Kislau Castle

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The Kislau Castle lies on the district Bad Mingolsheim in the community of Bad Schönborn , in the Rhine Valley line Heidelberg - Karlsruhe . Today it is used as a correctional facility.

The name Kislau comes from the old word Kislowe , which means something like "pebbly floodplain". It describes the geographic location in Bruhrain , the transition area between Kraichgau and Hardtwald , which extends from Bruchsal to Wiesloch . In older documents the spelling “Kißlau” or “Kieslau” can also be found.

From a historical perspective, Kislau is the medieval rulership of the same name, including the castle belonging to it (Rudolf von Kislau was first mentioned in the Lorsch Codex in 1165 ). The origins of the complex are likely to go back to the 11th century, because the first reports about the Lords of Kislau come from this time (1083), and the surrounding villages of Mingolsheim, Langenbrücken and Kronau also belonged to their rule .

"Castle" Kislau south side

history

Presumably around 100 AD, the Romans built a fort in front of the Limes and protected by moats , which is connected by roads to the nearby fortress of Burg Wersau near Reilingen and the towns of Weiher , Karlsdorf (Altenbürg) , Staffort , Hagsfeld and Kleinrüppur was.

After troops of Hungarian horsemen had repeatedly undertaken raids through southern Germany around the year 930, the Count of Worms ( Konrad der Rote or Konrad der Salier), a son-in-law of Otto the Great, was responsible for a defense plan for the particularly afflicted Kraichgau . Under his leadership, the huge Romanesque humpback square building was built, the remains of which are still preserved. The Kislau moated castle was first mentioned in the Sindelfingen annals in 1083 as "Castrum Chiselowa" ("Chiselowa" or "Kisilowa" means "Kiesel-Au" or "Kiesel-Feld" in Old High German). The name probably comes from the fact that the castle complex was founded on huge pebble deposits from the prehistoric Kinzig-Murg River . Kislau had its own castle nobility very early on. So in 1116 an Adelbert von Kislau, a son-in-law of Count Werner von Worms , was named. Several Rudolf von Kislau were mentioned in the subsequent period.

Around the years 1232 to 1237, the Kislau knight family died out. In 1252, King Wilhelm of Holland enfeoffed his chancellor , the Speyer bishop Heinrich von Leiningen, with this Kislau property, the "Castrum". Kislau thus came to the Speyer monastery and then served as the official residence of the episcopal bailiffs on Bruhrain for over 400 years. In a document dated April 20, 1366 to Prague "Mingolzheim" for the first time in confirming the goods of the Bishop Lambert of Speyer as speyrisch called.
The office of Kislau was occupied as an upper office with one senior official and seven sub-officials. It administered the surrounding communities: Forst , Hambrücken , Kirrlach , Kronau , Langenbrücken, Mingolsheim , Östringen , Rettigheim , Rot, St. Leon , Stettfeld , Ubstadt, Weiher and Zeutern .

Peter Luder was born in Kislau around 1415 and worked as a university teacher in Heidelberg from 1456 to 1460 . He was one of the first humanists in Germany.

The best-known of the prince-bishops who liked to choose Kislau as a summer stay and for hunting trips in the game-rich Lußhardt is probably Bishop Georg von Speyer , who, together with his brother, Elector Ludwig V of the Palatinate, put down the peasant uprising in Kraichgau in 1525. On May 22, 1525, Elector Ludwig V dispatched a force of 4,500 mercenaries, 1,800 horsemen with several guns from Heidelberg via Malsch and Kislau, which arrived victorious in Bruchsal on May 23, 1525. After a wave of arrests, the rebellious peasants were imprisoned in Kislau and on May 24, 1525 the executioner of the electoral marshal Wilhelm von Habern beheaded the four famous ringleaders on the castle bridge. Oath-breakers were chopped off the oath fingers, others were fined or expelled from their country . A fine of 40,000 gold florins was imposed on the communities of the episcopal offices of Udenheim (Philippsburg), Rotenberg , Kislau, Bruchsal and Grombach (Unter- and Obergrombach) involved in the riot . 14 gold florins had to be raised from each house in the affected communities for the arson of the farmers. Until the payment obligation was met, hostages had to be held by all municipalities.

