Martinskirchen Castle

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Martinskirchen Castle with the facade renovated from 1991–97

Martinskirchen Castle is a castle complex in the Martinskirchen district of the small town of Mühlberg / Elbe in southern Brandenburg in the Elbe-Elster district .

It was created between 1751 and 1756 by Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Brühl (1699–1760), who had acquired the rule of Martinskirchen a few years earlier with the help of his brother, Prime Minister Heinrich von Brühl (1700–1763). The baroque building , whose facade was already influenced by French classicism , is considered an early major work by Friedrich August Krubsacius (1718–1789), a student of Johann Christoph Knöffel (1686–1752), and is now a listed building .

history

Dominion Martinskirchen

Over the centuries, the village was owned by various noble families, some of whom in Martinskirchen sat on different manors at the same time. Those named here are von Monch , sometimes also called von Mönch , von Munch or Mönnich , who owned the so-called noble manor and were resident in Martinskirche from 1346 to 1593. Other noble families residing here were the von Körbitz , von Seydewitz , von Lüttichau , von Hartitzsch , von Wengen and von Wehlen families .

The Marienstern monastery located in Mühlberg owned a monastery property in Martinskirchen. After the secularization of the monastery in 1539 , the entire monastery area became part of the Mühlberg office in 1570 . In 1687, through the union of five Martinskirchen estates, the manor around the castle that still exists today is said to have been created.

The construction of the castle and its development under the Brühls and Stephanns

  • Martinskirchen Castle southwest view (2014)

  • Central Risalit (2014)

  • Martinskirchen Castle, southeast view (2014)

Martinskirchen Castle was built under Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Brühl (1699–1760) in the years 1751 to 1756 in the Dresden Rococo style. The cost was 160,000 thalers . The nobleman was a royal Polish and electoral Saxon Privy Councilor , governor in Thuringia and chief tax collector. He came from the influential von Brühl noble family and, with the help of his brother, Heinrich von Brühl (1700–1763), Prime Minister of the Electorate of Saxony , acquired the rule of Martinskirchen in 1738 . This also included the two feudal estates Altbelgern and Brottewitz as well as the Vorwerk Langenrieth . His older brother, the Prime Minister of the Electoral Saxony, Heinrich von Brühl, also used the castle as a hunting and pleasure palace.

Martinskirchen on an original table from around 1847
Martinskirchen Castle (1911)

Friedrich August Krubsacius (1718–1789) is considered to be the master builder of Martinskirchen Castle, which was originally supposed to be built as a two-story building . Krubsacius was a student of the Dresden master builder Johann Christoph Knöffel (1686–1752) and Martinskirchen Castle is considered one of his early works, but also one of his main works. He was appointed court architect of the Electorate of Saxony while the palace was being built in 1755 . In the vicinity of the palace, spacious parks and gardens were created. To the south of the castle, the so-called French garden was created with delicately cut hedges , bosquets and fountains . After the death of Friedrich Wilhelm von Brühl, the property in Martinskirchen passed to his son Hans Moritz von Brühl (1736–1809). The property in Martinskirchen was leased.

In 1795, the castle finally became the property of the influential Stephann family from Torgau for 153,000 thalers . The buyer Andreas Christoph Stephann († 1801), a chamber commissioner from the Electorate of Saxony, had made his fortune not entirely without controversy in the timber trade by having Saxon wood brought to Hamburg over the Elbe and selling it there at a multiple profit.

Around 1800 his son Johann Andreas Christoph Stephann took over the Martinskirchen property. He soon initiated extensive construction work on the site. For economic reasons, however, part of the gardens soon had to give way. A new farmyard was built in place of the French garden . Johann Andreas Christoph Stephann followed Franz Theodor Stephann , then Ernst Stephann (1847–1897). Ernst Stephann was a member of the German Reichstag , but died early from a nervous problem. His inheritance initially went into the hands of his wife Ilka, née. Baroness von Babarrzy , then their son Christoph Horst Stephann († 1920) got him at the age of 25 .

