Friedrichswerth Palace
| Friedrichswerth Palace | ||
|---|---|---|
 Friedrichswerth Palace |
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| Alternative name (s): | Summer castle | |
| Creation time : | 1677 | |
| Conservation status: | Renovation needed | |
| Standing position : | Dukes | |
| Place: | Friedrichswerth | |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 59 '32.3 " N , 10 ° 32' 40.8" E | |
| Height: | 225 m above sea level NN | |
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The Friedrichswerth Castle is a Baroque castle with attached park on the southern edge of Friedrichswerth , part of the rural community Nessetal , in the district of Gotha in Thuringia . Apart from necessary technical modernizations, the system was preserved without any fundamental redesign.
location
Friedrichswerth Palace is located 13 km (as the crow flies) northwest of Gotha in the Nesse valley . The castle was built on the site of the Erffa moated castle that had previously been razed .
history
In 1677, Duke Friedrich I of Gotha commissioned his master builder Jeremias Tütleb to build a representative country palace based on Dutch and French models and chose the village of Erffa with the moated castle of the same name as the building site. The construction of the castle was not completed until 1689 and was ceremonially completed in July of the same year. It served the ducal family as a summer residence and summer residence. A (court) church was also built at the same time. The village was renamed Friedrichswerth in honor of the Duke. However, the Duke only enjoyed his magnificent buildings for a short time; he died in August 1691 at Schloss Friedrichswerth as a result of a stroke.
In the years that followed, the castle was used by the Gotha dukes as a summer residence and became the focus of glamorous celebrations. Under Duke Friedrich III. The Hermit Order - an elite club - was founded here. During the Seven Years' War , the castle was largely cleared out for fear of looting. The administrative buildings of the palace were already used to house the Friedrichswerth district administration; in March 1855, parts of the palace were handed over to the ducal administration of justice. From 1923 the castle, which had been neglected for a long time, served as an educational institution and youth education center.
In the 1930s, until 1942, the baroque interior design of the palace was partially restored, on the initiative of the art historian Udo von Alvensleben and with the support of the Magdeburger Zeitung and the conservators from Halle and Weimar. During the Second World War, extensive library holdings from bomb-prone Berlin were relocated to the palace, as was the famous “Mon plaisier” doll town from Arnstadt. Foreign workers also lived in the castle at times. In 1948 neglected children came into the building, then it became a youth work center . During this time, the castle church was illegally demolished (only the altar painting remained) and the false ceilings were drawn in. However, the stucco and the ceiling paintings were preserved. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, the "International Federation" set up a training center in the castle, which it gave up in the late 1990s. Since then the castle has been empty and unused. The castle garden wall was almost completely restored by 1999.
investment
The lock
The palace complex consists of a three-wing symmetrical building complex, in the center of which the clock tower rises above a small courtyard and the adjacent park. The main access to the castle is via a bridge from the west. Inside, around 30 ceiling paintings by the Gotha court painter Heinrich Martin Deesen adorned the majority of the rooms.
The park
The baroque garden, laid out in the French style, continues the palace complex in an easterly direction. This strictly symmetrical, rectangular area, bounded by a surrounding moat and walls, has an area of around 290 × 80 m. Besides exotic plants there were fountains and a grotto. Gondolas and miniature ships were seen on the moat at summer festivals. Hermitages and small arbors were erected within the “garden”, which served the pastime of the aristocratic society. The "Order of the Hermits" had around 70 members. In addition to the ducal family, it included members of the landed gentry and officials of the ducal administration with their ladies. During the Seven Years' War this aristocratic amusement park ended in which officers of the Imperial Army also came and went as guests.
Farm buildings
The ducal court administration was present with a row of representative buildings in order to serve the Duke's affairs of state. In the eastern part of this ensemble, the castle's farm wing with stables, coach houses and storage buildings was also built.
Court Church
For the duties of court ceremonies, the duke had his own palace church built into the palace ; it was lavishly decorated in 1685 by the brothers Johann Samuel and Johann Peter Rust and completed at the same time as the palace.
Fortification
The four corner bastions and the surrounding moat served to defend the complex. The castle had four small cannons known as field snakes , which were posted on the bastions and shot salutes at celebrations .
