Crossen Castle
The Crossen Castle is a baroque palace complex in Crossen on the Elster in eastern Thuringia . It is located on a mountain spur above the valley of the White Elster . The Crossen Castle is known for its magnificent baroque hall, which is decorated with Italian illusion paintings. After ten years of vacancy and dilapidation, the city of Bad Köstritz bought it from Irish speculators in early March 2017 and is to be gradually renovated. Regardless of this, concerts could soon take place in the ballroom.
investment
The castle is located northwest of Crossens town center on a mountain. It includes the four-winged main building in the East, which the keep integrated and enclosing the inner courtyard. In the south wing of the main building is the baroque ballroom, which extends over two floors. To the west of this complex lies the outer courtyard, which is flanked by the main building to the east, by the former farm building to the west and by two symmetrical cavalier houses to the north and south . The entrance to the palace complex is located between the southern cavalry house and the farm building. In the 1960s, a boarding school was built behind the farm building, which is also part of the complex today. The castle is surrounded by the largely preserved castle wall. The overgrown palace garden lies between it and the main house. To the south of the castle hill is the former palace park with another outbuilding. Part of the lower palace garden was redesigned as the Crossen sports field in 1949.
history
Predecessor castle
The first castle in Crossen was built in the 10th century to protect the trade routes between Gera and Zeitz and between Bad Sulza / Camburg and Gera (wine and salt route). It was first mentioned in a document in 995, when it was used by Emperor Otto III. was transferred to the Diocese of Zeitz . This first castle complex was abandoned around 1150. It cannot be proven whether it was in the same place as today's castle.
The second castle complex on the mountain was mentioned for the first time on January 27, 1272. It served as the administrative seat of the bailiff for the surrounding towns and was also a court of law. Little is known about the castle today, including the fact that it was damaged in the Hussite Wars in 1452. In a local chronicle by Crossen it is described as a narrow castle surrounded by high walls. Two other towers and a castle chapel also belonged to this complex. Today only the keep and parts of the curtain wall remain from this previous building.
Conversion to a renaissance castle
After the Reformation, the facility passed from the diocese of Naumburg-Zeitz to the property of the Wettins . The Saxon Elector August commissioned Wolf Ernst von Wolframsdorf in 1585 with the administration of the Office of Crossen, who then had the castle converted into a palace in the Renaissance style. This castle only existed for a good 100 years, which is why even less is known about it today than about the previous castle.
The baroque castle
The Leipzig merchant and councilor David Fleischer , who came from the Ore Mountains , acquired the ensemble in 1700. From then on he called himself David von Fletscher and had the old castle demolished between 1701 and 1712 and the current complex built in the baroque style. Only the keep remained. In 1712 von Fletscher had the two-story baroque ballroom set up in a mezzanine in the south wing. For this he brought the Italian master Giovanni Francesco Marchini from Como to Crossen. He had previously worked in structures such as Bruchsal Castle in Baden or the Martinskirche in Bamberg, and in Saxony he worked at Wiederau Castle . Marchini designed the hall with lavish illusion paintings that simulate a rich architectural structure of the hall. The ballroom is considered a masterpiece of the Baroque in Thuringia, it is also the only surviving illusionistic total work of art in the country. The motifs used are mainly scenes from ancient mythology and images of God.
Crossen Castle is owned by the von Flemming family
In 1724 , Field Marshal General and Minister of Augustus the Strong, Count Jacob Heinrich von Flemming , who came from the Pomeranian noble family von Flemming , acquired the castle from the bankrupt estate of the highly indebted court and judiciary Thomas August von Fletscher. The family owned it for the next 200 years and did not carry out any major renovations, so that the castle was still completely baroque in 1925. The von Flemming family did not often live in the castle until 1777, but afterwards it was renovated and the present coat of arms was attached to the facades. Family members like Johann Heinrich Joseph Georg von Flemming or Karl von Flemming now lived permanently in the baroque complex. The former had the castle equipped with precious stucco ceilings and wallpaper as well as sumptuous inventory. The music room , the new farm building and the two cavalier houses around the outer courtyard were also built on his behalf . The redesign of the outdoor area followed in the 1780s. A vineyard was laid out there. In addition, hops and fine fruit trees were grown in the palace gardens.
Count Edmund von Flemming carried out a further decoration of the castle. He bought two tower clocks and donated a new organ for the castle church, which he had built by a master organ builder in Frankfurt (Oder) . In 1892 he had a new iron water pipe laid and a well built for the upper mountain dwellers. The writer Elisabeth von Heyking was the last of the von Flemming family to live in the castle until her death in 1925. Her husband Edmund was the ambassador of the German Empire in China and brought up Chinese fabric wallpapers brought from there in the castle.
History between 1925 and 1990
Heir to the castle was Edmund von Bockum-Dolffs, a descendant of Florens von Bockum-Dolffs , husband of the Melusine Sophie Luise Countess von Flemming, a daughter of the District President, Count Karl von Flemming . Bockum-Dolffs sold all of the castle's furniture, stoves and wallpaper and abandoned the complex to decay. The roof of the castle church became dilapidated from 1930, which meant that Marchini's ceiling paintings were lost. In 1938 the castle church finally collapsed.
