Fechenbach Castle (Dieburg)

Fechenbach Castle in Dieburg 2013.

The Fechenbach Castle (also called Ulnerschlösschen after its builders) in Dieburg in what is now the Darmstadt-Dieburg district in Hesse is a town castle , was successively owned by three noble families, the last of which, the line of the barons of Fechenbach zu Dieburg , owned here from 1842 to 1939 .

history

Alliance coat of arms of the builder Hartmann Ulner over the water gate, part of the city wall

The building goes back to the seat of the noble Burgmann family of Ulner von Dieburg . The castle went through various construction phases. The Renaissance building of Hartmann von Ulner, of which only vaults are present and hardly worth knowing about the existing buildings due to lack of evidence and documents exists, replaced in 1717 by Pleikard Ulner by a three-winged late Baroque castle. It was a single-storey baroque building with a mansard roof and a central dwarf . At the main entrance above the outside staircase there is still the alliance coat of arms of Ulner and von Haxthausen in the blown triangular gable . It comes from Franz Pleickard Ulner von Dieburg and his wife Maria Theresia Josepha von Haxthausen, married on June 12, 1713, who had the palace built in its current form. The coat of arms stone dates from 1717, as the year on the keystone of the portal shows.

At a water gate on the Gersprenz not far from the castle there is an interesting coat of arms of the presumed builder "HARTMAN VLNER VON DIEPVRGK (and) ANNA VLLNERIN BORNE CRECZIN VON SCHARPFFENSTEIN ", which originally belonged to the castle and is dated 1564.

After the Ulner male line died out in 1771, the property came into the possession of the von Dalberg family through their daughter . Johann Wilhelm Franz Ulner von Dieburg (1715–1771), son of Franz Pleickard Ulner von Dieburg, in the Electoral Palatinate court services, had a daughter Elisabeth Auguste (1751–1816), who in 1771 was Wolfgang Heribert von Dalberg , Minister and Director of the National Theater in Mannheim (1750 -1806), married.

The daughter of Friedrich Wilhelm von Dalberg sold it in 1841 to Baron Friedrich Karl Joseph von Fechenbach . In 1860/1861 it was expanded in the (late) classical style for Hugo von Fechenbach by the district architect Krauss. Until it was sold to the city of Dieburg in 1939 by Karoline Freiin von Fechenbach (also Karolina Jella Freiin von Fechenbach , † 1951), members of the family lived here.

Modern times

In the era of National Socialism was the NSDAP left -Ortsgruppe Dieburg as a community center. Numerous Nazi organizations had their headquarters there. It was renovated and a large flight of stairs with a terrace to the south was added. Sandstone graves from the Jewish cemetery were used as building material . In 1945, however, these were brought back again.

From 1946 to 1949 there was a DP camp in Dieburg , which was housed in Fechenbach Castle, the Episcopal Konvikt and in a former SA settlement.

The castle was extensively renovated by the beginning of 2007. Under the name Museum Schloss Fechenbach , it has served as the seat of the city and district museum since 1951 with an extended extension.

The castle is a cultural monument due to the Hessian Monument Protection Act . The exemplary, listed renovation was honored in 2008 with the Hessian Monument Protection Prize.