Osnabrück Castle

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View from the castle garden

The Osnabrück Castle was the residence of the Protestant Osnabrück Prince-Bishop Ernst August I of Braunschweig-Lüneburg and his wife Sophie von der Pfalz . It has been the seat of the administration of the University of Osnabrück since 1974 . The building including the gardens, the sculptures in the palace garden including the Lyra monument are listed as a historical monument.

history

The Episcopal Residence (after 1777)

In 1662 Ernst August became Bishop of Osnabrück . Like his predecessors since the 11th century, he resided in Iburg Castle, south of the city . This soon no longer met his representative claims. He also intended to limit the city's independence. In Osnabrück there was no building suitable for his purposes. Petersburg , built by his Catholic predecessor Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg and only temporarily inhabited, was razed by the citizens of Osnabrück in 1648.

Ernst August bought a plot of land in Neustadt. In 1667 the construction of the four-winged palace in the Baroque style began. Changing architects were commissioned with the construction. In the four-story residential building, the Corps de Logis , there were living and guest rooms, utility rooms, the stables , a chapel and, on the third floor, a ballroom 25 meters in length. Sophie von der Pfalz also brought in ideas after visiting castles and gardens in France with her daughter Sophie Charlotte . In particular, she made the design of the palace gardens her task.

In 1673 the castle was ready for occupancy. The couple's youngest son, Ernst August II of Hanover , was born in 1674 in Osnabrück Castle. The bishop's family left Osnabrück after Ernst August's older brother, Johann Friedrich , died in 1679 and Ernst August had succeeded him in the Principality of Calenberg . The family resided in Hanover from then on, but Sophie mourned the Osnabrück residence: I will miss the garden and the palace in Osnabrück all my life. My garden, my flowers, my house, my furniture: I suddenly find myself deprived of these joys.

King Georg I died in Osnabrück Castle in 1727

With the exception of the years when Ernst August's and Sophie's son Ernst August II. Succeeded the Catholic Bishop Karl Joseph of Lorraine in 1715 and resided in Osnabrück, Osnabrück Castle was mostly empty. The eldest brother Ernst August II, Georg Ludwig, became King of Great Britain and Ireland as George I. He died on June 11, 1727 in Osnabrück Castle while on his way from England to Hanover. Ernst August II died on August 14, 1728 in Osnabrück Castle. He was followed by another Catholic bishop, Clemens August I of Bavaria . Since he ruled five bishoprics at the same time and mostly lived in the Bonn residence or at Schloss Brühl , the Osnabrück castle was neglected and threatened to deteriorate.

From 1803 the castle served as an administration building. During the Second World War it was destroyed by bombardment; only the outer walls remained. After the war it was rebuilt; the interiors have been rebuilt several times.

Art education

In 1938, on the initiative of Wilhelm Renfordt, the “municipal support classes for visual design (laypersons)” were founded, which were housed in the palace and promoted young talent. According to Hanns-Gerd Rabe , a whole generation of Osnabrück artists has outgrown this school.

Gestapo cellar

During the Nazi era, from 1938 onwards , the Secret State Police were housed in the former riding hall in the western wing of the palace. She set up five detention and torture cells in the basement. During the November pogroms in 1938, Jews from Osnabrück were imprisoned there before they were brought to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Later inmates of the penal camp for foreign forced laborers at Augustaschacht Ohrbeck were initially held here, as well as political prisoners and Jews who were persecuted. A plaque on the west wing of the palace has been commemorating the Gestapo victims in Osnabrück since 1995. After the end of the war, the rooms were temporarily used as a warehouse. The association "Gestapokeller Memorial in Osnabrück Castle" opened the Gestapokeller Memorial with permanent and temporary exhibitions in 2001 with the support of the University of Osnabrück.

