Gifhorn Castle

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Inner courtyard of the castle, from left: Commandant's house with stair tower, castle chapel and storage house

The Gifhorn Castle is from 1525 to 1581 in the style of a Weserrenaissance built castle in Gifhorn . The castle, which was expanded as a fortress until 1790 , with its moats, ramparts and bastions was never captured. In the 16th century it was the residence of the Duchy of Gifhorn for only ten years under Duke Franz von Braunschweig-Lüneburg .

Building description

Merian copper engraving of the fortress-like palace complex around 1654
Floor plan in the 18th century

The fortified palace complex was laid out in a trapezoidal shape. It was surrounded by ramparts and a 50 m wide moat. The surrounding area could be turned into a swamp by flooding. Stone bastion towers were erected at the four corners of the complex . These were connected to the castle underground by wall passages in the form of casemates . A 45 m long piece of it is still preserved today, which led to the north bastion. Today, exhibitions of the castle museum are presented there. The castle could be reached via a bridge on the narrow side of the castle moat in the southeast, which led to the gatehouse . Today the main entrance leads over the old south bastion, which has been reconstructed by means of circular pieces of wall. The following palace buildings are grouped around the inner courtyard:

  • Gatehouse as the oldest building, which was completed a year after the start of the palace construction in 1526. Because of its oversized size, it was probably originally planned as the only castle building. The barrel-shaped roof construction with semicircular gables is extraordinary and nowhere else is it preserved. Its woodwork can be dated to 1526, but was replaced during the renovation in the early 1980s. The castle was accessed through the gatehouse until the 18th century, after which it was used as a granary.
  • Ablagerhaus as the largest building in the east wing, which from the 18th century served as a residential building for high Gifhorn officials, such as the governor. The name is explained by the fact that the residents had to vacate the rooms when they were in aristocratic camp (visit), e.g. B. by hunting parties. The knight's hall is located in the building .
  • Castle chapel as the first sacred building from 1547, which was built for Protestant worship . With the sarcophagus of Duke Franz on a gallery below a window and a life-size, kneeling wooden sculpture of the buried person. The sarcophagus of wife Klara von Sachsen-Lauenburg is empty because she died on a trip to her Pomeranian homeland in Barth . But it is also depicted as a sculpture praying.
  • Commandant's house from 1581 as the residence of the castle or official governor, later in the 19th and 20th centuries the seat of the local court
  • Stair tower from 1568 with a spiral staircase as access to the building between the gate tower and the warehouse
  • The prison, armory and granary of the west wing are no longer available today. The prison complex was then built in the 19th and 20th centuries

history

Precursor plant

Location of the castle in Gifhorn in the 18th century

The fortified forerunner of the castle was a moated castle on an artificially constructed hill in a protected corner between Aller and Ise . According to a study carried out around 1900 by the prehistorian Carl Schuchhardt , the castle, of which no remains can be found today, already existed around the year 1000. In a document from 1296 it was first mentioned as Castrum Gifhorne .

A siege probably took place in the battle between Duke Albrecht the Fat and his brother Heinrich the Whimsical . At the end of the 13th century, reconstruction work was carried out on the castle under Otto the Strict . With the development of the village of Gifhorn, the importance of the castle complex for security and as a customs post on a trade route increased . In the 14th century it was often pledged, including to the Lords of Veltheim and the city of Braunschweig . In 1396 Duke Friedrich left the castle to his wife Anna of Saxony as a life annuity . In the 15th century, other pawnbrokers followed, such as von Bülow (1467), von Alvensleben (1470), von Quitzow (1472) and von Bodendieke (1477). In the Hildesheim collegiate feud in 1519, the castle and town were destroyed. Both belonged to the Duchy of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel until this time .

