Ernich Castle

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Inclined aerial image (2010)
Garden side (autumn 2008)

Schloss Ernich (also Haus Ernich ) is a neo-baroque mansion in Remagen , a town in the Rhineland-Palatinate district of Ahrweiler , which was completed in 1908. It is located between the Remagen city center and Oberwinter high above the Bundesstraße 9 and the Cologne – Koblenz rail line on the left side of the Rhine, opposite the city of Unkel . The palace as a whole, including the park, is a cultural monument under monument protection . From 1949 to 1955 it was the residence of the French High Commissioner , then until 1999 of the French Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany.

location

Ernich Castle is 134  m above sea level. NHN , about 85 m above the Rhine on a plateau-like terrain sloping from west to east with a view to the south-east. It can be reached via a private, winding access road from Kreisstraße 40, which runs parallel to the Rhine and the B9 . A forest path also ends in front of the castle area. As Haus Ernich , it forms a residential area within the Remagen district of the city of the same name.

history

Salon (around 1910)

The house was built between 1906 and 1908 in the neo-baroque style for the client Arnold von Guilleaume (1868–1939), a Cologne industrialist, based on a design by the architect and court builder Ernst von Ihne . It was named after the corridor "Im Ernich" in which the property was located. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on August 12, 1906 , and the topping-out ceremony was celebrated in 1907 . On April 18, 1908, the Guilleaume family moved into the property. Later, a few outbuildings were built on the site: a coachman's apartment , a bowling alley and a machine house . In 1910 a large flight of stairs was built.

Until 1930 Schloss Ernich served as the country and summer residence of Arnold and his wife Elisabeth "Ella" von Guilleaume, nee. Deichmann. After the First World War , it was taken over by the American occupying forces with 30 soldiers for two years from 1919 . In 1933/34 the Richardsen family set up a hotel restaurant there, which was particularly popular with Cologne society, and for which a new kitchen wing was built. The then Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler is said to have made a guest appearance at Ernich Castle several times during this period, including on April 12, 1937. The hotel was closed during the Second World War . Until 1945 the castle was used as a military hospital . Towards the end of the war in the region, it was captured by American occupation troops on March 5, 1945, evacuated on March 13, and the previous residents moved to Unkelbach . Afterwards, bombed-out families from Remagen were temporarily accommodated there. This was followed by a confiscation by the British crew, who took the furniture and the 30 beds of the house with them before they left. On July 15, 1945, a holiday home for Parisian children and a school for the children of the occupying forces were set up at Ernich Castle by the commander in chief of the advancing French occupation. From October 1947 the von Guilleaume family was able to live in some of the rooms in the house again. After a temporary vacancy, it served the International Film Union from January 8, 1949 ( lease ) as a guest house for their temporary employees.

In autumn 1949, the French Republic set up the residence of its High Commissioner at Ernich Castle at the seat of government in Bonn , who exercised the Allied control rights over the Federal Republic of Germany for his country and was based in Bad Godesberg . The French flag was hoisted on September 7th. The castle, which had 40 rooms at the time , was furnished with valuable paintings and Louis- Seize furniture , initially at the expense of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate . Accommodation barracks for the French gendarmerie were built at the beginning of the access road . André François-Poncet , who had close ties to the city of Remagen, held the position of High Commissioner . From January 13, 1950, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman spent the night at Ernich Castle as part of his first state visit to Germany, and on January 15, 1950 he conducted negotiations there with Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer about the sovereignty of occupied Germany. When this was achieved in 1955 and the Allied High Commission disbanded, the French High Commission was converted into a regular embassy . The castle now served - released from confiscation and rented by France - as the residence of the embassy, ​​the residence of the French ambassador; the valuable furniture was partially replaced. Even later, some of the French state guests stayed at Ernich Castle. In 1959 the property, which until then had belonged to the Guilleaume family, also became the property of France.

