Bensberg Castle

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Bensberg, town hall and castle

Bensberg Castle in the Bensberg district of Bergisch Gladbach in the Bergisches Land ( North Rhine-Westphalia ) is a hunting lodge built in the early 18th century that is now used as a hotel.

Bensberg Hunting Lodge

Bensberg Castle in the 19th century

Johann Wilhelm II (popularly: "Jan Wellem") ruled as Duke of Jülich and Berg from 1679 to 1716. In 1690 Johann Wilhelm succeeded his father Philipp Wilhelm as the 18th Elector of the Palatinate . In the autumn he moved from his residence in Düsseldorf Castle to hunt in Bensberg. The adjacent royal forest was his preferred hunting ground. Jan Wellem's second wife Anna Maria Luisa de 'Medici , daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany , raved about the view of the old Bensberg Castle over the hilly surroundings, which reminded her of Tuscany.

Presumably for the sake of his wife, Jan Wellem commissioned Count Matteo d'Alberti in 1703 to build a new palace in the Baroque style . By 1711 the Venetian master builder had created a magnificent hunting lodge based on the model of Schönbrunn Palace . The central axis of the building complex is precisely aligned with Cologne Cathedral . The elector hired renowned contemporary artists such as Antonio Bellucci , Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini , Jan Weenix and Domenico Zanetti for the interior design . When Goethe visited the palace in 1774, his companion Johann Georg Jacobi wrote in his diary:

“The castle and the village are situated on a high mountain, from which you can see miles of forests, fields and heaths, and in the distance a stretch of the Rhine and the famous Seven Mountains . [...] I believe that the gods now and then drink their nectar on a silver cloud and overlook half of the earth! "

Goethe himself wrote in Book 14 in Poetry and Truth:

“ A trip to the Bensberg hunting lodge, which is located on the right side of the Rhine and enjoyed the most splendid view, is clearer to me. What delighted me beyond all measure there were the wall decorations by Weenix ... "

Jan Wellem did not live to see the completion of his representative Bergisch hunting lodge. When he died in 1716, the decline of the princely palace was already apparent. The subsequent rulers resided more in the Palatinate than in the Duchy of Berg and rarely visited the castle.

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General view of Bensberg Castle

Conversions

Driveway

At the beginning of the coalition wars, there was fighting between the French revolutionary army and the Austrian regiments in the battle of Jemappes in 1792 . Against the resistance of the Countess Helena Theresia Moureaux, a field hospital was set up in Bensberg Castle in January 1793, which subsequently had to take in the injured. It was subordinate to the city ​​commandant of Cologne . Again and again it was difficult to get the necessary furnishings, straw for the storage of the injured and firewood. There were also always bottlenecks with food. In addition, the hygienic conditions were extremely poor. Typhus broke out for the first time in March 1793, claiming numerous victims. To prevent the epidemic from spreading any further, the corpses were carried down to the Milchborntal as quickly as possible by cart and buried there in large mass graves. Similarly, in 1813, the French also set up a hospital in Bensberg Castle. Typhus broke out in them too, which in turn led to many deaths, which were also buried in the Milchborntal near the imperial graves. With the Imperial Cemetery and the French Cemetery , memorials were built for the dead soldiers in the Milchborntal.

Military use

Axial alignment with Cologne Cathedral

From 1840 to 1918 the castle served as a Prussian cadet institute . After the First World War , barracks for occupation troops were set up . Subsequently, the castle, which was meanwhile in need of renovation, had no adequate use from 1922. Parts of the huge building were used for a long time by the Bensberg municipal administration and the Evangelical Church . Then up to 41 homeless families were temporarily housed here. From 1935 to 1945 the National Socialists set up a National Political Education Institute (official abbreviation: NPEA, popularly also called NAPOLA) there. After 1945 it was first used by American, British and, from 1946, by Belgian occupation forces. From 1965 to 1997 it served as the seat of the Belgian high school Koninklijk Atheneum Bensberg .

