Giechkröttendorf Castle

Coordinates: 50 ° 5 ′ 22 ″  N , 11 ° 13 ′ 47 ″  E

Drawing of the palace by Carl August Lebschée from 1851/52

Castle Giechkröttendorf is a former moated castle in Weismainer district Giechkröttendorf in the district of Lichtenfels (Bayern). The monument is managed by the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation under the number D-4-78-176-102 .

history

The detail shows the lock on the map around the shaft drive from 1672

The previous building of today's castle was first mentioned in a document in 1422. The noble free von Giech were named as owners . The castle was probably built as early as the second half of the 14th century. It was partially destroyed and burned down during the Peasants' War in 1525 and then partially demolished. The gradual reconstruction as a three-storey mansion, indicated by a coat of arms with an inscription in the forecourt on the first floor, could not be completed until 1571/76 under Achaz von Giech zu Kröttenstein . The south side of the building with the round corner tower in which the castle chapel was located has been preserved from this period. In 1607 Achaz von Giech zu Kröttenstein pledged the castle to Langheim Abbey , which acquired it from him in 1618. In the first decades, the estate was presumably administered exclusively by members of the monastic community. So in 1656 a brother was named Lorenz . Presumably it was about the Pottensteiner Laurentius Wunderlein (1631-1697), who had entered the Cistercian order in 1654. Occasionally the Abbots from Langheim stayed in Giechkröttendorf, such as Abbot Alberich Semmelmann in 1672, who was recovering from an illness there.

A map from 1672, which was created on the occasion of a disputed shaft drive on the Kordigast, contains what is probably the oldest drawing of the Giechkröttendorfer castle. In old records in 1689 sheep breeding was named as the most important industry in the village. From around 1690 secular administrators were appointed to the estate. The first to be passed down was Heinrich Wolfgang Albert, born in 1652 as the son of a monastery official. After almost 30 years of service in Giechkröttendorf, he died on August 30, 1719. He was succeeded by Jakob Graß, who held the office until his death in 1725. He was followed by the Haßfurt- born monastery chancellor Johann Rudolph Schuler, who married the widow of the previous administrator, Graß. During his entire term of office, the Conventual Students showed him great confidence; he was very respected and popular. He was the administrator of Giechkröttendorf until his death on November 24th, 1748. The monastery appointed Franz Joseph Veth from Haßfurt as his successor, who had previously proven his suitability for this position for 14 years as an actuary in the Tambach monastery courtyard . In 1758 he moved to the "administrative center" of the abbey as secretary . Veth's previous valet Johann Dümlein became the new administrator of the castle estate. After Dümlein died around 1780, his son Johann Georg Michael took over the office and carried it out until the monastery was abolished as part of the secularization of Bavaria in 1802. In the 18th century, the room layout was changed during renovations and the mansard roof was built. The north front of the building with the stair tower in the middle and the profiled window frames became the front side. The ground floor with barrel vaults and ribbed vaults is still in its late medieval condition.

After the secularization, the Langheim monastery and its property became state property. As part of these possessions, the castle was auctioned in 1807. In the following two centuries, it changed hands several times without the originally large lands. On February 23, 1931, the then lady of the castle Margarete Hofmann from Giechkröttendorf founded a local group of the German women's order Red Swastika . In 1942 the German Red Cross leased the castle and used it as a military hospital and refugee camp for originally twelve years and renovated it until the refugee camp was closed in 1947. Another renovation took place in 1980/1981.

literature

• Ruth Bach-Damaskinos, Peter Borowitz: Palaces and castles in Upper Franconia - A complete representation of all palaces, manors, castles and ruins in the Upper Franconian independent cities and districts. Verlag A. Hofmann, Nuremberg 1996, ISBN 3-87191-212-3 , pp. 185-186
• Günter Dippold: Weismainer in Langheim Abbey . In: Günter Dippold (Ed.): Weismain , Volume 2, Weismain 1996, ISBN 3-9804106-0-9 , p. 365f
• Norbert Fiedler: Weismain - views insights . HO Schulze, Lichtenfels, 1990
• Fritz Mahnke: Palaces and castles in the vicinity of the Franconian Crown , 2nd volume. Printing and publishing company Neue Presse GmbH, Coburg 1978

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Mahnke (1978), pp. 182-184
2. ↑ Schloss, Giechkröttendorf 25 , geodaten.bayern.de, accessed on December 30, 2012
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Fiedler (1990), p. 41
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Bach-Damaskinos (1996), p. 188
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Dippold (1996), p. 366
6. ↑ History of Giechkröttendorf ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , giechkroettendorf.de, accessed on December 30, 2012 
7. ↑ Das Schloss Giechkröttendorf , giechkroettendorf.de, accessed on December 30, 2012