Castle construction

Today's castle was built as a new building from 1525, but not on the site of the previous buildings, but on an elevation on the northern edge of what was then Gifhorn. The builders were the Protestant dukes Ernst the Confessors of Braunschweig-Lüneburg and his brother Otto from Celle. Ernst made the castle a wedding present for his wife Sophie von Mecklenburg-Schwerin when he married in 1528. It served her as an annuity , with which she could dispose of the building and its income. In 1539 Duke Ernst bequeathed the castle and the surrounding offices to his youngest brother Duke Franz , who returned from the Electoral Saxon court and pressed for an inheritance settlement.

Castle history

Gatehouse , first completed castle building in 1526
Duke Franz in the palace chapel
Gifhorn Castle

When Duke Franz took over the castle in 1539, he was able to pursue his princely representational tasks with the complex, according to his noble self-image. He had Gifhorn Castle expanded as a residence and lived a splendid court life. At the same time he expanded Fallersleben Castle as a rural aristocratic residence. Life with his thrifty brother Ernst and the comparatively modest standard of living in the small residence in Celle were not enough for him. Franz tied the fortress builder Michael Clare from Celle to himself. His work shaped the appearance of the Gifhorn facility.

After Duke Franz's death in 1549, the palace complex ceased to be a royal residence. The domain of the Duchy of Gifhorn, which existed only 10 years between 1539 and 1549, fell back to the Principality of Lüneburg . The widow Duchess Klara von Sachsen-Lauenburg had to vacate the castle and retire to her widow's residence, Fallersleben Castle. After that, the Gifhorn Castle became an apartment for a bailiff. Occasionally it served as accommodation for the princely hunting parties of the Celle dukes, who stopped here to hunt in the vast forests around Gifhorn.

Nevertheless, the complex remained a fortress , as it had a strategically important function for the Celle dukes on the south-eastern flank of their duchy. The castle was administered by a castle captain (from 1734 Landdrost ). He was the fortress commander and had commanded a crew of armourers , rifle shooters and mercenaries since the 16th century . The well-fortified fortress has withstood all attackers since its existence. Enemy troops, such as that of the Swedes, Danes, league players and imperial troops in the Thirty Years War and armies of the French in the Seven Years War, quartered in the city of Gifhorn and refrained from attacking the castle.

The last captain of the castle, Ulrich von Veltheim , had the fortifications demolished between 1770 and 1780, as they no longer met the defense requirements of that time. The moat was also reduced to half its width and crossings were made to the northern and southern bastions. The fortified gatehouse was converted into a granary. From the 18th century, district administrators officiated in the castle. A fundamental renovation and redesign of the entire castle area took place between 1978 and 1983. Up until around 2010 there was a smaller prison department in one wing of the building . Today the castle is the seat of the following institutions:

  • District of Gifhorn with meeting rooms of the district council
  • Event location knight's hall
  • Historical Museum Schloss Gifhorn on approximately 1000 m² of exhibition space on the development of the Gifhorn district from prehistoric times to the present
  • Gastronomy business castle-restaurant

literature

  • Jürgen Conrad (text): Gifhorn Castle . District of Gifhorn, Gifhorn 1983.
  • Hans Adolf Schultz : Castles and palaces of the Braunschweiger Land . Orphanage, Braunschweig 1980, 1984 (4th edition), ISBN 3-878840128 .
  • Hans Adolf Schultz: Castles, palaces and mansions in the Gifhorn-Wolfsburg area . Gifhorn 1985
  • Ernst Andreas Friedrich : The Gifhorn Castle . S. 130-132, in: If stones could talk , Volume III, Landbuch-Verlag, Hanover 1995, ISBN 3-7842-0515-1 .
  • Ingrid Eichstädt: The history of the Gifhorn-Wolfsburg area . Gifhorn 1996.
  • Horst Masuch: An unusual roof structure in the gatehouse of Gifhorn Castle . In: Reports on the preservation of monuments in Lower Saxony , (1981), 3/4, pp. 20-25.

Web links

Commons : Schloss Gifhorn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Horst Masuch: Dating of the roof structure in the gatehouse of Gifhorn Castle. In: Reports on the preservation of monuments in Lower Saxony (1982), pp. 77–78

Coordinates: 52 ° 29 '22.4 "  N , 10 ° 32' 49.6"  E