang von Werthern, had the desolate castle rebuilt together with his brothers.
Subsequent generations of the von Werthern family expanded and rebuilt the castle. From 1588 Johann von Werthern engaged well-known regional artists to decorate the castle. Around 1650, Friedrich von Werthern invested considerable financial resources to repair the damage to the castle caused by the Thirty Years' War . In the decades and centuries that followed, the von Werthern family, who had been raised to the rank of count in 1840, increasingly transformed the castle into a palace in line with contemporary tastes. From 1901 to 1904 the interior was completely redesigned. The von Werthern-Beichlingen family produced many important personalities in the civil service and highly decorated officers. A number of members of the noble family were confirmed by emperors in the office of "Reichserbkammer-Türkekeer of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation". They were responsible for ensuring that the respective emperor elections in Frankfurt took place in secret.
1945 until now
The palace complex was not damaged in the Second World War . From 1944, refugees were quartered in the castle buildings . In 1945 Beichlingen initially belonged to the zone of occupation of the USA . The castle was used by members of the US Army as a command post. After handing over to the Red Army and incorporation into the Soviet zone of occupation , Beichlingen Castle was expropriated without compensation as part of the land reform . The count's family - the count had died in France in 1940 - had left the castle before the Red Army moved in. The castle was then partially looted.
From 1946 to 1951, the castle initially housed a teacher training institute. From 1952 to 1955, the GDR used the castle as a training center for kindergarten teachers. From 1955 to 1962 the school of the Association of Mutual Peasant Aid was housed in the castle . Then from 1962 to 1969 it was used as a technical school for veterinary technicians. In 1969 this technical school was converted into the engineering school for veterinary medicine . From 1970 onwards, numerous buildings in the farm yard were rebuilt or demolished for this school and replaced by new buildings that fundamentally changed the appearance of the farm yard: “Massive structural interventions”. "Today, and for some time to come, the major damage caused by the unrelated use of the castle complex and the loss of the historically grown building fabric remain."
Since the 1970s, Beichlingen Castle was intended to be the central isolation camp of the Stasi for the Erfurt district in an "emergency" .
After German reunification, the engineering school came to an end; it was closed in 1992. A support association for the rescue and preservation of Beichlingen Castle was founded in 1991. The castle has been privately owned again since 2001, but the friends' association can continue its work. A hotel and a restaurant are operated in the castle today.
Today's castle
The castle complex consists of the "Lehnshaus" with the "Cold Gate" as a passage, the "High House" as the oldest component from the 13th century with valuable Renaissance rooms, the "New Castle" with beautiful Renaissance portals and windows, the palace chapel and a boarding school building from the GDR era. The castle church, built from rubble stones, was extended in the 17th century by a north wing and is connected to the castle by a rare "church corridor", a truss bridge built over. Inside, stucco work in the style of the late Renaissance and the baroque furnishings with a valuable stucco ceiling have been preserved. The high house has a rich interior with unadulterated original painting of the wooden walls and ceilings as well as stucco frames of the portals depicting biblical motifs. This is the description from 2007 by the German Foundation for Monument Protection , which among other things promoted the restoration of the castle chapel, the castle church and the old distillery.
Personalities
- Count Georg von Werthern (1700–1768) was a politician in the service of the Elector of Saxony / King of Poland and the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, "Reichserbkammer-Türkeeper".
- Count Johann Georg Heinrich von Werthern (1735–1790) was the Prussian Minister of War in the last years of Frederick II the Great
- Count Georg von Werthern (1816–1895) was a Prussian diplomat, as such a Prussian ambassador to the Kingdom of Bavaria. He was a "pioneer of the national idea" and made great contributions to the inclusion of Bavaria in the German Empire. His tomb is on the White Mountain near Beichlingen Castle.
- Count Thilo von Werthern-Beichlingen (1914–1986), officer, holder of the Knight's Cross in 1941, was the last owner of the castle and estate of Beichlingen (since his brother Ottobald fell in 1942). His wife Walpurgis von Werthern, b. Princess zu Stolberg-Wernigerode, managed the family property until it was expropriated in 1945.
- Elisabeth Countess von Werthern , b. Countess von Wedel, (1916–2009) was the wife of one of the last owners of Beichlingen Castle. Her husband Wolfgang died in the France campaign in 1940, the young mother became a widow. In 1944 she moved to the neighboring Großneuhausen castle, which was intended for this case . After fleeing from there on a trek from the Red Army in 1945, she became a prominent figure in the early Federal Republic of Germany. For more than 33 years she was the first managing director of the German Parliamentary Society in Bonn from 1951 to 1984, of which she then became an honorary member. The countess was a bearer of the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class. Elisabeth ("Betta") Countess Werthern died at the age of 92 on January 24, 2009 in Freiburg and was buried in the local family cemetery on April 4, 2009 after a ceremony in the Beichlingen castle chapel.
literature
- Lothar Bechler: Beichlingen Castle. Visions despite the fog. In: Bruno J. Sobotka (Ed.): Castles, palaces, manor houses in Thuringia. Theiss, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-8062-1123-X .
- Michael Köhler: Thuringian castles and fortified prehistoric and early historical living spaces. 2nd Edition. Jenzig, Jena 2003, ISBN 3-910141-56-0 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Lothar Bechler: Beichlingen Castle. Visions despite the fog. In: Bruno J. Sobotka (Ed.): Castles, palaces, manor houses in Thuringia. Theiss, Stuttgart 1995.
- ^ Gerlinde Sommer: Trapped behind castle walls. During the GDR era, Beichlingen Castle was intended as a central isolation camp for unpopular GDR citizens . Thuringian newspaper, January 30, 2016
- ↑ denkmalschutz.de/schloss_beichlingen
Web links
- Friends of Castle Beichlingen
- [1] on the website of the German Foundation for Monument Protection
- Material on Beichlingen Castle in the Duncker Collection of the Central and State Library Berlin (PDF; 209 kB)
- Beichlingen Castle on Burgenwelt.org