In the course of the relocation of the seat of government , the French embassy moved to Berlin in 1999 (→ French embassy in Berlin ). The previous residence of the embassy was now vacant, but still belonged to the French Republic. In the meantime, Chancellor Helmut Kohl's thoughts on using the house as a German-French cultural center after the move failed. In December 2006, the German film producer Ulrich Felsberg acquired the castle from the French Ministry of Finance and began renovating it in 2007. The work was largely completed in 2011. In 2018, Felsberg's plans to convert the property into a hotel became public.

architecture

Rhine front of the palace complex (spring 2009)

The castle has two to three storeys in rectangular form, has short side wings and a mansard roof . The garden front is designed as a representative viewing side and faces the Rhine. It comprises eleven axes , three of which are on a projecting central projection . This takes up a single-storey entrance portal that carries a balcony and is closed at the top by a triangular gable in classicist shapes. The facades of the side wings are designed differently: the western one with two semicircular basement - like porches, the eastern one with a single continuous. The house is adorned by a ridge turret.

To the southeast of the castle is a stepped garden with three steps, which extends to the edge of the steep slope leading down to the banks of the Rhine . There is a viewing pavilion on the northeastern edge of the palace complex, and a tennis court on the southern edge .

literature

  • Rolf Plewa; Ahrweiler district (Ed.): 100 years of Ernich Castle near Remagen. In: Heimat-Jahrbuch 2008 of the district of Ahrweiler . ISSN  0342-5827 , Weiss-Druck, Monschau 2007, pp. 170-173.
  • Helmut Vogt : Guardians of the Bonn Republic: The Allied High Commissioners 1949–1955. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, ISBN 3-506-70139-8 , pp. 55-57, 103.
  • Hermann Josef Fuchs: A high diplomatic era came to an end at Ernich Castle. The country house on the mountain plateau near Remagen became a noble diplomatic seat . In: Ahrweiler district's homeland yearbook 2000 . ISSN  0342-5827 , p. 140. ( online )
  • Hilda Ortiz Lunscken (ed.); Hilda Ortiz Lunscken, Ingeborg Fischer-Dieskau (Photos: Martin Krockauer): Pour Memoire. To Remind. As a reminder - ambassadorial residences on the Rhine. Ortiz-Lunscken Publishers, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-9806801-0-X , pp. 22-25.
  • Matthias Röcke: Schloss Ernich and his ambassadors . In: Homeland yearbook of the Ahrweiler district 1985 . ISSN  0342-5827 . ( online )
  • Hermann Bauer: In the Ahrweiler district on diplomatic parquet . In: Ahrweiler district's homeland yearbook 1959 . ISSN  0342-5827 . ( online )

Web links

Commons : Schloss Ernich  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - Ahrweiler district. Mainz 2020, p. 62 (PDF; 5.1 MB).
  2. ↑ State Statistical Office Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Official directory of the municipalities and parts of the municipality. Status: January 2019 [ Version 2020 is available. ] . S. 4 (PDF; 3 MB).
  3. ↑ a b c Rolf Plewa; Ahrweiler district (Ed.): 100 years of Ernich Castle near Remagen. In: Heimat-Jahrbuch 2008 of the district of Ahrweiler
  4. ↑ a b Rathausverein Oberwinter: Ernich (PDF)
  5. ↑ a b c d Helmut Vogt: Guardian of the Bonn Republic. The Allied High Commissioners 1949–1955.
  6. ^ Helmut Vogt : Viceroys on the River - The Rhine and the Allied High Commissioners 1949–1955 . In: Bonner Geschichtsblätter. Yearbook of the Bonner Heimat- und Geschichtsverein , Volume 55/56, 2006, ISSN  0068-0052 , pp. 273–288 (here: pp. 277 f.).
  7. ↑ De Gaulle's castle is looking for a gentleman. In: Welt am Sonntag. July 25, 1999.
  8. ↑ After the “end of the world” comes Remagen. In: General-Anzeiger (Bonn). December 23, 2006, accessed May 12, 2020 .
  9. ^ Victor Francke: Above Oberwinter - Ernich Castle in Remagen is to become a hotel. In: General-Anzeiger (Bonn). May 18, 2018, accessed November 27, 2018 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 35 '46.9 "  N , 7 ° 12' 17.3"  E