Dankern Castle
Coordinates: 52 ° 47 ′ 42.5 ″ N , 7 ° 12 ′ 1.7 ″ E
The Schloss Dankern is a baroque moated castle in Haren in the district of Emsland in Lower Saxony .
history
Even if details are largely unknown, Dankern has a history of more than 500 years. Not far from today's castle, on a now wooded area, there are signs that an early medieval round castle stood here. Even today this place is called de Borg ("the castle"). When and by whom this system was built is unknown.
The oldest, known by name, owners were the lords of Beesten. In 1509 this family was listed as gentlemen to thank in the Münster state parliament register. In the years that followed, Dankern fell into the hands of different families as a genetic material.
For centuries the Emsland belonged to the Principality of Münster . As early as 1252, the then Prince-Bishop of Münster, Otto II. , Bought the counties in the Emsland from the last owner, Jutta von Ravensberg , married von Monjoie. Until 1803, after the Principality of Münster was also secularized by the main conclusion of the Extraordinary Reich Deputation , the sovereign was the respective Prince-Bishop of Münster.
The permanent representative of the sovereigns was the Droste , who carried out government affairs on behalf of the prince-bishop. The Drostensitz was initially the Paulsburg in Meppen , then Haus Nienhues and finally Haus Altenkamp near Aschendorf .
Johann Heinrich Martels, rent master from 1654 to 1696 and thus the second highest civil servant in the so-called Niederstift Münster after Droste, bought the Dankern estate in 1667 from its last owner Heinrich von Mandelsloh.
Lords of the castle
Martels family
Johann Heinrich Martels had made significant fortunes as the Münster Higher War Commissioner and diplomat in the service of Prince-Bishop Christoph Bernhard von Galen . After taking up the office of rentier, he acquired the Wesuwe estate in 1667 and the Lehrte estate a few years later . At the same time Martels was able to lay out 7000 thalers against interest and security of the state estates for a tax debt of the Meppen office.
It is still unclear who drew up the plans for the new mansion. The oral tradition that it was a work by the master builder Gottfried Laurenz Pictorius from Münster is hardly tenable, especially since his first independent work was only created between 1686 and 1688. According to Dehio, an attribution to Ambrosius von Oelde is also in doubt. The new house Dankern consists of the core castle surrounded by a moat , which stands on wooden piles in the water, and an outer castle with farm buildings. The construction of the originally single-storey, three-winged complex in brick construction with sandstone structures began in 1680. The fourth side was closed in 1689 by a richly ornamented triumphal arch portal. The contemporary lattice resembles the chapel lattice in Paderborn Cathedral from 1687. The entire complex is characterized by the Flemish High Baroque and is unusually rich in figurative and ornamental sandstone work for the region.
Messrs. Martels worked in an exemplary manner by cultivating large areas of bog and heathland , as the foothills of the Bourtang bog reached as far as the farm sowing, and 40 new settlers were settled.
The grandson of the builder of Dankern Johann Heinrich Martels, rent master from 1729 to 1770, was ennobled for his services. Under his son, Johann Franz von Martels, rent master from 1770 to 1800, there was a sharp decline in the family's financial situation. He was married to Theodora von Dwingelo zu Lotten. She was considered lavish and domineering and was so unpopular that the population refused to give her a burial place in Wesuwe. Her funeral procession had to turn back on the day of the burial and her body was buried in the castle chapel as gratitude. According to legend, her soul is said to have haunted the castle at night and only found peace after her grave was moved during later renovation work.
The son and successor Georg Ludwig von Martels, married to Maria Ludwica von Voorst, complained in 1800 that “our family has been shattered and deteriorated by years of conflict and constant disagreement. They are hereditary estates, the majority of the entail has already been split up or sold, and the whole Dankern estate is on the verge of ruin ”.
In 1827 the family won the lawsuit for the tax debt of 1666. The so-called Martel debt was last heard before the Reich Chamber of Commerce in Wetzlar . It was decided to pay the Martels family from the Meppen office the sum of 30,146 thalers. But the arbitration award reached the family at a time when even such a sum could not change their unfortunate financial situation. On May 22, 1832, Franz Ludwig von Martels sold the Dankern estate and the castle for 72,000 thalers to Baron Johann Ignatz von Landsberg-Velen . The agent of the sale was the Lathener notary Clemens August Behnes. As a result of this sale, most of the original furniture and almost all records of Dankern's history, including construction plans, were lost.
Families of the Barons von Landsberg and von Velen
The families of the Barons von Landsberg zu Erwitte and the Barons von Velen , who lived in Westphalia , had been closely connected to the Emsland for more than 200 years. The era of the von Velen family as Droste des Emsland began as early as 1556 with Hermann von Velen . One of the most important Droste, Dietrich von Velen (1611–1657) bought the very devastated Papenburg Castle and its lands in 1631. With great energy and with the use of not insignificant financial resources, he built a canal to the Ems in order to transport the inexhaustible supply of peat abroad: “The morasses were drained so that houses could be built and land could be assigned to grassland and cornland. “This laid the foundation stone for today's city of Papenburg .