- The castle rises on a bastion-like platform surrounded by moats [...] with a garden axially related to the castle, which is also bordered by canals. In terms of type, Friedrichswerth is one of the "fortified pleasure palaces".
Current situation and usage
According to Laß, Friedrichswerth in Thuringia is an important building due to its fortifications, the garden and the large chapel . It is one of the most elaborate pleasure palaces of its time. The castle with park is a designated, protected architectural and garden monument in the Gotha district. The outdoor area is open to the public. In the years 1986–1987, stucco ceilings in the area of the castle church were restored. The entire facility has not been used since the youth work yard moved out in the mid-1990s and has been offered for sale several times.
An interested party who wanted to use the castle and the vacant school building in Friedrichswerth for tourism suitable for the disabled could not come up with a sustainable solution and was rejected by the State Chancellery in 2018.
In the winter of 2018 it became known that Friedrichswerth Palace would be included in a newly established Schlösser Foundation. In November 2018, the federal government promised around 200 million euros in funding for the foundation if Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt set it up and raise funds in the same amount.
Impressions
Portal and courtyard
The silted up moat
The northeast entrance to the park
Administration building
Farm buildings
View of the church interior (1934)
Plan of the castle church (1934)
Overview map (1873)
literature
- Franz Brumme: The castle of Erffa and Friedrichswerth. (Reprint from the Ortschronik Friedrichswerth from 1899) Bad Langensalza 1994, Verlag Rockstuhl, ISBN 3-929000-37-7 .
- Franz Brumme: The noble family of Erffa. Published in 1899, reprint edition by Verlag Rockstuhl, Bad Langensalza 1994, ISBN 3-929000-36-9 .
- Franz Brumme: The village and parish Friedrichswerth (formerly called Erffa). With special consideration of the Baron von Erffa family - the Erffa Castle, originally published in 1899, reprint edition by Verlag Rockstuhl, Bad Langensalza 2004, ISBN 3-937135-28-6 .
- Hans Patze , Peter Aufgebauer (Ed.): Handbook of the historical sites of Germany . Volume 9: Thuringia (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 313). 2nd, improved and supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-520-31302-2 , p. 127.
- Thomas Bienert: "Friedrichswerth, Burg Erffa" - Medieval castles in Thuringia . Wartberg Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2000, ISBN 3-86134-631-1 , p. 73 .
- Michael Köhler: «Erffa» - Thuringian castles and fortified prehistoric and early historical living spaces . Jenzig-Verlag, Jena 2001, ISBN 3-910141-43-9 , p. 95-96 .
- Hartmut Ellrich: "Friedrichswerth" - castle and residential churches in Thuringia . Ed .: Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church in Thuringia. Wartburg-Verlag, Weimar 2007, ISBN 3-86160-163-X , p. 58-60 .
- Pastor H. Werner: The castle church in Friedrichswerth. In: The Thuringian Flag. Monthly magazine for the Central German homeland. 3rd JG. Issue 12. 1934, picture supplement, pp. 811–815.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thuringian Land Survey Office TK25 - sheet 5029 Waltershausen N, Erfurt 1995, ISBN 3-86140-049-9
- ^ Wieland Fischer: Time capsule around Friedrichswerth Palace . Thuringian newspaper, January 18, 2016
- ↑ The secular Hermit Order, Friedrichswerth Castle and its joys . In: Christian August Vulpius (Ed.): Curiosities of the physical-literary-artistic-historical past and present . tape IX , no. V . Weimar 1821, p. 383-396 . (as digitized version )
- ↑ Ulrich Schütte: The castle as a fortification. Fortified castles from the early modern period in the old empire . Ed .: Scientific Book Society Darmstadt. Darmstadt 1994, p. 281 .
- ↑ Heiko Laß: Hunting and pleasure palaces of the 17th and 18th centuries in Thuringia. Michael Imhof Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-86568-092-5 , p. 314.
- ^ Dpa: Three candidates for the new Thuringian Castle Foundation In: Thüringer Allgemeine , December 27, 2018, accessed on April 24, 2019.
