Ettersburg Castle and Park
Palace and Park Ettersburg are in Thuringia Ettersburg on the Etter Mountain (474 m), an elongated ridge north of Weimar . As part of the “ Classic Weimar ” ensemble, they have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998 .
history
Establishment
Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar , who liked to hunt in the forests of the Ettersberg, had the castle built immediately west of the village of Ettersburg in the years 1706–1712 as a three-winged, unadorned building. In 1722 he added the three-storey so-called New Castle . His nephew and successor Ernst August had the castle rebuilt in 1728–1740 and an outside staircase built in front of it. The history of the castle, like its original furnishings, is difficult to reconstruct despite its good state of preservation, as the early files were burned.
After Duke Carl August came to power , the duchess mother Anna Amalia used the castle as a summer residence from 1776–1780. This was where her literary and musical circle met, including Wieland , Goethe , Herder , the storyteller Johann Karl August Musäus and the actress Corona Schröter ; The Weimar Liebhabertheater also performed here. From 1780 this summer residence was relocated to Tiefurt Castle , where the estate had been rebuilt. After that, the Ettersburg Castle was only visited sporadically. Friedrich Schiller completed his work Maria Stuart there in 1800 .
Grand Duke Carl Alexander and Grand Duchess Sophie only resumed the musical tradition here in the 19th century . In 1842 Carl Alexander married Princess Sophie of the Netherlands; the outside staircase at the New Palace was a wedding present from the Dutch royal family . Ettersburg became the hereditary grand ducal summer residence and again hosted well-known guests in the following years, such as Hans Christian Andersen , Emanuel Geibel , Friedrich Hebbel , Franz Liszt and others. In 1845 a park in the style of an English landscape garden was created according to plans by the landscape architect Eduard Petzold and the “park prince” Hermann von Pückler-Muskau .
In 1918, Ettersburg Castle became the property of the State of Thuringia . From 1923 Ettersburg was leased by Alfred Andreesen and run by Hermann Lietz for 30 years as the Hermann Lietz School of the “Deutsche Landerziehungsheime ” foundation . About 80 pupils and teachers lived in the palace complex, including Wernher von Braun .
Ettersburg Castle is one of the largest and most complex hunting castles in Thuringia.
The Buchenwald concentration camp was established in the vicinity from 1937 . The Lietz school was initially confiscated by the SS and closed in 1945.
In the decades after the Second World War , Ettersburg Castle was neglected and fell into disrepair. At first it served as a training center for clerks and prosecutors, and after renovations in the 1960s and 1970s, it was used as a retirement home. Students, children from Ettersburg, volunteers and people interested in culture saved the palace and church from complete decline during the GDR era. Maintenance and repair work on the collegiate church has been carried out since 1984. The nave was reconstructed 1985–1988 under the most difficult conditions. Even during this construction period, the church was a meeting point for a variety of cultural events and was under constant surveillance by the state security .
Redevelopment
Measures to secure the building structure were taken at the castle, but a comprehensive renovation was not possible until 2006 for financial reasons. A sponsoring association, Kuratorium Schloss Ettersburg , founded in 1990, had the goal of saving the castle near Weimar, which was threatened with decay, and organized a diverse program of events with a wide variety of artistic means and with reference to the location. In October 2009 the association dissolved. Exhibition boards on the history of the castle can be viewed all year round.
In November 2005, the Klassik Stiftung Weimar handed over the castle to the BAU Hessen-Thuringia educational organization, a non-profit educational association, by means of a heritable building right contract for an initial period of 55 years.
The structural revitalization of the property began in July 2006. The purely structural renovation cost almost EUR 9 million and was completed at the turn of the year 2007/2008.
Ettersburg Castle offers gastronomy (restaurant) and high-quality overnight accommodation for individual guests (hotel). The palace complex can also be booked as a conference venue and for events / celebrations.
In 2008 the Bauhaus Akademie Schloss Ettersburg gGmbH started its work. The Bauhaus Academy offers advanced training for architects, engineers, experts, graduates and everyone involved in construction with well-known speakers.
Ettersburg Castle invites you to cultural events all year round. The highlight since 2011 has been the almost two-week Whitsun Festival at Ettersburg Castle ; the cross-over program - which takes up the cultural history and the aura of the place - offers a good 30 events every year: classical, jazz and pop concerts, concert readings (in-house productions), theater performances and the Ettersburg Talks . 4,500 tickets were sold in 2019, guests were among others. a. Al Di Meola, NOA, Anna Ternheim, Sophie Zelmani, Viktoria Tolstoy and Ragna Schirmer. Regular guests at the readings are Petra Schmidt-Schaller, Claudia Michelsen and Thomas Thieme.
The ensemble of palace and park was awarded the National Prize for Integrated Urban Development and Building Culture by the Federal Ministry of Transport in 2009 .
In 1999 a lane in the park that was cut 250 years ago was exposed again: this "lane of time" leads from the castle to the present day memorial on the grounds of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
literature
sorted alphabetically by author
- Werner Deetjen: On the heights of Ettersburg. (= Shuttle library . 17). JJ Weber publishing house in Leipzig, Leipzig undated around 1936.
- H. v. Hintzenstern, J. Schüffler, P. Heller, HD. Loew, E. Fischer: “Fundamente”. Thirty contributions to Thuringian church history. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-374-00213-7 .
- Angelika Pöthe: Ettersburg Castle. Weimar's sociability and cultural life in the 19th century. Böhlauverlag, Weimar 1995, ISBN 3-412-09094-8 .
- Thomas A. Seidel, Justus H. Ulbricht, Heinrich-Dieter Hischer (eds.): Ettersburg Castle. A laboratory of European culture. Glaux-Verlag, Jena 2006, ISBN 3-931743-98-5 .
- Günther Thimm: The avenue from Weimar to Ettersburg. It was designed by Carl Eduard Petzold around 1845 as part of the country's beautification. In: The garden art . Volume 18, No. 2, 2006, pp. 331-337.
- Werner Vollrath: The palace complex near Weimar. Naumburger Verlagsanstalt, 2010, ISBN 978-3-86156-205-4 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heiko Laß: Hunting and pleasure palaces of the 17th and 18th centuries in Thuringia. Michael Imhof Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-86568-092-5 , p. 298.
- ↑ Stefanie Krihning, Angelika Schneider: From princely wishes and horticultural realities. Carl Alexander von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, Eduard Petzold, Hermann von Pückler-Muskau and the Ettersburger Schlosspark. In: The garden art . Volume 24, No. 2, 2012, pp. 169-189.
- ^ Michael J. Neufeld: Wernher von Braun. Visionary of space, engineer of war. Translated from the English by Ilse Strasmann. Siedler Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-88680-912-7 , p. 38 f.
- ↑ Heiko Laß: Hunting and pleasure palaces of the 17th and 18th centuries in Thuringia. Michael Imhof Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-86568-092-5 , p. 302.
Coordinates: 51 ° 1 ′ 56.6 ″ N , 11 ° 16 ′ 26.2 ″ E