Possenhofen Castle

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Possenhofen Castle. On the right in the picture the "Old Castle", on the left the "Horseshoe Building" from the 19th century viewed from the south.

Possenhofen Castle is a castle complex consisting of the old castle , a cubic hipped roof building with four transverse corner towers, the new castle, also known as the horseshoe building , and the castle chapel, which lies between the two structures and connects them via a corridor. The castle is located in the Possenhofen district of the Pöcking community in the Starnberg district , Upper Bavaria . Princess Elisabeth in Bavaria (also known as "Sisi"), who later became Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, spent a large part of her childhood here, which later made the palace extremely well known. For the trilogy of the "Sissi films" , however, Fuschl Castle on Lake Fuschl in the Salzkammergut served as the setting.

History until 1918

Beginnings

As early as the 13th century, a castle stood on an elongated moraine hill not far from today's castle (on the site of today's Kalvarienberg). Gerhard von Sachsenhausen sold the noble residence to the Schäftlarn monastery in 1310. How long the castle existed is not known. In 1515 the ducal chancellor Jakob Rosenbusch received the town of Possenhofen by swap from Duke Wilhelm IV with the condition to build a mansion on the lake shore. The background to this is the efforts of the Bavarian ruler to make Lake Starnberg more attractive as a station for lake festivals and court hunts by building surrounding castles. The result was a wooden building that was criticized by Duke Wilhelm and his brother Ludwig during a visit. In 1536, Rosenbusch had the Possenhofen Castle built in Stein, which still exists today. The older wooden building was then used to house the servants. As a token of favor, the high-ranking politician was granted noble freedom by Duke Wilhelm IV and Possenhofen was elevated to court march. Rosenbusch received the village of Feldafing in 1548 , acquired some estates in Pöcking and in 1545 the island of Wörth . After his death, the property passed to his son Christoph Rosenbusch, who in turn sold the Hofmark Possenhofen in 1582 to Captain Mathias von Schöll. In 1595 the Bavarian Chancellor Hans Conrad Hörwarth von Hohenburg bought Possenhofen Castle and the neighboring town of Pöcking. In 1619 his eldest son, Hans Caspar von Hörwarth, inherited the property. During the Thirty Years War, the castle suffered several looting and devastation. In 1663, the lord of the castle was the victim of severe mistreatment and barely died.

In 1668, Hörwarth's widow sold the property to Elector Ferdinand Maria for 30,000 guilders . From then on, Possenhofen Castle was used by the Bavarian ruling couple and their court society during trips with the magnificent ship Bucentaur and its accompanying fleet. Ferdinand Maria died in 1679. His son, Elector Max Emanuel , left the property to his court war council president Johann Karl von Serényi in 1685, who had made a name for himself in the fight against the Ottoman Empire . Serényi sold the castle only four years later to Johann Rudolf von Wämpl , who had it extensively renovated and increased by one floor. In 1700 Wämpl donated a new altar piece with the birth of Christ by Andreas Wolff to the castle chapel .

In 1779 Johann Kaspar Basselet von La Rosée bought the Hofmark Possenhofen, after having owned the Hofmark Garatshausen to the south in 1760 .

From 1834: Max in Bavaria

Possenhofen Castle five years after it was acquired by Duke Max in Bavaria . The gothic battlements were attached to the "Old Castle" (left) in 1860. Right in the picture the "horseshoe building". (Watercolor from the year 1839 by Franz Xaver Nachtmann ).
Empress Elisabeth of Austria as a bride in front of Possenhofen Castle. Original steel engraving from 1853 by Andreas Johann Fleischmann.

After several successive owners from the La Rosée family, Duke Max in Bavaria, who came from a branch of the Wittelsbach family, acquired the two neighboring court brands Possenhofen and Garatshausen with their castles for 145,000 guilders. In the period that followed, the palace underwent a redesign of the façade, the windows were fitted with folding shutters, and the interior was given a representative staircase. The floor-to-ceiling tiled stoves from the time it was built were replaced by white tiled stoves in the style of late classicism. The vaulted rooms on the ground floor were retained, as were the wooden ceilings in the large rooms facing the lake.

The old farm buildings west of the castle were replaced by the so-called horseshoe building, the courtyard of which opens to the north. The ground floors of the west and south wing accommodated the horse stables, carriage and carriage sheds and are therefore much wider. A large number of servants always lived above it. The architect is not known, but can be seen in the vicinity of Friedrich von Gärtner or Daniel Ohlmüller , who built the new chapel between the castle and the “Horseshoe Building” in 1854.

A bathing house on the lake, a lake terrace with a panoramic view and a boathouse were added. “Possi”, as the eight children of the duke couple affectionately called the castle, became their favorite summer stay. Duke Maximilian, who had an arranged marriage with his wife Ludovika , stayed in Possenhofen extremely rarely. The castle remained Duchess Ludovika's favorite summer stay even after her children had grown up. Empress Elisabeth stayed with her extensive court for 24 years in the nearby Hotel Strauch, which was later renamed "Hotel Kaiserin Elisabeth".

