Gschwendt Castle
Gschwendt Castle is located on Steyrerstraße 24-26 east ( right ) of the Krems River in the Gries district of Neuhofen an der Krems .
history
The Gschwendt reign was first mentioned in a document in 1308 as a Passau fief. Heinrich the Gschwendtner or Heinrich von Volkenstorff is mentioned as a feudal man. In 1369 Gschwendt came into the possession of the Losensteiner . The district court was also connected to the rule . At the end of the 16th century, the moated castle was added to the list of places of escape and defense in times of war, which suggests that the complex was defensible. During the Great Peasants' War in 1626 a battle broke out near the castle between the peasants led by Achaz Wiellinger and the imperial troops under Colonel Löbl. The poorly armed peasants reportedly lost more than a thousand men.
In 1692 the Losensteiner family in the male line died out with the passing of the Passau canon, Imperial Prince Franz Anton von Losenstein , who was raised to the rank of Imperial Prince in 1690. Maria Katharina, the sister of the last count, became the heiress; she was married to Prince Johann Weikhard von Auersperg . Around 1750 there were 502 subjects in Gschwendt. Torture was supposedly still used in the castle in 1843 , although it was abolished in the Habsburg monarchy in the 18th century.
Gschwendt remained in the Auersperger's possession until 1851, when Prince Karl von Auersperg sold the castle to the owner of the farm tavern, Franz Leuck. The associated grounds were parceled out and sold to farmers.
In 1892, in the context of the overcrowding of the Linz psychiatric institution, the Upper Austrian state parliament decided to set up an “agricultural insane asylum for male and female foster parents”. In February 1894, the purchase of Gschwendt Castle was approved for this purpose. At the turn of the year 1894/95 the first sick people arrived in the “state insane asylum”; by 1897 the asylum was already fully occupied with one hundred people. Gschwendt Castle was a branch institution of the "Landes-Mad Asylum Niedernhart ", in both institutions spiritual sisters from the order of St. Vincent von Paul were active as nurses.
time of the nationalsocialism
During the National Socialist era , the Nazi euthanasia doctor Rudolf Lonauer was the director. Gschwendt Castle was now used as a stopover for patients en route to the murder. Some of them arrived from other institutions in the " Ostmark " and could not be brought directly to the Nazi killing center in Hartheim .
Even after the transports to Hartheim were stopped, other patients were murdered by Lonauer “decentrally” with malnutrition or medication. But it would be wrong to ascribe the responsibility for this extermination machinery to the director of the institution. The system could only work with the help of many other helpers, nurses, secretaries, drivers, doctors and other accomplices.
When the bombing war began in Linz, Lonauer moved with his family to Neuhofen ad Krems. He found shelter in Lining, in the house of the housekeeper Hermine Zehetner. With this Lonauer is said to have a "close relationship". At the end of the war, one hour before the US Army arrived, he first killed his wife with poison, then his two daughters (born in 1938 and 1943 respectively) and then shot himself. The family is buried in the Neuhofen an der Krems cemetery.
After the Second World War, 61 people involved were criminally investigated; criminal trials took place against only three. Of these, Anton Schrottmayer (head of the women's department in Gschwendt) killed himself on August 4, 1946 in the Ybbs prison . Most of the proceedings were discontinued.
Gschwendt Castle today
Originally Gschwendt was a moated castle, which was surrounded by a double tower-reinforced wall. Three transverse wings connected the front and rear parts of the castle. These components and the surrounding ponds have all disappeared; All that remained was the ten-axis main wing, the former manor house of the castle. In place of the earlier stone bridge, a metal-glass bridge leads over a newly created water area to the castle. Worth mentioning is a snail-like metal sculpture that protrudes from the surface of the water.
A few years ago, the castle was extensively renovated and redesigned with additional buildings into a modern Upper Austrian state care and support center for the mentally ill. The crowned medallion on the portal contains the coat of arms of Upper Austria . Above it two angels, the one on the left holding a palm branch, the one on the right a cross.
A column erected in front of the castle in 1976 commemorates the battle of 1626 .
The Schloss-Gschwendt-Straße leads away from the castle in a central northward direction.
literature
- Norbert Grabherr : Castles and palaces in Upper Austria. A guide for castle hikers and friends of home. 1976, Linz: Upper Austrian Provincial Publishing House.
- Anton Rolleder : Local history of Steyr. Historical-topographical description of the political districts of Steyr city and country. 1894, Steyr: Commission publisher from Karl Lintl's bookstore in Steyr.
Web links
- Entry via Schloss Gschwendt to Burgen-Austria
- State care and care center Schloss Gschwendt
- Chronicle of Gschwendt Castle
- Gschwendt Castle in the time of the Losensteiners
Individual evidence
- ↑ Markus Rachbauer: From the place of custody to the sanatorium? The psychiatric institution Niedernhart 1918-1938 , in: Oberösterreichisches Landesarchiv (Ed.): Upper Austria 1918–1938 . Volume IV, Linz 2016, p. 68 f.
- ↑ Walter Kohl: “I don't feel guilty.” Georg Renno , euthanasia doctor. 2000, Vienna: Paul Zsolnay Verlag, ISBN 3-552-04973-8 .
- ↑ Post-war justice (PDF; 194 kB)
Coordinates: 48 ° 8 ′ 15.6 ″ N , 14 ° 14 ′ 9.8 ″ E