Benzenhofen Castle
Benzenhofen Castle near Berg in the Ravensburg district in Baden-Württemberg was built from 1898 to 1901 by Otto Benze , who called himself Benze von Benzenhofen . Benzes property, including a painting and art collection in the castle, was foreclosed in 1932. Franz von Papen later lived in an apartment in the castle and wrote his memoirs there from 1949.
history
The building plot was acquired in 1897 by Otto Benze (1857–1945) and his wife as a community of property. Benze called himself Benze von Benzenhofen during his student days and from the 1890s he intensified his efforts to be perceived as a member of the nobility. He had probably received funds through his marriage in 1894 to Marie Luise Lülling du Repaire de Truffin, a woman of noble French descent. At the beginning of 1897 he took over the Châteaurenard estate near Avignon and some French nobility titles from Prince Henri-François de Valori for a large sum of money . As his wife informed Prince Valori in 1897, he also acquired the estate in Benzenhofen in order to obtain legitimation for the extremely controversial title of Benzenhofen . Benze always referred to the estate as a manor , although it was only a normal agricultural good when it was bought.
When the estate came into the possession of Benze, it comprised a residential building , a barn , a Göppelhaus , a fruit store and a coach house . From 1898 to 1899, Benze had a historic castle built on the estate . In 1899 a lengthy investigation began against Benze because of the title of nobility , which this eluded by moving to Brussels . The interior construction of the castle therefore dragged on until 1901. Upon completion, the castle also included a baking and laundry room, a blacksmith's workshop and various meadows, gardens and fields.
In the years that followed, Benze did not always live in Benzenhofen, but for a longer period in Brussels and Paris, probably also to avoid the trial that lasted until 1905 because of his nobility. From 1909, Benze lived with his family mainly in Benzenhofen. He, but especially his wife, was certified to be pathologically paranoid . The couple was exaggeratedly afraid of burglars, of the theft of the collection of paintings in the castle and of poisoning and therefore took bizarre precautionary measures that were to the detriment of visitors and servants, but also of their daughter Vicky. Shots were fired at alleged burglars and the food was obtained in a locked box in a nearby inn. The painting collection was stored in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart while Benzes was away . The Benze couple separated around the time of the outbreak of the First World War, whereupon Benzes wife moved to Geneva, where she died in 1921, while Benze became the sole owner of the castle.
The estate belonging to the castle was managed by tenants, most recently by Benzes brother-in-law Max Rotty, the brother of his second wife. The income from the estate was barely sufficient to cover the costs, which after the First World War , as a result of which Benze's property in France was expropriated in 1922, led to the owner's economic difficulties.
In 1928 the manor's barn burned down. Benze did not only have the barn rebuilt in a progressive way of thinking, but also built a silo for feed, which was completely overdimensioned for the small amount of livestock on the estate. The planning came from architect Heinrich Wurm from Ravensburg, the construction was carried out by master mason Josef Lehn from Weiler bei Berg. A legal dispute broke out over the quality of the construction, as Benze only wanted to pay part of the required construction costs. The building was probably perfectly fine, however, and Benze had only tried to cover up his financial plight. He was eventually sentenced to pay the outstanding sum of over 7,000 RM. Since he could no longer provide this, three paintings from his collection in the castle were seized, namely the flagellation of Christ by an unknown Venetian master, a Flemish depiction of Christ on the cross from the school of van Dyck and a depiction of Klio and Chronos in front of the ruins of one ancient temple by Michel Honoré Bounieu . The pictures were auctioned at Fritz Nagel in Stuttgart , but brought in little more than 500 RM. The architect Wurm received an ideal landscape that was ascribed to Herman Swanevelt .
Benzes ruin was unstoppable. In 1931 the property was already under compulsory administration, in 1932 the compulsory auction was ordered. An extensive list of the art objects in the house, which Max Schefold from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart created, has been preserved from this period . In addition to the four aforementioned paintings, there is also a Flemish depiction of Simson and Delilah from Rubens' successor and two hunting pictures by CH Roy. Benze also owned some valuable sculptures, including a bronze cupid with an arrow , possibly by Jean Antoine Houdon . In addition, there was porcelain, faience and some antique furniture in the castle . Not included in Schefold's list was a valuable painting by Peter Paul Rubens , an equestrian image of the Infante Don Ferdinand of Spain in the battle of Nördlingen . Benze had owned the painting since 1904; his widow didn't sell it until 1947.
In the course of the foreclosure auction on June 21, 1932 , the castle was sold to the farmer Anton Pfeiffer from Zuberg for 60,000 RM , whose descendants still own the castle today. Franz von Papen lived in an apartment in the castle from 1949 to 1952 and wrote his memoirs here.
description
Benzenhofen Castle is a two-story plastered building in the Tudor style . In the middle of the front facade protrudes a four-storey square tower, which has a crenellated walkway above the third tower floor and which is slightly tapered to continue with the fourth tower floor, which is also crenellated. The main portal is located in the base of the central tower, with a flight of stairs in front of it. On the left and right of the front facade there are round three-storey corner towers also crowned with crenellations. The rear facade shows small crenellated tower nooks on the left and right, a tower-like risalit protrudes in the middle . The roof and its ornamental gable are also crowned with battlements. The windows on the ground floor are rectangular, on the first floor and the upper floors of the central tower the windows have Gothic pointed arches and occasional tracery approaches .
literature
- Hans Ulrich Frhr. v. Ruepprecht: Benzenhofen Castle and its builder . In: Genealogy , Issue 7–8 / 1996, pp. 226–235 and Issue 9–10 / 1996, pp. 257–272 as well as addendum in issue 11–12 / 1996, pp. 366–368.
- Hans Ulrich Rudolf : The would-be baron of Benzenhofen. Benzenhofen Castle and its client. In: Im Oberland , issue 2/2014, pp. 28–36.
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 50 ′ 5.6 " N , 9 ° 33 ′ 56.8" E