Grandhotel Schloss Bensberg

In 1997 the former princely hunting lodge was extensively restored for 75 million euros and converted into a five- star grand hotel . The owner is Generali Deutschland Lebensversicherung AG and the operator is the Althoff Hotels group . It is one of the Leading Hotels of the World and has 120 rooms. The complex includes three restaurants (including the three-star Vendôme restaurant under the management of Joachim Wissler ), a beauty and wellness club and a jeweler.

Major events also take place in Schloss Bensberg, from 2002 to 2005, for example, the annual award ceremony for the Grimme Online Award . At the 2006 World Cup , Schloss Bensberg was the home of the South Korean national team . In addition to the “Festival of Master Chefs” and the classic car event Schloss Bensberg Classics, which has been held since 2009, the Christmas market at Schloss Bensberg attracts thousands of visitors every year on the third Advent.

Monument protection

Bensberg Castle was registered on June 30, 1988 as No. 136 in the list of monuments in Bergisch Gladbach.

Art treasures of the castle

The hunting scenes by Jan Weenix are now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich . Silk wallpapers and other paintings are now in Augustusburg Castle in Brühl .

Hiking trails

Bensberger Schlossweg.

The “Bensberger Schloss” circular hiking trail (Bergischer Streifzug No. 13) has the Bensberger Schloss as its start and end point. The 9.3 km long premium hiking trail received funding from the EU and North Rhine-Westphalia.

See also

literature

  • August Gertner: Bensberg and his cadet house. Kogler, Siegen 1862, digitized version .
  • Werner Dobisch: The New Castle in Bensberg (= Rheinischer Verein für Denkmalpflege und Heimatschutz. Jg. 31, ZDB -ID 2061727 ). Schwann, Düsseldorf 1938.
  • Godehard Hoffmann: Bensberg Castle and its fate - Prussian Cadet House and National Political Educational Institution - in: Rheinische Heimatpflege - 33rd year - 1/96, p. 9 ff
  • Barbara Precht-von Taboritzki: The new Bensberg Castle in Bergisch Gladbach . Cologne 1996. ISBN 3-88094-802-X (Rheinische Kunststätten issue 418), ed. v. Rhenish Association for Monument Preservation and Landscape Protection eV
  • Schloss Bensberg eV: ghosts, Goethe and soldiers. Stories & poems about Bensberg Castle. informa Verlag, Bensberg 2000.
  • Herbert Stahl: The Jungfrau mine and the Bensberg castle , in: Rheinisch-Bergischer Calendar 2005, 75th year, Heider Verlag Bergisch Gladbach o. J., S, 213 ff.
  • Herbert Stahl: National Political Educational Institution in Bensberg Castle, On the history of the castle as a school institution in: Rheinisch-Bergischer Calendar 2013, 83rd year, Heider Verlag Bergisch Gladbach o. J., p. 91 ff.

Web links

Commons : Schloss Bensberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b August Gärtner: Bensberg and his cadet house , Siegen 1862
  2. ↑ Anton Jux: The KK Hauptarmeespital in Bensberg and the Kaiserliche Kirchhof (= Bergische Heimatführer. Special series. Vol. 1, ZDB -ID 1223641-x ). Martini & Grüttefien, Wuppertal-Elberfeld 1955.
  3. ^ Prussia in Bensberg - From the cadet house straight to the war, Bergische Landeszeitung from April 19, 2015, accessed on September 1, 2016
  4. ↑ Herbert Stahl : National Political Educational Institution in Bensberg Castle, On the history of the castle as a school facility in: Rheinisch-Bergischer Calendar 2013, pp. 91–96
  5. ↑ Koninklijk Atheneum Bensberg ( Memento from December 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Goldberg meets Salvador Dali. Premium filler in Schloss Bensberg. In: Barcall. Magazine for People, Drinks and Concepts , Issue 17 (2017), pp. 28–31, here p. 28.
  7. ↑ bergisches-wanderland.de / ... - Official description (accessed on March 17, 2019).

Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 1 ″  N , 7 ° 9 ′ 44 ″  E