Pedagogical college and university

In 1953 the Adolf-Reichwein-Hochschule Celle , a teacher training college , was relocated to Osnabrück. She took her seat in the Osnabrück Castle. In 1969 all eight universities of education in the state of Lower Saxony were merged as the Lower Saxony University of Education. The departments of Vechta and Osnabrück were integrated into the new University of Osnabrück on December 5, 1973 with the law on the organization of the universities of Oldenburg and Osnabrück announced on December 3, 1973 . She started teaching in the 1974 summer semester. The administration of the university has been based in the castle ever since. In addition, the music / musicology and Protestant theology units are housed in the main palace building. The palace auditorium is used for larger events, concerts and congresses.

gallery

Castle garden

Sophie von der Pfalz influenced the design of the palace gardens
View from the castle into the castle garden
Sculptures (around 1740) in the palace gardens

The palace garden with an area of ​​more than three hectares was planned in 1674 by the French garden architect Martin Charbonnier . He was also involved in the further development of the Great Garden in Herrenhausen . Sophie von der Pfalz reported on the work in the palace garden: I get up every morning at six o'clock. Then I watch the soldiers who enlarge our garden and surround it with a canal. It is not very beautiful yet, but I am glad to see it progress. I hope to end my days here; I'll never be more comfortable A water basin was created in the center of the symmetrical park with a central axis; a forest formed the southern end.

The palace garden was destroyed in World War II. In the 1940s and 1950s the British armed forces built Nissen huts here for their soldiers; there was even a cinema of its own. In the 1960s, the garden was rebuilt by Werner Lendholt after it was dismantled . There are four sculptures in the palace garden, which were probably made around 1740 by a student of the Baroque master builder Johann Conrad Schlaun . They are allegories on the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and America. They were brought to Osnabrück from the former manor in Eggermühlen in 1965 after they had been thoroughly restored. In 1976 the sculptures were overhauled again. The Europe Allegory was knocked from its pedestal in the mid-1980s and was repaired in 1986. In 1996, the damage from pollution and vandalism had become so great that the sculptures were restored again.

On February 21, 2019, the city council passed a motion to redesign the palace gardens. The playground in the castle garden had to be relocated for an extension to the student center and the castle garden itself should have less sealed surfaces.

In April 2019, a social shelter at the south end of the palace garden was demolished in preparation for the redesign. The dilapidated building was also used as a device shelter for the OSB (Osnabrück service company).

Schlossgarten Open Air

Since 2015, the two-day Schlossgarten Open Air music festival with nationally and internationally known artists has been held every summer in the Osnabrück Castle Garden . The stage is set up in front of the palace terrace, the spectator area is on the palace meadow. The open air is visited by up to 12,000 spectators per evening. The organizer is Goldrush Festival GmbH , which is part of the Osnabrück Rosenhof area. In the future it is planned to add a third day of events to the festival.

history
year date Friday Saturday
2015 July 17th and 18th Gregor Meyle , tape recorder , gunslinger The Fantastic Four , Seven
2016 August 5th and 6th Mark Forster , Rea Garvey , Max Giesinger & Band , Walking on Cars Cro (MTV Unplugged) , Vona
2017 4th and 5th August Andreas Bourani , Silbermond , Wincent Weiss Afrob , Beginner , Samy Deluxe
2018 August 10th and 11th Donots , Dropkick Murphys , Fiddler's Green Sarah Connor , Nena , Daniel Wirtz
2019 August 16 and 17 Max Giesinger, Michael Patrick Kelly , Lotte Jan Delay & Disco No. 1 , Samy Deluxe (MTV Unplugged), Christian Steiffen

Trivia

Window attachment with a grumpy head

After the destruction during the Second World War, parts of the outer facade also had to be refurbished. Since the building supervisors did not pay close attention to an original reconstruction, a window attachment with a Meckikopf instead of baroque figures was installed on the east side . A stonemason team, in which the sculptor Hans Gerd Ruwe also worked, made the window attachments during the reconstruction, so that the window attachment could possibly come from Ruwe. This built-in window attachment is still preserved in the castle today.