On May 13, 1937, Rudolf Zersch , the owner of the Köstritzer black beer brewery and the nearby moated castle Hartmannsdorf , bought the castle at a foreclosure auction for 30,000 Reichsmarks and had it repaired. During the Second World War, soldiers of the Wehrmacht were quartered in the castle . After that it was initially used as a camp for refugees. Apartments for displaced persons were also set up in the outbuildings. Later they wanted to tear down the castle, but this was prevented by Professor Jefimow from Zeitz . He made sure that a school was housed in the castle in 1953, which existed until 1991 and trained around 330 teachers annually. In the 1960s, the dilapidated stables were torn down and replaced by a boarding house .
The castle after the reunification
In 1992 the building became the property of the Landesentwicklungsgesellschaft Thuringia , which had various repair work carried out. Among other things, the keep, the roof and the heating system were renewed. In the 1990s, castle festivals of the Heinrich Schütz Academy Bad Köstritz took place at Crossen Castle .
On November 24, 2006, the company wanted to sell the property at an auction in Erfurt. The minimum bid was 850,000 euros, with the market value of the castle being estimated at just under 2.5 million euros. Still no buyer was found. The municipalities, the municipality of Crossen and the administrative community Heideland-Elstertal , did not want to buy the system, which is why it remained in the possession of the state development company. At that time, the Siebert architecture firm prepared an appraisal, according to which around five million euros would have to be invested in repairing the castle and up to ten million euros in extensive renovation. In June 2007 the castle was put up for auction again at an auction in Berlin . It was then auctioned by the company Hurlson GmbH, which was founded for this purpose, at an unsatisfactory price for LEG of only 205,000 euros (LEG had previously invested state funds of 2.5 million euros in the castle). Hurlson GmbH was founded by the two speculators John Robinson and Eftim Hurly from Ireland . The municipalities (the municipality of Crossen, the VG Heideland-Elstertal, the Saale-Holzland district and the state of Thuringia) had a right of first refusal , but they did not make use of this right, which made the auction to Hurlson GmbH legally binding. The reason they gave was a lack of money. In September 2007 the keys were handed over to the new owners, who have not yet submitted a usage concept for the lock. The castle grounds are no longer accessible to the public; the buildings themselves are in a steadily deteriorating condition.
In the spring of 2012, Dr. Wolfgang Maruschky took the initiative to found an association of friends and patrons of Crossen Castle, which was to acquire the castle, renovate it and transform it into an educational institution.
The city council of Bad Köstritz decided on February 22nd, 2017 to acquire the castle together with the municipality of Crossen . On March 4, 2017, the palace was auctioned again in Berlin. The city of Bad Köstritz became the new owner. According to the mayor of Bad Köstritz, the purchase price plus additional costs was around 350,000 euros. At the same time, he announced that in parallel to the imminent cultural use, well-founded concepts for the gradual renovation and future use of Schloss Crossen should be developed.
literature
- Franz Jäger: Cross, castle. In: Georg Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments . Thuringia. 2nd, revised and supplemented edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich et al. 2003, ISBN 3-422-03095-6 , pp. 197f.
- Paul Wehnemann, Max Muth: Thuringian castles. Castle building and historical overview. Chronicle of the individual castles. Revised by Regina Resch and Alexander Resch. Resch, Meiningen 2007, ISBN 978-3-9810525-9-6 .
- Castle Crossen an der Elster, furniture and art objects from the 18th century from the possession of Count Flemming's Fideikommiss, initiated by CFFoerster, auction catalog Paul Cassirer and Hugo Helbing, auctioned December 11, 1928 in Berlin.
Individual evidence
- ↑ MDR Thuringia : Crossen Castle should be revived quickly ( memento of the original from October 2, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , March 3, 2017, with 13 photos
- ↑ Michael Köhler: Thuringian castles and fortified prehistoric and early historical living spaces. 2nd, expanded and revised edition. Jenzig-Verlag Köhler, Jena 2003, ISBN 3-910141-56-0 , p. 88.
- ↑ Jörg hangover Dahl: The wall and ceiling painting by Giovanni Francesco Marchini in the castles Wiederau and Crossen . Hain Verlag, 1998
- ↑ Rudolf Zersch's biography
- ^ Report on the castle festivals of the Heinrich Schütz Academy Bad Köstritz
- ^ Collection of articles in the Ostthüringer Zeitung on the subject
- ↑ Susann Grunert, Private Initiative Makes Hope for Schloss Crossen , OTZ of March 14, 2012
- ↑ MDR Thuringia : Crossen Castle should be revived quickly ( memento of the original from October 2, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , March 3, 2017, with 13 photos
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 41 ″ N , 11 ° 58 ′ 30.5 ″ E