Dannenberg Castle
The Dannenberg Castle was a castle in Dannenberg (Elbe) in Lower Saxony , which Duke Henry of Brunswick-Lüneburg from 1569 as a residence at the site of a medieval castle was built. The palace buildings were demolished in the 18th and 19th centuries. Only the former keep in the form of the Waldemar tower has been preserved .
history
The forerunner of the castle was a medieval castle, which was built on a sand island in a loop of the river Jeetzel . The elevation of the castle hill, which was later referred to as the Amtsberg, was created by backing up earth. Even before the castle was built, a Slavic rampart is believed to have existed at the site .
The first castle was built by Volrad I von Dannenberg , who had received the order from Duke Heinrich the Lion to create a settlement. While the castle was first mentioned in 1153, Dannenberg is mentioned in a Magdeburg document from October 18, 1157. The keep of the castle, known today as the Waldemarturm, was built around the year 1200 under the Dannenberg Count Heinrich I. The tower, which was more than 30 meters high at the time, had walls made of brick in a two-shell construction that were up to 3.5 meters thick . Between 1223 and 1224, the Danish King Waldemar II was hidden and imprisoned in the tower, and the tower is therefore named after him today. Another prisoner was his son Waldemar the boy .
In 1303 the line of the Dannenberg Counts ended when Count Nikolaus gave his rights to Otto the Strict of Braunschweig-Lüneburg for a life annuity . Dannenberg Castle was later involved in the War of the Lüneburg Succession (1370-1389). In 1375 the knight Silvert von Saldern defended the castle against the Ascanians and handed it over to the siege by Gerhard von Attendorn in 1377 . Ultimately, the castle and town remained in the hands of the Guelphs after the war ended .
In 1569, the Dannenberg rule was established as an independent principality in Dannenberg . It belonged to Duke Heinrich of Braunschweig and Lüneburg , who had renounced further government participation in the Principality of Lüneburg and was thus resigned. From 1569 he had Dannenberg Castle built as his residence. Heinrich had the dilapidated buildings of the medieval castle renovated and added further buildings, whereby the medieval Waldemarturm was retained. Heinrich's son Julius Ernst continued his father's work with his brother August . The result was a closed building ensemble with stone plinths and half-timbered structures , as shown by a Merian copper engraving from 1654.
In 1671 the castle and the office of Dannenberg came back to the Celle line of the Welfs and have been under sovereign administration ever since . In 1672 the timber-framed structure of the Waldemar tower burned down after a lightning strike. It was not renovated until 1720 and got a stair tower as an extension. This was necessary because some parts of the dilapidated castle were demolished, from which the tower was accessed via a drawbridge at the level of the second floor. During this time the castle was no longer a residence, but the seat of the Dannenberg office . In the years 1774 to 1776 further palace buildings were torn down. After that, the complex lost its seclusion and became the official courtyard on which a new residential building was built for the official. The castle chapel, which was used as a bakery, slaughterhouse and wash house, was initially preserved and was only demolished in the 19th century. During this time, the tower served as a depository for court files. During the Second World War, the tower was damaged in air raids. After the war, the buildings on the former castle grounds were used by the British military administration, then by the Federal Border Guard until 1959 .
Today there are several individual buildings from more recent times on the site of the former castle next to the Waldemarturm. These include a half-timbered building built in 1854 as the Dannenberg Higher Court and the district office built in 1914 as a brick building, where the Dannenberg District Court is now based. The local history museum of the city of Dannenberg, today the museum in the Waldemarturm Dannenberg, has been housed in the Waldemarturm since 1955.
literature
- Berndt Wachter : From Dannenberg and its history , 2nd edition, Dannenberg 1983
- Ernst Andreas Friedrich : The Waldemarturm von Dannenberg , pp. 76-87, in: If stones could talk , Volume II, Landbuch-Verlag, Hanover 1992, ISBN 3-7842-0479-1 .
- Wolfgang Jürries , Berndt Wachter (Ed.): Waldemarturm in the Wendland Lexicon . Volume 2: L – Z 2nd edition. Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft Köhring & Co., Lüchow 2008, ISBN 978-3-926322-28-9 , p. 530
Web links
- Entry by Sandy Bieler on Dannenberg Castle in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute
- Entry on Dannenberg Castle in the private database "Alle Burgen".
- Description of the story with photos
- Brief description of the history and photos of the interior of the Waldemarturm
- Photos from Dannenberg Castle at the Photo Archive Photo Marburg
Coordinates: 53 ° 5 ′ 58 ″ N , 11 ° 5 ′ 52 ″ E