Around 1860, the duke and ducal couple made changes to the old castle based on the model of Berg Castle . The flat pyramid roofs of the four corner towers were removed, their wall wreath like the eaves and the top of the tent roof were given gothic battlements. At the same time, the horseshoe-shaped three-wing complex was raised by another storey and adorned with a painted cornice below the eaves.

Duchess Ludovika died in Possenhofen Castle in 1892. Her son Karl Theodor inherited the castle . Although the center of life of the famous ophthalmologist was in Munich and Tegernsee Castle , he spent summer stays in Possenhofen. After his death in 1909, his son Ludwig Wilhelm used the property in Bavaria .

The Possenhofen Palace Chapel, built by Daniel Ohlmüller , connects the "Old Palace" with the "Horseshoe Building".

1918: After the end of the monarchy

The ducal family used the castle less and less after the First World War. The childless Ludwig Wilhelm in Bavaria finally made it available as a rest home for children in the 1920s. In 1936 the castle fell to Luitpold Emanuel in Bavaria , who sold it in 1940 to the National Socialist People's Welfare Association to create a convalescent home for mothers. The war prevented this project. Instead, an Air Force medical training unit was housed. After that, the castle was used, among other things, as a military hospital, a supply hospital for the severely disabled. After the end of the Second World War, the palace and grounds visibly deteriorated.

In 1948 the Free State of Bavaria took over the property as the legal successor to the German Reich. In the same year, the small motor and moped manufacturers Erich and Kurt Bagusat acquired the castle in order to set up a factory for auxiliary bicycle motors in the "horseshoe building". From 1956, Kurt Bagusat also produced alcoholic fruit for the chocolate industry here. In addition, the two industrialists ran a racing stable in the outbuildings of the castle and bred thoroughbreds . These uses and last but not least a sheepfold on the first floor of the old castle led to neglect with almost complete loss of the original interior and room design.

Since 1981: condominium complex

In 1981 the completely dilapidated palace complex was acquired by the artist Franz Eckehard Schilke. The then district administrator Rudolf Widmann recommended tearing down the ruined building and building a modern hotel on this site. Numerous parts of the ailing building complex were in danger of collapsing, the masonry was largely infested with sponges and fungi. Through the commitment of Schilke, together with other investors acting as builders, the renovation and conversion into a condominium complex was carried out under the construction management of the Munich architects Erwin Schleich , Olivier Freiherr von Beaulieu-Marconnay and Alexander Krieger from 1982 to 1984, with the general curator of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation , Michael Petzet , was involved.

The castle, which has been converted into condominiums, is inaccessible to the general public. The road layout affecting the castle was relocated, and the offshore lakeshore was opened to the public. A two-hectare area in front of the palace complex has been accessible to everyone since 1985. The foundations of the lake terrace on which Karl Stieler painted “Sissi's” siblings in 1854 are still visible at low tide.

The two most prominent points of the park landscape on the west bank of Lake Starnberg are formed by Possenhofen Castle and the Rose Island (right in the picture). The Alpine chain can be seen behind the lake. The atmospheric representation was painted on porcelain and produced in the Nymphenburg factory . Possenhofen Castle does not yet have any tower battlements. The representation can therefore be dated before 1860.

Park and landscaped landscape

Jakob Rosenbusch had a kitchen garden laid out at Possenhofen Castle, which was praised for its high-quality fruit, especially plums and sour cherries. With the acquisition of the palace by Elector Ferdinand Maria, the palace gardens were completely redesigned from 1668 onwards. In addition to fruit trees, there were ornamental shrubs and flower beds with 400 roses. In order to raise plenty of game for sea hunts, a fenced-in deer enclosure was added.

In 1760, Kaspar Basselet von La Rosée acquired the Garatshausen Hofmark and two years later the Roseninsel . In 1779 he completed his property with the neighboring Hofmark Possenhofen and the castle of the same name. The La Rosée family thus owned the largest contiguous property on Lake Starnberg. In Possenhofen a baroque ornamental garden was created with lawns, flower beds, hedges and trees. La Rosée and his son Aloys experimented with fertilizers, drainage and irrigation methods. Thanks to the climate favored by the lake, they cultivated a large number of mulberry trees for silk farming, as well as vines, asparagus and rare types of fruit from France. The marriage of his daughter Josephine (1786–1870) to Joseph von Hazzi , who made a name for himself as a modernizer of Bavarian agriculture and forestry at the beginning of the 19th century, may have played a part in this.

After buying the court brands Possenhofen and Garatshausen, Duchess Ludovika devoted herself to the design of a park landscape along the kilometer-long shore zone of Lake Starnberg, which was loosened up by flower-rich meadows and shady forest areas from the mid-1830s. Paths with benches stretched to Starnberg. By removing the ring walls and filling the moat, Possenhofen Castle was given the character of a pleasure palace with lake access. Dominicus Kolb was employed as court gardener for the open spaces, and five years later he also took over the management of the Steppberg Castle park in Munich-Bogenhausen, which Duke Max had acquired .

