Herzberg Castle

East side, seen from the city center

Palace courtyard with half-timbered buildings on stone bases

Herzberg Castle is a castle complex in Herzberg am Harz in the district of Göttingen , Lower Saxony (Germany). Today's four-wing complex has its origins in the 11th century as a medieval castle . After a fire in 1510 it was rebuilt as a castle. With 180 rooms, it is the largest palace complex in Lower Saxony that was built in half-timbered construction. Since this is more than 700 years owned by the noble family of Guelph was, the plant is also called Welfenschloss Herzberg called.

geography

The Herzberg Castle stands on the Schloßberg, a wooded hill ( 275 m above sea level ) immediately west of the center of the city of Herzberg am Harz, which lies on the southwestern edge of the Harz Mountains . The Sieber runs north past the castle .

Building description

Castle seen from Herzberg, day and night

Herzberg 1753 with Herzberg Castle

Today's castle is a closed four-wing complex with a rectangular inner courtyard (40 × 58 m), the reconstruction of the castle complex after a severe conflagration in November 1510.

Since the reconstruction, which was completed in 1528, the building basements have been made of sandstone . One wing of the building has upper floors made of stone, while the upper floors of the other three wings are half-timbered .

Access through a gate tower and an adjoining gate kennel was retained. The interior of the castle is entered after passing the two-story gatehouse .

The castle tower, also known as the clock tower because of its clock , was built in the east corner. Its three upper floors consist of half-timbering.

history

Herzberg Castle as a Merian copper engraving from 1654 (detail)

Coat of arms of the Duchy of Braunschweig above the castle entrance

Half-timbered decorations on the castle tower

View from the inside of the castle ( gatehouse ) into the gate kennel

Palace courtyard, 1907

Originally there was a castle here, which emerged from a hunting lodge built there between 1024 and 1029. As the builder of the castle, the king and later emperor Lothar III. (from Süpplingenburg ) suspected. In 1144, by order of the Welfs, the Bavarian ministerial family von Göttingen took possession of Herzberg Castle and the surrounding care as a fallen fiefdom for the Welfs after Count Hermann von Lutterberge had died there in 1143 without heirs.

The castle was first mentioned in a document in 1143. In 1158, when Friedrich Barbarossa and Duke Heinrich the Lion exchanged goods, it finally became the property of the Welfs. In return, Heinrich the Lion ceded his first wife Clementia von Zähringen's inheritance to Friedrich I in Swabia . Since then, the complex has been in the hands of the Guelphs for 708 years without interruption until the end of the Kingdom of Hanover in 1866. The Empress Maria von Brabant , the widow of Emperor Otto IV. , Issued a certificate on Hertsberg in 1218 so that the castle became the imperial residence for a short time was. In 1279 the castle served as a residence for the widow of Duke Albrecht the Great. From 1337 to 1714 the castle was the ducal residence with almost no interruption.

From 1290 the castle became the residence of the Guelph line Braunschweig- Grubenhagen , which was formed at that time. From 1384 to 1402 it was owned by the former Abbot of Corvey , Ernst von Braunschweig-Grubenhagen, as apanage . The Dukes of the Principality of Grubenhagen resided here from 1486 until they died out in 1596. After that, the facility was transferred to the Guelph line Braunschweig- Lüneburg .

From the severe conflagration in the castle in 1510, it is said that the lord's family, Duke Philip I with his wife Katharina and son Philip, were able to save themselves from the rapidly spreading fire at the last minute. The squire and the Duchess's maid died in the fire. In gratitude for their help with the fire and reconstruction, Philip I allowed the citizens of Herzberg to hold shooting festivals and gave them a silver chain with a silver stag.

Until 1635, Duke Georg von Braunschweig and Lüneburg lived in the rebuilt castle with his wife Anna Eleonore von Hessen-Darmstadt . Her youngest son, who later became the first elector of Hanover, Ernst August Herzog zu Braunschweig-Lüneburg, was born there in 1629 . His sister-in-law, Duchess Dorothea Sophie von Celle , lived here as a widow for three years from 1665 until she married the "Great Elector" Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg and moved to Berlin.

In 1714 the castle was given up as a residence . Since 1852 it has been the seat of the Herzberg District Court . In 1900 a museum was set up in the castle. Towards the end of the Second World War , the castle suffered severe damage, all of which have now been repaired. On the night of April 4, 1945, a violent detonation occurred below the castle in the nearby explosives factory , where 40,000 kg of explosives and 8,000 mines were stored. This covered the roof of the castle. In the course of this, the museum was also destroyed and probably looted. In 1947 there was further damage from the blowing up of nearby military bunkers .

Today the castle houses a small cultural center with a café-restaurant, a museum and the knight's hall , which is used for cultural events. The museum shows the history of forestry in the Harz, the history of the castle and the history of the Guelphs. Further exhibition areas present the history of the Herzberg rifle manufacture and the Herzberg organ builder Johann Andreas Engelhardt . A facsimile of the Gospel Book of Henry the Lion can be viewed as part of the permanent exhibition . Furthermore, special exhibitions take place regularly .

In 2006 the castle was partially renovated . During a visit to the castle in 2016, Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Stephan Weil announced that further renovation would be necessary, especially the clock tower, for 12 million euros, but the funds were cut again. The stables wing of the castle was considered to be in acute danger of collapsing. Since the summer of 2017, Herzberg Castle has been renovated for 7.5 million euros. The total costs are estimated at 20 million euros.

Since the International Museum Day 2017 is the Castle Museum, the restored Guelph weigh seen from the 16th century.

Support association

In 2004 the Friends of Herzberg am Harz eV was founded, which wants to preserve the Welfenschloss as a monument and support interest in it by promoting art and culture .

Projects included, among other things, the renovation and construction of the functional Engelhardt organ in the castle museum - where organ concerts have taken place every year since then - as well as the acquisition of several paintings and other exhibits for the museum.

Since 2013, the Friends' Association has been the organizer of the Herzberg Castle Concerts in the Rittersaal and the Herzberg Castle Lectures with the historian Gerd Biegel . 2014 was Pedigree of the house Braunschweig updated and expanded. This large pedigree, with 32 generations , is now on display on the ground floor of the museum.

The friends' association also supports the museum on International Museum Day in May and Open Monument Day in September.

literature

Hans Adolf Schultz : Castles and palaces of the Braunschweiger Land , Braunschweig 1980, Das Schloß Herzberg , pp. 109–110, ISBN 3-878840128
Hans Grüneberg: Schloss Herzberg and his Welfen , City of Herzberg am Harz 2012, added a new edition to the April 1993 edition
Ernst Andreas Friedrich : Das Schloss Herzberg , pp. 97–98, in: If stones could talk. Vol. 4. Landbuch-Verlag, Hannover 1998, ISBN 3-7842-0558-5
Jürgen Wilke: The history of the coat of arms of the city of Herzberg / Harz , pp. 1–33 + bibliography, Göttingen 1998
Markus C. Blaich , Sonja Stadje, Kim Kappes: Schloss Herzberg in: The Heldenburg near Salzderhelden, castle and residence in the Principality of Grubenhagen , (= guide to the prehistory and early history of Lower Saxony. 32) Isensee Verlag , Oldenburg, 2019, p. 138– 141.
Alexander Dylong: General and statesman in the Thirty Years' War - Georg von Calenberg, Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. MatrixMedia, Göttingen 2020, ISBN 978-3-946891-13-0 .