Rheinsberg Castle

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Rheinsberg Castle, seaside

Rheinsberg Castle is located in the municipality of Rheinsberg , about 100 km northwest of Berlin in the Ostprignitz-Ruppin district . The palace on the east bank of the Grienericksee is considered a prime example of the so-called Frederician Rococo and also served as a model for Sanssouci Palace .

history

Front view
Land side
View over the lake to the castle and theater
Southern castle tower

In the Middle Ages, a moated castle stood where today Rheinsberg Castle is located . The von Bredow family had married Rheinsberg from von Platen in 1464 . In 1524 Rheinsberg came to the Mark Brandenburg with the rule of Ruppin . In 1566 the von Bredows had a moated castle built in renaissance forms on the site of the moated castle, which was badly damaged in the Thirty Years' War . In 1618 the castle had already been sold to Kuno von Lochow .

After the line died out, it fell to Elector Friedrich Wilhelm , who gave it to his general Franz du Hamel . With the permission of the elector, he sold it to Benjamin Chevenix de Beville , who sold the property to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I in March 1734 for 75,000 thalers . Friedrich Wilhelm, in turn, gave it to his son Crown Prince Friedrich, who later became King Friedrich II, for his loyalty. In 1736 he and his wife, Crown Princess Elisabeth Christine , moved into the south wing of the palace. In the years up to 1740, Friedrich had the castle expanded and expanded extensively by the builders Johann Gottfried Kemmeter and Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff , who learned the architectural craft from Kemmeter. An upper floor was added to the single-storey building and the east wing was extended by 25 meters. It forms the first building of the Frederician Rococo . Friedrich himself always described his years at Rheinsberg Castle as the "happiest of his life". Here he founded the first Masonic Lodge in Prussia. His time in Rheinsberg ended in 1740 with the accession to the throne.

Four years later he gave it to his younger brother Heinrich , who moved in with his wife Princess Wilhelmine of Hessen-Kassel in 1752 and lived there until his death. The art-loving prince set about expanding and beautifying the palace and the associated park. In 1786 Georg Friedrich von Boumann and Carl Gotthard Langhans completed the castle according to the original plans. Langhans had already been in Rheinsberg for a few weeks in 1766 and made designs for Prince Heinrich, which were implemented in the following years by his construction manager Carl Wilhelm Hennert , such as the staircase and the shell hall.

Boumann built the two pavilions at the castle in 1785/86, which Langhans probably already tore open. The Rheinsberg Obelisk , erected at the beginning of the 1790s on the opposite lakeshore in the visual axis of the castle, was intended to honor the memory of the brother August Wilhelm of Prussia, who had fallen out of favor with Friedrich II, as well as many officers close to Heinrich who were in some cases also little appreciated by the king and who were in the Silesian War deserved. Heinrich had his tomb built in the garden in the form of a broken pyramid during his lifetime , in which he was buried after his death in 1802. Heinrich wrote the French inscription himself.

The castle achieved literary fame through Theodor Fontane in his hikes through the Mark Brandenburg and the story Rheinsberg: A picture book for lovers by Kurt Tucholsky .

After the death of the childless Prince Heinrich in 1802, the castle and estate fell to his younger brother August Ferdinand of Prussia and then to his son August von Prussia (1779–1843) . Since he only had illegitimate children, the property reverted to the Prussian kings, who, however, rarely used it. Until the expropriation in 1945, the palace and estate belonged to the Hohenzollern family , most recently to Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1882–1951) . In the German Democratic Republic , a diabetic clinic was housed in the castle . Today the palace with its gardens belongs to the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg .

After extensive and extensive restorations, the castle can now be viewed again as a museum. It also houses the Kurt Tucholsky Literature Museum . The Rheinsberg Music Academy , which operates the palace theater, has been housed in the former cavalier 's house since 1991 . The international opera festival Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg has been taking place in the Schlosstheater (Kavalierhaus), castle courtyard and nature theater since 1991 .

See also

Rheinsberg Castle
Rheinsberg Obelisk

literature

  • Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg (ed.): Rheinsberg Palace , 2nd revised edition, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin Munich 2012.
  • Theodor Fontane : Walks through the Mark Brandenburg . Volume 1 ( County of Ruppin ) "Rheinsberg"
  • Andrew Hamilton: Rheinsberg. The castle, the park, Crown Prince Friedrich and brother Heinrich. Selected and ed. by Franz Fabian. Based on a translation [from English] by Rudolf Dielitz. (first published in London 1872), Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3351021119
  • Ludwig Sternaux : My little Sanssouci. Rheinsberg Castle and its memories. Hahn's heirs, Berlin 1936
  • General Directorate of the State Palaces and Gardens Potsdam-Sanssouci (Hrsg.): Rheinsberg: A Brandenburg residence of the 18th century. Exhibition from June 21-29, 1985 in Rheinsberg Castle. (= Catalog of the exhibition for the 650th anniversary of the city of Rheinsberg 1985, design: Herbert Sander ), General Directorate of the State Palaces and Gardens Potsdam-Sanssouci, Potsdam 1990
  • Christian von Krockow : Rheinsberg. A Prussian dream. EA Seemann, Leipzig 1992, ISBN 3363005547
  • Detlef Fuchs : Rheinsberg Musenhof in new splendor . Hirmer, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-7774-2556-6

Coordinates: 53 ° 5 ′ 55 ″  N , 12 ° 53 ′ 22 ″  E

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ v. Etzel, Franz August, History of the Great National Mother Lodge in the Prussian States, Berlin 1867, p. 1ff