The von Velen family served the respective prince-bishops for six generations. With Hermann Anton, the last droste of the family from 1725 to 1767, the family of the Barons von Velen died out. His daughter Anna-Theresia was the heir to the Velen entails and thus also of the entire Emsland possessions. In 1756 she married Klemens-August Freiherr von Landsberg zu Erwitte.
In 1792, son Paul Joseph took the name Velen to the name Landsberg and became the first baron of Landsberg-Velen. Johann Ignaz Freiherr von Landsberg-Velen, married to Ludowica Countess von Westerholt and Gysenberg , bought the Dankern estate in 1832. He was raised to the Prussian count status on October 15, 1840 , which entitles the respective head of the family to use this title.
In 1863 his son Friederich Ludolf took over the Dankern estate. From 1890 to 1894 under him there were considerable extensions to the house that gave the castle its present-day appearance.
The building was raised by another floor and towers were added at the two intersections of the wings with the main building. These additions were kept in red brick while the original brick structure was plastered. These measures took the facility not a little of its refinement and baroque lightness, on the contrary, the building now exuded a ponderous dignity corresponding to the taste of the time.
When Friederich Ludolf von Landsberg-Velen died in 1898, his property and title of count passed to his first son Maximilian after the Landsberg Fideikommiss. His second son Friederich, married to Sophie Countess von Westerholt and Gysenberg, inherited Dankern Castle and continued cultivation and reforestation here .
When Maximilian died in 1902 without a male heir, Friederich became master of the Landsberg Fideikommissgüter in Westphalia. He left Dankern in 1920 to his second son Otto (1890–1974), married to Countess Maria Droste zu Vischering (1892–1984).
Large areas of heather were reclaimed and moors were cultivated, most of which were afforested. Later, in 1972, Otto Freiherr von Landsberg-Velen had to witness how the entire forest, his life's work, was destroyed by a hurricane in one night .
Dankern was spared the events of the Second World War . However, for almost three years a second home was created here for many Haren citizens: Haren had been confiscated by the English military government for Polish returnees and thus all Haren had to leave their homes within a few hours.
Todays use
In order to secure the economic basis for the preservation of the castle, the holiday center Schloss Dankern was founded by Otto's son Manfred Freiherr von Landsberg-Velen (1923-2010) at the beginning of the 1970s .
The idea was to enable families with children to have an affordable vacation. The holiday center was successful right from the start with the motto holidays with the child of the child . The result was a comprehensive holiday complex with now over 700 holiday homes and a wide range of games and sports facilities. Every year over 125,000 guests spend their vacation here with around 650,000 overnight stays. There are also around 100,000 day visitors.
The facility has been expanded several times and offers one of the largest playgrounds in Germany. Between giant swings and trampoline there are two indoor play halls, giant slides, a roller coaster, a water bobsleigh run and a traditional pony riding facility for children up to 14. In order to be able to use the area comfortably, there is a bike rental in an old pony stable - especially for holiday guests - a supermarket.
At Dankernsee outside the holiday park there is a water ski facility , a surfing school and a diving school . At the back of the lake are several man-made sandy beaches, u. a. with the possibility of using it as a dog beach and an artificial sand dune. To the west of the lake there is a go- kart track and an airfield.
A destination region is also the Spaßbad Topas , which is directly adjacent to the holiday park. Former holiday homes in the park in the immediate vicinity of the lake have also been released for sale.
Dankern Castle is the central spatial center of the complex and has been completely renovated over the past few decades. The funds used for the restoration received grants from the state of Lower Saxony, the district of Emsland and the city of Haren. Nevertheless, around 90 percent of the costs have to be paid by the owner. The castle is still inhabited by the owner family and is only partially accessible to the public as part of guided tours (currently weekly on Tuesdays). Today's owner is Friedhelm von Landsberg-Velen, who has also managed Arff Castle near Cologne since 2015 .
literature
- Rudolf vom Bruch: The Knights' Seats of the Emsland , Münster 1962, pp. 46–48.
- District Emsland (ed.): Cultural guide of the district Emsland: Architectural monuments. Meppen, pp. 133-139.
- Georg Dehio : Bremen / Lower Saxony ( Handbook of German Art Monuments ). Munich / Berlin 1992, p. 374.
Individual evidence
- ^ Dehio: Niedersachsen / Bremen, Munich 1992, p. 374
- ↑ Niemer: Gottfried Laurrenz Pictorius, dissertation, Münster 2002, p. 41
- ↑ Altenberge 1810-2010 On the genesis of a bog colony Footnotes No. 5 p. 311
Web links
- Entry by Stefan Eismann on Dankern Castle in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute
- Website of the Dankern Castle Holiday Center
- Aerial view of Dankern Castle
- Aerial photo of Dankernsee