literature

  • Rolf Schneider: Ernst August I. and Sophie von der Pfalz as bishops in Iburg and Osnabrück (1662-1679) In: Heimatbund Osnabrücker Land e. V., Kreisheimatbund Bersenbrück e. V. (Ed.): Heimat-Jahrbuch Osnabrücker Land . Georgsmarienhütte 2003, ISSN  1618-5757
  • Heinrich Siebern, Erich Fink (arrangement): The art monuments of the province of Hanover, IV. Administrative region of Osnabrück, 1st and 2nd city of Osnabrück . Hanover 1907; Reprint of the inventory of art monuments in Lower Saxony, Volume 39 . H. Th. Wenner, Osnabrück 1978, pp. 238-247, ISBN 3-878-98133-3
  • Hans-Herbert Möller (Ed.), Christian Kämmerer (Ed.): Architectural Monuments in Lower Saxony, Volume 32, City of Osnabrück . Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1986, pp. 92-93, ISBN 3-528-06209-6
  • Lower Saxony State Administration Office - Institute for Monument Preservation: Directory of architectural monuments according to § 4 (NDSchG), City of Osnabrück, as of: July 15 , 1986 , p. 5 ( enclosure of the architectural monuments in Lower Saxony )
  • Franz-Joachim Verspohl (ed.): The Osnabrück Castle: city residence, villa, administrative seat . Bramsche 1991, ISBN 3-922469-55-8 ; of which online on the website of the Associazione Culturale Chronos a Roma / Kulturverein Chronos : Inge Jaehner: Random use and decay. The loss of importance of the castle since 1802 :
  • Christine van den Heuvel : The Osnabrück Castle. Sources on building history, court rulings and gardens in the main state archive in Hanover . In: Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 98, 1993, pp. 87–113
  • Heiko Laß: The residential palace in the 17th century in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and the palaces in Iburg and Osnabrück . In: The knight's hall on the Iburg. Edited by Susanne Tauss, Göttingen 2007, pp. 153–172
  • Klaus Niehr : Shell and Core. Five building blocks for the Osnabrück Castle , Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-89971-887-4

Web links

Commons : Osnabrück Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Wolf Schneider: Ernst August I and Sophie von der Pfalz as bishops in Iburg and Osnabrück (1662-1672) in: Heimatjahrbuch Osnabrücker Land 2003, p. 204
  2. Georg I dies in Osnabrück Castle [1]
  3. ^ Hanns-Gerd Rabe : Osnabrück Art and Artists. 1900-1970 , H. Th. Wenner, Osnabrück, p. 41.
  4. Wolf Schneider: Ernst August I. and Sophie von der Pfalz as bishop couple in Iburg and Osnabrück (1662-1672) in: Heimatjahrbuch Osnabrücker Land 2003, p. 200
  5. Klaus J. Bade, Hans-Bernd Meier and Bernhard Parisius (eds.): Interview with contemporary witnesses. Refugees and displaced persons in the Osnabrück area after 1945 , Osnabrück 1997, 216 pp., 75 illustrations and graphics ( ISBN 3-930595-63-X )
  6. Restoration of the sculptures in the Osnabrück palace garden [2] in: Building information
  7. In Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung of February 22, 2019: "Osnabrücker Schlossgarten becomes a comfort zone" ; accessed on July 20, 2019
  8. In Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung of April 4, 2019: "Small building in Osnabrück castle garden is being demolished" ; accessed on July 20, 2019
  9. Schlossgarten Open Air for three days from 2019? , noz.de, August 6, 2018, accessed on April 13, 2019.
  10. How the comic figure "Mecki" came to Osnabrück Castle , in Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung on January 22, 2019; accessed on September 27, 2019

Coordinates: 52 ° 16 ′ 16.5 ″  N , 8 ° 2 ′ 39 ″  E