It was owned by the Stephanns until 1945. At the end of the Second World War , a community of heirs around Ernst Brendel owned the castle and other goods in Martinskirchen. His wife Elfriede Brendel, née Stephann, had died in the summer of 1937.

From the land reform until today

At the end of April 1945 Martinskirchen was taken by the advancing troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army . The local manor had fled beforehand. The land reform soon followed . It began in the Bad Liebenwerda district as early as autumn 1945. In accordance with the Land Reform Ordinance (BRVO), private and state property over 100 hectares with all buildings, living and dead inventory and other agricultural property was expropriated and divided. By March 1 of the following year, a total of 9,580 hectares had been expropriated and distributed in the Liebenwerda district .

  • Construction of residential houses (1955)

  • Cleaning a potato harvester in the MTS Martinskirchen (1955)

The owners of the property in Martinskirchen also lost land as a result of the 100 hectare limit being exceeded. In the course of this land reform, according to district statistics published later on April 3, 1948, 694 hectares of land were expropriated, making it the largest area in the entire district. The Martinskirchen estate was initially transformed into a provincial estate for cattle and plant breeding. In 1948, however, the lands were divided up, with 56 settler sites being created. In October 1952 the LPG Progress was founded in Martinskirchen, which initially farmed 206 hectares of agricultural land. A machine and tractor station , MTS for short , had already moved into the castle or what is now the former manor . In addition, a building with a dining room and a large kitchen for 250 people as well as accommodation for 12 tractor drivers and new apartment buildings were built near the castle in the early 1950s.

In the 1950s, an agricultural vocational school with boarding school was set up in the castle . From 1968 onwards, the community took over the western part of the castle, using it communally and setting up a nurses' station here, among other things. The vocational school, which is still located here, was spun off again in the 1970s. A few years later, the municipality took over the building completely in 1985.

After the fall of the Wall , the complex was restored from 1991 to 1997 by Brandenburgische Schlösser GmbH . The Brandenburg castles GmbH is one of the German Foundation for Monument Protection and the Brandenburg state government based nonprofit company. She still advertises the Martinskirchen Castle and presents it on her website. The restoration of the interior began in 1998, but has not yet been continued. The facility is currently owned by the municipality of Martinskirchen and the historic ambience of the magnificent marble hall is used sporadically for smaller concerts. A new owner is currently being sought for the historic palace complex.

description

location

The castle complex of Martinskirchen is located about three hundred meters south of the town center with the village church and four kilometers northwest of the town center of the small town of Mühlberg / Elbe in southern Brandenburg. An old river course of the Elbe can be found immediately west of the castle grounds, where the remains of a landscape park have been preserved. The current course of the river is a good one kilometer to the west. In terms of transport, the castle is connected via the district road 6214 that runs along here and, for tourism, via the Elbe cycle path, among other things .

Architecture of the castle

Model of the castle in the Elsterwerda Miniature Park.
North side
South side

Martinskirchen Castle is a three-storey plastered three-wing complex made of sandstone with a mansard roof . There are decorated dormers in the two roof zones. In terms of architecture, the complex still belongs to the Baroque era. In the facade of the building there are poorly developed risalits with flat triangular gables and sandstone reliefs. It has already been influenced by French classicism .

The historical interior of the castle was lost, especially in the post-war years of the Second World War. The magnificent oval marble hall is the most defining room in the building. It is an example of the Dresden Rococo and is 14 meters long. A ceiling painting here shows Diana and her entourage, the goddess of the hunt , and is the work of the Italian painter Stefano Torelli (1712–1784). The hall is located on the upper two floors, which it occupies completely from the height. It has red stucco marble as the wall cladding, which gives the hall its name. It also features two marble fireplaces with mirror attachments . On both sides of the main hall there are common rooms and apartments arranged in an enfilade .

Another room worth mentioning in the castle is the hunting room. It is decorated with green paneling and oak carvings that represent symbols of the hunt. The palace has a total of seven halls and thirty-three rooms, the layout of which has remained largely unchanged.

Former farm and outbuildings

Martinskirchen Castle with a house built in 1923 in the east (2014)

The entire castle complex of Martinskirchen has now been placed under monument protection. The castle and the landscape park adjoining it to the west as well as the two manors are under protection. A distinction is made here between a Saxon and a Prussian court.