The castle feud was held by the Lords von Stein , the Göler von Ravensburg , Wiprecht von Helmstadt and Franz von Sickingen . On September 27, 1529, Bishop Georg von Speyer died at the age of 43 in Kislau Castle. In 1532, Anabaptists were imprisoned .

Most of the farm buildings were destroyed by a major fire in 1647. Despite the neutrality of the diocese, the castle complex was razed in 1675 during the siege of Philippsburg by the troops of the Sun King Louis XIV . The defense tower was blown up and the moats were thrown.

Hunting lodge

Kislau was to become one of the country castles of the Speyrian prince-bishop Damian Hugo von Schönborn . Kislau Castle was designed in 1721 by Damian Hugo von Schönborn, Prince-Bishop of Speyer , as a hunting castle in the Baroque style. First with the lordly master builder Ludwig Michael Rohrer and the foreman Johann Georg Stahl. The pre-existing castle, a moated castle , was destroyed on April 25, 1675 by French troops except for the large keep .

The keep, the medieval main building, remained the center of the new palace complex. For this purpose, it was encased in a sequence of rooms in which mainly the stately rooms and a chapel were housed. This is how the characteristic view of the compact, monumental main house with the unusual pyramid roof was created. In front of this “Corps de Logis” a courtyard of honor with ornamental beds and fountains was laid out, flanked on both sides by gentleman's houses . This representative center was still located in the area of ​​the inner moat, only beyond the bridge was a farm yard and buildings for the administration of the Kislau office built. These buildings were located in the area of ​​the outer bailey, framed by the outer moat fed by the Kraichbach flowing past . Outside the castle, on the bridge over the moat, a stately mill was built on the spot where the medieval mill also stood. While the entrance to the facility and the farm buildings were in the north, a palace garden was laid out in the south of the main house, accessible via a bridge. From there, a straight poplar avenue was created up to Langenbrücken. In this way, the basic structure of the castle complex was retained and developed into an axially symmetrical complex in the baroque style. The moat, as a formerly defensive element, blended in well with the Baroque preference for reflecting water surfaces; the old defensive tower was rededicated as the central staircase of the new palace building.

Schönborn's successor Christoph von Hutten continued the construction work and had his master builder Johann Leonhard Stahl carry out the cavalier building and the bishop's bath, among other things.

Military hospital

Through the secularization of the church property in 1803, Kislau came to Baden . In 1813 the castle was converted into a barracks and military hospital for the Grand Ducal Badischer Invaliden Corps . Construction reports complained about poor sanitary facilities and enormous vermin infestation. At times, up to 500 nervous soldiers who had fought against Napoleon were housed . For the Kislau Castle and the remains of the moated castle, this resulted in considerable inventory losses. With the exception of the wall, the outdoor facilities have been lost and the valuable Rococo interior has been largely destroyed. However, the Bischofsbad has been restored at great expense in recent years. The buildings from the 18th century have largely been preserved and still give a clear picture of the baroque country palace today.

Prison and camp

Kislau Castle, entrance area

In 1824 a state prison, a political custody facility and a workhouse were also set up. After the defeat of the freedom fighters of Baden , the castle was used as an internment camp in 1848 and 1849, and there were many students from Heidelberg among the prisoners .

At the beginning of the First World War , in 1914, a hospital was stationed on the site. In 1927 it was used again as a workhouse. Three years later, the castle was temporarily used as a nursing home for mentally weak women.

After Hitler came to power in 1933, a “ concentration camp ”, the Kislau concentration camp , was set up, in which political prisoners (especially from Mannheim ) were taken into “ protective custody ”, and a transit camp for former Foreign Legionnaires was established; the administration of justice was housed in part of the workhouse. Kislau was a central camp for Baden: various members of the previous Baden government were interned here in protective custody without judgment, for example Interior Minister Adam Remmele , State Councilor and local writer Stenz, the Reichstag member and State Councilor Ludwig Marum , who was murdered in his cell on March 29, 1934 has been. The father of the Scholl siblings (resistance movement “ White Rose ”) was also temporarily imprisoned here. In 1939 the Kislau concentration camp was closed again.