The Possenhofen Park was already laid out in the "mixed style", a new design direction in which landscape parks based on the English model were enriched with horticultural decorative areas. Karl von Leoprechting described the park in 1854 and praised the lush floral decorations, the well-tended lawns and groups of trees. Robinia and lilac bushes provided a scent, laurel and citrus trees in pots for Mediterranean accents, rhododendrons stood out from the evergreen vegetation.

In his book "Der Starnberger See. A hike through its banks" published in 1876, GA Horst showed a romantic forest path with a shady round bench. Empress Elisabeth and her sisters strolled here extensively.

The park of Schloss Possenhofen is part of a park landscape that extends between Starnberg and Niederpöcking as far as Bernried and thus includes almost the entire western shore of Lake Starnberg. An important component is the "Lenné-Park" with the upstream Rose Island . This area was intended as the park of a large-scale palace for King Maximilian II , whose first plans date from 1840. Accompanying this, the architect Franz Jakob Kreuter developed an expert opinion on behalf of the king entitled "About the blooming of Potsdam", in which he integrated a project for a uniform design ("land embellishment") for the entire west bank of Lake Starnberg. On April 26, 1854, the Prussian General Garden Director and creator of the Potsdam Gardens, Peter Joseph Lenné, received the official commission to design the park. The practical implementation was incumbent on his pupil Carl von Effner in the years 1855–1863 , who at the same time created other gardens on the west bank of Lake Starnberg. This created a park landscape that largely dispensed with enclosures. Visual axes provided a view of the lake and mountains.

From the interwar period , the park gradually lost its former quality. After the end of the Second World War , Duke Luitpold gradually sold the surrounding forests to the state capital Munich to finance his newly built Ringberg Castle . Together with a large part of the former castle park, which the municipality was able to acquire from the manufacturers Erich and Kurt Bugusat, the bathing and recreation area "Paradise" was created.

Calvary Possenhofen

Crucifixion group on the Possenhofen Calvary by Balthasar Ableithner . In the center of the crucifixion group, Christ is depicted with Mary as Mater Dolorosa . The sword in her chest symbolizes the pain of Our Lady. The scene is flanked by the two thieves . Condition after the last restoration (2017).

To the northwest of Possenhofen Castle, parallel to the lakeshore, there is a calvary that was built towards the end of the Thirty Years' War after a plague epidemic between 1646 and 1648. This place of worship forms an ensemble together with Possenhofen Castle and its park. The crucifixion group and the statue of a painful Maria come from the Italian-trained court sculptor Balthasar Ableithner and are made of oak. For centuries, the Calvary with its artistically outstanding crucifixion group was visible from afar and shaped the landscape. It offered a wide view over Lake Starnberg to the Alpine chain, which was praised. This viewing lane is currently covered by wild growth.

A further group of figures with Jesus on the Mount of Olives and an angel can be reached over a ridge. The Possenhofen Calvary and the Paradies recreation area (former park of Possenhofen Castle) are currently owned by the state capital of Munich . Where today a narrow path winds up to the crucifixion group at stations of the cross, originally a terraced wide staircase provided access. The client was the Bavarian electoral couple Ferdinand Maria and Henriette Adelaide of Savoy , who had the immediate surroundings designed with the acquisition of Possenhofen Castle. Models for the spacious baroque complex of the Possenhofen Calvary can be seen in the Sacri Monti of northern Italy, especially the Sacro Monte di Oropa , which Electress Henriette Adelaide visited with her family in her youth.

Renovation work on Kalvarienberg took place in 1832 and 1938. In 1936 Johannes Matthäus Koelz was commissioned to create a Way of the Cross with twelve stations, which were set up in October 1937. The Passion Stations are depicted on copper panels in an expressionist style. The works of art were donated by twelve long-established families from Possenhofen. In 2017, the baroque wooden sculptures on the Possenhofen Calvary were restored and given new roofs. The artificial grotto , in which the group of figures with Christ on the Mount of Olives was originally set up, was demolished without replacement.

literature

  • Max von Chlingensperg: The Würmsee and its banks. Munich 1846.
  • Bernhard Graf: Sisi's siblings. Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-86906-977-7 .
  • Marita Krauss; Erich Kasberger: A village under National Socialism: Pöcking 1930–1950. Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-862223-21-3 .
  • Karl von Leoprechting: Stud book of Possenhofen, the island of Wörth and Garatshausen. Munich 1854.
  • Christian Sepp: Ludovika. Sisi's mother and her century. Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-94433-487-5 .
  • Gerhard Schober: Castles in the Fünfseenland. Bavarian aristocratic residences around Lake Starnberg and Lake Ammersee. Oreos-Verlag, Waakirchen 2005, ISBN 3-923657-83-8 , pp. 204-225.
  • Lorenz Westenrieder: Description of the Wurm or Starenbergersee. Munich 1784.

Web links

Commons : Schloss Possenhofen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BAGUSAT - About Bagusat. Retrieved on April 18, 2020 (German).
  2. ↑ http://www.medizin-kunst.de/archiv/2014/054-060_MK_4-2014-Schilke_1_Layout%201.pdf

Coordinates: 47 ° 57 ′ 32 "  N , 11 ° 18 ′ 47"  E