The so-called Sächsischer Hof is located north of the castle. This estate is dated to the year 1700 and consists of stables with a tenant house in the north, a half-timbered building in the west and an adjoining house with a mansard roof in the east.

The so-called Prussian Court , which was laid out around 1800 , is immediately south of the palace. This consists of an agricultural transverse building, an ox barn and a cowshed with an adjoining house, a house built after 1950 and another two-story house with a mansard roof at the castle entrance, which was built in 1923.

Web links

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

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ a b c d database of the Brandenburg State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and the State Archaeological Museum ( Memento of the original from December 9, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 22, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / bldam-brandenburg.de
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Martinskirchen . In: The Black Magpie . No. 28 , 1906 (local history supplement to the Liebenwerdaer Kreisblatt ).
  3. ^ A b M. Karl Fitzkow : The Junkers of Martinskirchen. In: Working groups of the friends of nature and home of the German cultural association Bad Liebenwerda district (Hrsg.): Home calendar for the Bad Liebenwerda district . Bad Liebenwerda 1955, p. 82 to 85 .
  4. ↑ a b M. Mühlhaus: The von Münch on Martinskirchen . In: The Black Magpie . No. 571 , 1940 (local history supplement to the Liebenwerdaer Kreisblatt ).
  5. ↑ Matthäus Karl Fitzkow : On the older history of the city of Liebenwerda and its district area . Ed .: District Museum Bad Liebenwerda. Bad Liebenwerda 1961, p. 14 .
  6. ↑ a b Lange: Old Belgians once . In: The Black Magpie . No. 424 , 1931 (free local history supplement to the Liebenwerdaer Kreisblatt ).
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h The Martinskirchener Schloss on the municipal homepage of Mühlberg / Elbe, accessed on September 3, 2017
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Georg Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments - Brandenburg . 2nd Edition. 2012, ISBN 978-3-422-03123-4 , pp. 682-684 .
  9. ↑ a b c d The history of Martinskirchen Castle on the homepage of the Friends' Association, accessed on September 3, 2017
  10. ↑ a b c d Schloss Martinskirchen on the private homepage www.maegel-net.de, accessed on September 3, 2017
  11. ^ Roch: Comments on Saxon forestry and forest culture . Leipzig, Halle 1797, p. 75 .
  12. ↑ a b Torsten Lehmann: The implementation of the land reform in the old district of Liebenwerda . In: Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Heimatkunde e. V. Bad Liebenwerda (Ed.): Local calendar for the old district of Bad Liebenwerda, the Mückenberger Ländchen, outskirts on Schraden and Uebigau-Falkenberg . Bad Liebenwerda 1997, p. 101 .
  13. ↑ Fritz Wilhelm: You fought for better Germany records about the anti-fascist resistance struggle in the Liebenwerda district . Ed .: District commission for research into the local history of the labor movement in the district leadership of the SED Bad Liebenwerda. S. 123 .
  14. ↑ Max Lindau: The hereditary tenth of Martinskirchen / Altbelgern and their descendants. In: Working groups of the friends of nature and home of the German cultural association Bad Liebenwerda district (Hrsg.): Home calendar for the Bad Liebenwerda district . Bad Liebenwerda 1962, p. 62 to 66 .
  15. ↑ M. Karl Fitzkow : Stone on stone - this is how the new house grew. In: Working groups of the friends of nature and home of the German cultural association Bad Liebenwerda district (Hrsg.): Home calendar for the Bad Liebenwerda district . Bad Liebenwerda 1959, p. 151 .
  16. ↑ Projects of Brandenburgische Schlösser GmbH on their website, accessed on September 10, 2017
  17. ↑ a b Schloss Martinskirchen on the Brandenburgische Schlösser GmbH website , accessed on September 10, 2017
  18. ^ Entry from Schloss Martinskirchen at www.lausitz.de , accessed on September 9, 2017

Coordinates: 51 ° 28 '23 "  N , 13 ° 12' 12.8"  E