At the end of the war, it was occupied by French Spahis , colonial troops from Morocco , and then used as a reception center for refugees and as a national retirement home for refugees.

1945 until today

Kislau Castle

After the Second World War, in 1946 it was used as accommodation for a short time for displaced Sudeten Germans . Since 1948 the castle has been a branch of the Bruchsal correctional facility for the "stumbling block". In 1970 a branch of the Karlsruhe prison was set up as an institution for offenders with prison sentences of up to three months. Twelve years later work began on renovating the entire facility. A juvenile detention center was temporarily housed in the rooms. In 1991 it was used again as a branch of the Bruchsal correctional facility, this time as a prison for criminals with sentences of up to one year. Kislau has been practicing open execution since 1997, with prison sentences of up to seven years to be served.

A full-time team under the scientific direction of Andrea Hoffend has been planning the Kislau learning location since spring 2015 . On the site of the former Kislau concentration camp , a new type of extracurricular learning location will make the history of Baden's resistance to National Socialism usable for young people. At the center of the didactic concept should be moral courage, resistance to political extremism and the strengthening of the free and democratic basic order.

Known prisoners (selection)

  • Alois Lang (1805–1851), Württemberg lawyer and administrative officer. 1826 imprisonment for participation in the Freiburg fraternity
  • Maximilian Ruef (1804–1881), from 1828 court attorney at court in Freiburg. 1826 six weeks imprisonment for participation in the Freiburg fraternity
  • Joseph Fridolin Wieland (1804–1872), German-Swiss doctor and politician, four weeks imprisonment in 1826 for participating in the Freiburg fraternity
  • Adolf Rosenberger (1900–1967), German racing driver , businessman and co-founder of the Dr. Ing.hc F. Porsche GmbH . Imprisoned September 1935
  • Oskar Rohr (1912–1988), German national soccer player, sentenced to three months imprisonment in 1942/43 for “anti-French or communist propaganda”
  • Heinrich Brenner (1908–1986), German resistance fighter, October 1943 to March 1944 “protective custody” as a resistance fighter or Red Front fighter

Known prisoners in the Kislau concentration camp (1933–1939) see: Prisoners in the Kislau concentration camp

See also

literature

  • Kurt Andermann : Bad Schönborn between village idyll and spa atmosphere. In: W. Niess, S. Lorenz (Ed.): Cult baths and bath culture in Baden-Württemberg. Markstein, Filderstadt 2004, ISBN 3-935129-16-5 .
  • Christof Dahm:  SCHÖNBORN, Damian Hugo Philipp Imperial Baron of. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 9, Bautz, Herzberg 1995, ISBN 3-88309-058-1 , Sp. 620-623.
  • Claudia Dutzi: Kislau - a castle as a prison. in "1848/49 - Revolution and prison in Bruchsal", Ubstadt-Weiher 1998.
  • Klaus Gaßner (Hrsg.): Bad Schönborn history. The chronicle of the reunited villages Mingolsheim and Langenbrücken. Volume 1: From the beginnings to the dissolution of the Old Kingdom. Regional culture, Ubstadt-Weiher 2006, ISBN 3-89735-437-3 .
  • Ludwig Marum : Letters from the Kislau concentration camp. Stadtarchiv Karlsruhe and Stadtarchiv Mannheim, Karlsruhe 1984, ISBN 3-7880-9700-0 (with a portrait of Joachim Wolfgang Storck).
  • Ulrich Wiedmann: The Kislau trial. Ludwig Marum and his executioners. Neckarsteinach 2007, ISBN 978-3-937467-40-5 .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. Mone 1854, p. 33.
  2. Bad Schönborn history. Volume 1, p. 357.
  3. ^ In the history of Bad Schönborn. Volume 1, p. 357 there are ... four farmers left behind who provide the occupation ...
  4. Heimatverein Untergrombach, Volume 4; Joß Fritz and his time .
  5. Heimatverein Untergrombach, Volume 4; Joß Fritz and his time .
  6. Destruction of Kislau Castle

Coordinates: 49 ° 12 '59 "  N , 8 ° 38' 41"  E